I'm pretty easy to please and I'm going through the marine campaign right now and enjoying it.

Story is unravelling nicely, the way the Aliens move is very jumpy and makes them tough to hit at times and the setting is creepy and jumpy as well.

Graphics, they're fine for me (again I'm easy to please) and I find the controls easy for the marine.
That being said the Alien and Pred are tougher to control so I'll have fun with those.

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I'm glad I played it "in order" (meaning CM first, then Xeno, then Pred).

If nothing else it was cool playing as "Six" in the beginning of the Xeno campaign going through the areas going "Ohhhh... Now I know what made that blood stain over there... and over there... "

=)

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.ungawa

-Spyke
Don't feed the Wookiee... but it is best to let the Wookiee win...

How man hours did you spend chasing your tail, then?



That was the only issue I had (playing on PS3).
I'm not a gamer at all, yet I still managed a few kills - I understand you might have to adjust the controller sensitivity, which was why I was having problems, apparently.

Bloody good game, though!!

Ooh, so many hours, oh so pretty

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Easily distracted by shiny things...

The last "boss" fight is nonsense. a few grenades softened him up nice, and then my pulsey chewed him out.

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Sgt. Jake Tucker - 13th Regt. 1st Batt. Freebooters.

A 'few' grenades??!!
That'd waste most living things

try it on hard. you'll hate your life

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PFC Mike Rizzuto MVM
USS Blackhawk
3rd Batt 12th Regt

I.. I did.

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Sgt. Jake Tucker - 13th Regt. 1st Batt. Freebooters.

I'm guessing that the main gamplay of the Colonial Marines game won't be much different to the Marine campaign in AvP though, so you may still be disappointed.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

DON'T SAY THAT!

I'm really hoping it's more like say... Left 4 Dead. With more realism [kiting tanks for chuckles shouldn't be possible with aliens.] and a stronger survival horror bent.

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Sgt. Jake Tucker - 13th Regt. 1st Batt. Freebooters.

Can I have that in English?

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

sorry. On left 4 dead, there are big big tanks. Like, Bosses.
Kiting is an old term for "kiting" an enemy player. you shoot, they chase to get you back, you run, this continues, until you are acting like a kite they are flying, say - kiting. It's like a player vs AI player tactic to amuse yourself.

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Sgt. Jake Tucker - 13th Regt. 1st Batt. Freebooters.

That's like saying a V6 Ford Mustang is as good as a Shelby Mustang or a .22LR round is just as powerful as a .223Remington due to them having roughly the same diameter. They will be VASTLY different in terms of gameplay and polish.

Well, I guess for my first, of what is usually semi-annual post of the year ... LOL

I have been playing AvP as time permits for about a week. I have both of the other PC games, and got them when they were released. I was just an Aliens junkie with no idea these boards existed in those days ... Anyways, so far I have completed the Marine campaign (told you it has been off and on play time) and messed with some of the CoOp Survival mode. I'm more of a singleplayer gamer. I got burned out pretty quick back in the day by the types infesting online gaming. I prefer slightly slower paced, deliberate teamplay exercises to wild melees with aimbots, teamkillers and general cheats. That said ...

So far, the singleplayer for the Marine, relating to the other two games falls in the middle. The original AvP admittedly, was dodgy and felt very clunky to me storywise. AvP 2 did a much better job of immersion, and scope. Purpose got convoluted at times, but at least you felt like you were doing something. This game to me, does decent in the terms of the Marine episode. You have a sense of beginning, and of ending. The ending ... well, it feels like a big middle finger to me, but by the time that I reached it, I knew it was coming and resigned myself to it. Storywise, its riddled with the cliches and nods to the other games and movies it SHOULD have. I'd give it 7/10.

Now ... mechanically, the game is dodgy garbage to me. I have a decent PC, and I had to completely reinstall video drivers to get it to run in DX11 mode. I do not have a DX11 card obviously, just like, well everybody else pretty much. Once I got it running, I could crank it up, or down in settings, and it still seemed to suffer from massive, random memory leaks that required a game restart to fix. So, I have been running it DX9 mode, and it looks the same to me. That right there just screams of cut corners, and a product that pushed out before it was optimized. It does do a decent job of what it needs to though, I'll give it that. Darkness and the sounds were cool. Which brings me to the next part ...

I'm not a fan of the new armor, and the weapons. I guess its the old-school Aliens fan in me. These look like unnecessarily greebled up models to show off the engine's lighting effects, and appeal to 10 year olds. As far as models go they are decent. As far as USCM hardware, they are clunky. The pulse rifle looks distorted. The smartgun looks okay, but sounds terrible. The flamethrower ... gag. I guess it IS set after the movie, so things can be changed ... it just wasn't for the better. The thought that went into the models gets a 5/10 from me. Sounds get 7/10 - some of them are correct. The armor looks kinda strange, but the colors and artwork is pretty damn cool. For being different, and as a stand alone product, 9/10. All in all, I was able to get used to seeing them, and started to like them.

Too bad they seem all out of whack. The pulse rifle seems to have the effect of an airsoft, and a shotgun is borderline thermonuclear. 20 rounds of 10mm HEAP seems like it would do more than 2-3 rounds from a 9mm bastardized Beretta pistol. Maybe its just from my life experience, as I'm LEO and I get to play with the fun toys with happy switches. Game guns always tick me off, but these seemed to go an extra mile. Hopefully A:CM will go back to a better gun model and damage model, like the stuff we saw in the movies. Oh, and the aiming reticle SUCKS. It's impossible to see in contrasting light, and with no iron sights or anything, you end up guesstimating a lot, or at least I did. Needs to be a brighter, more contrasting color, that's all.

I love the aliens! They seem far more alive and animal-like than the other games. The way they jump and crawl is really cool! Facehugger seemed tiny and annoying. Other aliens were fun, and looked spooky.

All in all, its been pretty fun. Its not game of the year material so far, but entertaining. The story for the Colonial Marine is passable, and the gaming environment is pretty neat. The lack of maps for multiplayer CoOp is a crime though. Once again, I feel like I got the middle finger. The lack of polish is painful at times. But, it has potential. I am far more excited for Gearbox and A:Cm than I was for this. Gearbox in my experience puts out far more refined, and entertaining games than Rebellion does. Now if I could only get AvP (99) and AvP 2 to work on Vista, I might go play them through one more time for the hell of it.

So far, for the Colonial Marine portion, I give it 7/10. Solid, but nowhere near epic. I want epic, so I have my fingers crossed for the future.

And you know this how?

How can the gameplay be vastly different?

It'll be a player character looking like a Colonial Marine, shooting enemies that look like Aliens. I can't see how it could be vastly different from what's already beeon done/is expected?

Maybe another thread should be started with people's view on how vastly different the gamplay is, then we'll see if/when it comes out.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Well at least Gearbox are staying true to the IP judging by the screenshots that they put out a while back. The Marines and their gear look spot on to the movie so kudos to them for sticking to that. Judging by those previous shots their game engine looks like it's better than Rebellions as well so from a visual standpoint that has to be good for console and PC users alike. Plus I think it's fair to say that Gearbox have a far better track record in turning out decent games with good gameplay. The potential is definitely there for a decent marines/Aliens fix so fingers crossed it will happen at some stage.

I'm still not convinced that a good looking game engine can't pull off the lighting and vision mode effects required for a game like AVP. From where I'm sat, the MW2 engine does everything the AVP one does bar removeable lighting. Shooting light sources doesn't destroy them. However, I can't see any reason why this couldn't be done. It's not like every light source in the game is just static. I still consider Rebellions game engine to be sub standard to what the PC and consoles are capable of now.

Some comparison shots - same computer, same resolution, both maxxed out as much as possible. They've been reduced in size

Flares



Different vision modes : Image Intensifying/Thermal and AVP's Predator Vision



Atmospheric shadows



Dark and cramped interiors:



Moveable lighting - left shows muzzle flash illuminating nearby objects -on the right the large light is a searchlight that moves across the room ( just like AVP's torches do)





Changeable lighting - the lights change from red to blue when the doors open - as can be seen by the colour of the weapon



More muzzle flashes illuminating the nearby surroundings



On top of that, you have far better character models







Comparison between Quantum of Solace, AVP, MW2 and COD World at War





Depth of field:



And to finish some shots of Aliens Colonial Marines









Go go Gearbox

I'll grab my coat; the flameproof one

Oh, it's entirely possible the MW2 engine could do it. Ain't going to happen, though. It's not a engine that is licensed, and given how tightly Activision like holding on to this billion dollar cash cow... (even if it looks like the team of Infinity Ward are slipping through their fingers atm)

It comes down to money and resources. Rebellion would have had a quarter of the budget of MW2 at most.

Colonial Marines, like previous Gearbox titles, would be built on the Unreal Engine I imagine, so it should look better.

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A11/TQ1.0.32150E1 Murphy, J - Covert recording headcam. There is no flashing red light when you are on Kona-Cam
Weyland-Yutani: Their projects are intentionally full of bugs. Avoid!

Agreed. I've seen some awesome dark areas in MW2 too. But, I was on a roll so I ran with it ...

As for Colonial Marines - I've never examined the screenshots critically before and, dang, I hope they sort out that Alien model because it looks awful. But I would say that ...

Just seen this posted the other day on Rebellion's Twitter page:

So the rumour I heard about them coming to the Xbox 360 Avatar Marketplace soon-ish may be coming true!

I'll get rid of my current avatar costume when they do.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Unfortunately, I don't think the XBL avatars are as flexible as the PSN ones: I don't think the Alien Costume will be available on XBL?

Just the Marine one would make me happy.

There's quite a few 'cover all the body' type of costumes already on there, so it may be possible. (crosses fingers)

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Looks like it's just the Marine on PS3:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaeurope ... 517746734/

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Also Alien: http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaeurope ... 517746734/ and Predator: http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaeurope ... 517746734/

All the coverall costumes on XBL are very lame skins for the human-shaped avatars and none change the shape of the avatar beyond a round helmet. I don't think they'll be able to do an Alien on XBL. But, if they do, it will be my first rather embarrassing episode of spending real money on virtual clothes for a virtual person ...

I'll have to go double check but some of the "armor" suits I've seen (Clone and TK armor from Star Wars, armor from Mass Effect) did add bits to the body... If I'm remembering correctly.

But a full on Xeno would be a stretch from everything so far.

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.ungawa

-Spyke
Don't feed the Wookiee... but it is best to let the Wookiee win...

Take a look at an A+ quality shooter like Half-Life 2 or Modern Warfare 2's single player campaign and try any other mediocre game (like AVP) or crap game (like Rogue Warrior, both done by Rebellion LOL!) and then get back to me and tell me there's very little to no difference in feeling, controls, atmosphere, gameplay, and graphics from one FPS to another. Your very supposition that there can be very little to differentiate the games simply because they involve Aliens and Colonial Marines is a very simplistic view. There can be a world of difference between any two items that are similar, be it brands of tires for your car, prop replicas from different companies, a song performed by a professional orchestra vs a high school band, brands and types of chocolates, brands and styles of shoes, etc. There must be very little difference in the quality of the movie Aliens and either of the Aliens vs Predator movies too right? They both have people with guns shooting Aliens. Again back to my Mustang comparisons, not that I am a huge Ford Mustang fan or anything, it just fits. On the outside they appear fairly similar. The Shelby Mustang has a bit more aggressive styling though and has better handling thanks to the upgraded suspension and more power available to it compared to a regular V6 or even V8. But they are both Mustangs right? They both appear to be very similar and drive on four wheels right?

I'll give you one big difference between AVP and A:CM. Aliens: Colonial Marines is a squad based game. That means it revolves around teamwork and watching your squadmate's back whether they be NPCs or your buddy since co-op is an essential and integral feature to the game. They've tried to get the art as accurate as possible to the movies. They've even hired Syd Mead to do designs for them to flesh out the Sulaco and other locations in the game. They've hired writers from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series (one of the best Sci-Fi series ever imo) to do the story. Now THAT is an attention to detail. AVP seems like they had Paul W. S. Anderson help them flesh out their game.

Monolith's AVP2 game was pretty damn good. Not saying it was the best FPS ever, but Rebellion's new AVP game is a step backwards in terms of gameplay and controls (no crouch?! WTF?!). Even the graphics which should be so easy to get right are mediocre compared to where they should be today. A lot of the modeling is terrible. Hell, the stereotypical tough-girl-Michelle-Rodriguez-wanna-be, Tequila, looks like she's got elephantiasis from the waist down. The aliens move around like doped up goldfish lazily swimming to you on the walls, ceilings, and floors.

Rebellion doesn't know quality. They don't know polish. They don't know much about making a very enjoyable gaming experience and for God's sake they need to quit pursuing AVP games. I haven't had the desire to go back and play AVP after playing it for the first time. Any Aliens game that fails to inspire a hard core Aliens fan to even start it up again is a failure in my book.

Perhaps you're not much of a video gamer, which is fine, but that would explain the lack of your ability so see how there could be a difference in quality from one game to the next.