I'm writing a story here that includes the Colonial Marines. I'm pretty much obliged to do this.

Let me start off by saying that I think a lot of reviewers are being too harsh on this. Now don't get me wrong, most of them are right in saying that it's buggy and should not have been shipped in the state it's in, but some of the scores and other general feelings out there are a tad too unrelenting in my opinion. Especially in light of the news that SEGA and Gearbox have not been on good terms ever since the project was announced, and Gearbox outsourced the game to about four different subcontractors just to get it off of their workbench. That's almost always a recipe for disaster.

So, the game itself. Basically, it's like this: The first five singleplayer missions? Pretty good!

The other six? Not so much.

The game is best in close quarters environments. It's where the atmosphere is the best and the gameplay is the most solid. The gameplay itself can be sort of shaky at times, especially since xenomorphs have a tendency to clip and leap through you, allowing them to attack while they're inside you. This is best avoided by staying on your toes and constantly moving, which luckily most players do when playing shooters these days. The problem is rare, but I would be lying if I said that this happened to me only once when playing the campaign. Also, don't rely on your AI teammates. They're useful enough in regular situations, but when things get busy, they are basically useless.

The gunplay is alright, but your weapons are quickly underpowered as the campaign goes on, mostly due to the increased inclusion of non-regular xenomorphs like the Lurker and Spitter. This pretty much requires you to add on extras to your weapons such as lasers, extended magazines, different underslung attachments and secondary ammo types (protip: your standard Pulse Rifle with extended magazine and motorized loader basically turns the gun into easy mode walking).

A lot of folk have been saying that graphically, the game is pretty bad. I disagree, but then again, I'm playing the PC version. It's easy to tell that Gearbox ported the game to consoles after having the meat of the engine development for the PC, and it shows. The whole thing looks like it was dragged through the mud on consoles, which is pretty disappointing when these are the same guys that made Borderlands 2 look so good on consoles. At the same time, it looks like features were either removed or subdued for consoles, as this video shows that there are some significant differences in bonus graphical stuffs such as fog, bloom and extra dynamic lighting missing from both versions at release.

The PC version is better graphically, but not by a whole lot. At times, the textures and lighting are good, and then at others it's shoddy and poorly implemented, mostly in outside environments (going back to where I said that this game is made for close quarters environments).



"Man, Hudson's Pulse Rifle looks aweso- oh GOD what's wrong with that rock!? Did it come out of Half-Life 1?"

Story-wise, it's all over the place. The setup is there, but the core is choppy as all hell. It feels like there were cut scenes or scripted plot lines cut from the game due to the devs just running out of time. They never explain to the player what the xenomorphs are or where they came from, they never explain what happened at the beginning of the game as to why there are marines down inside of the Sulaco, they never really explain why Weyland-Yutani was back on LV-426 (but you can kind of piece that together yourself), so on and so fourth. It gets worse but I would get into heavy duty spoiler territory. Basically, like the game as a whole, the story comes off as half-baked and unfinished.



"You're needed over in the Sulaco!" "Um... why?" "Who cares! Just get your ass over there!"

Thankfully though, some back story is explained by way of collectable audio logs made by various Wey-Yu employees, so it's not a complete loss. Speaking of collectables; audio logs, dog tags and special weapons are littered throughout the game for the player to pick up for extra XP, as well as task-specific challenges that the player can take up in both single and multiplayer (things like "Kill a Xeno with any rifle" or "Get 20 Shotgun kills"). The weapons, mostly Hudson's Pulse Rifle and Vasquez's pistol, can be picked up and used for the rest of the campaign. Droppable ones such as the M240 Flamethrower and Smart Gun are used until you either run out of ammo or you complete the level. You can't bring those with you, which is disappointing.



One of the better parts of the game right here.

Most reviewers are dead on when they say that the sound design is top notch. One thing the game does successfully is make it sound like something out of Aliens lore. The weapons, the motion tracker and a lot of the voice acting is pretty solid and spot on. The voice acting can get pretty dumb later on in the game, especially in some of the cut scenes, but I'd hold it to a lousy half-finished script instead of actor talent.

The multiplayer is the game's staple, and it's the high point of the entire product. It's basically a mashup of Call of Duty (minus killstreaks) and Left 4 Dead. Team Deathmatch is standard fare. Extermination is like capturing points in Battlefield's Rush mode, but instead of progressing forward you're going around in circles on one map area. Survivor is pretty self-explanitory (survive as long as possible against the xenos with no respawns). Escape is the most like Left 4 Dead and is easily the best mode in the game, where you and three others need to make it from one side of a map to the other before the xenos take you all out.



The "Lurker," aka the original "Giger Alien" that appeared in the first Alien film

All in all, the game is not that good, but neither is it all that bad.

Generic shooter #746 with an Aliens paint job. Unlike Duke Nukem Forever, I can see myself going back to this for the ongoing gameplay challenges that I need to complete as well as the multiplayer. The fact is, is that for this game to be any better, it needed about another six to eight months in development for gameplay polish and maybe fixing the story. Blame SEGA, blame Gearbox, blame any of the subcontractors that worked on it, blame Randy Pitchford. The bottom line is that some people didn't do their job to their fullest, and the higher ups were unwilling to put up with any more time wasted and just wanted the game out on the market.

If you're a big fan of the Alien universe, I'd say pick this up on sale for the xeno killing (both online and off) and good set pieces that appear a couple times throughout the game. If you're just a shooter fan in general, you're probably best skipping this one unless you want to take a leap of faith.

The good:

+ Multiplayer

+ Sound design

+ Set pieces straight from the films

+ The first five levels of the campaign

The bad:

- Story

- Teammate AI

- Graphics, at least on consoles

- The other six levels of the campaign (minus a special one involving the Derelict)