No one can hear you scream – Aliens: Colonial Marines Review

Think back to the first time you’ve watched Alien, or Aliens, what was scary about them. The sense of dread, the tight spaces, the anticipation that at any point and time the Xenomorph would strike and kill the crew. When I first watch Aliens, what I came away with was the sense of an action movie with some horror elements, the Xeno’s were creepy, smart, and deadly, but overall they were animals, just looking to survive and hunt.

I ran into one problem though when I was attempting to explain why the Alien series is so successful to my wife. Mentioning about the two first movies made me realize, the series has such a hardcore fan base, yet those are the only two things we ever mention about Aliens is the first two good movies and maybe some of the comics by Black Horse. Everything else they’ve been in has been crap, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, AVP and AVP-R were bad movies, and Prometheus while enjoyable had some problems with a lot of the fans and that one was even directed by the original Alien director.

Knowing this, I taken a look at Sega and Gearbox’s take on the Alien franchise with Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Colonial Marines is set after the events of Alien 3. As Corporal Christopher Winter, you are sent on board the Sulaco, the spaceship Ellen Ripley, Corporal Hick, Newt and the remains of Bishop used to escaped in Aliens. The ship disappeared shortly after the events of Alien 3 and was brought back over LV-426, Winter is sent in as part of the search and rescue team with the mission to find the flight records of the U.S.S. Sulaco. Quickly things go wrong as they find a new Xenomorph infestation in the ship, and Weyland-Yutani Private Military forces fighting for control of the ship. This forces the ship to crash land on LV-426 which is now completely infested with the Xenomorphs. At this point it, the story turns it’s focus on surviving the planet’s hostile inhabitants and escaping LV-426.

The story isn’t very strong with most of the backstory coming from collectable audio-logs. It comes off as strong in the beginning, but as it continues it becomes more and more confusing, leading up to a conclusion that just doesn’t make sense. If it was kept to a basic survival setting, the story could have been much better.

Colonial Marines’ single player and co-op is a simple, linear, get from point A to point B style of shooter. Winter has access to a wide array of weapons at anytime, ranging from Shotguns, Pulse Rifles, and Pistols. There are several different versions of the Pulse Rifle that feels different, the basic one from the movies, a heavier Assault Rifle, and a Sniper Rifle, while the shotgun gets two versions that is basically indistinguishable aside for some accuracy differences. However a cool thing with all the weapons is that they include a wide variety of upgrades, including different under barrel subweapons, paint jobs, and different firing options. Aside from this, extra Legendary weapons like Hick’s shotgun are available to be found in the campaign, once found can be used in multiplayer.

The Xenomorphs in some occasions, act dumb and will run directly for you, but there have been several instances of greatness when I played, distracting me with cannon fodder while stronger Xenomorphs came from behind and dealt some damage. Other times, they use the walls and vents to keep you guessing. Later on in the game, new Xenos appear, mainly due to radiation from the explosion Ripely caused at the end of Aliens, these creatures bring new tactics to the game as they can explode, charge and spit acid. Human enemies AI are not much better though, while they have better aim, their only trick is to hide behind cover. Where the combat in between the Marines and the Wayland-Yutani PMCs really kick off is when your fighting both the Xenos and them, causing them to fight each other.

What is really special about the game is it’s multiplayer. Using team-based modes like Team Deathmatch and Extermination (Land Grab but with Alien Eggs.) You get one turn as the Marines keeping with range and firepower, and one turn as the Xenomorphs who uses speed numbers. To balance it out the Xenomorphs tend to have more health then the marines as a 3 hit combo from the Xeno soldier can kill a Marine with no extra armour.  Every Xeno class has different attacks, from jumping and clawing to spitting acid, and special finishing moves which are unlocked as you level up. One of the best modes is Escape, a 4 on 4 match where the Marines attempt to get to certain checkpoints on the map, sealing doors and protecting each other while the Xenos team up to take them out.

If there was one problem with the Multiplayer mode is some balancing issues, Marines with their range and fire power can easily overpower the Xenos, and it doesn’t help that the legendary weapons and the over powered DLC weapons are accessible to the Marines, and that the Marine level is carried over between Solo and Co-op Campaign. This creates an uneven number of high leveled Marines and low level Xenos causing some frustrating loses on the Xeno side.

Aliens Colonial Marines needs some polish graphically, as there has been several occasions where textures appeared blurry and do not load properly. It’s something that you could expect from games with large open world maps, but when it’s in a linear shooter like this, it’s easily noticeable. Aside from that the the Xenos look great and the environments looks exactly what you would expect from an Aliens game.

Aliens: Colonial Marines may not be the Alien game we were looking for, it’s full of bugs and glitches, the graphics are mediocre, and the gameplay is extremely basic. However it does have a certain charm to it that reminds me of Rebellion’s original Aliens Vs Predator on the PC. If you leave all expectations at the door, you might get a good amount of fun out it.