The Many Days of Horror! - Aliens:CM Stasis Interrupted

Aliens: Colonial Marines DLC - Stasis Interrupted

By now it's pretty much a meme in its own right, the notion that Gearbox willfully and intentionally defrauded people by releasing Aliens: Colonial Marines as a shambling mess of a game. Some of you may recall that I actually got to play it on day of release (and finished it the same day) so I actually rather enjoyed the game, having A: not been led to have any preconceived notions of what to expect (hell, I remember reading it had been cancelled), B: not being in game journalism I did not feel butt-hurt that I had seen a demo at a convention that made me feel all special inside (yes, I think the press going on about that demo is a bit whiny; I've actually seen the demo and it's pretty much what the PC version looked like), and C: I was really expecting the game to be bad fun, and I got exactly what I expected (and I don't think 2011's AvP was any better, either).

Anyway, the last DLC content pack was released for A:CM called Stasis Interrupted. In a nutshell, it's okay. The purpose of this pack is to fill the quota for those with season pass subscriptions, and to do so with some actual single player content. As an expansion to the main campaign goes it fills in some of the convoluted backstory of the game, looking first at a woman who was part of the colonists kidnapped for use by Weyland Yutani, then another colonist who is an ex marine, and last a scientist for W-Y who decides he's had enough of assisting evil mad science and manifests a conscience. Amidst all the action Corporal Hicks is an important guest, as the DLC fills in how he survived his (previously canon) death in Alien 3.

Is the DLC worth it? Without discussing specifics, the short version is: if you paid for it already, and enjoyed A:CM enough to find all the gnashing of teeth about the game to be amusing, then sure, you might like it. But there are a few warnings to consider, first:

Glitches? I played the PC version, which appears to be the "not buggy" version, or at least if it is buggy I seem to be really lucky. As near as I can tell people who talk about lame AI and weird glitches all seem to be playing console versions of the game. I experienced to glitches or unusually weird AI during my play-through except for once when one of the bull aliens got hung up on some scenery.

Crazy Plot Filling? The DLC fills in some of the gaping plot holes and unanswered questions of the main game. Parts of it are quite fun (the opening stuff with Lisbeth actually feels scary, for example) and other parts appear to be aiding the retcon by virtue of a comedy of errors (such as how a corpse ends up in Hicks' stasis tube in time for Alien 3). If you try to piece together the plot, it gets more than a little loony. They really could have come up with something better than this by not trying to tie the whole game into the second and third films with a deliberate retcon just so they could get the voice actor for Hicks back. I mean....why not retcon Newt, too? Hell, let's just retcon Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection! I would be down with that.

If there's one giant mech-loader sized hole in some of the plot reasoning for the entire game (and it's dramatically highlighted by the DLC, which focuses in some cut scenes on Ripley's suicide-by-molten metal) it's that Alien 3 ended with Mr. Weyland out of luck on a source of an alien queen. They had some DNA samples of Ripley which magically contained alien samples as well, and that was it. Cut to Alien: Resurrection which was all about scientists literally centuries in the future after the first three films trying to recreate both Ripley and the alien species from this old evidence.

If all the above was the impetus of the film, then why do we. going by the DLC timeline as presented, see that Weyland had several xenomorph queens either in captivity or at least somewhere he could capture them with enough resources and time? We actually see Ripley perish in a cut-scene shortly before Hicks and Levy make a big escape and encounter no less than two queens before the DLC's conclusion. Why the devil was Weyland even bothering with Ripley, then?

I guess you could assume that a baby queen was his goal....raise her in captivity from the get-go, do what the scientists would do a couple centuries later in the fourth film. Still....the subtext and implication of Alien 3 was that the alien queen Ripley took out with her was it, end of the line. Of course, I'm complaining about this in a game that went through hoops to resurrect Corporal Hicks, but....well....never mind.

Anyway, I had fun playing the DLC but suggest that only those who like me played through the campaign and enjoyed it...whether your enjoyment is thanks to lowered expectations, an appreciation for the old school aesthetics and design features, or just because your a hardcore Alien franchise junkie and don't care if the game has issues, you're going to play it...if you meet  one of these criteria (or more than one, as I do!) then Stasis Interrupted will give you about 3-4 more hours of entertainment. Everyone else, move along, nothing to see here.

C+ 

The Final Aliens Post: A Decent Critique

Ben Kuchera of the Penny Arcade Report has an interesting article on why he feels Aliens: Colonial Marines failed as a game sequel to the movies, and why making a game out of the films is so difficult, if not impossible. It's a good read and I am inclined to agree with much of it in principle, even if I am far less harsh in my experience with the game, having found myself not even noticing or being bothered by so many of the features that apparently drove Ben and others nuts. The alien behavior, for example....I did not notice or was not bothered by poor AI during the play. Was it there? I guess, maybe. Truth is, I was enjoying the ride and was not bothered that the game experience wasn't a precise emulation of the style and feel of the movie in that way....I pretty much just assumed that we were dealing with a story about a group of more experienced, less cocky and more well-informed marines who weren't as foolhardy as the ones from the movie. Unlike Ben, I guess I entered the game not expecting it to be an emulation of the Aliens film, but its own thing, spinning off from it, and using the medium of video games to do what it could to give us an experience in that universe.

That said, I bet the guys behind Dead Space could have nailed it.

Anyway, read his commentary, I think it's an interesting perspective and carries through with the previous games, although I am less inclined to agree that throwing predators into the mix has been a very useful story tool....and in fact feel that the AvP games and movies have largely been let downs to both franchises.

Aliens: Colonial Marines - The Contrasting Reviews (aka am I just a pushover?)

I was reading the PC Gamer review of Aliens: Colonial Marines (here) and have to admit, I agree with many points he raises. However, despite agreeing with many things, there's an interesting slant in the review that is obviously weighted toward the negative, which makes it hard for me to appreciate how the reviewer can look at the same issue I may have encountered, but where he sees "crap" I had fun, instead. I guess....with all the accusations of shillery in the video game journalism business,* when an opportunity arises to slam something, they must take it with all the gusto they can? When a game displays a flaw/feature that, while not debilitating or even problematic necessarily, is nonetheless possible to spin as negative then it must absolutely be so, lest the reviewer be called out as the shill we all suspect he/she is? I have no idea.

On the other hand, am I just so jaded as a game player (and not a pro reviewer by an stretch) that I automatically engage with a game on its preset level of expectation? I knew A:CM wasn't going to be another Mass Effect, but in the Aliens universe....even though I would love to see such a game, of course....so I instead played it with a contrast to other, similar titles (Crysis 2, Halo 4, Aliens vs. Predator) and in that context I found it rather enjoyable....more so, in fact, than I have any of the aforementioned titles, even though I also enjoyed (or am in the process of enjoying) each of them. Hell, I actually felt compelled to play A:CM all the way through, in one sitting. I didn't grab up Halo 4 to finish it....nope. A:CM was good enough to keep me going to the end.

So....in short, I think my review of the single player campaign still stands. I enjoyed it, I did not find it as trite or hollow as, say, the PCG review....and among its peers I found it perfectly acceptable. Could it have been more? Of course. But such was not the game they designed, or advertised it as. In the scope of "today's first person shooters featuring space marines and aliens," it was a pretty fun ride....and for an older "casual" gamer like myself who's interests lie in relaxed engagement first and "proving my geek cred" a distant second, this was about exactly what I needed to play this week.



EDIT:
The more I read the frothing mad rage reviews about this game, the more amusing it gets. If only I hadn't actually played the game and found it fun, then I might be able to participate in the witch hunt of a triple-A title that didn't quite meet expectations.





*And I know that by implying they slant a review negatively just to avoid accusations I am putting them in a double bind no-win scenario. Life as a journalist is tough.

Aliens: Colonial Marines Review (single player campaign)

Aliens: Colonial Marines released Tuesday morning (shortly after 1 AM my time in fact) and despite some Steam hiccups it was working in time for me to jump into it today. As it happens I've been sick, thanks to moving over the weekend in some very chill air, I think....sneezing and coughing uncontrollably at times! And yet, somehow, I not only managed to play Aliens: Colonial Marines, but thanks to today's relatively low standard for campaign length I even managed to finish it.

This sort of thing never happens to me. Traditionally I buy a game, play it for a bit, decide I would like to set aside a decent weekend to finishing it, then never get around to actually doing so. A year or two later I realize I've got this great (sometimes) neglected game still on the HDD and I finally tackle it. So buying a game and finishing it immediately after release feels really...weird.

This review is for the PC version. I snagged it plus the season pass for about $50 on Green Man Gaming after applying some decent discounts and credit I had over there.

Raptr says I spent 10 hours on A:CM today, and I am inclined to believe it. The single player campaign is a direct sequel (as in, immediately following) Aliens and Alien 3. It addresses the way things wound up by the end of those two movies, more or less, and probes some interesting questions about what was going on away from the prison planet Fury 161 (Alien 3) as well as the condition of LV 426 and Hadley's Hope after the reactor explosion in the terraformer at the end of Aliens. It specifically sets out to address the following questions (which I will not provide the answers to, so no spoilers, as such):

1. We see Michael Weyland and his mercs moving in on Ripley at the end of Alien 3. What else were they up to while in the neighborhood?

2. What happened to the Sulaco? For that matter, is everything that we thought we knew about the Sulaco correct?

3. Was Hadley's Hope destroyed by the terraformer explosion?

4. What about the alien vessel? The engineer vessel (called the "origin" vessel here) was only really touched upon in the Extended Cut of Aliens and the novelization....so is it still sitting out there, full of eggs?



A:CM takes place 17 weeks after the LV 426 skirmish and three more weeks after the events in Alien 3. It focuses on your character, Winter, a marine who's part of the crew of the military vessel Sephora, sent to respond to the Sulaco's distress signal. They find the Sulaco where they least expect it (back in orbit around LV-426) and crawling with both xenomorphs and Weyland-Yutani mercenaries. A brutal firefight ensues, as the marines are caught off-guard by both the xenomorphs and the mercs. Eventually we get to see LV 426, Hadley's Hope, and more (including the promethean vessel) as the game cascades along at a cinematic breakneck pace.

If this had been a real movie sequel, it would have been fantastic (and might have made one overlook the blemish of Alien: Resurrection). As it stands, this is supposedly an official sequel, which is good...there's a lot here to appreciate as a fan of the Alien universe. I can't go into specifics without spoiling it, but at least one familiar face pops up that I didn't anticipate, and of course Lance Henrickson reprises his role as Michael Weyland from Aliens 3 as well as another Bishop model (or two).

In terms of game play A:CM handled well although it's built using some variant of the Unreal 3 engine that felt a little funky to me; not as "tight" as some other Unreal 3-powered games I've played. The game, while largely linear in design, had some very wide-open spots and level design that felt less restricting than is normal for shooters these days. If you're used to Call of Duty style rail design, this game will feel oddly open. Do not expect a Borderlands-like experience, however. Even if you are leveling your marine and equipping level-earned weapon mods, it is fairly unintrusive and does not betray the core conceit of a good shooter (that skill and a decent weapon are all-powerful).

Graphically it looked good, but not state of the art; it looked (and felt) like a great release for 2008-2009, but maybe not quite up to current graphic expectations. When you notice the character models you'll see what I mean. If this game had been released at the same time as Bioshock, it would have looked amazing. Now....eh.

Was it scary? Well, I did find some spots that were a bit nerve wracking but to be honest I've found other games (like Rage, for example) to be more nerve-wracking than this. I played the campaign on middle-of-the-road soldier mode, however, so maybe more difficult settings are a bit more harrowing. Just keep in mind, this is a direct sequel in tone and flavor to Aliens, and is not meant to model the original Alien. In this regard it does a fantastic job. This is also a negative, in so far as you can only provide so much depth to a story focused entirely on the colonial marines. Space marines just aren't that good at nuanced depth. But the story is there, and it is worth checking out.

I have one gripe: why do the alien heads seem to change more and more with every new iteration? There are a few different types of alien in this game, and there seems to be an underlying explanation (which is fine), but the core alien seems to have mutated quite a bit from the original Alien xenomorph (with a long smooth skull). I know, they're closer to the actual look of the aliens as seen in Aliens and Alien 3, but still.....ah well, just a curious gripe. We're not talking "oddly different" on any level comparable to the proto-xenomorph at the end of Prometheus, for example. But, to contrast, take a look at the aliens in, say, AvP and notice how different the heads seem to look from one depiction to another over time.

EDIT: I take it back. The weird types of xenomorphs in the game were interesting, but the more I think about it the less sure I am that a good explanation for their existence is provided.* There's an acid spitter, for example, that I was thinking might have been a product of Weyland-Yutani's tampering, but best I can tell no actual assertion of such was provided. A big four-legged brute shows up, too....but what was its function, and was it due to tampering (as I was thinking) or a natural form? There's also a level where you encounter strangely diseased aliens that are slinking off to die. It's an eerie and interesting level, but they never provide an actual explanation for the condition of these particular aliens (that I can recall). I sort of assumed they were deformed or dying from radiation exposure due to the reactor explosion....but I could be wrong.

Anyway....

Bottom line: great shooter (A+), good story (A), okay graphics (B+) worth the time of any fan of shooters and the Aliens film to check out. A:CM is a solid A. Don't let jaded critics fool you! It's better than they make it sound.




*Technically there is an explanation, as follows: a video game of this nature must have a skirmisher you can shoot as it runs at you, a spitter/shooter that you pick off at a distance, a brute you must dodge when it charges, and so forth. The alien types are here because someone in the design team thought these were inviolate archetypes and they must shoehorn them in, regardless of whether they are really needed or not. Please, game designers, stop doing this. Please.