Aliens: Colonial Marines Has Quick-Time Events
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
Alright, call it a blind, silly prejudice if you like. Unfortunately there are some elements of gaming my petty little mind is going to remain closed to until someone does 'em well enough to convince me otherwise, and QTEs are right there at the top of the pile o'despicability. They're just about palatable in the occasional console hack'n'slasher, but I really can't imagine they'd be appropriate in a first-person-perspective Aliens game. I'm already having nightmare visions of hitting left, right, right, left, space in exactly that order to remove a ravenous Facehugger from my head.
I will stress I have not seen this in action myself. My histrionics may well prove entirely unjustified. However, my undying love for the first AvP game means I'm really very excited about Colonial Marines. That's why I was so upset to spot this horror lurking within Games Radar's brief summation of a playable build:
"It has quick-time events. But, fortunately, instead of huge button-icons appearing on screen and destroying the brooding atmosphere, subtle colour-coded tinges to the edges of your view will alert you to a required button press."
I just have one question. How do I get out of this chickenshit glorified Simon Says minigame?
Okay, the colour-coded tints are a smart approach (though at a guess they'll be geared towards the hues of an Xbox 360 pad), as they won't entirely disrupt the tension and, if they really pull it off, could work on an almost subliminal level, but "required button press" makes me want to scream.
Still, it's the work of Gearbox, and not some rookie studio who simply couldn't work out a decent way to depict high-action scenes their control set isn't otherwise capable of, so I'm mostly confident it won't be as jarring as it sounds. Mostly.*
More positively, the promise of four-player co-op, confirmed as drop in and drop out, rather than static sessions, makes me tremble like an orphaned colonial pre-teen hiding in a ventilation system, as does talk of the Xenos' acid blood distorting the environment. I'm already planning ludicrously geeky LAN parties.
*Actually, I'm not confident. I just wanted to say the quote. I can't imagine any way in which Colonial Marines will be a better game for having QTEs, though you may. I'll see if I can get a comment out of Gearbox on the matter - it's the only way to be sure. It may be that they've genuinely devised a clever, relevant take on QTEs, or it may suggest a misguided desire to be "cinematic" has found its way into the game. I'll be very happy for my knee-jerk panic to be proven foolish.