Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Beyond Forever: Colonial Marines Returns

By Alec Meer on June 1st, 2011 at 4:14 pm.

ColMar! ColMar! It sounds like a Greek island! Everyone call it ColMar!

What? What! WHAT. Given the annoucement that the Creative Assembly is working on an Alien game for SEGA and that Gearbox seemed so busy with Duke Nukem Forever and doubtless something Borderlandsy, we’d begun to presume that Randy Pitchford’s lot had quietly shelved Aliens: Colonial Marines. IT IS NOT SO. The little-seen team/co-op-based shooter has come out of the God-damned walls at last, promising a 2012 release date and an appearance at E3 later this month. Words and pictures and videos and stuff and things about it are below…

You see that picture above? If you click it, it will magically transform into a much larger version. This is because of witchcraft.

Anyway: Colonial Marines. I’ve stolen some info-eggs and hidden them below for you, but you can find a little bit more on the official ColMar site. No-one should ever call it ColMar, though.

OK, first here’s the scene-setting teaser trailer:

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPLEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

And now, words written by an anonymous man and/or woman:

Aliens: Colonial Marines begins with an ostensibly abandoned ship, the U.S.S. Sulaco, recovered in orbit around LV-426. Players lead a group of highly trained United States Colonial Marines as they board the deserted craft to uncover the fate of the crew. They will have to fight to survive unspeakable horrors and their own anxieties as they chase down the truth behind a galaxy-spanning deception that places humanity at the mercy of the most murderous and deadly species in the universe. Aliens: Colonial Marines features authentic environments, such as the surface of LV-426 and Hadley’s Hope, weapons inspired by the film series and is designed to

FEATURES:

Enlist in the Marine Corps
Bringing you a true sequel to James Cameron’s classic Aliens, get tooled up with classic Marine weapons including pulse rifles, motion trackers and flamethrowers.

The most authentic Aliens experience ever
Using authentic environments inspired by the film series including Hadley’s Hope, the Sulaco and LV-426, you will be immersed in an eerie, atmospheric world where any moment could bring your death.

Drop-in / Drop-out co-operative gameplay
The masters of co-op bring their expertise to the Aliens universe. Xenos getting too tough? Call up your buddies so they can drop in with extra firepower. The whole campaign can be played with a squad of up to four players, dropping in and out as necessary through self-contained missions within an over-arching narrative.

Loadouts and upgrades
Create your perfect killing machine. An extensive upgrade system allows players to customise their characters to play the way they want. Earn experience to get perks, new weapons and new looks for your squad.

More soon. Yes.

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105 Comments »

  1. 01/06/2011 at 16:21 msarge says:

    I want this to be awesome. I really hope it is.

  2. 01/06/2011 at 16:21 Jonathan says:

    I don’t know — I’m a little sour on Aliens after the new AvP. I’ll approach this one with caution.

    • 01/06/2011 at 16:27 Sweedums says:

      Well, it is a different dev right? So maybe it will actually be decent! I sure hope it is, it’s looked interesting from the start but I cant help but find myself a little worried due to the lack of info on the game, but maybe E3 will squish my (our) fears.

    • 01/06/2011 at 16:36 Moni says:

      Yes, the AvP games were made by Rebellion, who are a British studio. I have a weird sense of pride for Britland based developers, so it hurts that AvP was a tad rubbish.

    • 01/06/2011 at 17:02 kevmscotland says:

      It wasnt completely bad, it just was horribly generic and scripted

      You have 3 of the most varied species put together in one game, and yet it all felt like one generic fps.
      I mean, the maps were so small and linear you couldnt really do much in the way of stalking with the Predator.

      No laying in wait in the dark as the alien, no real sense of tension as the marine.

    • 01/06/2011 at 18:57 mbp says:

      I played the newest AVP only recently so I got a chance to look at it in cold blood after the hype (and furore) had died down. To be honest I thought it was an enjoyable shooter with plenty of variety. It isn’t a patch on the 2002 classic AVP 2 which is a shame but still worth playing. Multi player does seem to be irretrievably borked though with predators being ridiculously over powered.

  3. 01/06/2011 at 16:22 Nallen says:

    Enlist in the Marine Corps
    Bringing you a true sequel to James Cameron’s classic Aliens, get tooled up with classic Marine weapons including pulse rifles, motion trackers and flamethrowers.

    I just need to know one thing: where they are.

  5. 01/06/2011 at 16:27 jonfitt says:

    The plot details sound like they’re just a bit heavy on the obviousness and fan service.

    Can we safely assume that Weyland Yutani knows that visiting the Sulaco will be a Bad Idea (TM) and sends the unsuspecting Marines in anyway. Damn them!

    “They will have to fight to survive unspeakable horrors and their own anxieties”
    Possible sanity meter?

  6. 01/06/2011 at 16:28 Skeletor68 says:

    I didn’t actually play the recent AvP was it as bad as the movies?

    I loved the first AvP (second one less so). 3 great styles of play brilliantly executed. The Marine missions were just so tense!

    • 01/06/2011 at 16:45 SirKicksalot says:

      AvP 2010 is more like the first one. The marine campaign isn’t great, the monster campaigns are awesome. You can find it dirt cheap today and it activates on Steam.

  7. 01/06/2011 at 16:32 Man Raised by Puffins says:

    Earn experience to get perks, new weapons and new looks for your squad.

    Hot pink tophats for all!

  8. 01/06/2011 at 16:33 Moni says:

    ColMar-face?

    See? Because it’s a play on the WarFACE joke, also alluding to the old term for a front line worker, because Col is a homophone of Coal.

  9. 01/06/2011 at 16:34 Alexander Norris says:

    Left 4 Dead but with aliens? Sign me up.

  10. 01/06/2011 at 16:35 abigbat says:

    Superb trailer, so excited about this it’s unreal.

  11. 01/06/2011 at 16:39 diebroken says:

    “Hot as hell in here!” :D

    (Also, is that Steve Blum’s voice I hear, again?)

  12. 01/06/2011 at 16:40 GHudston says:

    I’ll take two!

  13. 01/06/2011 at 16:42 Greg Wild says:

    But will there be sharp sticks?

  14. 01/06/2011 at 17:01 Calabi says:

    The alien is wrong, its a stupid Alien Resurrection one. Ruined already, humph!

  15. 01/06/2011 at 17:06 ross_angus says:

    Sorry to be such a kill-joy, but wasn’t the whole settlement blown up at the end of Aliens?

    • 01/06/2011 at 17:08 Greg Wild says:

      I was thinking much the same.

      But it should be remembered that of all the ways the Alien license has been abused over the years, this will probably be one of the more benign transgressions of its notoriously ropey canon.

    • 01/06/2011 at 17:17 ross_angus says:

      Fair enough. It’s about the fun, dammit!

  16. 01/06/2011 at 17:19 noom says:

    I am going to say this and possibly cause arguments. Alien was way better than Aliens.

    • 01/06/2011 at 17:24 Ross Angus says:

      You forgot to add: “*runs away*”.

    • 01/06/2011 at 17:37 Velvetmeds says:

      Aliens was the worst of them all, IMO.

    • 01/06/2011 at 17:37 msarge says:

      When I was a kid, I liked both, but preferred Aliens because it was all action packed and stuff.

      Now I’ve gone back and re-watched both and Alien is definitely the best of the series. I had a hard time taking Aliens seriously when I watched it recently, for some reason.

    • 01/06/2011 at 18:22 Jad says:

      You know how we gamers love to go of the handle when a sequel changes the tone or gameplay style or genre from the beloved original? I got that feeling hard when I watched Aliens (years after either came out in the theater, I was only a couple years old when Aliens came out). All along I was thinking “this is a pretty good action flick, but where’s my unbearably tense horror/suspense film with nearly defenseless civilians up against an almost indestructible foe?” In the first film Ripley kicks the alien out into the vacuum of deep space and when that fails to kill it she needs to blast it with her spaceship’s rocket engines. In the second apparently a bulked-up assault rifle will do the same trick.

      It felt like if Amnesia 2 became a Left 4 Dead knockoff or something.

    • 01/06/2011 at 18:38 Jubaal says:

      They are both very different types of films though but still have you on the edge of your seat for different reasons. I liked both of them but Aliens does pip it for me. I know a lot of it is macho bullshit, but it fits and it is a great action flick!

      I know most people turned their nose up at it, but I enjoyed Alien Resurrection and thought it was a good film. All the AvP films however stank…. in my humble opinion.

    • 01/06/2011 at 20:16 Arglebargle says:

      Aliens was actually a great riff on Alien. Cameron realized you couldn’t go back to the same well, and have the same experiance again. If Aliens had tried the same trope, it would not have had the same impact as the first run.

      So changing the motif to action, and setting up tough guy marines vs Alien horde was a smart move. Both hold up well, in retrospect. Now Aliens 3, ugh, that goes down in cinema history as one of those classic disasters. First time film-makers are always a risk. This one showed one of the reasons why.

    • 02/06/2011 at 01:17 James T says:

      The Factory Edit (or whathaveyou) of Alien 3 was up there with the first 2. I’ll keep my nose well up here away from Alien 4 tho’.

    • 02/06/2011 at 09:13 Vandelay says:

      Your not going to cause an argument with me; Alien is definitely my favourite. I think it just comes down to whether you are a horror fan or action fan.

      Alien 3 is the worst for me, although I’ve only seen it once about 6 years ago, so could probably do witg a rewatch. Resurrection I always think gets treated harshly, but I mostly like it because it at times feels like a forerunner to Firefly (for those that don’t know it was written, and promptly disowned, by Joss Whedon too.) It certainly isn’t great or a patch on the first two, but it isn’t the disaster some would have you believe.

    • 02/06/2011 at 18:31 dogsolitude_uk says:

      It’s funny. I completely agree with Jad’s sentiments about Aliens. I felt exactly the same way.

      The one I keep going back to is the Directors Cut of Alien 3 though. The CGI is terrible still, and could do wiith some reprocessing, but I just found that one completely nightmarish.

      Regarding Alien Resurrection, I was already a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s work (Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children were two of my favourite films back in the day) before seeing it, and so the slightly ‘unhinged’ nature of the film was actually pretty much what I was expecting.

      Aliens was just a shooty film. A very good shooty film, but it lacked that sense of isolation and powerlessness taht Alien and Alien 3 had. It was a bit like Thief 4 with guns, a squad-based combat system and loads of zombies.

  17. 01/06/2011 at 17:32 Walsh says:

    Basically, this should be a mod to Left4Dead.

  18. 01/06/2011 at 17:38 frenz0rz says:

    Oooh boy I hope that 4-player coop campaign is something worth waiting for. I’d love it to be a sort of mix between Left 4 Dead and a first-person Alien Swarm, with everyone playing different team roles. One person is the engineer, frantically welding the doors together, while the heavy-marine covers him with a smartgun. Meanwhile you’ve got the commander barking orders and firing off pistol rounds, while the squad medic tends to his wounds. Man, that’d be fucking ace.

  19. 01/06/2011 at 17:50 Daiv says:

    Aliens is my favourite sci-fi setting.

    My friend and I spent many, many long hours in the original AvP’s multiplayer. I have never since had the same “getting into the mind of a character” as I did with the Alien. Watch emotionlessly as the meat-creature moves around. Position yourself carefully. Strike.

    I was fast. I was silent. I struck from darkness. I was always, always behind my opponent.

  20. 01/06/2011 at 17:51 Vinraith says:

    The co-op details are fairly crucial here, as always. What does “up to 4 player co-op” really mean? Will it be viable to play the game solo? With 2 people? 3? Or is the reality that in order to get anywhere on a respectable difficulty level you have to have 4 human beings?

    Do the enemies scale with player number? Are there bots? Are they competent (hehe, just kidding, they’re never competent).

    In short, if I and a friend want to play this on a reasonable difficulty level without having to play with randoms, can we? A “yes” there is liable to result in a purchase, a “no” is a pass.

    • 01/06/2011 at 18:07 The Hammer says:

      Hey Vin,

      If it’s anything like Borderlands was – which it might be considering that game was virtually namechecked – then the amount of enemies (and I think their toughness) scales up depending on how many players there are, ala Diablo. So 2 players only would still be absolutely fine.

    • 01/06/2011 at 18:10 Vinraith says:

      Yup, 2 players worked fine in Borderlands (indeed, I played through the game with exactly the person I’d probably play through this with). Here’s hoping!

  21. 01/06/2011 at 17:52 subedii says:

    So wait, is this basically disregarding Aliens 3 and everything that followed?

    Because if so, that’s not something I would be displeased with. Especially all the junk with Bishop / Wayland Yutani.

  22. 01/06/2011 at 18:10 g33kz0rd says:

    im surprised that they havent really moved to ipv6 yet.

  24. 01/06/2011 at 18:29 Tizoc says:

    Hmm I thought Colmar was in France…
    http://www.colmar.fr/

  25. 01/06/2011 at 18:36 Daiv says:

    FLBR? Unclench. For your own good.

  26. 01/06/2011 at 18:38 Hatsworth says:

    Loadouts and upgrades
    Create your perfect killing machine. An extensive upgrade system allows players to customise their characters to play the way they want. Earn experience to get perks, new weapons and new looks for your squad.

    No thanks.

  27. 01/06/2011 at 18:38 Icarus says:

    Aaaaaaaand block. Oh, that feels so much better.

  28. 01/06/2011 at 18:44 Seboss says:

    For a second I thought that Obsidian’s Aliens RPG came back from the dead but alas…
    Oh well, Colonial Marines it will be then.

    • 02/06/2011 at 10:12 jeremypeel says:

      I had a similar moment of anguish. It sounded like this: ‘wwwwwaaaAAAIIIIIIiiiiiiii…’

      (Across the sea, a SEGA exec tilts his head above his monitor. As he listens, the shape of a faint cry becomes indistinguishable from the wind. A flush of despair rises in his chest, though he does not know why. He thinks of the Dreamcast for the first time in years. He returns to his work.)

  29. 01/06/2011 at 18:48 Carra says:

    So in 2092 people will finally realize that DOS > Windows.

  30. 01/06/2011 at 18:48 8-bit says:

    if he hates this site so much why does he come here, I mean… oh look a block button, and good news FLBR it looks like you can even block your own comments. everyone wins :D

  31. 01/06/2011 at 18:54 Sarkhan Lol says:

    That motion detector blip really was one of the greatest strokes of tense audio genius cinema has ever encountered.

  32. 01/06/2011 at 18:57 Kadayi says:

    Lack of any mention of Valve or Steam in this news piece makes this posting even more tragic

  33. 01/06/2011 at 19:34 Unaco says:

    As I was perusing these comments, one of my secondary tasks/objectives was to find an FLBR post, so I could try out the new block/ignore feature. Mission accomplished.

  34. 01/06/2011 at 19:36 Unaco says:

    Everyone should know, if they Co-Op this with me, I’m going to spend the whole time talking about my sweetheart back home and how we’re going to get married when I come off this rotation.

  35. 01/06/2011 at 20:16 Barman1942 says:

    *ahem*

    YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSs!

  36. 01/06/2011 at 20:23 BobsLawnService says:

    Imagine, if you will, playing co-op as Aliens eating marines and assorted civilians like fudge.

    I’ll leave you with that.

  37. 01/06/2011 at 20:33 NaFola says:

    Funnily enough, if you view that IP listed in the video (66.194.172.6), it redirects you to another site with a login screen.

    Sadly, on entering FATHER as the hostname, it just continues to show the trailer which is above. Still, they included meta data and other bits in the html which matches stuff in the video, which is a nice touch. Maybe there’s more to it, I’m off for dinner though!

  38. 01/06/2011 at 20:34 NaFola says:

    Nope, turns out it’s just the vid.

    Also the edit post function for RPS only seems to work in IE? Firefox and Chrome just failed miserably.

    • 01/06/2011 at 21:27 Scandalon says:

      Yea, I was semi-excited they were doing a mini-ARG, but it was rather lame.

      And apparently they *STILL* haven’t managed to transition to IPv6 in the future. ;)

  39. 01/06/2011 at 20:37 blacksun_redux says:

    Yeah, wait, they are using ipv4 ip address’ instead of ipv6 in the year 2098? I don’t think so!
    /nerd out

    oh… I see someone else caught this.. oh well. I’m posting anyway

  41. 01/06/2011 at 22:06 passingstranger says:

    Good god. I had forgotten just how fantastic the motion detector beep is.

  42. 01/06/2011 at 22:43 LaunchJC says:

    Colmar made me think DoD:S, kar98k confirmed?

  43. 01/06/2011 at 23:47 Arachnyd says:

    Did anyone else read the Aliens books by Steve Perry? Those were great.

  44. 02/06/2011 at 00:10 Postal76 says:

    I love the Aliens franchise, but that is one terrible, amateurish teaser.

  45. 02/06/2011 at 05:52 luphisto says:

    And im spent….
    *relaxed sigh*

  46. 02/06/2011 at 11:12 The Sombrero Kid says:

    mmmmm

  47. 02/06/2011 at 16:42 Pinky G says:

    Nice trailer! Except seeing the alien at the end was not nice but the rest was very nice! Also I like the 3rd film, why the hate?

  48. 02/06/2011 at 19:54 thebigJ_A says:

    They mostly come out at night. Mostly.

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