Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Aliens: Colonial Marines Gets Shooty Footage

By Jim Rossignol on February 4th, 2012 at 9:28 am.

There's somebody at the door!
Good morning, Internet! I’ve been off having adventures, but I suppose I’d better try and put together an entertaining Saturday. Let’s kick off with the latest Aliens stuff: after that CGI trailer it’s good to get at least a few fragments of game footage, which is what you can see below. This latest emission from the developmental innards of the Gearbox creature show a bunch of scene-setting stuff, and then a little of the running about with a gun shooting Aliens stuff. I’m tentatively excited about this one, and it’s been a while since I’ve thought that about a licence shooter.

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65 Comments »

  1. 04/02/2012 at 09:31 Echo Black says:

    Wow, the framerate is chugging quite noticeably in several of these sequences. Console footage maybe?

    • 04/02/2012 at 09:38 Jim Rossignol says:

      More likely bad capture lag. They’re not going to be capturing footage on a console for editing.

    • 04/02/2012 at 11:07 Gnoupi says:

      PC or console, the view movement certainly feels like played with a gamepad.
      But I guess that’s becoming the norm. If you want smooth turns and not an instant frenetic screen change for your videos, it’s better to go with the gamepad.

      Because on PC, that kind of stressing shooter would most likely be made of instant camera changes, to try and follow the action and shoot as fast as possible.

    • 04/02/2012 at 13:32 LionsPhil says:

      Surely more damning is how slow the aliens are so that the beer-addled player has a chance to slooowly drag their thumbstick in the vague direction of pointing their IRONSIGHTS at them.

    • 05/02/2012 at 07:40 GEN3RIC says:

      If this was recorded on PC, they would have done so on a decent rig that could handle 1920×1080 with some antialiasing. The game as presented kind of looks like garbage, so I assume it’s console footage.. what the hell are they thinking? Put your best foot forward.

  2. 04/02/2012 at 09:44 Spengbab says:

    I sure hope they can solve the bug with those regular black screens before they launch the game though, its definately gonna affect the gaming experience

  3. 04/02/2012 at 09:56 thepaleking says:

    I’m happy to see they got rid of that awful music from the last trailer; the music and general structure of this trailer actually mimics the original Alien and Aliens trailers quite well.

  4. 04/02/2012 at 10:00 Vandelay says:

    In similar alien shooting news, I’ve received an e-mail from Unknown Worlds linking to a new trailer for Natural Selection 2 and with the news that the game will be out this Summer. The beta has also been updated with jet packs, the Onos and a new map.

    Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjPywj1TODo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

  5. 04/02/2012 at 10:04 Inglourious Badger says:

    Is it just me or did they mis-spell “compliment of soldiers” in the opening exposition?

    It looks like BF3 …in space! I hope it’s a not as scripted as it looks in the trailer.

  6. 04/02/2012 at 10:08 iARDAs says:

    Another game that has the potential to be good or bad. Perhaps average.

    The thing is I just finished Aliens vs Predator game that game 1-2 years ago. It was nice to be honest. The marine story line was linear but aliens and predator story lines were ok. However it lacked the scare element. I am really hoping this game to be awesome. Scary and visually good. I am not setting my hopes high but one can only wish for a good Aliens game.

    • 05/02/2012 at 05:48 DocSeuss says:

      I have to know–do you know what the word “linear” means? Because the way you used it seems to imply that A) linearity is a bad thing and that B) the other campaigns were somehow… not.

  7. 04/02/2012 at 10:22 Hentzau says:

    Colonial Marines: Modern Warfare 3.

    • 04/02/2012 at 11:59 Moni says:

      I’m just assuming it’s going to try to be “FPS Dead Space in Space”.

    • 04/02/2012 at 13:12 Droopy The Dog says:

      “Rhino Actual, this is Rhino 21, isn’t it odd that we’re in space but we still use audio callsigns instead of just identifying each other electronically? Things really haven’t changed much since the 21st century huh?”

    • 04/02/2012 at 19:31 PopeJamal says:

      “Rhino 21, this is Rhino Actual. You forgot to say ‘Over!’. Do it right, or it’s no fun, damnit!. Over.”

  8. 04/02/2012 at 10:39 SuperNashwanPower says:

    Colonies?? Marines?? When one thinks of such words, one envisages gentleman soldiers, with moustaches, putting down rebellions with nothing more than a friendly chat and an enlightening tour of an art gallery. These here videograms did not depict a single salute, God Save the Queen or even a cup of tea. I’ll wager there were even AMERICANS in there.
    POPPYCOCK I SAY.

  9. 04/02/2012 at 10:45 Cunzy1 1 says:

    It looks like plenty of Marines getting dragged off by invincible aliens in set pieces. Just for once it would be nice if you stood a chance of saving them with some quick thinking and shooterising.

    Did anyone play Alien Resurrection on the PlayStation? That’s one tough and horrifying game. I’ve been attempting to get past the same bit I’ve been stuck on since 2001 once or twice a year. Any more than that and trouser laundry becomes prohibitively expensive.

  10. 04/02/2012 at 10:53 Navagon says:

    That so called Brothers In Arms game is shaking my confidence in Gearbox. But I’m still quietly confident they can deliver the goods on this one. I just hope it’s a proper squad game and not some follow the leader COD bollocks.

  11. 04/02/2012 at 11:04 Ertard says:

    I don’t understand why they haven’t spent some time giving it more pretties. It looks very dated and bad even for a console game, and in an atmospheric FPS, graphics are a big deal.

    • 04/02/2012 at 11:20 buzzmong says:

      @ Rei

      I spotted that too, which gives me a bit of the fear about this title. Seems scripted up the wazoo with slow-ish Xeno’s, weak guns and linear levels (say what you will about AvP 2000, but you could at least generally run around the levels as much as you wanted, unlike later games).

      I also spotted a couple of seconds of the “bull” alien, I was hoping that “be chased by big thing you can’t kill, run for your life until you find a safe zone” section had be cut for being utterly fucking droll game design.

  13. 04/02/2012 at 11:33 Maxheadroom says:

    Meh, looks the same as every other Aliens game, albeit with prettier graphics.

    I’m beginning to think there’ll never be a truly great Aliens game, at least not an FPS (it’s hard to imagine what they could do thats not been done half a dozen times before)

    • 04/02/2012 at 12:04 TonyB says:

      Aside from the fact I’m not even sure it has prettier graphics, I have to agree with this – without the brief glimpse of using iron sights and of a bloke in a power-lifter it could almost be the marine campaign from the recent AvP.

    • 04/02/2012 at 12:56 Unaco says:

      “I’m beginning to think there’ll never be a truly great Aliens game, at least not an FPS”

      Never played (the 2000 original) AvP game then? A truly great Aliens game, that is an FPS. The sequel wasn’t that bad either, not as good as the first, but still pretty decent.

    • 04/02/2012 at 13:52 Maxheadroom says:

      “Never played (the 2000 original) AvP game then?”

      That has some pretty clever moments (‘is it a pipe or an alien head?’ & ‘chain blowing in the wind setting off the motion tracker’ spring to mind) but all those were in the first 10 minutes, after that it was as generic as the rest.

      And if I was to be pedantic it wasnt the ‘original’ as there was an AvP on the Jaguar in the 90′s, and Aliens for the C64 before that even. :-)

      Now I think about it, a remake of the C64 version (which was a sort of action adventure) might be pretty cool

    • 04/02/2012 at 23:46 buzzmong says:

      @Maxheadroom

      Chain in the wind inside the compound and the dropping down pipe that looked like a Xeno’s head was AVP2, not the 1999 AVP game which Unaco is on about. It’s rather different and properly awesome.

    • 06/02/2012 at 00:33 Amun says:

      Buzzmong has it 100% correct. AvP released in 1999 was the proper AvP game, both single player and multi player. The marine campaign was a horror game, the alien campaign was a stealth game, the predator campaign was like a safari and the big game were all those panicky humans.

      AvP 2 had that mostly right, but the multiplayer was buggy and slower paced… not to mention confusing as hell and unbalanced.

      I don’t even want to talk about AvP 2010. ;_;

    • 07/02/2012 at 04:09 pseudoart says:

      The Aliens total conversion for Doom was f***ing scary. I could never get past the second level before I had to shut it off in pure terror. Maybe it didn’t help that I always also played the Aliens soundtrack and turned off all the lights when I gathered enough courage to actually try it.

  14. 04/02/2012 at 11:51 xaronax says:

    Is it just me or is the Pulse Rifle making the Smartgun noise? That’s unforgivable.

  15. 04/02/2012 at 12:02 Demiath says:

    Looks kinda bland and not dissimilar from Rebellion’s recent stab at an Aliens (vs Predator) shooter. Of course there’s not much you can really do from a presentational standpoint, what with the license suffering from the Space Marine syndrome (i.e. being the victim of its own decades-long success).

  16. 04/02/2012 at 12:06 CJ says:

    So far it looks very appealing to me. I assume the chaotic evacuation and crashed space ship gives an excuse to ‘come across’ another marine if one is killed, in much the same way the survivors come across another survivor locked in a cupboard (or similar) if one of the party dies in L4D & L4D2.

  17. 04/02/2012 at 12:43 Rattlepiece says:

    Meh.

  18. 04/02/2012 at 13:05 jimjam says:

    Graphics look slightly worse than AvP3 (which imho looked good) notice the green blood splash effect, v odd.
    Nice to see a few more items from the movie making an appearance.
    To be honest this games going to be one of the 3 below either;
    OK but too linear
    OK but too console focused
    OK but team play is bland

    Either way ppl expect too much from devs on this franchise. IT IS going to be a fair attempt at Aliens the interactive movie which works on the X360.
    I will most likely buy it ONCE it drops in price ;)

  19. 04/02/2012 at 13:15 Rii says:

    I could swear I saw this trailer months ago.

    And it’s looking very dated.

  20. 04/02/2012 at 13:57 Binary77 says:

    That whole era of the Aliens-saga has been done to death by now. Where’s all the cool stuff from the comics, where crazy cults on earth woship the Aliens & use the Queen’s royal jelly as a drug? There’s so much more to work with than going back to the 1986 movie.

  21. 04/02/2012 at 14:08 Gramarye says:

    My computer blue-screened at the exact moment his face got eaten by the queen.

    I’m slightly more interested than I was before.

  22. 04/02/2012 at 15:16 Lazurah says:

    I feel like this game is just going to make references to the Aliens movie ad nauseum. “Hey, you remember that scene in Aliens? Awesome right?! ‘Short controlled bursts!’ Hahaha, we’re such big fans!”
    Pretty sure there’s footage out there with a developer talking over it and doing just that.

  23. 04/02/2012 at 17:07 mrwonko says:

    Good timing, just watched Aliens for the first time yesterday. Intense. Going to revisit Aliens vs. Predator now (the old one), checking out the Alien campaign this time. (The marine campaign was one of the most intense things I’ve played in the last couple of years. Bloody aliens.)

  24. 04/02/2012 at 17:16 Nameless1 says:

    When you see a marine punch an alien you can already be 90% sure the game will be a huge piece of crap.

  25. 04/02/2012 at 18:35 DickSocrates says:

    I want to see what the new android (Rook, an alternate version of Bishop, GEDDIT?!?!) looks like and how he behaves. Assuming there is any ‘behaviour’ and not just AI of guys moving around.

    I wonder also how they handle other marines getting killed. I assume it must all be scripted, unless the team that’s sent down is meant to be very so they could afford to have some emergent kills without it seeming weird like ‘hey, where did that random guy come from, only 6 of us landed and we’re all still here!’

  26. 04/02/2012 at 19:09 clownst0pper says:

    Did anyone else love the original AvP and specifically the marine campaign?

    That was terror and the knowledge you were oh so vastly inferior.

  27. 04/02/2012 at 19:16 Syra says:

    THE GUNS ARE TOO BIG ON THE SCREEN.

  28. 04/02/2012 at 22:10 l1ddl3monkey says:

    Hoping this will be good but still trying to work out why the CGI trailer has the music from the opening credits of Moon on it. You’d have thought if they’ve got to trailer stage that they’d have their own soundtrack by now.

    • 04/02/2012 at 23:54 David Shute says:

      I assume it’s because they wanted to make one of those poignant and melancholic cinematic trailers that are so popular these days (see: Dead Island/Halo/Gears of War,), but since the game itself probably isn’t poignant and melancholic at all there wasn’t any suitable music in the actual soundtrack.

      As to why game marketers feel the need to craft these exquisite adverts that completely misrepresent the style and mood of the game they’re trying to sell in the first place, I have no idea.

    • 05/02/2012 at 09:29 Wisq says:

      Seems like obvious “shotgun marketing” to me. People remember the one ad that piques their interest or resonates with their tastes, and forget all the ads that don’t. Find a dozen ways to misrepresent your product, and you multiply your userbase accordingly. Who cares if they actually like it or not?

  29. 05/02/2012 at 00:30 Turkey says:

    I guess it’s a no-brainer that this is the Alien project Sega would decide to salvage, but it’s still really disappointing.

    The Obsidian RPG could have been something special. I’m not going to care whether a bunch of scripted idiots bites the dust or not, but if I was trying to keep a squad alive I might get a little more invested in the characters.

    I dunno. This is probably great for someone who just wants a modern fps with an Aliens theme, but I’ve already played that game 10 years ago.

  30. 05/02/2012 at 00:32 Hatsworth says:

    The recent DS game looks far more interesting to me.

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