Aliens Colonial Marine Xb360

I don't think people would have been as upset about the game's quality if Gearbox did not show false demo's and footage claiming it to be the game you are going to get. This is not the game you saw in any of the trailers or demos. This is a small fraction of it that was pushed out to hopefully sell on the Alien name. I love the film Aliens, but this is a disgrace to it. The games "story" lasts around 5 hours with some of the worst Team mate and Enemy AI you will ever encounter. If you thought Aliens were scary in any way, this will completely change your opinion. They will just stand in front of you waiting to be shot or get caught on the wall or ceiling, unable to move until you kill them. Half the game you are not even fighting Aliens, you are fighting generic soldiers who wear baseball caps....no seriously someone thought a soldier in the future would wear a baseball cap.

Multiplayer doesn't fare much better. I play a lot of online games, but this one in particular has some of the worst lag I have ever seen. Aliens and Marines will be jumping all over the map making it nearly impossible to shoot or you may suddenly die with no one around you and have no idea what happened. There are 4 modes with 2-4 maps each. The best part is a Horde mode where you fend off Aliens...unfortunately that is not even released yet and will cost you an extra $15 if you want to unlock it from the disc.

Don't be fooled by any of the screenshots you see...they aren't really from this game. If you must play it rent it or buy it used for under $20. Otherwise skip this entirely and save yourself the time and money. Gearbox should be ashamed of how they handled the development and marketing of this game to take advantage of such a loving fan base.

***NOTATION: "If ANYTHING about this review which I wrote after this game released was inaccurate this game's developers would not as of the date of this posting (posted this notation 5/2/2013) have a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT filed against them for the advertisement and distribution of this product. Sega and Gearbox Software currently have a class action lawsuit against them for this game, because this game IS THIS review". NOTATION ENDED 5/2/2013 12:15PM PT

A while back I wrote a review which stated "Developers give to professional game reviewing companies a piecemeal display of the actual product to review, and when the final product is sold based on those reviews it is NOT what was advertised".

Randy Pitchford the CEO of Gearbox Software originally worked for EA (Electronic Arts). When he created his own gaming company years after leaving EA, he and Gearbox Software earned credit for their reputation by creating "Borderlands". After earning a reputation in the gamin industry and community, THIS game right here that you are considering buying is the game that will remain in the minds of consumers when ever placing any faith in Randy Pitchford and Gearbox software ever again. Why? Because "if" you purchase this game you need to know "what" you are paying for. ANYTHING you read in this review is something that can be researched on the web, and found repeatedly by example after example.

Gameplay-
Horrid. The AI in this game destroys any and all hope of an enjoyable experience. Regularly while playing this game the "aliens" would fall through the floor, disappear through walls, get stuck in loopy animations throughout the environment, and would even (and this is just disgusting development) kill you AFTER they were nowhere near you because the game would try to auto-correct the AI location after the aforementioned and despite not being in the same room as you are the aliens would still do damage to you. In other words the alien that just fell through the floor is now somewhere in the data of the game swinging at you and killing you despite not really being in the same room youre in.

The AI of the good guys in this game has them running into walls, corners, standing in doorways blocking you, firing their guns at you, even got to the point where people who were programmed to help you were trapping you in corners of rooms while the aliens not even located there were killing you blocked in a corner. In one scene in a hanger bay, the aliens are falling from a ceiling all onto the the same spot atop of a dropship. From the dropship they are all jumping to the same location onto the floor... and falling through the floor into god only knows where. All I know is no matter where I was this transpired about 10-12 times before I went online to find out why.

Graphics-
BEFORE the actual product ("Aliens:Colonial Marines") was released Randy Pitchford was SHOWING the GAMEPLAY to everyone everywhere. Randy Pitchford showed the "footage from the actual game" albeit a "work in progress" to advertise this product. The things you see on the web that advertise this game ARE NOT IN THIS GAME. Everything that is a form of advertisement for this game from "Gearbox Software" is a LIE. The "in-game" footage that is all over the web being used to advertise this game is NOT IN THIS GAME. It is NOT WHAT YOU ARE GETTING if you buy this product. The graphics are absolutely the most horrid graphics Ive seen in 20 years of gaming.

The best way to describe the graphics in this game is this.
Imagine watching a low-resolution mpg on a PC from 1996. Only its interactive, and you can explore the environment by moving around. The pixelating, screen fracturing, jumpy environment... it literally appears as if your watching several puzzel pieces being moved if each puzzle piece made up a portion of your TV screen. tHE IMAGE FRAGMENTATION IS so bad that I literally HAD, and I mean HAD to STOP playing it.

Sound-
Its all sound bites. The actors from the original movie cannot be blamed for what was done to them in this product. Everything you hear in this game appears to be a "sound bite" from the movie "Aliens" minus some additional voice acting. The sound of the pulse rifles, the sound when an alien jumps on you, even the sound of the shotgun from the original movie "Aliens" appear to be recorded from the movie and poorly dubbed into this game. I EVEN found an app on my phone that had the sounds on it from an app that was out before the game and using Sony Vegas recorded the sounds from my phone app, then recorded the sounds from the captured gameplay and lined them up and found them to be... YES, identical.

Multiplayer-
No. I'm not going to even go there.

Overall-
**THIS game was advertised using footage from a product that Gearbox Software is not selling you. When you are looking at the actual footage of "what" Randy Pitchford is selling, and receive what he actually gives you, you will discover you have been flat out undeniably lied to. If you chose to give Randy Pitchford and Gearbox Software your money for this game, you are buying a game that was literally made somewhere between 5-9 months. Information has come out that this game was given to gearbox Software from Sega, Sega payed Gearbox Software a huge amount of money to finish this game, and Randy Pitchford took that money and sent the game to Timegate Studios (another company) and told Timegate to finish the game. As of the date of this posting a large group of individuals at Timegate have been fired/let-go that worked on "Aliens:Colonial Marines".***

The bottom line is simple here.

If you are out in the world and you are selling something YOU are responsible for selling it.
Randy Pitchford told us, showed us, and advertised to us what he ISNT SELLING.
If you buy this game you are buying a broken, poorly developed, horridly designed and miserably put together non-functional video game.

This is not a videogame.
This is a lie, and Randy Pitchford was the one out there telling it so he can have your money.

I know, because he took mine.

Let me start off by saying I'm such a huge Aliens fan. I have one of the designs of the xenomorphs that Giger did tattooed as a sleeve on my arm, I love 'em. This game was something that I've been anxiously awaiting the release of. I woke up on release day to read how horrible this game was, the graphics, etc... but I still said that I'm an Aliens fan so I'll pick up my reserve of it and try to love it the best I can. Yeah...easier said than done. The graphics are beyond laughable. There is this canister on the ground that from a distance looks cool all lit up, something ala Dead Space the stomp containers...but when you get close to it, the lights are so pixelated and blocky that it doesn't even look like a light, it's terrible. Now apply that little detail to the rest of the game. It looks horribly unfinished, the mouths don't even move the right way when the characters talk. The dialogue is very stiff almost like people were held at gunpoint when reading their lines. The action is either predictable or stupid. There's no bullet detection when you shoot the aliens, they just got covered in their blood and fall over. The only redeeming part of this game is that my game stop gave me a full refund on it. Now, I don't hate it....but I wouldn't pay more than 20 dollars for this......WHICH is probably going to be sooner than later it will be that cheap. So I urge people to of course, gather your own opinion on this, but as a hardcore gamer and huge Aliens fan, this missed the mark by a few lightyears.