Aliens: Colonial Marines

[JayDizzle]

got this game pre-owned..........it is soooooo bad in campaign mode; i cant imagine online being good at all.

From what I've seen and heard through YouTube accounts of the game, it's not too shabby online but you have to work as a team (something I don't see on consoles with lack of mics these days) and most people who play as the Aliens don't sneak around like they should and end up pasted against the wall within seconds.

[Twigg4075]

I'm shocked that this hasn't be on sale for $40 yet. Although my price point is still $20.

[Twigg4075]

So I had a free rental code from Red Box and rented thhis the other night. Oh man is it bad. Mostly because the difficulty is a fucking joke. I was playing on Normal and you constantly have aliens leaping at you and they swipe you once and you're dead. I've read on other forums that this difficulty spike coincided with a recent patch. It's literally rage inducing. Not only are the enemies ridiculously overpowered and surround you constantly but they apparently spaced the checkpoints further apart in the patch. Higher difficulty+further checkpoints=broken controller. It took me about two hours and nuerous retries just to get through the first chapter! Swarley can vouch how badly I was raging on Xbox Live while he was simultaneously raging over the final section of Infinite on Hard.

Most of the game looks pretty good but a lof of the stoff in the environemnt (creates, desks, computers, etc) look like they were, no shit, pulled out of a PS2 game. I also noticed several bugs where character models made very awkward movements (seeing one character's head showed into his own armpit) and erratic enemy behavior. The friendly AI is also dumb as fuck and no help whatsoever. They can have five aliens standing right behind them while they have their back to them talking to you.

Playing the game in co-op might alleviate a lot of the issues though.

[JayDizzle]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/30/4287382/aliens-colonial-marines-lawsuit-class-action-sega-gearbox

Gearbox and Sega falsely advertised Aliens: Colonial Marines with press demos, according to lawsuit

Sega and Gearbox Software are the defendants in a class action suit claiming the two companies falsely advertised Aliens: Colonial Marines with unrepresentative trade show demonstrations.

The suit, obtained by Polygon earlier today, was filed yesterday in the Northern District of California court by law firm Edelson LLC on behalf of plaintiff Damion Perrine. Citing a number of California civil and business codes, the suit claims that Gearbox and Sega falsely advertised Aliens by showing demos at trade shows like PAX and E3 which didn't end up being accurate representations of the final product.

These demos, which Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford called "actual gameplay," according to filing, were criticized after the game's launch for featuring graphical fidelity, AI behavior and even entire levels not featured in the game. Our review of Aliens: Colonial Marines featured a gallery highlighting some of the differences between a 2012 video walkthrough of the title, and the same level in the final version of the game.

The suit claims that by sending out review code to the press under an embargo that lifted in the early morning of Aliens: Colonial Marines' launch date of Feb. 12, the game's pre-orderers and early adopters would have no knowledge of the discrepancies between the demo and final game. As such, it seeks damages for anyone who purchased the game on or before its release date.

"Each of the 'actual gameplay' demonstrations purported to show consumers exactly what they would be buying: a cutting edge video game with very specific features and qualities," the claim reads. "Unfortunately for their fans, Defendants never told anyone — consumers, industry critics, reviewers, or reporters — that their 'actual gameplay' demonstration advertising campaign bore little resemblance to the retail product that would eventually be sold to a large community of unwitting purchasers."

The class action suit also cites a tweet from Pitchford, published a week after the game's launch, as acknowledgement of the differences between the demo and game.

"That is understood and fair and we are looking at that," Pitchford said in response to a tweet asking about the press demo discrepancies. "Lots of info to parse, lots of stake holders to respect."

""We think the video game industry is no different than any other that deals with consumers""

We reached out to Edelson to find out why they had decided to take on Perrine's case.

"The gaming community had a strong reaction to the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines," Edelson LLC's Ben Thomassen told Polygon. "We think the video game industry is no different than any other that deals with consumers: if companies like Sega and Gearbox promise their customers one thing but deliver something else, then they should be held accountable for that decision."

[Twigg4075]

Interesting. I know that the PS Nation podcast guys had mentioned several times that the final game didn't seem to be anywhere near the same quality that they had played at a demo event months and months earlier.

Oh, and Gamefly had the PS3 version for $9.99 but it appears to be OOS now. If it comes back in stock I'd be willing to co-op for that price.

[padman59]

I know this is a shitty game, but this might be a bad precedent if the plaintiff wins. There are multiple examples of developers showing dressed up versions of their games in their promotional content or simply changing features before shipping the final product.

[Twigg4075]

I know this is a shitty game, but this might be a bad precedent if the plaintiff wins. There are multiple examples of developers showing dressed up versions of their games in their promotional content or simply changing features before shipping the final product.

Absolutely true, but I think this situation is more unique. It seems as if Gearbox was intentionally showing a much better, at least looking, game, and then nothing until release.