The Aliens franchise is nothing less than timeless for fans of sci-fi. No one can forget Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in the power loader fighting the Queen on board the Sulaco in the second movie, fighting not only for her life but Newt’s as well, and the new future she wanted to provide for her. The music was epic, the direction was suspenseful and shocking, you never saw too much of the aliens, keeping the movies from becoming some cheesy sci-fi horror flick with insane space marines shooting everything and anything. The setting and story is what makes Aliens such a great movie, and now it continues in SEGA and Gearbox’s new Aliens: Colonial Marines.
Aliens wouldn’t be as iconic without futurist Syd Mead, whose ingenious and dark imagination came up with the designs and art for the movie, from the weapons and ships to the colony on LV-426. Gearbox went through the appropriate channels at Fox Studios to gain permission to create the game, and also tosit down with Ridley Scott and Syd Mead for inspiration. The two also helped create the cannon story for the game, which takesa place 17 weeks after the third movie, with little knowledge escaping to the outside world of what really happened at the colony and the fate of the marines sent there to investigate.
The demonstration starts with the classic Aliens music, followed by a cut scene: Off in the distance you see the Sulaco orbiting some brown and cloudy planet. A new ship emerges, identical to the Sulaco; another Colonial Marine ship. Soon enough all hell breaks loose: Flashing red lights, marines in full battle gear, fires, and then one of the cargo bay doors explodes open, everything in the bay is sucked out into space with the planet in full view in the background. One of the ships crashes into the planet and after seeing the terrain it’s obvious you’re back on LV-426.
Then the game proper begins. Your commanding officer then appears over your face asking if you are ok, fires burning and sparks flying everywhere. Standing up and moving around, you see the similar angular corridors, iridescent signs, and, of course, the lab filled with circular containers, all empty except for one: As soon as you pass a face hugger tries to jump at out at you from the container, squirming against the glass and unable to do any harm. Welcome to Haley’s Hope.
It’s surpring that there’s even anything left of the main complex after the cooling towers exploded in the second movie, but apparently some of the structures survived, among other things. We’re are then lead around the main operations room, the table map with the cooling blueprints is still lit up from where Ripley and Hicks planned their escape.
No Aliens game is complete without the motion tracker, and it seems that if someone in the squad has it out the information from the display is automatically shared with the rest of the squad. If you’re the (un)lucky guy to actually be holding the tracker, then like previous games Alien games you can see where they creatures are coming from but you can’t shoot since your weapon is holstered. The familiar ping of targets on the motion tracker fill the room and instantly you know the time has come to fight, or die. At first it’s just one dot, then its four, and then the tracker is filled with red dots. The aliens burst out of broken panels and vents in the ceiling, swarming the team like a hive of bees. Pulse rifles fire. Your character has a shotgun with a wide spread and opens up, blowing up the alien drones; yellow acid sprays everywhere and bodies begin piling up on the floor. A squad member next to you suddenly finds himself surrounded by the tail of an alien, pulling him up into a vent. You open up with the shotgun, trying to save him but it’s too late. Blood pours out from the vent and another wave of aliens comes at you. Then a warrior jumps at you. With only your shotgun holding his claws from your body and his inner mouth from your face, you fall out of the ops room through a broken wall, into the rain, and brawl with the alien in the mud. You put your handgun to its head and pull the trigger to win that battle.
Just when you think you can take a breath, something new emerges. It’s huge, part triceratops and part bull; this alien charges straight at you. Bullets are useless since its flat head acts as a shield. Your only option is to run. You sprint through the remnantsof the colony as you try to escape. Eventually you run into a heavy repair shop and close the shield doors behind you. The alien rams head first into the armored door, denting the hell out of it and then mysteriously gives up after a second try. You’ve reached your “Alamo” according to another one of the soldiers there.
A second player now jumps into the action–there’s drop-in/drop-out co-op–taking control of one of the squad members that’s huddled in the group ahead. There are pulse rifles, concussion grenades, and hundreds ammo clips cluttering the table in front of you. Now you must set up a perimeter in the access tunnels below. Sentry turrets are located nearby, already out of the box and ready to be deployed. You grab a turret and place it in the access tunnel, and before you even finishing putting it down a marine starts firing into the darkness. You hear an alien’s death scream and then they come from everywhere. The turret is armed finally, and its red laser designator points into the darkness and opens up. Then you see them coming out of the vents. The turret shoots each one, dismembering them as they charge toward you. Then they come in a massive swarm, covering all the walls in the tunnel. You have to start helping the sentry gun as some aliens get past it, but it’s not enough. They knock over the turret and you run up the ramp to the main level to find that your Alamo has been invaded.
There are aliens all over the walls, moving in the shadows and killing the marines left and right. Running into another corridor you see another turret has been set up by your new co-op partner. He’s corned behind a crate, shooting every alien that lunges at him. The turrets are so overwhelmed they seem ineffective. Again you must fall back. Your team creates a blanket of covering fire, you manage to get through a door. There’s nothing you can do to help them. Yet another armored door closes behind you as you find yourself in a loading bay, and everything seems calm again.
But then the motion tracker sounds off. Marines get into power loaders and are trying desperately to fix an APC. Drones break through the sidewall vents and crawl along the walls and ceilings like spiders. They lunge at the power loaders, only to be smashed or burned by the flamethrowers on the arms. It seems like the battle is going to turn, but then a power loader falls, drones covering it completly. A wall suddenly collapses and dust falls into the big room. A queen alien moves in, her distinctive head shield on full display. This is the root of the problem, kill her and this will all be over. The queen quickly moves towards you and clenches your body in her claws. She stares at you, slowly opens her mouth, drool dripping off her teeth. You then see her inner mouth slowly emerge, before shooting out and striking your face. The screen goes black and the guided demo of Aliens: Colonial Mariens ends.
Aliens: Colonial Marines Developer: Gearbox Publisher: SEGA Share the GameHounds love: