E3 2011 Preview – Aliens: Colonial Maries
FIRST LOOK
You know things are off to a good start when Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software, says that Aliens: Colonial Maries will be a true sequel to James Cameron’s “Aliens” film.
“We’ve been borrowing from ‘Aliens’ for a long time now,” Pitchford says as he mentions the Facehugger-like creatures from the Half Life games. “So we thought it would be about time to finally do an Aliens game that is true to the Cameron film as well as nod to the Ridley Scott film. We even have 20th Century Fox onboard.”
“IT’S GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!”
What Pitchford means as a “true sequel” is that Colonial Marines – a first-person shooter – will take place after the events seen in “Aliens” so we will know what happened to fan favorite characters like Hudson when a new group of Marines are sent to the familiar stomping grounds of LV-426, the teraforming colony that Ellen Ripley, Corporal Hicks, Newt and Bishop escaped from in the movie.
We got to see the game in action as we are introduced, briefly, to the situation that has a group of hardened Marines fighting a new horde of alien xenomorphs that managed to survive the blast. You’ll find the recognizable hallways, communications room and laboratory straight out of the movie and it’s actually thrilling to find it in an even more frightening than it was when Ripley and her Marine escort searched through it.
“LET ME INTRODUCE A FRIEND OF MINE.”
The Marines will be packing the same firepower from the movie as well as you’ll find yourself armed with the same machine gun with grenade launching capabilities as well as a number of other weapons that include shotguns and even a flamethrower. You’ll be able to place a gun turret ala the deleted scene from the movie so you can have extra firepower take down a swarm coming down a hallway. Even the motion tracker from the film is among your equipment so you’ll hear the familiar sound it makes when it detects movement.
In the live demonstration we got to see, we witnesses the Marines in action as they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a swarm. As Marines mow down the creatures, their acidic blood sprays and even limbs fly. We even see what they look like up close if one manages to get the drop on you. It’s quite a sight to see the creatures crawling out of vents from below and above as well as watch them crawl across the walls with their tails failing.
In the middle of all of this, we also get a peek at a new species of alien, one that seems to bulldoze anything in its path at a fast pace. Since its head is thicker and its skin a lot tougher, bringing it down by using small arms isn’t a very good idea.
Pitchford also made it loud and clear that Colonial Marines supports co-op play so you can have four-players taking up the role of other Marines to lend a hand during the campaign. Your friends can drop in and out of the game at any point as well.
Aliens: Colonial Marines will be available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and the new Nintendo Wii U. Pitchford didn’t get into the specifics but he promises that the Nintendo Wii U version will bring new gameplay mechanics that make good use of the new platform’s capabilities.
This game has a release date of Spring 2012.
