E3 2011: At Sega's E3 stand, we only had eyes for the giant bunker showing off Aliens: Colonial Marines. Game over, man!
A lot of what was on Sega’s booth was console and kid-focused. The younger gamer market is a huge business. But, there was one title we knew we couldn’t miss, and if it’s a good ‘un, then it’s going to be an incredible PC gaming experience.
It’s Aliens: Colonial Marines. Drake, we are leaving…
Aliens: Colonial Marines Yes, we’re leaving, and the place we’re going to is LV 426 and environs. The game announcement the other week hinted at the game’s plot – the Sulaco has been found in orbit around L426, and the Colonial Marines have been called in to investigate.
We got to see a new trailer at E3, which hinted that the initial boarding mission does not go well. In fact, it goes thoroughly pear-shaped, and let me tell, you watching that mighty ship – at least, it looked like the Sulaco – crash to earth could be one of the most epic things we saw all show. Not the top one, but close.
After the trailer we went hands on, and man, this is one cleverly designed game. Maybe it’s the size of the screen we saw it on, but there’s something really odd with the game’s sense of scale – everything feels remarkably… close and intense, like the models and environments have been upscaled. Combined with a great use not only of light and shadow, but also colours of light, this is easily the best looking Aliens game ever made. It’s a masterpiece of cinematic mise-en-scene, that truly makes you feel like you’re following the actually footsteps of Ripley and Hicks.
The other thing we really want to focus on here – we’ll likely talk in more detail in an upcoming issue about the game – is the combat. I don’t know about you guys, but Aliens is about firepower vs alien ferocity, and that’s something that the last Aliens Vs Predator forgot. In that game, the bugs were powerhouses needing an entire pulse rifle clip to take down. Not so in A:CM; here, the short, controlled bursts of the movie work just as they should.
And so do power loaders. ‘Nuff said. You can never really judge an FPS until you have the mouse in your hand, but this is looking like a great shooter as well as tense iteration of the Aliens franchise. As Randy Pitchford put it, “this is the real sequel to Aliens”.
That said, one of the great things that made AVP2 great was the fact that it takes you a while before you even see a xenomorph. It had that wonderful sense of first act build-up that made the Aliens film so suspenseful. Hopefully Aliens can match that just as well as it can the physical setting.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012