Aliens: Colonial Marines

Reading reviews can be fun, especially when they elegantly slaughter the object. Here's one I found on metacritic: "Aliens Colonial Marines shows its true colors, unveiling an excruciatingly dull first-person shooter with all the entertainment value of tap-dancing hermit crab."

Pibbur who observes that there are similarities between arthropods and aliens (and not just because of the similarities in spelling). And who actually find watching hermit crabs entertaining.
 
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A:CM was honestly one of the worst games I have ever played. I think the only game that I enjoyed less than A:CM was Mary Kate & Ashley's Magical Mystery Mall for the Playstation.

Oh, and BioShock.
 
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A:CM was honestly one of the worst games I have ever played. I think the only game that I enjoyed less than A:CM was Mary Kate & Ashley's Magical Mystery Mall for the Playstation.

Oh, and BioShock.

Never tried a hermit crab tapdancing game?

pibbur who is pleased to see Rithrandil again.
 
I try and avoid going near the ocean (and thus all ocean-creature related games!) after playing the Coast Guard cutter level in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. :D

Also, good to see you too, sir!
 
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This game is a RPG, it has RPG elements (character progression, story etc) so why is it in the general non RPG section?


the single player is indeed underwhelming, not terrible just very meh, with the un advanced ai and not enough suspense and fear in the game. the guns are great though and the pacing in the game is right. short at around 6 hours, its still i'd say worth it for a fan of the series needing more of fix. clearly not for a purist and their are indeed far better games in the genre. i'd say wait 'til its $10-15 if you only want the single player experience.

what i really think is enjoyable though is the mutliplayer, and if it continues to grow, mainly with additions of new maps then there is a decent value in the game at a higher price. played about 8 hours of multi and that indeed does capture the feeling of aliens in my view. especially the survival and escape modes which are 4 vs. 4. playing the aliens takes a bit getting used to and in my view not as fun as playing as the marines, still what is nice is that you play as one side and then the other in each mode.

i'm not sure if the two people above played multiplayer as i'm not sure if that's available to illegal versions which are most likely the ones played but multi is definately where the value is. and not to digress but as much as pirates cause us more drm and higher prices, i'd say the opinions of "anchor gamers" dilute objective discussions on a games merit which may be the worse crime. what i find really perplexing is people who have the money/job and still pirate. they shouldn't be shocked though when the layoff karma police cornhole them someday.

Since pirating is supposed to have all these consequences (it has not, video game producers add DRM and the rest to control the supply, that is why they do not care to hurt the legit customer since they know they have to hurt the legit customers to get their ways), this game seems a perfect example:

since the SP is at best sub par and MU is reported as good or very good, why not make it right from the box a MU game only? MU gaming in these days is synonym with Internet connection (very few developpers bother with adding a LAN, or even when LANning is possible, you still have to connect to the Internet to LAN)

By pushing a sub par SP game, this studio gives meat to pirats. Only the MU part is worth buying? Make it only a MU game from the start.

Win/win situation. Since the hacked version might not include the MU game, it means that pirats could not have got their way. And players who pirat to play test a game wont be given the justification of it as they are right now with a sub par SP.

Otherwise, the current situation is also win/win once the correct objectives are set:

if you want to push DRM policies (and others) on the ground of figthing policy, feeding the customer basis with games that justify pirating them to play test, well, releasing a MU game with a sub par SP section does the work.
 
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I just finished 3rd mission. For now - i'm disappointed. But let's see. I'll give it a chance, maybe it'll be better.
 
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Well, let's see what happens when the dust settles and people have calmed down - developers included.

The game is a clear shitfest - and people saying it's not either have no standards - or they're determined to overlook anything to be different.
 
so pretty much par for the course. apparently no one else has played the multi? which as i said is the games redeeming quality and with that its caveats about longevity. i'm pretty sure as far as standards go, doing whatever you whatever you want without the thought for others (ie pirates) is scraping the barrell and about as cro-mag as the characters and writing in the single player of the game. fitting i guess. and games are for fun anyway for the most part, and most devs at least get this even though they could do much better in most cases.

ultimately it speaks droves about a person who can spend hours/days posting about topics but can't spend the fraction of time parsing the information legally available to make an informed purchase. but such is life these days where people think the world is a one way street.

overall though i hate scores and would give the game a C with its multi maybe a B- and the single a D+. again not a great game, but i'm not sure worthy of the hyperbolic shitfest label.
 
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Yes yes, curious.

All pirates are evil without exception. If you download a game based on a franchise you love - to make sure it's as bad as they say, you're clearly a very, very bad person.

I've pirated countless games - and I'll keep doing so, as long as there's no other way to be certain about value before investment.

It's not like it's a surprise they didn't release a demo for this, now is it. Clearly, it's a case of some very honest developers just doing the best they can.

If you think the average-at-best multi can redeem the deceitful marketing campaigns and the year 2000-level visuals hidden behind false demo footage, then you have no standards.

That, or you simply paid for a crap game that you're trying to turn into something other than crap.

Well, it's not working and you wasted your money. End of story. Get over it.
 
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I've pirated countless games - and I'll keep doing so, as long as there's no other way to be certain about value before investment.

Exactly; not supporting piracy but GBX were very quiet about the game details and there was no way to make sure that the game is worth the investment. So in a way they have asked for it.

Well, it's not working and you wasted your money. End of story. Get over it.

I am sure some people might have had some fun with it (or maybe its an inside voice to comfort the loss of hard earned cash over a failed game!), but as you said, the difficult truth is that this game is a failure. Maybe with Borderlands repuation people were expecting an AAA product, coupled with the fact that the game has been in developement for so many years at the expense of a more promising rpb by Obsidian lead to a shock with a less than a medicore product.
 
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Exactly; not supporting piracy but GBX were very quiet about the game details and there was no way to make sure that the game is worth the investment. So in a way they have asked for it.

Truth be told, I was very close to pre-ordering it - simply because I'm such a huge Aliens fan. But I've learned to be patient.

I don't even like shooters much - but I can enjoy them under certain circumstances. I loved AvP2 - and I actually really liked AvP from 2010. I fully expected this would be better than the latter.

Piracy is just a word - and as with all words, they depend on context.

If people steal something that has actual value to them - then it can be in poor taste, but even then there can be valid reasons.

As for using piracy as a test to establish value - I think that's a completely legitimate approach. But that's me, and I can appreciate that some people get stuck on the concept of piracy and don't think beyond that.

I am sure some people might have had some fun with it (or maybe its an inside voice to comfort the loss of hard earned cash over a failed game!), but as you said, the difficult truth is that this game is a failure. Maybe with Borderlands repuation people were expecting an AAA product, coupled with the fact that the game has been in developement for so many years at the expense of a more promising rpb by Obsidian lead to a shock with a less than a medicore product.

Sure, I can believe that. You can find value in most things - if you look hard enough.

But considering the hype and the endless promises about a true sequel to Aliens with fantastic visuals and gameplay - this is a MAJOR disappointment and one of the worst examples of outright deceitful and false marketing I've seen in my 30 years of gaming.
 
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Wow, I hadn't actually seen gameplay footage of the Obsidian game before. Looks a hell of a lot better (even in it's alpha/whatever form) than A:CM turned out to be.
 
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Wow, I hadn't actually seen gameplay footage of the Obsidian game before. Looks a hell of a lot better (even in it's alpha/whatever form) than A:CM turned out to be.

What will make things worse is that I don't expect to see another Aliens games by the IP holder (Sega) in any near future with the A:CM failure. So this footage of the cancelled Aliens rpg is really really painful.
 
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