Nah, what happened was, Sega signed a contract with Gearbox to do an FPS based on Aliens. Announced it, everyone was happy. Then they announced AvP which Rebellion were doing would be out first. Gearbox then put Aliens on the backburner & did their own game, Borderlands, which proved to be a hit.
Then, when they should have been fulfilling their contract to Sega & concentrating on Aliens, they decided to do Borderlands 2. It's their own IP so it makes them more money after all. Contract be damned. Then they inexplicably decided to buy Duke Nukem Forever & attempt to finish that for a release, presumably as they saw dollar signs & figured it would take little effort. So they've now got 3 games on the go. 1 of which is owned by someone else, 1 of which is their baby & 1 they've bought just to throw together & get some money out of.
So they outsourced development of Aliens to someone else, crapped out Duke Nukem (which is awful beyond belief) & concentrated on making Borderlands 2. They showed a 'gameplay demo' of Aliens at E3, & everyone got excited because it looked exactly like the game fans had been waiting for. Unfortunately, it wasn't a real gameplay demo, it was a massive lie, designed to make it look like they'd actually done something.
So they're finishing up Borderlands 2 & Sega are, understandably, wondering what's happening with their game. So they negotiate a delay with Sega to 'polish up' Aliens for release, & then use much of that time to actually polish up Borderlands 2. Once that's done, they get Aliens back from Timegate, the company they've outsourced it to... and it's a mess. They don't have time to fix it, as Sega rightly want their game in stores so they can finally actually get a return for their investment.
So they basically did a Duke Nukem on it. Take unfinished parts, stitch them together as best they can, throw it out there & hope for the best. And it shows. Some parts look decent, others are extremely basic, the AI doesn't work as it should, the lighting system has been simplified so it looks flat & dull, the storyline is a mess & it's full of bugs & glitches. Gameplay is the most basic fetch quest, push button, shooting gallery nonsense with none of the desperate sieges we were promised. It's a poor man's Doom 3 basically.
And all just to get something remotely playable out of the door to avoid Sega suing them.
We were so wrong...
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briangcb
11 years ago
Well that sounds believable. Sega should still sue them for the game lol. Order a massive recall, give everyone vouchers, give the game to Rebellion, have them re-do it, then re-release it calling it "Aliens: Colonial Marines - We're sorry."
All I know about boxing is never bet on the white guy. - Frank Drebin
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Gunnery
11 years ago
Recall? We should all get a damn refund! For the game and season pass I foolishly pr-ordered! It was blatant false advertisement and if it were any other business regulated by the government, they would have been fined and have their license revoked! As is, the state of this game is only 75 percent and I don't think any amount of patches can salvage this train wreck. I also don't think outraged buyers who felt cheated will let it rest and some legal action will result out of this debacle.
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briangcb
11 years ago
Yeah...recalls tend to lead to refunds...or vouchers if they tore the game down and built it from the ground up. It was only a half-serious comment.
All I know about boxing is never bet on the white guy. - Frank Drebin
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yarmen12
11 years ago
Clicks on the page for this game, sees that the rating is 6.4, after YEARS of hearing about it and anticipating it, watching countless interviews about how much love and care was put into the game, and thinking it would finally be a good alien game since AVP2 in 2001, after ALL that time, the big reaction is:
"That awful Aliens game is actually cannon?!" "I completed the entire campaign in half a day" "Glad I didn't pre-order " "The dialogue is cringe worthy and the gameplay is totally forgettable."
How can this be ? They spent YEARS working on this game, how can it finally be released only for it to be mediocre and take only half a day to complete ? WHAT DA F''''''''''''''''''''''''''CK ?!!!
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briangcb
11 years ago
According to MRe26
Nah, what happened was, Sega signed a contract with Gearbox to do an FPS based on Aliens. Announced it, everyone was happy. Then they announced AvP which Rebellion were doing would be out first. Gearbox then put Aliens on the backburner & did their own game, Borderlands, which proved to be a hit.
Then, when they should have been fulfilling their contract to Sega & concentrating on Aliens, they decided to do Borderlands 2. It's their own IP so it makes them more money after all. Contract be damned. Then they inexplicably decided to buy Duke Nukem Forever & attempt to finish that for a release, presumably as they saw dollar signs & figured it would take little effort. So they've now got 3 games on the go. 1 of which is owned by someone else, 1 of which is their baby & 1 they've bought just to throw together & get some money out of.
So they outsourced development of Aliens to someone else, crapped out Duke Nukem (which is awful beyond belief) & concentrated on making Borderlands 2. They showed a 'gameplay demo' of Aliens at E3, & everyone got excited because it looked exactly like the game fans had been waiting for. Unfortunately, it wasn't a real gameplay demo, it was a massive lie, designed to make it look like they'd actually done something.
So they're finishing up Borderlands 2 & Sega are, understandably, wondering what's happening with their game. So they negotiate a delay with Sega to 'polish up' Aliens for release, & then use much of that time to actually polish up Borderlands 2. Once that's done, they get Aliens back from Timegate, the company they've outsourced it to... and it's a mess. They don't have time to fix it, as Sega rightly want their game in stores so they can finally actually get a return for their investment.
So they basically did a Duke Nukem on it. Take unfinished parts, stitch them together as best they can, throw it out there & hope for the best. And it shows. Some parts look decent, others are extremely basic, the AI doesn't work as it should, the lighting system has been simplified so it looks flat & dull, the storyline is a mess & it's full of bugs & glitches. Gameplay is the most basic fetch quest, push button, shooting gallery nonsense with none of the desperate sieges we were promised. It's a poor man's Doom 3 basically.
And all just to get something remotely playable out of the door to avoid Sega suing them.
All I know about boxing is never bet on the white guy. - Frank Drebin
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yarmen12
11 years ago
That's a fascinating yet tragic story, and I believe it.
So it turns out the reason it took so long to release, WASN'T because they were making it better and better, but they were actually working on other games while THIS, the Aliens game was outsourced to some talentless first-year game designer students and shat out, late, yet too soon.
Very profound, I officially hate SEGA now, how could they do this to Aliens, leave it with some bunch of poeple who aren't even that talented ? The franchise is long overdue for an outing that meets it's potential, but once again, somebody has fumbled the ball.
Sad thing is, they COULD have so easily made it good, but they were careless and gave it to someone with less capable hands. What b@stards.
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briangcb
11 years ago
I blame gearbox. They did the same thing with duke nukem: forever. Though I blame Sega for entrusting it to them.
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sascha-17
11 years ago
The thing is:
I can forgive a dated engine/effects/technology in a game like this. It happens when a game has been in development for this long. At some point they *have* to go with a certain level of technology and when development takes too long, chances are said tech will be outdated when the game comes out. You can compensate by atmosphere, level-design, "creepyness-factor" and by the simple fact that this thing is set in one of the coolest fictional universes ever. No biggie.
What I can't forgive is bad writing/storytelling and outdated gameplay. That stuff has nothing to do with technology making a leap forward while you're producing your game.
A great story could've made this title great even if it had been lagging behind in tech. Same goes for game mechanics/gameplay. Why not take the obvious route and make this a squad-based shooter? Introduce different classes.. I mean: The film practically already invented most of the stuff you'd need.
A tech-/electronics-guy (Hudson)
Smart-gunners (Drake/Vasguez)
Medic (Dietrich)
Pilot (Ferro)
Scientist (Bishop)
Point man/scout (Frost.. could've been the only one equipped with a motion tracker).
Grunts (everyone else)
Plus you could've integrated Gorman (CO) and Apone-types (XO) for multiplayer: Gorman could be a strategic commander who's bad at combat but good at directing the battle from behind the lines while Apone would be directing the battle on the field.
S.
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Bombay_Rises
11 years ago
They did plan for that, but then a whole bunch of hilarious decision making occurred (read the articles from Kotaku) and they ended up having to piece together a game in the few months they had. I mean how much more ridiculous was it when you could place an ACOG scope on a pulse rifle? LOLOLOL.
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