Aliens: Colonial Marines, a game despite its reviews was well worth the money spent. Although the disappointment caused by the trailers containing fake gameplay footage highly effected sales, it didn’t put me off the set path of obtaining this game and all the extras it came with.
Even with having picked up the Big Edition of the game at a rather spectacular EB Games rush sale, I would have willingly spent my money on this game no matter the price–despite the many disaproving reviews posted online.
The game itself contained striking resemblance to the 2010 game of Aliens VS Predators in relation to gameplay and graphics, although it had a few more touch ups and added tweaks then the previous game released 3 years ago. It remained its own seperate game to that of its predecessor.
Aliens: Colonial Marines provides plenty of fun (or shenanigans, as me and my friends put it) for you and a friend to spend the total of 3-4 hours on the storyline in which lead to the game’s ultimate downfall.
The downfall of this game lies within the campaign length, with a total gameplay time of 4 hours on the hardest of difficulties. Although comprising some interesting missions with many opportunities for you to create your own “out of game” humor, the game ended with a rather disappointing boss-battle with the Queen Alien aboard a FTL (Faster than Light) ship.
Although one may find this battle difficult without the help of a friendly to back you up, it is otherwise a giant ammo waster ending with the so called “defeated” boss crawling back into the ship’s cargo bay much to the player’s disappointment, it is then later defeated in a following cut scene by an NPC. The minimal gameplay time that is the storyline caused the player/s to have very little connection with the other characters, resulting in very little sense of loss with the death of characters.
The jewel of the game lay within the multiplayer, with the choice of playing as either Xenomorph or Marine–again sticking with much a resemblance to the AVP game of 2010, but still, to the player’s surprise, the multiplayer is somewhat fun, action packed and can lead to many laughs. But again, there is very little difference between the previous AVP and Aliens: Colonial Marines, with perhaps the only difference being the exclusion of Predators and a change in maps.
All in all Aliens: Colonial Marines is yet another perfect example of why NOT to listen to game reviews until you have experienced the game for yourself. I would give Aliens: Colonial Marines a 7.5/10 all up and a tip of my hat to the combination of Gearbox and Sega studios.
THE 4 MAIN KICKASS CHARACTERS OF COLONIAL MARINES
