Aliens: Colonial Marines review

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.