Aliens: Colonial Marines review

Colonial Marines has been in development for seven years. As the game is based on one of the most famous sci-fi film franchises of all time, expectations were high that developer Gearbox would deliver a tense and atmospheric action shooter that could live up to James Cameron’s blockbuster. Unfortunately, the end result is a catastrophic, buggy mess that will not only disappoint film fans, but gamers everywhere.

The plot, which takes place between the events of Aliens and Alien 3, had potential. As one of the titular Colonial Marines, players are tasked with investigating the U.S.S. Sulaco – the starship that carried Ripley back towards Earth and the end of the second film. It has somehow reappeared in orbit over planet LV-426, where the Aliens were first discovered, which in itself is sure to confuse fans of the franchise. It’s the first of many questions that go unanswered through the incredibly short campaign, leaving you to make your own assumptions.

As you might imagine when acid-spitting Xenomorphs are involved, the mission quickly descends into anarchy and you’re left to find a way to escape, dodging facehuggers and fighting soliders sent by the sinister Weyland Yutani Corporation to harvest the Alien eggs. Cue four to six hours of fairly monotonous blasting, heavily scripted set-piece events and some of the buggiest gameplay we’ve experienced for quite some time.

The girl in front dies. There, I saved you four hours

With a significant portion of the game spent shooting at humans, rather than Xenos, Colonial Marines often feels like a dimly-lit, futuristic Call of Duty clone – never more so when you reach the upgrade screen at the end of a mission and have the option to add red dot sights, silencers and laser sights to the iconic M41A pulse rifle. This is verging on sacrilege to fans of the films, and adds nothing to the gameplay. Each weapon, though faithfully modelled on the props from the film, is woefully inaccurate, with no connection between where you aim and where your bullets end up. They sometimes even fail to register altogether, meaning enemies take an inconsistent number of bullets to go down. Conversely, CPU-controlled enemies can sometimes shoot you through walls, while you can hit an alien in the chest with a shotgun mid-leap but it won’t fall over until the landing animation has played out.

The motion tracker is pointless when 99% of Xenos run right at you

The Alien AI in general is shockingly bad, with Aliens frequently losing track of you and simply freezing in place while the pathfinding tries to recover. The limited set of animations make it difficult to tell when an enemy is down and out, or simply recoiling from a flesh wound. There’s no penalty for attacking Xenos from point-blank range, which you would expect to be met with a shower of acidic blood, and they do so little damage with their attacks that you can literally run through entire levels without having to stand your ground and fight them back.

Human opponents don’t fare any better, with enemy soldiers frequently getting stuck in their cover animations, refusing to budge until you move to a different part of the level. They at least put up more of a fight, but regenerating health and an abundance of armour pickups mean there’s never much of a challenge.

Throughout the campaign your NPC squad mates herd between firefights, frequently teleporting through whole areas to make sure they are present to trigger the next set piece. They rarely pull their weight in battle but appear to be invincible, distracting enemies when you have no choice but to stand and fight.

This guy has the awesome Smartgun – but you barely get to play with it

The entire cast comprises a who’s who of generic space marine stereotypes, all instantly forgettable and with nothing of importance to say beyond hopelessly clichéd military lingo and machismo banter. Several actors, including Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen, reprised their roles from Aliens for the game, but with such a clunky script it’s no surprise that they sound less than thrilled to be involved.

Considering how impressed we were with early tech demos, the final version of Colonial Marines is a massive disappointment graphically. There’s very little in the way of dynamic lighting, almost every level is either pitch black or too brightly lit, ruining any sense of atmosphere, and some of the textures are embarrassingly low resolution. On a console this would be irritating, but on the PC it’s unforgivable – there’s a distinct lack of customisation options, with only three detail sliders, a checkbox for anti-aliasing and the ability to change resolutions. Our mid-range PC had no trouble running the game at its maximum settings, but that wasn’t enough to improve its appearance. There are maybe one or two set pieces throughout the heavily scripted campaign that make you stop and take in the scenery, but for the most part there’s nothing in Colonial Marines to make you think you’re playing a brand new game in 2013.

Chilling

Once you’re finished with the campaign, you’re expected to gravitate towards the multiplayer mode. There are several different game types, most of which pit teams of marines against a brood of Aliens, but they do little beyond the old team deathmatch modes we’ve played hundreds of times before. Each Alien has a different set of abilities, but they are so weak compared to the marines that you’re frequently left staring at the respawn screen and wishing the match would reach half time, where you get to swap to the opposing team.

Escape and Survivor are the two best offerings, which both riff off of Left 4 Dead. The former sees the marine team having to reach a set destination while the alien team tries to pick them off, and the latter resembles a horde mode where you have to hold out as long as possible. While entertaining, neither mode is anywhere near as polished as the Valve’s zombie shooter, and won’t keep you coming back for more.

In its current state, Colonial Marines is an embarrassment of a game that should be avoided – we feel sorry for the gamers who pre-ordered it through Steam, only to read reviews like this come launch day. It’s an incredibly buggy game that merely coasts along on the strength of its license, with mediocre graphics and a complete lack of polish we expect from a developer with as much experience as Gearbox. Should they ever get round to fixing the engine, it would still be a below average shooter that simply doesn’t deserve its connection to the Alien films.