Volitions Advocate on 20/2/2014 at 12:28
Okay so I've spent sometime writing this in a word processor over the last week or so whenever I've had time to spend on it. it is VERY VERY VERY long. close to 6000 words probably. I'm going to insert some headings to make it more easily navigable if you don't want to read the whole thing, which I understand, and I've TL;DR'd my point at the bottom if you just want to read my conclusion.
I put way too much thought into this, but still I hope it might be interesting to a few of you guys, and I'd like to talk about it, because I still didn't get everything down I wanted to mention, and it might come up in conversation.
Also, I didn't do much spelling or grammar checking. I'm sure there are a fair amount of errors, whatever.
Also,, Spoilers. If you care.
here goes:
I need a support group, one were we can talk about how addicted to certain IP's we are. I am thoroughly addicted to the Alien universe. Or I suppose I should say Multi-verse since every screenwriter, game developer, and comicbook author takes and leaves what they want.
I'm going to jump around a bit here, and talk about the movies and games and how I feel about them, mostly because I don't think there's anywhere else on the internet that would facilitate a good discussion about it, and I'm posting in gengaming because I'm going to put a lot of emphasis on the games.
The Movies and How I Feel About ThemI watched Alien and Aliens so much when I was a kid that I found it difficult to distinguish between the two when I was that young. I find it surprising that my parents would let a kid of 5 or 6 years old watch movies like that, but then my parents never really put boundaries on things like that unless it came to "sexy" movies. I was mostly unmoved by the terror that you're supposed to feel from these movies because I must have seen them as adventures more than horror movies. It wasn't until I was about 7 when it started to affect me. I was pretty creative with lego and I used to make Pulse Rifles out of them and play around with them, and when I started to understand what made the movies so scary (of course I didn't stop watching them cause they were awesome) I started to let my little primary school imagination get the better of me. I'd be scared to leave my bed in the middle of the night when I had to go to the bathroom, and I wouldn't really "feel" safe unless I had one of my toy guns with me while I walked the whopping 15 feet from my door down the hall to the bathroom in the pitch blackness.
I share this because I think it illustrates how I manage to put myself into this little universe. I think survival horror and monster games are probably my favorite genre. We're all big System Shock fans and probably branched out from there to other horror games that we all keep talking about over and over (Silent Hill, Penumbra/Amnesia, Resident Evil, FEAR, etc). I don't have problems playing these games, and while they sometimes get really hairy, I can handle them without too much problem. Alien is another story.
Have you ever tried to watch a horror movie with somebody who just cannot enjoy them? I'm not necessarily talking about Slasher flicks, but just somebody who says "it's not scary" and somehow refuses to be affected? I don't actually think there is anything to be afraid of when it comes to watching the movie Alien, but if you really appreciate what the horror genre offers, you can prepare yourself to be affected by these movies and games. Well for some reason, while I do let the horror get to me as much as I can in games like Slient Hill, none of them give me the same level of heebie jeebies as anything relating to Alien. I don't really know why, but there it is. For me anyway.
The GamesWith the announcement of Alien : Isolation I just got the itch to revist everything again. I watched all the movies with the commentary on, because I hadn't done that before, and I learned things that even all the other extra features on the quadrilogy dvds didn't talk about. It was cool. So then I went to the games. At least the newer ones that are easy to run on modern machines without any effort. So I played through AVP, AVP2, AVP 2010, and Colonial Marines again. Oddly enough. This was difficult for me to do. I own all of the games, and AVP2010 I think is my favorite. I know how scandalous that is for the alien lovers community, so I decided I'd play through these games to find out WHY that was the case. And of course to re-examine Colonial Marines and find out just what exactly went wrong without all of the negativity that flooded through the discussion prior to my first play through, which I know coloured my experience.
AVP Classic 2000The first thing that struck me was AVP classic. I psyched myself up for it because we've all said how terrifying the Marine campaign is. THe aliens are faster, there is more of a sense of isolation than in the other AVP games, and despite the lack of a really cohesive story, we all seem to hold it up on a pedestal. Well... I think I've finally broken myself of that idea. AVP classic, (the marine side of things) is pretty terrible in a lot of ways. It isn't really an alien game, it's a twitch shooter. I had to hold shift down the entire time or I'd skate around the map like I was playing Quake. The aliens have no strategy, they just kind of stumble around doorways and entrances until they manage to get through to the compartment you're in and they run straight at you at breakneck speed and rape you without much thought to strategy. Terrifying, sure, but not really challenging in a meaningful way. It's just difficult. We always complain about difficulty for the sake of difficulty. If hiding in a bush in a stealth game which gives zero protection against a sniper a mile away that can see through walls and shoot 100% accurately is a BAD thing, then why is Usain Bolt with the ability to climb on walls and cut your head off with one swipe at a dead sprint something we praise in the alien games? Also, as far as set pieces are concerned you never once, in the marine campaign, have to fight your way though any hive, and with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 individual bots, The aliens never quietly lay in wait for you. AVP classic is not really surhor, it's a 90s era twitch shooter. I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out why so many fans have such a hard time taking the nostalgia glasses off to see AVP classic for what it is. It was awesome at the time, because aside from the failed Aliens: Online, and the Doom: Aliens TC, we never had a FPS in the Alien universe. EDIT: I had forgotten about Alien Trilogy, which I hadn't played much of due to a buggy PC version, and Alien: Resurrection, which I never even saw a gameplay video of until just now when I thought about it. I may have to revisit these.
AVP2Moving on to AVP2. This one was a much more engaging game, and a little bit more forgiving in a lot of ways, while being harder in others. AVP2 was my favorite for a long time. Mostly because it was MOAR Aliens! but also because it was a new experience and put me back in the seat. I liked how the 3 different campaign stories matched up and intertwined. You got a real feel for how the events of one campaign had an effect on the other. It was fun using the pulse rifle to mow down some corporate WY baddies, and the shooting in the Marine campagin is actually some of the best FPS action I've ever played. The Shotgun is still my favorite of all FPS shotguns in any game I have played. (Unreal 2 is a close second). Thankfully the overall pace of the game is less breakneck so you can actually drink in the atmosphere a bit. And while the unrelenting oppressive atmosphere of AVP classic is one of its "strong" points, I think AVP2 had a nice blend of hairy and less hairy bits, which helped the game out a lot. But if we look at the AI, there still isn't a whole lot there. It just comes down to scripted sequences and a lot of jump scares. Kind of like a modified approach to Dooms monster closets. The Expansion didn't really add much other than just more of the same. but with a greater emphasis on larger battles with a lot more aliens. Which I think we can agree is kind of the wrong direction to go. I really liked some of the set pieces that this game introduced though. Frosty going after Hall when she was hived.. I remember the first time I ever played that mission. And when you turn the corner and see the hive in front of you for the first time, with that little opening you can just fit through, I remember feeling like I wish there was an option for Harrison to just decide to give up and turn around. I despaired that I knew this was a game and that I HAD to go through that hell hole in order to continue playing, and then of course after it all, it was completely in vain, because Hall gives birth right as you get to her. I liked that bleak twist at the end rather than it just being a happy ending. Of course AVP2010 and ACM both ripped that very plot device off and worked it their own way (predictably so), which isn't how I'd do it if I were ever to develop an Alien game. (yeah right).
One thing that isnt' very good about AVP2 is the sound design. Especially the music, which is grating and not well scripted. This whole game is basically... Not great but not bad. There's nothing to make it unplayable, and nothing to make it really stand out. But it was certainly welcome, and added a little bit of its own canon to the mix.
Of course where it and its predecessor lacked was any meaningful interaction with the Predator. you square off once as Harrison with the thing, and manage to kill it the first time you have to fight it, which is pretty boring as far as the story goes. The problem with AVP is that it isn't really involving a lot when it comes to the predator side of things. I guess there isn't really a lot to draw from in the films, but it's more like Aliens, with a Predator thrown in the mix, like a not-very well thought out Dark Horse Comics crossover. At least they didn't go terribly crazy with the different alien types. IIRC the "runners" which I think were supposed to be somewhat like the Alien 3 "bambi burster" were just aliens that were birthed by the unlucky corporate soldiers who had undergone genetic experimentation beforehand, although it wasn't explored much.
Quick bit more about the moviesBy this point we were fresh out of new Alien movies, I had not seen any of them in theatres up to Alien 3 because I was too young to see them in theatre. but I DID manage to get into Resurrection when it was playing, and despite the problems with the movie I was excited to see the creature back on screen. Seeing the end of Alien 3 at home after it came out on VHS I remember being devastated at Ripleys death, only because I had watched the first 2 movies so many times that I had difficulty saying goodbye to a character I had grown to love. Well after the disappointing end to A:R I was pretty damn excited with the first AVP movie coming out. I knew right away in the theatres watching it that it wasn't going to be all that good. It was just an excuse to get the aliens and the predators to fight, and everything else (script, canon, character development) was not important. However. I do remember the first time that the full grown alien appears in the film was a very visceral experience for me. It was opening night, and it was the first time the beast had been on the big screen in 7 or 8 years. It was when the geeky guy and the bearded Weyland employee were stuck in those triangular shaped tunnels. When the Alien appeared in the shadows and you could hear it, but not quite see it. You still knew what was there and what was in store for the guys. That moment was just.. amazing. The terror and the anxiety and the excitement. I have a real problem obviously. I really fucking love this monster. It's too bad the rest of the movie was so pedestrian and predictable. We wont get into AVP Requiem. I can't even tell you any names of the characters, except Jesse, cause she was the hot one. Still the scene in the diner, again, pure terror, so awesome.
Here I start to Tackle Canon, and analyze the filmsAnyway. The reason I'm typing all of this out (are you still reading? you're a champ), is I'm trying to make sense of what exactly is acceptable here, in terms of the content creators for the IP. Why does everybody hate Alien 3 and Alien: R so much? And ACM despite all the things it did Right? What is / should be canon?
I'd like to talk a bit about what went on in the movies and how they evolved the IP. What I find really interesting is how we view the creature itself, or how the characters in the films do. I've said a lot of this before in various threads on TTLG but I'll rehash it a bit here. In Alien, the creature was supposed to signify some sort of sexual predator. First thing it does is impregnante a person. In this case a man, which makes it more terrifying to most men, cause, you know, we don't get pregnant. And then there's the implication that some sort of rape went on with the death of Lambert. The thing was cautious, sneaky, and had ulterior motives that we coudln't understand. Kill Brett, but capture Dallas? It was almost like a curious child that didn't know its own strength, but it's actions I think were supposed to tickle a small dark part in our psyche and make us the victim.
Then Aliens comes along and we have a bunch of real soldiers running in, and they all see things as the enemy. The creature is now an army, and its an opposing army, and the rules of engagement are kill them all because they're going to kill you. The thing is it makes logical sense. We've already established the life cycle, and we know there are many many eggs on the planet. So the possibility of more than one of these terrifying perfect killing machines could be present on the colony, one for every colonist, and over 100 in total. That diminishes the horror of the singular creature itself, but it does make sense. So both physically and in our own psyche, the Alien becomes the same thing. A soldier, in an army. All in lock step.
Alien 3, the original version anyway (the one Fox didn't let Fincher release) has a lot more back story to the inmates and their disposition. They are all mutants (XYY) and dont' fit in with normal humanity, and their actions, which are somewhat dictated by the impusles generated by their genetics, show that they dont belong in normal society. Yet they are happy to be prisoners in a penal colony nobody cares about, because the triggers for their aggression and loss of self control are not present. They master themselves here, and find a peace of sorts. They're monastic. The details of their faith aren't important so much as the fact that they have it (for the most part). Ripley represents everything that they have been able to avoid. Her presence makes the demons reappear for them. Lust and Violence. And they think that is what is killing them. Superintendent Andrews thinks that a man walking around with a hard-on can't think enough to not walk into a gigantic fan etc etc. And Junior takes matters into his own hands and tries to rape Ripley. In this case the "Dragon" represents the same. It's this "innocent" creature that has our fears and reasoning projected on to it.
I'm not going to touch Resurrection, I don't think there's any symbolism there, I've half-assed tried to come up with something, but I think its just basically a monster movie, although I guess you could argue that the men are the monsters (pretty much every human in the movie is reprehensible, the only real Hero I can think of might be Purvis), but that's not necessarily a new theme in the Alien universe.
So what strikes me is this. The most pragmatic approach to the alien is probably in Aliens. For the only time so far in cinema, we pit the alien up against trained, tough, battle hardened people with enough technology and firepower to render any single Alien to a smoking hole in the floor. Yes, the fear is gone that was normally felt with only a single creature skulking around a claustrophobic ship, when nobody could challenge its power. But in the end, despite all of the supernatural aspects that the humans project onto the alien, it actually isn't invincible, and has no magical powers. It just does its thing and moves on.
When I listened to James Camerons commentary on Aliens, he was pretty upset about "what Fincher did" by killing off his characters. He figured that every director would obviously want to put his own mark on a film, but that he didn't need to do it by getting rid of what people liked. Honestly. Alien 3 is my favorite of the films, and I think that what they did was necessary. We could have had a sequel were Hicks and Ripley team up to go kill all the aliens, and bishop gets fixed up and we have a merry little alien extermination crew. Imagine how awfully boring that would have been... every movie afterward would have been just like Aliens. It's popularity was enough that pretty much every spinoff takes about 90% from Aliens and either takes the remaining 10% from other sources in the IP or just makes it up. It changed the hero of the franchise. It stopped being the alien and started being the pulse rifle.
So... why do we all love Aliens so much? For our group I think its a little bit hypocritical, and I'll use Dead Space as an analogue. Everybody seems to agree that DS was a pretty damn good SurHor game, despite its current gen console bent and mostly plentiful ammo etc etc etc. Enter Dead Space 2. Instead of arriving at the aftermath, you're there when the SHTF. So there are more necromorphs, more gunplay, less surhor-y goodness and more action, thus ruining the mood and scope of the original game. Well... that's exactly what Aliens did to Alien, and yet Aliens is the cats ass, whereas DS2 is shunned as not being good enough to compete with the original DS.
Aliens Colonial MarinesHaving said that, I'd like to tackle Aliens: Colonial Marines. It IS terrible. But it really bothers me that everybody from this forum to IGN will only talk about what sucks about it, and not praise it for what it does right, and what it does extremely well. If we were to follow the ideas that I've already talked about, with projection and such, then obviously this entire game is going to look at the Aliens as an army. It is, after all, supposed to be a direct sequel to Aliens. So we're talking about lots of aliens. Lots of guns. And lots of fan-service to the fans of the Aliens movie.
Let's talk about what it did wrong first.
The BAD#1 is definitely AI. The aliens aren't very smart. Although TBH they're not any less smart than the aliens in AVP classic or AVP2. They're just not as fast. Their main strategy seems to be to slink around and make it hard to hit them for a bit, before taking a stance and running directly at you full tilt to fuck you up. The only behavior that seems to detract from this is in scripting. If the alien is supposed to pop out of a vent, then climb along the wall for 3 feet, then transition to the roof and walk to the middle of the room, it will do that every time without fail regardless of what you are doing, including shooting at it. At least it is usually possible to kill it before it finishes its little script, but still pretty lame. The worst part is it seems to ignore all of your squad mates and every living thing in the game is after you. It's really immersion breaking when you have 2 squad mates who never get targetted by the aliens. I have noticed, since the patch however, that they start to break up their dogged concentraction on the player character to start screwing with WY corporate NPCS as well as your squad mates, but they seem to be just as oblivious to you when they beeline it to one of your squad as they used to be when doing the same to you. So it seems the AI goes through a targetting phase before attacking, and it just locks on and goes for it, once their game scripting has finished.
#2 Misused set pieces. A perfect example, is the smart gun. You get this at a point in the game where the next move is to walk down a corridor and mow down the 50 aliens it spews at you along the way. You have just enough ammo to get to the end of the corridor before your big awesome fuckoff gun is useless, in a spot that could have really utilized its strengths. (I later played this part by using Cheat Engine and giving myself 10000 rounds so I could at least enjoy the gun a bit more). There is also the femme fatale who gets hived and implated. Just like in AVP2 and 2010. All the extra new species: The acid spitter was an obvious move, especially after how AVP2010 created the subspecies. In ACM they gave it a big funky head that glows in the dark so you can see them. The Raven and the RAM were the 2 most annoying. the Raven is basically a re-skinned Praetorian (albeit it does look pretty cool) whos boss fight is the most glitchy and uselessly uninspired moment in the game (oh look! how convenient, a power loader!) I died 30 times on Hardened difficulty killing that fucking thing. Then there's the Ram. Only ever targets you, is extremely hard to dodge, and very difficult to kill without the day one DLC weapons. Where the fuck did this thing come from exactly? Who cares? It shoudln't have been thought up. then of course there are the explodey ones. That level was tense, but only until you saw the first one. It makes little sense to me that these are aliens in old age, as what seems to be the story. It would have made much more sense that these were what was left of the original Hadleys hope Alien population, the ones that survived the destruction of the atmosphere processor. They might be blind, but explodey? Come.. ON. So much wasted potential in that level, with so many dead alien husks sitting around... could have been much more interesting in not knowing which were husks and which were alive.
#3 Large Combat. The Alien AI in the game can still work despite its flaws. Especially the Lurker (vs. the soldier). The lurker is characterized by the Alien style head as opposed to the Soldiers' AlienS style head. It lays in wait, camoflauging itself among the hive gunk, and uses hit and run tactics. The problem is the Solder aliens do not do this and just try to kill you head on. And mostly all of the large open areas involving many aliens and WY soldiers, are populated with the Solder aliens. Making the outdoor and large scale combat, quite repetitive, uninspiring, and NOT scary in anyway. Might not have been so noticable if it had been done once or maybe even twice. But not over and over again.
#4 HICKS... FUCKING... HICKS. Okay... so. When it gets to the point of the game where you're told that there is a surviving Marine from the Sulaco, you're given a couple levels to figure out who the hell it might be. I thought about the movie and tried to really think about who they might resurrect based on the events of the movie. And my vote fell firmly on either Apone or Hudson. both get nabbed by aliens, but we never actually see them die. Hudson specifically mentions that the Sarge ain't dead. Of course Hudson couldn't be the case because you see his hived and chestbursted body as you're trying to escape the sewer level. I figured if WY came to LV-426, they just might have found Apone and captured him. Perhaps removing the embryo from his chest if he had been hived, or maybe the stubborn SOB fought his way free somehow and survived the explosion, which is unlikely, but no more unlikely than WY having a captured marine from the Sulaco. but no.. It was Hicks. The most obvious fan-service choice. With an explanation so dumb it's just hard to believe. "That's a long Story" says Hicks. ugh. I was very disappointed by this. The full explanation comes from the DLC "Stasis Interrupted", which really wasn't too bad. But it has the feeling of trying to hard to fill in the holes.
Alright, those are the most glaring things I can think of, we've discussed them a bit here as well, and there are other problems, but those are the biggest ones I can think of. Having squad mates nearly the entire game makes it much less scary. I can think of many of the levels that would have been actually frightening to play if Winter had to do it alone. Like a lot of the spots in "For Bella" when you're going through the abaondoned areas of the Origin facility.
The GoodOK so... lets talk about what A:CM did right. The list is bigger than you might think.
#1 Aesthetics and Art. Everything in this game screams of quality assets done by the development teams. Sure I mentioned how the hive scared the shit out of me in AVP2 when I had to run in there. But even AVP2010 with its superior graphics in the series did not illicit the same nostalgia and dread as the artwork done for the hive sections in ACM. It came straight out of the movie, exactly as it had been seen there. The gadgets came straight from the film as well, everything from the laptops to the video cameras had an authentic retro-future look that the film had. Lots of CRT monitors. Analog keypads. All sorts of things that we thought the future would have back in the 80s because we didn't know about the advancements we'd have in the following 20 - 30 years. But they also threw in some stuff from Alien and even a small nod to Prometheus here and there. The weapons, even the ones that were not in the film, showed some inspiration from the 1st, 2nd, and 4th films. Maybe the WY people had access to better or more state-of-the-art weapons than the marines did, not far fetched considering what government procurement would be like compared to corporate assets. The map design and textures are straight out of the film too. Every environment in the game screams of a very dedicated art team that wanted the players to feell so much nostalgia they coudln't separate the game from the movie, and I'll put my big fat stamp of approval on it, because it worked for me. The sound design is especially authentic. Every beep and boop has been re-created and sounds indistinguishable from the sounds in the movie. Even the pulse rifle sounds really good. Much better than the gameplay videos originally showed.
I'll concede the point that when it was first released, the art assets were gimped by the release build. I saw a youtube video of somebody doing a side by side comparison of the E3 footage vs the finished product. It obviously went through a consoleization process to deal with the current gen (or I suppose last gen at this point) consoles limitations. Well after the big patch, the game looks as good as those E3 videos. They restored a lot of detail in the levels as well, I wont get into the details, you can watch the video (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2qVebxlUo) HERE and see for yourself. The patched version is the *RIGHT* version to play. Even the "Alamo" type sections were much better. During the escape from Hadleys hope, when you are in one of the garages and have to fend of a large attack, there is such a visceral part to the combat that was not really present before the patch. It is a fight in the dark. Everybody's pulse rifle strobes the entire room, sparks fly off the bodies of the aliens as the bullets explode on impact, it felt JUST LIKE the movie.
#2 Pacing. for the important parts anyway. I mentioned the large combat parts and how tedious they were. Well disregarding those drawn out sections, the rest of the game had marvelous pacing. You might not have had the isolation to terrify you, but it made up for that with the context of the story, and where it put you. The opening scene of the game felt a bit rushed, throwing you directly into a hived section, but by the time you team up with O'Neal after being stranded on Sulaco, there are some really great moments that you are permitted to just drink in without having to worry about jump scares or gameyness to interrupt it. The first scene I can think of is finding the observation / research area with the cameras filming the hived marines behind the hardened glass. The conversation goes the natural way of "WTF is going on here?" which might be a tad cliche and expected, but you can look it over, view the details of the scene, check out the "props" and really put yourself into the scene. Later as you enter Hadley's hope and follow along the same path that the team did in the film, even bypassing the main door just like Hudson did, and arriving at Operations, you can look around and see all the same things that the marines in the movie did but from a FPP. Of course the added destruction from their own battle, added to the original fight from the colonists and compounded by the explosion. But the spirit of the film is just ooozing at that point. Even when O'Neal and Bella peer down into the grate where Hudson was pulled under, you are given a chance to just absorb it. It was fantastic. Later you're walking through one of the labs where they study the Xenos that are fully grown. You go from lab to lab, first seeing facehuggers behind glass, then on test subjects (or birthing vessels I guess), then the full grown warrior aliens in big glass test tubes. Then you walk into a hallway that is so easy to miss if you don't stop to pay attention to the richness of the environment (on my first playthrough I just saw it as a hallway and ran to the other end). It was like being in the dark insect building of a zoo. the scary stuff is behind the glass and you're craning your neck to see the little dormant scorpion or what-have-you. Except these are full grown Xenomorphs behind inches of glass. All different types of them, jsut staring at you from the darkness, and you'll never see them in the dark hallway unless you stop rushing through the game and shine your flashlight through the glass.
#3 Characterization. in AvP2 you play Frosty. He's pretty boring. has no problems going on suicide missions on his own, and pretty much dont' react to much other than Halls death. which seems to have an exaggerated effect on everybody in his unit. He's pretty flat, but at least he isn't the mute that you are in the other 2 AVP games. Rookie is pretty Stoic in AVP2010 for all the crap goin on around him I think. Winter on the other hand is a pretty interesting guy. The devs really struck a good balance between a mute stoic that you project yoruself onto, and a full fledged scripted and typecast character, who you get to watch rather than participate with. He is just enough of both that you can still role play with him, while enjoying his performance. He's also a pretty grizzled guy, looks to be in his 40s rather than some young rookie type. The other members of the squad are all pretty engaging as well, except for maybe O'Neal, who is a bit of a cliche. Cruz is a pretty badass CO, even though you don't see a lot of him, and his interaction with the marines and Bishop flesh him out as much as can be expected in this medium. Lance Henricksen is of course amazing as he always is, and bishops character is done very well. the Sephoras bishop (as well as the entire Sephora crew) seems to be a lot more seasoned than his Sulaco counterpart. He is a very useful assistant to Cruz and seems to understand exactly what he needs to do and is less timid than the Sulaco bishop. He's a straight shooter and advises the whole team and seems to be quite trusted. I really liked what they did to his character. It's funny how the simplest things can really help flesh out a character in ways youd' think were ridiculous. During the first attack on Operations, you set up a sentry gun, and fight off a few small waves of solder aliens with Cruz and O'Neal, the aliens are swarming in the room and during the battle, Bishop is patiently standing in the corner working on his computer, seemingly unphased by danger. Of course this makes sense, he isn't a combat android and the marines will take care of things. It was another great moment. I wont get into further detail other than to say that for the most part, the characters had a life of their own, while I can't say I particularly "cared" about them like I did Ripley, they weren't just throwaway props. They lived and breathed within the story. It wasn't perfect, the fight between Bella and Reid seemed a bit forced. But gems like Winter and O'Neal being reunited in the sewers, starving of ammo and frazzled with imminent death on their shoulders (Winter completely weaponless at the time). I imagine how I might react in that situation. "Hey" "hey" "good talk" "yep" ... It worked. Added more personality to the characters. Much better than " here is your next objective I've marked it on your map"
TL;DRAt this point it seems I've written over 5000 words, which is half a term paper in some of my university classes. If only it were this easy to write essays for school.
I've talked a lot, and so for now I think i'll finish. This is mostly my point.
Aliens Colonial Marines has some huge glaring problems. But it is not the steaming pile of shit that everybody claims it is. It has some very good redeeming points to it. I just finished playing it for the 3rd time. I played it once when it came out. Had a bad taste in my mouth, Played it again last week. Then I patched it. and immediately replayed it, on a harder difficulty. There are times when I ragequit because of how buggy or stupid some sections were, but I just had to finish. I enjoyed a LOT of it, despite the setbacks.
The fact is. Aliens the film, is everything you hate about stuff pretending to be survival horror. Yes, the Alien is at its most terrifying when you're alone with it, don't know where it is, and can't kill it. But that's not what happened in Aliens, There were lots of them, and lots of soldiers with big guns to kill lots of them. But we think Aliens was an awesome movie. So why do we think Colonial Marines is a shitty game because it follows suit with the movie? If we hate ACM because its not Alien, then we missed the point. If we love Aliens but hate ACM, we've also missed the point. Sure, the jargon between the marines was less COD in the film than in ACM, but they ARE marines, and Cameron himself says in the commentary that later he realized he had gotten it wrong, and that soldiers would not be flippant, insubordinate, and undisciplined as the Sulaco crew was.
I'd say buy ACM in the next sale and play it. And instead of looking for all the stuff that is wrong with it (trust me, you wont have really strain to find it, it kind of just shows up and smacks you in the face), Try to find what it does RIGHT, enjoy yourself, mourn poor Hudsons fate, and look forward to the next one, which thankfully shifts the paradigm in such a much needed direction for the franchise. I know I'm looking forward to Alien: Isolation.
