I heard dire things before I got hold of a copy of this game (cheaply, I might add) and I feared the worst. But for what I paid for it, I thought even a bad game might be worth it.
Firstly, the good things. It's nice to be able to walk around the colony on LV-426. It looks reasonable and they have paid considerable attention to the movie to get the look right. The sound effects are straight out of the movie and spot on. Also, gameplay isn't at all hard and features no quick-time events.
Right, to the bad. Characters are terribly badly fleshed out. In fact, the term 'fleshed out' implies some substance. There isn't any. For a story driven game (supposedly) the marines have all the charisma and likability of store mannequins. Likewise with the store mannequin analogy, the character facial models are some of the most lifeless I've seen for a very long time. They all manage to look like some kind of doppelganger pod-people. No expression at all.
Finally, the ugly. Bugs, and not the xenomorph kind. In one playthrough I saw a ton of them. Aliens getting stuck in and against things. Aliens not dying despite being motionless and shot at repeatedly by NPC marines. In one instance, you and three other marines get trapped in an arena-like area with a boss alien. You can't progress until you kill the boss alien. So it didn't help when I somehow managed to punch the boss out of the arena with the powerloader. The boss couldn't get back in and we couldn't get out. Hence the game repetitively sent swarms of lesser aliens at us. I could have played on endlessly but instead chose to redo from the last checkpoint, which was the only way to rectify the issue.
Apart from the above there's also a terrible lack of anything like intelligence in both the alien and marine AI. Aliens just run at you. In fact, they seem to target you, happily running past an NPC marine to get to you, and you only. Fortunately, the simple tactic of taking a step forward when they spring seems to work every time to foil their attacks. Don't bother turning to kill them. Just keep walking and most of the levels can be completed without much actual fighting.
As for the marines AI, well, it is even worse. Either they wander off, fail to shoot at enemies, or just stand in the damn way. Don't worry about leaving them behind (the game repeatedly beats you about the head with the "No one left behind" motto) because they all have the ability to magically teleport to your location if you get too far ahead. No, I mean that literally! They appear with a little flash of light, rather like Q from Star Trek Next Generation! Poor structure of missions and a surprising lack of clue as to what to do is also present. There appears to be nothing like a tutorial in the game, so you can lose track of what you are supposed to do next if your attention wanders or you fall asleep for a moment due to excessive excitement.
But, but, it has a story, right? Surely that makes up for it? No, not at all. The story is pretty simple and everything plays out exactly as you expect. The only surprise comes later in the game when they reveal that... gasp!... one of the marines from the movie survived! I'm going to tell you who it is in the next paragraph, so skip it if you don't want that bit "spoiled".
So, one of the marines survives. I was wracking my brains before I caught up with him as to who it might be, mentally ticking off all the marines that you don't actually see get killed in the film. You can understand my "What the f&$k!" moment when it turns out to be Hicks. Yes, you read that right. Hicks. How he ends up there, when we all saw him dead in Alien 3 (and they even mention that fact in-game) is hand-waved away with the comment from Hicks "That is a long story." No, that's it. That's all he says. No further explanation at all! Then again, he is one of the magically teleporting NPC marines, so maybe he just appeared in a flash of light. Good grief.
You can guess I wasn't at all impressed with ACM. It looks like a game still in beta and from ten years ago. If you look at the demo they showed for it, then the actual game is nothing like as rich or detailed. What it is, is a lazy-ass effort that utterly did not deserve the full price many paid for it. As an Indie effort, I'd be lauding the achievement. But for a game studio like Gearbox to take credit for this is totally laughable.
How many years did this take to get out? How much money did Gearbox get from Sega? How much money did they make off poor fools paying full price for a game that was nothing like it was advertised to be? I don't know the answers. Time was, you could rely on certain developers and publishers to produce good games. These days, not so much.
SUMMARY: Hellishly glad I didn't pay anything like full-price for this turkey. Underwhelming in nearly every department and downright insulting in some areas. My advice. Not even worth playing if you can get it for free. Go watch Aliens the movie instead. It's the only way to be sure...
Firstly, the good things. It's nice to be able to walk around the colony on LV-426. It looks reasonable and they have paid considerable attention to the movie to get the look right. The sound effects are straight out of the movie and spot on. Also, gameplay isn't at all hard and features no quick-time events.
Right, to the bad. Characters are terribly badly fleshed out. In fact, the term 'fleshed out' implies some substance. There isn't any. For a story driven game (supposedly) the marines have all the charisma and likability of store mannequins. Likewise with the store mannequin analogy, the character facial models are some of the most lifeless I've seen for a very long time. They all manage to look like some kind of doppelganger pod-people. No expression at all.
Finally, the ugly. Bugs, and not the xenomorph kind. In one playthrough I saw a ton of them. Aliens getting stuck in and against things. Aliens not dying despite being motionless and shot at repeatedly by NPC marines. In one instance, you and three other marines get trapped in an arena-like area with a boss alien. You can't progress until you kill the boss alien. So it didn't help when I somehow managed to punch the boss out of the arena with the powerloader. The boss couldn't get back in and we couldn't get out. Hence the game repetitively sent swarms of lesser aliens at us. I could have played on endlessly but instead chose to redo from the last checkpoint, which was the only way to rectify the issue.
Apart from the above there's also a terrible lack of anything like intelligence in both the alien and marine AI. Aliens just run at you. In fact, they seem to target you, happily running past an NPC marine to get to you, and you only. Fortunately, the simple tactic of taking a step forward when they spring seems to work every time to foil their attacks. Don't bother turning to kill them. Just keep walking and most of the levels can be completed without much actual fighting.
As for the marines AI, well, it is even worse. Either they wander off, fail to shoot at enemies, or just stand in the damn way. Don't worry about leaving them behind (the game repeatedly beats you about the head with the "No one left behind" motto) because they all have the ability to magically teleport to your location if you get too far ahead. No, I mean that literally! They appear with a little flash of light, rather like Q from Star Trek Next Generation! Poor structure of missions and a surprising lack of clue as to what to do is also present. There appears to be nothing like a tutorial in the game, so you can lose track of what you are supposed to do next if your attention wanders or you fall asleep for a moment due to excessive excitement.
But, but, it has a story, right? Surely that makes up for it? No, not at all. The story is pretty simple and everything plays out exactly as you expect. The only surprise comes later in the game when they reveal that... gasp!... one of the marines from the movie survived! I'm going to tell you who it is in the next paragraph, so skip it if you don't want that bit "spoiled".
So, one of the marines survives. I was wracking my brains before I caught up with him as to who it might be, mentally ticking off all the marines that you don't actually see get killed in the film. You can understand my "What the f&$k!" moment when it turns out to be Hicks. Yes, you read that right. Hicks. How he ends up there, when we all saw him dead in Alien 3 (and they even mention that fact in-game) is hand-waved away with the comment from Hicks "That is a long story." No, that's it. That's all he says. No further explanation at all! Then again, he is one of the magically teleporting NPC marines, so maybe he just appeared in a flash of light. Good grief.
You can guess I wasn't at all impressed with ACM. It looks like a game still in beta and from ten years ago. If you look at the demo they showed for it, then the actual game is nothing like as rich or detailed. What it is, is a lazy-ass effort that utterly did not deserve the full price many paid for it. As an Indie effort, I'd be lauding the achievement. But for a game studio like Gearbox to take credit for this is totally laughable.
How many years did this take to get out? How much money did Gearbox get from Sega? How much money did they make off poor fools paying full price for a game that was nothing like it was advertised to be? I don't know the answers. Time was, you could rely on certain developers and publishers to produce good games. These days, not so much.
SUMMARY: Hellishly glad I didn't pay anything like full-price for this turkey. Underwhelming in nearly every department and downright insulting in some areas. My advice. Not even worth playing if you can get it for free. Go watch Aliens the movie instead. It's the only way to be sure...