Aliens Colonial Marines - Did Gearbox trolled us all?

So Aliens Colonial Marines has been released... And it's a train wreck. Insane ammount of bugs, screen tearing, missing animations, uninspiring game design and one of the worst AI ever! I've been laughing a lot these last days checking some messageboards, Neogaf included. Glad i didn't pre-ordered it.

But there's something really strange about the final product. It simply doesn't look like nothing Gearbox has been showing in demos. I'm not talking about graphical effects alone, but actual gameplay stuff. It's not like they changed the game, it's something completely different. We can all discuss they could have made changes and got rid of some parts, but it's incredible how sub-par the final product is compared to the demos they showed at game events.

Check it yourselves. It actually pretty embarrassing:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6832-A-LIE-ns-Colonial-Marines

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...demo-looked-much-prettier-than-the-final-game

So i can only assumed they trolled all Aliens fans with those demos and in the end released a shitty game for 60 bucks.

The game is so full of bugs that by accident it has a Spaceballs easter egg:

 

They trolled everyone by not allowing reviews to be posted until release day. Although by now most people should know that means a game's gonna be shit.

 

That was very strange indeed. Still the game got released a couple of days early and anyone with access to the internet already knew how bad it was.

To make things even funnier, the game has 4 DLCs planned and a season pass. I wonder how many of those they will sell.

EDITED: Here's some explanation about the development:

http://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/18ewf4/a_lot_of_you_are_rightfully_upset_at_the_final/

What a mess. The demos they showed were a lie. How long it will take for someone sue them?

EDITED Again: More info: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/13/who-made-aliens-heres-what-we-sorta-know/#more-142273

 

Could be more at work here, like the atrocity that gave us Superman 64. From the sounds of that perviously linked article it was already a hot potato.

 

I imagine this could be due to the project changing development house hands so many times. You can't effectively keep track of everything.

 

As a big Aliens fan Ive been watching people play it on twitch.tv. Yes the game is average to subpar but the art direction for Lv426 is very good. Also the pulse rifle with the ammo counter and the sound effects are perfect and the music score is halfway decent. The game itself may be broken but the art and sound team really tried I think.

 

well i spent a few hours playing this last night and i gotta say i didnt really notice any bugs, i quite like the game, especially in co-op

 

The worst thing about this pile is that Obsidian's Aliens RPG was cancelled because of it.

 

honestly i think an aliens rpg would suck immense hairy ballsack.

i've not yet played it but hopefully by the time i buy it for PC, it will at least have been patched a few times and have had a huge price drop, but from what i've seen gameplay wise, im not sure what people are bitching about or what they were expecting from this.

 

Obsidian has a damn good track record.

Maybe they're expecting the aliens to actually be threatening instead of just running around aimlessly like in an organic shooting gallery. You know, like Aliens vs. Predator managed to nail the atmosphere 13 years ago.

 

true they do but i just cant see anyone pulling off a good rpg with the aliens franchise i just cant see it working and still being aliens.

i agree on the aliens vs. predator (original and 2).

colonial marines was passed around, rushed and handed to the wrong people, with a focus put on multi player, seems it's been raped by the publishers / executives *cough* duke nuken forever *end cough*

i kind of expected this and never really have high hopes for FPS games or infact any game these days. hense why i got system shock 2 today instead of colonial marines.

 

We can all talk about the development issues that resulted on the terrible product, even though i'll never understand how someone actually approved a game with primary bugs like collision detection and missing animations. It's even more embarrassing reading EGM review that gave it a 9 out 10 score. But after checking the site's background image, we can all understand why.

Actually this is one of those stuff that makes me terrified of digital distribution. Imagine the ammount of low quality software they'll get away with? Specially when consumers won't be able to return or sell it.

Anyway, i'm wondering about why Randy Pitchford kept lying and showing demos of a totally different game. There is no getting away from this issue.
I'll just put the video of the Demo x Final version here:


Is this something we can expect to become a standard on the game industry? I'm not talking on the consumer side alone, but what about SEGA, that kept funding the production of this game for the last 6 years?!


Some other videos showing the lack of quality of the final product:

Randy Pitchford so called "Sophisticated AI"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JBsimDxMRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qNJ7iZNVfM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRLckQv-MOo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXAqfO5Cg_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpRhxTVVmu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQQvcM8oGnI
There's tons more on Youtube showing the lack of sort of AI

"Pacifist Mode" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5WwV9YoW_U
Finished the whole level, on Hard difficult, without a single gun fire. Also some kind of NPC teleport happening too.

"WTF compilation" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk3aruZIZyo

 

That game (the game released on the PC in 2000) got so much right. It's still the only AvP game I think is really good (AvP2 is good, not really good, the 2010(ish) game was dull, pointless, and didn't feel like an Alien game at all) and is still as good now as it was then (except graphically, but considering that most of us on these forums play on cartridge based consoles then I doubt many of us complain about dated graphics. Plus of course AvP is so dark, so tense, and the enemies so dangerous that you rarely have chance to study the graphics!).

I'm not disappointed in this new game as such, since I was expecting it to be rubbish (most modern shooters are, with their formulaic approach, lack of replayability, and the feel of "We don't play games ourselves, we're just making this for the money" that pervades so many games), but I would have loved it to have been good. Instead, I won't be buying it (well, maybe cheap, used, a month or two down the line to see how bad it is) and if I want to play an AvP game then I'll boot up AvP 2000 instead. One of the many great things about video games is that we can always play the old favourites whever we like*.



* Well, those of us who keep our old systems can. I don't understand the people who sell their current machine(s) and games when they buy a new system.

 

Gearbox software is slowly becoming irrelevant in console conversions............... from Half Life to Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens Colonial Marines ..................... Shudders

 

Nobody has been able to return a game just because it's bad for what, 20 years now?

 

Well i don't know how that works in your country, but here in Brazil there's a policy that the consumer can return a product within 7 days of purchase. If it's sealed on it's original box and with no sign of bad handling, that's a consumers right.

So on this case, if someone ordered it and read the reviews before actually opening the game, the store can't deny a return of a sealed item. They can offer a trade for another product of the same value or you can just simply ask your money back.

 

Johnny, don't be so mad, we can still play AvP99 with the coop patch...that being said, I'm glad I didn't preorder it, I was waiting for the superior WiiU version

 

Yeah, I think that's how it works in most countries: the game has to be sealed if you want to return it. But how would you know it's bad if you haven't played it? Reviews barely tell you anything, just look at all the morons who gave Dead Rising or GT5 a good score or Alpha Protocol a bad one.

 

Actually i'm not mad since i haven't spend money on it. The only game i even preordered was GT5. But i'm actually shocked a game dev promoted something for years, on game conventions and press, talking about he only works with stuff he likes, deferred Lighting, sophisticate AI.... and the final product looks like a early beta version full of bugs.

It's a disrespect on customers who pay 60 bucks and to the publisher too. In the end, they only released this garbage so they wouldn't get sued by SEGA. Randy Pitchford even tried to blame another company, because they outsorced some part of it. Just read the reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/18ewf4/a_lot_of_you_are_rightfully_upset_at_the_final/

It's bad management and no self respect. We're all talking about next gen consoles and it's unacceptable something like that to happen in 2013. I mean where are the quality standards?

I know we can't take reviews too much seriously but i've been reading and watching streams the whole week. It's not one review or one opinion. It's everybody. The story alone is terrible, with some stuff forced trying to please fans of the movie. Don't want to put any spoilers here, but it's so lame. As for the game itself, it's not like it's just a bad game. It's simply an unfinished mess.

Another good read showing some interesting points on how broken the game is: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/12/wot-i-think-aliens-colonial-marines-single-player