Windows 7: Are You Getting Aliens: Colonial Marines?

The reviews on Colonial Marines are not great, I have learn my lesson after MW3. You believe the hype pay full price, then 3 weeks later they want more of your money with add on maps. I will not buy any more games full price especially if the reviews are crap.Don't buy the game because you hope it will be great,let them make a great game 1st then buy it. These company now just pump out crap and still make millions.

The Alien movies were good, but the games not so good.

So I wanted to let you guys know that my girlfriend overheard me talking about the game and my delema to buy it. She ended up buying it and gifting it to me own Steam the other day to shut me up. I figured I would give you guys a little review of the game to help your decision making.

First off don't believe the reviews. I am not saying they are completely false but all the ones I read seemed to have it out for the game for some reason. Anyways the graphics in the game are decent at best. It really looks like they got lazy on a lot of the textures, so I can play it maxed out with no problems at all. Many of the console versions are reporting graphical issues like screen tearing, items vanishing and lighting problems but I have not experienced any of these problems on the PC version.

The gameplay is perfectly fine and is what you would expect from a modern day FPS. There is basic weapon customization with a ranking system that you use to unlock goodies for single player and multiplayer. One thing I do not like is that you can carry all your weapons on you at one time and can just simply hot key them to your 1, 2, 3 and 4 keys, so you never really have the feeling of running out of ammunition or not having the right weapon for the job.

The Xeno AI can be challenging at times due to the fact that they are constantly trying to rush you and attack you from behind. A lot of times if you don't dispatch all the rushing enemies in time you will end up having to use hand to hand combat to beat them off, which can be pretty interesting at times. The human AI is very basic and not very challenging or interesting. They basically just run behind cover and pop up to shoot, and nothing else really.

The story line is actually better than I thought it would be and they did a good job at filling a hole from the Aliens movie that really wasn't there to begin with. Although the story line was good some parts of them game did feel anticlimactic (like the last boss battle), which can be depressing at times.I played on Hardened mode which is the third out of four difficulties and it took me a about 8-9 hours to beat, but I am sure it could be beaten in 5-6 on the easiest difficulty.

The online mode is actually pretty fun because you can either play as a Marine or a Xeno and the game modes can get interesting and exciting at times. I do recommend playing with friends though because teamwork is vital to the game at times. Also there are plenty of weapon and appearance unlocks for the online mode to keep you busy for a while.

The best thing about the game though are the easter eggs and the nostalgia. If you are a Alien fan like I am then you will get plenty of laughs and will actually enjoy it. I really feel like the game was designed for the fans because I had a blast but I couldn't see someone who doesn't know the films very well to have as much fun as I did.

All in all I would give it a solid 7/10. It most definitely wasn't a bad game but it could have been better. It did feel in some parts to be unfinished or loosely thrown together but all in all it was a fun FPS. It most definitely isn't worth the $50 - $60 it sells for but if it gets down to about $25 - $30 on a Steam sale then I would say go for it. If you have never been into to Alien franchise then I would say don't bother but if you are into Alien then I would say it's a must have.

Hope this helped and let me know if you guys have any questions.

-JackALope

@ JackALope

I wasn't planning on getting the game anyway (not my kind of game) but just wanted to say your review was well written and well stated.

Good job

Dammit... You had me at "Boss Battle". To me there is nothing more depressing that Companies who do this to make the game seem difficult.

Is it really so corridor/linear type, much like "FEAR", or do they also give you open spaces where you can take a little breather?

There are already mods cropping up to fix some of the graphical issues. It should have been awesome right out of the box [or DL] but I got it anyway.

Game is Moddable, regardless of current quality it will become awesome given a little time. Textures will be fixed, A.I. Will be tweaked, and it will be the game it was supposed to be.

As I said, it should have been to begin with, but I say the same thing every time another Bethesda RPG comes out too, and I've yet to regret buying one.

Thanks sygnus21, I appreciate that.

And to answer your question AstaLaVista, yes the game is fairly linear. You are mostly in ships and running around Hadley's Hope so it would be hard to make it non linear. You do go outside fairly often but those sections are pretty linear as well.

Well, more Solo Play on MW3 then... I know every crevice on those levels by now

Got it, played it, not as bad as a lot of people said.

However, I modded it, and I must say it helps a -lot- to do so.

Seriously, if you've got this game, it needs these two mods.

1. Sweet FX. Changes the lighting, makes the game darker. Feels much more like an Aliens movie, makes the Aliens much more of a threat, and their animations are considerably better looking. It's a great effect that vastly improves the experience, and makes the game tougher.

Can be found here: http://www.dsogaming.com/news/aliens...fx-vs-vanilla/

The page above has comparison shots and a link to the mod itself.

DirectX 10 mod.

What it does: Makes the game run on DX10. This makes textures sharper, improves some of the effects, and generally makes the game run smoother and look better. Plus, it shortens load times by quite a bit. Don't expect a miracle, but it does improve textures by a bit.

Can be found here: AliensDX10 Better Grafik and Light mod for Aliens: Colonial Marines - Mod DB

Seriously, if you've got this game, do yourself a favor and install these mods. You won't feel quite so much like you wasted your money. It does a lot to put the whole Aliens mood the game was initially lacking back in.

All in all, with these mods, it's about as good as Doom 3. Not as good as Doom 3 was when it came out, about as good as it is now. It's Doom 3 meets Halo, and the A.I. is about as challenging and dated as both of those games. Entertaining and mindless, but not difficult or anything spectacular.

Without these mods it's a 4/10, with them it's probably a 6-7/10. Not great, but not so terrible as it was.

Also, I'll be keeping an eye on the mods for this. I expect more improvements to come, and it probably won't take very long. This is a quick fix, but an effective one.

I'll finish it in a day or two, and come back to it in a month or so after a few modders have had a bit of time to work on it.

Hey thanks for all the info Contrabardus! I do think modding is what's going to save this game. That lighting mod looks like an essential one. It most definitely looks like it adds to the experience. Let us know if you hear about any other neat mods for the game.