"My tracker is getting lit up here, you better get ready for this."
[i]Aliens: Colonial Marines[/i] is a first-person shooter developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sega.
[b]Story[/b]
Aliens: Colonial Marines is set 17 weeks after the events of Aliens (1986) movie. Emergency message send out by Dwayne Hicks from the USS Sulaco orbiting around LV-426 moon reaches the USS Sephora. They send out a full battalion of Colonial Marines to investigate the ship. You play as Corporal Christopher Winter who discovers massive Xenomorph infestation and hostile mercenaries working for the Weyland-Yutani corporation inside Sulaco, turning a quick investigation into brutal fight for survival and answers.
[b]Gameplay[/b]
It's a FPS so you can right off the bat figure out what it's all about. Make your way through linear chapters by completing objectives and shooting enemies in the face (or general vicinity of it) to progress further in the campaign, alone or with up to 3 other buddies!
Colonial Marines is all about action, as at your disposal you have entire arsenal available right from the start- pistols serve as secondary weapon with unlimited ammo, but you will never use it as all the fancy toys in main two slots provide enough firepower to topple anything on your way. Utilize shotguns, rifles or sub-machine guns to clear out the area, with trusty grenades at your belt. Switch out weapon loadout on the go if you run out of ammo, or if you want to test them all out.
Of course it couldn't be an Alien game without certain tools at your disposal. Find sentry turrets, flamethrowers and smartguns to extra firepower, while motion tracker will help you detect incoming threats (and collectibles!). Marines are protected by a health bar that is divided into segments, with each regenerating if depleted partially. Lost health can be restored thanks to med-packs, plus additional protection comes in form of armor pieces found all over the game. Have as many as possible, as enemies won't go easy on you! Take too many shots, claws to the face or acid baths to die and restart from last checkpoint. Unless you play in coop where your allies can save you if you are down, but they have limited time to do so!
On your way across levels be on a lookout for collectibles. Search for audio logs, dog tags of fallen marines or even legendary weapons related to characters who appear in the films! Additionally game comes with challenges, set of tasks in 3 different categories that when completed grant rewards.
Completing objectives and challenges, finding collectibles and just killing enemies grants you experience points. Collect enough to rank up your Marine, which in turn unlocks customization options for your loadout! Here you can change how weapon looks by adding new paintjob, alternate firemode or switch elements like magazine or scope.
[b]Playtime, replayability, other modes[/b]
It took me 6 hours to complete the campaign for the first time. There are collectibles, challenges and coop aspect that do give game replayability. Outside of main campaign there is Multiplayer component with different gamemodes and scenarions but you won't get to play it anyway because it has zero players. Fortunately there is a Bug Hunt mode where you alone or with friends can complete objectives, earn cash and eliminate waves of enemies which is pretty decent.
[b]Impressions[/b]
I have good news and bad news. Good news is: in my book, game is not as bad as people portrayed it. Far from being the worst thing I ever played. Bad news is...it's still not good enough to recommend.
There are some positives in this one. Weapon loadout is genuinely solid and something that I liked right from the start. While not impressive in numbers, provides surprising variety of choices where everyone will find something to purge xenos with, especially as pretty much entire loadout is enjoyable to use. Some of these weapons were made from the scratch for the purpose of the game yet feel like they fit into the Alien franchise like a glove! On top of that we got simple yet solid customization to further tweak your favourite tools of mayham while additional heavy weaponery appears in few missions to spice things up. Collectibles (especially iconic weapons) were fun to gather, together with challenges and coop aspect providing good content and decent replayability as for such short, linear game. And a positive goes to Multiplayer, but that is kiiinda scrapping the barrel, because like I said in above section, lack of playerbase means you won't get to enjoy playing this well composed mode with fantastic customization of both Marines and Aliens, in terms of look and arsenal both sides use. But Bug Hunt mode is fun and can be played solo so that's nice.
Rest however is...closer to actual reputation of the game. Right off the bat I can write something about AI: it's bad. Better than what was at release thanks to "code fix" but ultimately it feels like watching a circus show. Plenty of jumping around the ceiling, walls, different hops here and there only for xenos to end up right in front of your gunbarrel. It makes them feel like no threat and just meat to the cosmic slaughter. Mercenaries are the usual human grunts who take cover and sit around nicely or once in blue moon decide to charge you, nothing special. Due to very linear level design enemies don't have options to flank or properly ambush, ruining the experience as what you get is barebone corridor shootouts that are not enjoyable in the slightest. Because of these factors it's really hard to look at this as Alien game, I mean the only reason I was pulling out my tracker is to search for collectibles, I never had to worry about enemies behind me or anything which is not what you want to hear. Game is purely action, forgetting the horror part that people love about the franchise. Final bossfight was one of the worst experiences I had with boss fights...ever. Very pathetic, lacklusting type of bad. To enhance pain of last chapter, cliffhanger ending it provides made whole experience feel like a slap to the face that ends the very mediocre story with unlikable characters.
I assume game is a bit better if you have friends whom you can roleplay as Marines but for single player such as myself, it was a shallow, boring experience that even when it had some tiny, small moments of goodness here and there ultimately is something I don't go back to with fond memories.
[b]Final words and conclusion[/b]
This is a Complete Edition of ACM so you get all DLCs with this pack including Bug Hunt mode, additional maps, weapons and cosmetics.
Attempt to fix AI won't solve bad level design, boring storyline or average voice acting. Even with decent arsenal of weapons and good Multiplayer, Colonial Marines is not something I can recommend.
Feel free to check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31947302/] my curator page [/url] for more reviews!
