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ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

ImpAtom posted:

I think the primary problem these games have is that they want to make them rip-roaring FPS games while never realizing that is precisely what didn't work in the film. So instead of focusing on what made Aliens actually threatening they have to go for super-evolved armored laser-beam shooting walrusaliens or whatever the gently caress.

The infamous marine level where you spend the entire stage wondering where the gently caress an alien is going to jump out from? That is what it should be. You should be terrified that one of these fuckers is gonna grab you or get so close that you'll get an acid facebath trying to kill it. I didn't like it much but Aliens: Infestation at least had the right idea by making your marines ridiculously expendable and capture and infection being something that could actually happen.

I like to dream Obsidian's cancelled RPG would've been much closer to the films' atmosphere and treatment of the Xenomorphs. Man I'm annoyed that got cancelled.

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ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
One Aliens game I'd love to see would be a Walking Dead style adventure game set in Hadley's Hope starting just as Newt's family discovers the derelict and running till just before the Sulaco arrives. From the cocooned woman the Marines see die in the hive we know at one person lasted that long. The protagonist would be security officer or maybe a middle manager and things would start mundane and then slowly start to become odd, first in the background and then maybe you have to find a person who has gone missing or try and find out what is causing the weird stuff reported at the atmosphere processor. Then soon after you're just trying to survive as the colony is overwhelmed. There would be great scope for terror from seeing the colony before things went bad and getting to know NPCs before they disappear or chestburst in front of you.

Or if you don't want the ending to be set in stone you could always set it in a similar colony.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
The only way I can accept the colony survived the processor exploding and so on is to assume it is WY's bio-weapon division running a live fire test on unsuspecting marines and created a mock up of the ruins of the colony for some reason.

Why would they? I have no idea but its the only way I can make sense of it.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Batham posted:

My problem with all the callbacks is that so far, all they've shown are the callbacks. "Hey look, LOOK, it's hick's shotgun. How cool isn't that huh?" seems to be all that's to the game and nothing else.

The best instance of that was a Randy Pitchford narrated gameplay video where he excitedly pointed out "thats the table they used to find the colonists!"

In game tables are something I care deeply about.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
Looks like a horde mode against AI enemies will be available as DLC:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-07-aliens-colonial-marines-bug-hunt-dlc-set-for-march

quote:

Astute consumers on Gearbox's forum have snapped a pic of the Walmart ad that outlines the upcoming add-on. "Team up with your friends to take on waves of increasingly difficult enemies in an all new game mode," said the circular, adding that it will be available as a digital download on 19th March.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

rope kid posted:

In my interpretation, Ripley put Jones into hypersleep when she left on the Sulaco and he's still alive. :colbert:

In such a hypercapitalist setting who would pay Jonesy's hypersleep rent with Ripley gone?

Jones actually features as one of the Colonial Marine meat rations that allow you to heal one bar of health.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
It is a shame this have looks to be so terrible but not a huge surprise.

pixelbaron posted:

There is never going to be a good game developed for this franchise ever again is there

I dunno, there were lots of terrible Batman games and then out of nowhere we got Arkham Asylum. It probably helped expectations were lower for the game so the devs were given more of a free hand.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

InsanityIsCrazy posted:

That's how it worked for Battlefield 3. And I was right! It's like the phrase 'make your own fun' is... Alien, to y'all.

Why would you pay for the privilege of making your own fun?

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

InsanityIsCrazy posted:

I am gonna print this out and frame it. Every time someone buys a video game I am gonna point to it SO HARD.

Are you feeling ok?

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Mouser.. posted:

So close. It almost feels unnecessary to spoil this because it reads like I just made up a lovely fanfiction ending for this game:

A whole mess of disappointment

The sad thing is AvP2000 and AvP2 took the broader themes and aethetics of Aliens and used new characters in similar scenarios. They were great. Colonial Marines however thinks the exact story and specific setting of Aliens is the big draw and narrows its narrative options because of it. Additionally both CM and AvP2010 make an issue of solving the big mystery of where the Xenomorphs came from and exactly what The Company are up to but this doesn't matter. The Company are greedy and unethical, the Xenomorphs a scary alien threat that highlights the danger of how the company behaves. Details more specific than that might be interesting but they shouldn't be a focus.

At least Alien 3 looks better now.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

MUFFlNS posted:

One thing that really bugs me about this game is watching gameplay footage and seeing a xenomorph run past a whole bunch of Weyland Yutani PMCs and then past other colonial marines just to come and attack the player. It looks completely retarded, especially when the xenomorph is literally bumping up against them all and struggling to walk around them just to get to the player.

I mean, shouldn't the xenomorphs be attacking everyone?! It's a really obvious way to break immersion and it's weird to see a supposed AAA game with so much money pumped into it overlook such a basic concept of game design.

Given the NPCs are invulnerable it'd probably be just as bad to have the Xenos attack them to no effect, especially since the NPC AI doesn't seem to be very bright.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Xenomrph posted:

I think he's saying they don't have them on the film-accurate "correct" (right) side of the weapon, and instead have them on the left where the right-handed protagonist (and player) can see the ammo count.

Thats hard to argue against really. Has any game not done that?

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Xenomrph posted:

Apparently the film-accurate pulse rifle puts the ammo counter on the correct side, but the Mk 2 you use for most of the game puts it on the useful side so you can, you know, use it.

The first 2 AvP games put the ammo counter on the film-accurate side, but it isn't much of a problem since you have a HUD telling you your ammo count anyway. AvP2010 put it on the useful side, but explains it away as being a newer model of pulse rifle. In fact just about all of the weapons, armor, vehicles, and equipment in AvP2010 are "updated" as being newer model Marine hardware, and they were clever enough to reference some of the "in development" hardware mentioned in the USCM Tech Manual book. :shobon:

This is a very minor point and I only looked it up because I was sure AvP2000 had the counter visible and it was messing with my head but it does seem that was the case:



I seem to remember though because that was because you could use it left handed and it was mirrored? Although that may well applying memories of counterstrike to AvP.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

WastedJoker posted:

I'm not listening to graphical criticism from a console gamer. The PC version will clearly be superior with higher quality textures etc :dukedog:

There is a 50/50 chance the options menu will just be a volume slider and a subtitles tickbox.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

blackguy32 posted:

So a dev has posted a little bit about survivor mode.

Wait, so even though we know there will be a horde mode DLC and they acknowledge it will be a DLC because they specify "shipping game" they still are pretending that people need to give them feedback before they deign to give us the chance to pay $15 for something that should've been in the game?

"Aw shucks, you followed the breadcrumb trail we blatantly laid down and asked for DLC we'd already made, I guess we'll let you buy it then."

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Batham posted:

I image them looking like this when coming up with this bullshit;



Is there any way to contact this self proclaimed "most knowledgeable about aliens there is" guy and ask him how certain kind of Xenomorphs are blind when none of them have eyes?

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

blackguy32 posted:

He managed to get off pretty clean after Duke Nukem Forever, but after this game's release. I hold him much more responsible for that train wreck because I don't think it was a fluke.

The thing with DNF was that people were, quite reasonably, focused on blaming Broussard for DNF's problems. If Gearbox had made it amazing then they'd have gotten praise but it seemed unreasonable to expect Gearbox to such a fiasco.

Now though with a wholly Gearbox made game featuring so many similar problems, questions do need to start getting asked about how much of DNF's failings were Gearbox related.

LEGIT WAR CRIMINAL posted:

Everything is telling me to cancel my preorder but I just can't bring myself to do it. When is someone gonna make a really great Aliens game?
Please cancel your pre-order.

ReV VAdAUL fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Feb 11, 2013

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
I do wonder if single player tactical squad based horror games simply don't work. Irrational Games tried to make Division 9, which was SWAT with Zombies but that never saw release either.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
Giant Bomb have a count down for a live Quick Look happening in 20 hours time. So thats something to look forward to.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

the black husserl posted:

The fetish attitude towards military jargon is really grating in this game. Maybe I just don't remember the marines in aliens constantly going SITREP TACOPS OORAH.

It has fallen into the MMS trap of " hey we watched Generation Kill and didn't understand it's message at all! We are so loving authentic" which in this case means they also didn't understand the blatant fact Aliens is Vietnam in space.

The colonial marines in the film talk with the informality of a conscript army (I'm not sure if they are conscripts, but I know Drake and Vasquez are criminals who joined the corps to mitigate their sentences) who follow their NCO out of respect rather than a love of the chain of command. They are arrogant about their firepower and when that fails against the xenos discipline falls apart and panic sets in quickly.

This very much contrasts with the modern day wholly professional military that the Marine Recon unit are an elite part of in Generation Kill.

But who cares about matching the themes of the source material when you have an authentic table in ops. That's the real draw for fans of the film.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

RoadCrewWorker posted:

The only thing that baffles me more than the laughable audacity of the "nah, wasn't us, we just put our name on it and had the final say!" excuse is that it apparently works, considering the frequency those scathing reviews include the notion that a terrible game "from gearbox 'known for Half-Life: Opposing Force!'" is such a shocking surprise.

"Look, if people liked it we wanted all the credit but people don't, so we certainly don't want any of the responsibility."

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

MUFFlNS posted:

So, in light of the whole "It's okay Gearbox isn't to blame they only made multiplayer" argument, Sega has come out and ruined any chances that Gearbox might have had of passing the blame by stating that no, Gearbox developed both the singleplayer and the multiplayer, with help from Timegate.

That was pretty cool of SEGA to do.

This would indicate SEGA are unlikely to work with Gearbox in the future.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN


catpowerd posted:

Please god someone link this video. I need this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vzvi2qtVMA&t=190s

Should start just before it appears.

Edit: There is no Badass crosshair. Maybe that is taken from a different video?

ReV VAdAUL fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Feb 12, 2013

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

your evil twin posted:

I completely agree with you there. Aliens had a happy ending, Alien 3 decided to immediately undo that happy ending by killing off everyone but Ripley, and then eventually killed off Ripley too. (Though apparently Sigourney Weaver only agreed to be in the film if they would kill Ripley; she didn't think that Aliens needed a sequel, it had a great ending, and so if they were going to twist her arm into doing another one she wanted to make sure there wouldn't be even more afterwards. And then I guess she agreed to do Alien Resurrection cause everyone felt Alien 3 was a really lovely end to the franchise?)

Alien 3 could have worked OK if Aliens had ended with Ripley failing to rescue Newt, and killing the alien queen in revenge, and then being the lone survivor who escapes the carnage. I'd have preferred that to being given a happy ending and then having it snatched it away. Lots of horror movies have unhappy endings, but Aliens wasn't one of them. It was a scary, dramatic movie, but when it ended you felt good.

Alien 3 shared a central problem with other franchises such as 24, where the main star becomes too central to the story, their actor often becomes a producer and so on. Ripley's interaction with the Xenomorphs had reached a logical conclusion, enough people now know about Xenomorphs, from her testimony to the transit authority, the fact the Marine contingent and a colony was wiped out and so on that she didn't need to be part of the story anymore. Hell there could've been another source of eggs elsewhere that would allow a completely different self contained story to be told. But Sigourney Weaver was quite influential in the Alien franchise and made sure her character kept appearing in the films. No doubt the studio and the fans wanted Ripley to return too but Aliens was an excellent point to end her involvement in the series.

24 straight up ran it into the ground, Jack Bauer having one or two extremely eventrful 24 hour periods was badass and made sense but by season 4 or so it was just silly, the need for traitors and twists undermined plausibility of established plot points and characters and you really stopped believing so much could happen to one man. But the concept of a "real time" season of TV had lots of potential and had no need to be tied to the Bauer character and his associates. Sure have it take place in the same universe with some crossover characters but a fresh focus each season would've kept things much more plausible.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

BadLlama posted:

Whats the mod ability of this game anyways? Is there any hope that the community can save this?

Its an unreal engine game and you specifically have to turn on modability on that engine. Given Gearbox has made no mention of mods they probably haven't turned it on.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
I watched all the Dev diaries to find that guy's badass picture a few pages back and they had this mantra that the colony survived because "the explosion went up, not out".

So there you go.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Alchenar posted:

The colony is not the atmospheric processor.



Yes it is.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

AlternateAccount posted:

Did Xenomrph die?

Only on the inside.

Alchenar posted:

No it's just huge and on the horizon. They have to drive *unspecified distance* in the APC to get there, and when they drive out it's into the middle of nowhere.

It really isn't that far, if you want to really delve into it they show the service tunnel running from the colony to the processor when they're searching for the colonists' PDTs.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
Giantbomb really tried to give it the benefit of the doubt but they're crumbling fast.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

BadLlama posted:

In the escape multiplayer mode are there AI controlled trash aliens or is it literally just 4v4?

The only multiplayer AI mode we know of is a forthcoming $15 DLC horde mode.

edit: watching the GB stream, don't the number of facehuggers in the tubes ignore the two Burke took out to set on Ripley and Newt? Its nit picking but given how much they boasted about how detail orientated these are clear mistakes.

ReV VAdAUL fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Feb 12, 2013

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

fivegears4reverse posted:

The whole reason they were trying to escape the colony in Aliens is because the atmospheric processor was going to explode and they were going to die without evac, even if they managed to hold of the bugs.

Yeah, in the director's cut they can see the emergency venting right out the window. The Atmosphere Processor was very close to the colony.

Ravenfood posted:

Oh, no, I agree totally. The colony should be utterly hosed. I was just responding to people posting that picture like it meant anything.

How is a picture of the processor right next to the colony, further backed up by the emergency venting scene not proof?

ReV VAdAUL fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Feb 12, 2013

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
RPS's Review is up well I say review, it is just a bullet point list of how awful it is. Bonus footage of the zombie Xenos included.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

AlternateAccount posted:

... ... ... what?!

Theres some blind Xenos you have to avoid by not making sound. They walk upright with the gait of a zombie.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

blackguy32 posted:

Yeah, I am still going to blame Gearbox for this travesty. First off, because all this crap I keep hearing sounds like hearsay other than the Sega announcement. Second off, the development was given to Gearbox, and they didn't even check up on the game that they apparently outsourced?

I am not letting them get away with DNF and I am not letting them get away with this. They need to own up to their pedigree.

This is from several pages back but it really needs bearing in mind.

These "anonymous leaks" stink of being a PR damage control exercise. If Gearbox PR can shift the medium long term narrative to "Gearbox were lazy and choose the wrong people to subcontract to" that'll be a hell of a lot better for their image than "Gearbox made a bad game."

JebanyPedal posted:

I really hope the Creative Assembly one is an RTS, I was pretty fond of Extinction despite how average it was, it was a fairly cool concept.
I'd love to see an Aliens RTS, though a Dungeon Keeper / Startopia style colony manager would be best. You start off as a standard WY shake and bake colony and then when you find the Aliens you first have to survive and then turn a profit researching Xenomorphs, dealing with containing their escapes and so on.

rizuhbull posted:

It's not so much that Hicks is actually alive, it's how they brought him back. Quite literally "it's a long story". Fanfiction is generally better written.
If you're noticing technical, story or casting decisions in a game or film then broadly it has failed, you haven't been drawn in enough to just go with the flow. It is a bad plot point but made all the worse by the generally low quality of the game doing so little to distract you from it.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

OldTennisCourt posted:

I don't want to be the negative :smug: type, but what are the chances that this even has an impact on game marketing/pre orders as a whole? I really hope this shows people how loving dumb pre orders are in general and hopefully Gearbox takes a huge loving hit, but I just doubt it. I just see Gearbox spinning the PR machine super hard and leaving this whole debacle in the dust.

There already seems to be a shift from standard pre-orders to Kickstarter like stuff, the Steam pre-orders for Company of Heroes 2 and Tomb Raider are good examples, clearly borrowing the idea of stretch goals.

As the Total Biscuit video points out, one of the best things about pre-orders (for publishers) is that it makes consumers feel attached to the game, to the extent they'll defend a bad game because they pre-ordered it but don't want to appear foolish. Kickstarter style stuff makes people feel even more involved, in the examples above their efforts have actually affected in game content, so expect Publishers to push this kind of pre-order more.

It would be difficult for Publishers to justify asking for crowd funding outright, but expect them to try and appropriate more and more of the concepts of Kickstarter, donations to Kickstarters have little legal protection and can be used to fund development with no expected return on investment beyond the game.

Fat_Cow posted:

Any idea where I can buy AVP2 for digital download?

Nowhere sadly:

Xenomrph posted:

Unfortunately this will never happen, since Monolith is owned by Warner Bros. It's the same reason we'll never see a re-release of AvP2. :(

ReV VAdAUL fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Feb 13, 2013

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Endymion FRS MK1 posted:

This is a pretty good look at the demo and final differences of the game. Its a very good question they ask, what the hell happened to this game?!

Apologies if its already been posted. But seriously, the lighting, just :stare:

This is a great comparison. It certainly backs up Jim Sterling's accusation the "gameplay demo" was fake.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
I just noticed Ashly Burch gets higher billing than Lance Henriksen in the opening credits.

:negative:

Will the indignities never end?

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Fag Boy Jim posted:

Wasn't Forbes supposed to be some bastion of Real Game Journalism or some crap?

There's a guy who works there who is really decent at critically examining games journalism and gaming in general. That review and its seeming lies, especially her glowing account of the AI, would suggest he is not in a position of editorial control.

ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Wazzit posted:

Hate to link to Kotaku, but they have a pretty interesting write up of what supposedly happened with development of the game.

http://kotaku.com/5984068/how-aliens-colonial-marines-fell-apart

These anonymous sources at Gearbox sure do cast Gearbox in the best possible light.

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ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

Fergus Mac Roich posted:

To what extent does it cast GBX in a good light if you can't trust them to put together a quality product? If anything it makes them look even worse to me if I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting when I buy a "Gearbox"(imagine those are 72 point quotes) game.

I'm sure you can think of a million analogies for this situation. If someone's selling you products and sometimes it seems like they're good and sometimes inexplicably they just sell you someone else's inferior product without telling you, you don't buy their poo poo.

Because, especially to more casual fans, it is much better for the Gearbox brand for people to think the bad gameplay is Timegate's fault and Gearbox were simply a bad overseer. The narrative they're pushing is along the lines of "Well, we thought we could trust Timegate but they were crazy and ruined the game, we'll be less trusting in future." It is a much better outcome for people to think games they solely develop are of much higher quality than for them to take even partial blame for how bad Colonial Marines is.

They even claim in the article that:

quote:

When TimeGate took over the project, our source said, they threw out most of what Gearbox had done beforehand. All of the art and design that Gearbox had produced during the previous four years was gone.

Which is an escalation from previous attempts to shift blame to Timegate. I would expect within the next few days Pitchford "with a heavy heart" will come out and acknowledge that the rumours and true and Timegate really let them down. He'll probably even claim he doesn't want to dump on Timegate but "so many people have been asking questions and I want to set the record straight" or something similar.

workingdogv1 posted:

I don't know, I think this actually makes Gearbox look worse. If I were Pitchford I sure as hell wouldn't want the world knowing that I blew off a major contract in order to pursue my baby and then rushed this out at the last moment to avoid legal repercussions. It makes you look like unprofessional assholes and would endanger your contracts with other companies. I can't imagine a Sega or an EA looking at that and saying "well, it's just TimeGate's fault". This is a monumental project management failure.
This is solely for consumer perception. Consumers forgave DNF being poo poo because it was 3D Realms fault, it seems reasonable consumers could be convinced this time it is Timegate's fault.

ReV VAdAUL fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Feb 14, 2013

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