Aliens: Colonial Marines

In a few years you can create an extraordinary work, but for Aliens: Colonial Marines the extremely long production period turned out to be insufficient. The game fails almost everywhere.

Sci-fi shooters have borrowed elements from the Alien movies for as long as I can remember. Gearbox’s Alien: Colonial Marines started off looking like it had potential.  Unfortunately, the final product leaves much to be desired.  The game feels empty, clunky and dated.  Initially, there was much promise in the meticulous recreation of the film’s sights and sounds.  Strobing lights and shadows cre...

“Years after its 2008 reveal, Aliens: Colonial Marines shudders to life as a broken, poorly executed co-op shooter.”

The biggest achievement in this title is that it works as a shooter, but the gameplay, plot, visuals, and audio don't do it any justice. The multiplayer lessens the experience even further by providing a simplistic experience that only deters players from playing more than one round. It's really hard to believe that Gearbox was even involved with this title at all.

I have some bad news...

What's worse is that this is a game that leverages a beloved sci-fi property to suck as many $60 purchases out of fans as it can. The Aliens faithful have already shown their willingness to jump head first into anything that loosely connects to the franchise, so in that regard the existence of Colonial Marines feels exploitative. While it's hard to know just who to blame (main developer Gearbox So...

After six years, mountains of hype and some suspiciously deceptive demos that are nothing like the final game, Gearbox’s reputation as a “Borderlands and crap games that take far too long” studio is now assured. I’m pretty sure that in six years I could make a better Aliens game than this, on my own, and that includes having to learn how to make games. Aliens: Colonial Marines is a slap in the fac...