2013's most notorious video game release was undoubtedly Aliens: Colonial Marines, a title that promised a lot and delivered a dumpster fire in return. The launch was so bad, in fact, that, as reported by IGN, both Gearbox and SEGA were dragged into a major lawsuit surrounding the game's production cycle, and the inferior final product that in no way represented the previously released gameplay demonstrations.
The question is whether the game was truly as bad as players remember or if the outrage over its mishandled production amplified customer resentment. Underneath the broken promises, inferior visuals, and broken AI is a game that still manages to do something with its source material—even if it failed to hit a high watermark.
The Premise Was Solid
If ACM had anything going for it, it was the storyline that picked up right after the events of James Cameron's 1986 big-budget sequel Aliens. The promise of going back to LV-426 in the wake of the massive explosion at Hadley's Hope seemed to indicate that there was more to the story than Ripley and Newt going into hypersleep.
Despite a head-scratching amount of plot holes and contradictions, the feel of Aliens is there. Claustrophobic corridors, movie-worthy music and sound effects, and a new batch of xenomorphs are combined with a tale about a new group of marines investigating what really happened to the lost colony on LV-426.
It Felt Like Aliens
With so many nods to the Aliens film, it was impossible not to feel thrown back into that universe and at the center of the action. What transpired didn't exactly light a fire, but it was noteworthy for replicating the same industrial used future elements that made the movies such a great hit.
Implementation of the game within this rich environment was done poorly, but points should be given for trying. The Colonial Marine theme is obviously the linchpin keeping the entire thing together—along with duct tape and a prayer—and for some Aliens fans, that's enough.
Faithful Audio
Audio was a huge component that helped make the Aliens movies such longstanding mega-hits, and James Cameron knew how to leverage it for maximum effect. The haunting beeps of the motion tracker, the phaser-drenched sound of the pulse rifle, and the terrifying hisses of the xenomorphs were all cues that helped drive the action.
ACM recognized all of this and duplicated those same effects in-game in an attempt to replicate the feel. Sound design is an important part of a visceral horror experience, and, in this area, the game managed to shine. Plus, it helped deliver heavily on the nostalgia front, which was a love note for fans.
The Return Of Hicks
As bizarre as it sounds, ACM did manage to pump out some DLC before the developers abandoned it. The final release was Stasis Interrupted, which was heavily centered on the fan-favorite character Hicks, one of the sole survivors of Aliens. Better still, veteran character actor Michael Biehn was on hand to lend his voice talents to the title.
Unfortunately, the attempt to "resurrect" Hicks by retconning the events of Alien 3 didn't exactly pan out, and, as per PC Gamer, Biehn was apparently so frustrated with the script that he purposely gave a bad vocal performance. Still, it was a noble attempt to try and bring back a fan favorite, even if it was done in the worst way possible.
Decent Combat
The FPS shooter genre is saturated with a number of big-name hits and littered with an innumerable amount of failures. ACM falls into the latter category due to its execution, but the gameplay isn't quite as terrible as it's made out to be. There's fun to be had, but it was heavily hampered by notoriously bad AI scripting.
In a bizarre twist of fate, a video game modder by the name of James Dickinson found a small typo in the game's AI code that effectively hamstrung the entire mechanic. The game shipped with this typo in the code which ended up causing serious damage to the game's reputation. When fixed, enemy AI was significantly improved, as it should have been from the start.
Fairly Good Scares
Lack of functional AI notwithstanding, ACM relied heavily on its franchise title to sell the scares, and it succeeded at least halfway thanks to a decent amount of tension. It's not all running and gunning from one point to the next; there are elements of surprise and terror lurking in many of the game's levels.
Mission 5 is perhaps the scariest of the bunch, eliciting terror akin to the first Alien film, with nods to the sequel. In this level, xenomorphs called "Boilers" stalk a dimly lit sewer tunnel in search of the player. They rely exclusively on loud noises to locate victims, which means every step is a heart-pounding challenge.
Interesting Canonical Developments
Aliens is one of the best sci-fi extraterrestrial sequels of all time, and ACM tried its best to ingratiate itself into franchise canon—even if it didn't quite pan out. Indeed, the entire franchise has become quite convoluted since Ridley Scott's infamous Prometheus and Alien: Covenant installments, which did more narrative harm than good.
However, the game tries to get as creative as it can with the source material. For instance, it's revealed for the first time that the facehugger's embryo creates a cancerous bond with its host that turns fatally malignant, even if the parasite is removed. It's one example of a divisive yet bold attempt to do something new with the material.
Hadley's Hope, Post-Explosion
One of the highlights of the game is easily the return to the surface of LV-426, which has been turned into a wreck following the explosion of the atmospheric processing plant in Aliens. Though the game never fully explains why the entire area wasn't glassed for miles in every direction, it can be forgiven for the sake of atmosphere.
Long have Aliens fans dreamt of participating in an immersive game that takes place on this fabled, ominous planetoid. Unfortunately, it came wrapped in the wrong package, but at least it allowed players to walk a few miles around Hadley's Hope to soak up the nostalgia and movie references.
Strong Multiplayer
If ACM had anything going for it, it was undoubtedly the multiplayer. Though the fun didn't last long, it was a blast teaming up with other players to combat waves of incoming xeno hordes, many of which were far different from the stock drone variety seen in Aliens. Players also enjoyed being able to play as the xenos, which hadn't been seen since the popular Aliens vs. Predator series of video games.
Perhaps that's the real travesty of the game. Had it ditched the single-player campaign in favor of a focused multiplayer experience a la Left 4 Dead, it might have fared better. This is a fact evidenced by the fairly positive response to the recently released Aliens: Fireteam Elite, which prioritized the co-op multiplayer experience.
It Wasn't The End Of Alien Games
As sour a taste as ACM was, the game wasn't terrible enough to kill off the Aliens video games altogether. While this might seem obvious given the uber-popularity of the movie franchise, it's more than that. Yes, the ball was dropped in a big way, but it also gave SEGA an opportunity to learn from its mistakes.
The result was Alien Isolation, another attempt to canonize the events between Alien and Aliens. That game managed to capitalize on all the strengths of the Alien franchise while avoiding the weaknesses of Aliens: Colonial Marines. The two games are quite different in terms of gameplay and scope, but ACM might have served as a bitter pill that led to a much more focused and effective follow-up.