Sega Nerds

Aliens Colonial Marines info

Posted by Ryan. Filed under Microsoft Xbox 360, News, PC, Ryan, Sony PlayStation 3. Tagged with Aliens.

The latest issue of Game Informer magazine has the very first preview of Aliens: Colonial Marines, The first game of two announced by Sega. This is the first person shooter (FPS) developed by Gearbox Software and should be hitting store shelves Q4 of 2008.

We don’t have the scans yet but we will get them up as soon as we can, until then I will give you a quick rundown of what we know so far!

Aliens : Colonial Marines is a First Person Shooter with mechanics that stress working together as a unit. Four Colonial Marines investigate the Sulaco. Unlike many FPS titles, there is not one central hero character, the role is shared among the whole squad. The game reinforces that notion by assigning the player to control a set marine for a particular mission; you will experience every one’s perspective.

“A few years ago, we made a list of a lot of projects that we would really like to work on. At the top of my list was Aliens”
Brian Martel, creative director

“We’re finally at the point where the game in a similar blockbuster style as the movie was - and be a legitimate treatment, not a watered-down version.” Brian Cozzens, art director

Weapons

Marines carry four weapons each:

-Primary weapon
-Secondary weapon
-grenades
-handgun

“We wish to remain authentic to the true soldiers, so characters generally do not drop or pick up weapons. That is one of the reasons we switch character during the story - to keep our soldiers realistic, but still give the player access to different weaponry throughout the game”.

The secondary weapon will vary and be customized according to the character, like Hicks’ shotgun in Aliens.
Equipment

Each character will also carry a special item they can interact with allies or the environment, for example;

-Hacking tool for sealed doors
-Torch can weld things shut
-Medical Kit can revive as well as neutralize acid burns.

There are Squad Commands. Besides move and attack orders, you can also use context sensitive commands like hacking doors, sealing vents, and setting up gun turrets.

There will be elements at highlight horror and suspense from the film. Aliens will use the environment to their advantage. Air ducts, ceiling pipes, gratings on the floor. Position, firepower and cooperation will be important. Motion tracker confirmed and flamethrower confirmed.

Four player CO-OP Campaign

As well as the single player campaign your friends can drop in at any time and take control of one of the marines in the squad and A.I takes over the vacancies. The game will support 2 players Split screen and 4 players online play. players can join and drop at any time.

There will be moments where you can barricade yourselves to survive an onslaught of aliens. With more feelings of tension and desperation to survive.

- Character depth is being worked on.

“That’s something people forget: The characters DO matter.” Everyone thinks ‘Oh, they’re going to be fodder’, but if you don’t care about them, they’re pointless.”

-The game will have other multi player capabilities in addition to the 4 players co-op campaign.

Locations, environments and enemies.

The game will go beyond the Sulaco, there will be human enemies involved that was the aliens as biological weapons. And the mystery of the space jockey’s species might be also revealed.

“We have squad mates that need to survive, until we kill them in the story.”

This could throw a wrench in the workings of the group, especially if it leaves a player without a marine to control. Gearbox is aware of that but hasn’t settled on the best way to resolve the situation.

“We are going to make the absolute best co-op game we can make to the extent that it doesn’t interfere with the best single player game we can make.”

Obviously there are some things we can’t do if there are always four people alive, but there are ways around that situation. We are going to find them, because it’s our job to.”
Close-Encounter System

“Close encounters are almost unlimited in their ability to let us do what we want to do. Aliens can interact with the world - it isn’t just a bunch of button presses until its over. The alien could leap back onto a cabinet, or another one of your squad mates. He could leap back and through a duct and out of sight.”

The marine’s actions in the example are initiated by the player through responding to less intrusive instructions. A subtle flash of green on the right side of the screen tells you to move the analog stick in that direction, whereas one in the upper left corner could be a prompt to pull the left trigger. By abandoning the usual control scheme, close encounters makes it possible for the team to create those one-of-a-kind combat situations that capture the flavor of the most iconic moments in Aliens.

“If we were to recreate the power-loader battle against the queen, that would be a close encounter.”

Types of Aliens

“There won’t be porcupine aliens shooting spines at you. It can’t be goofy or stupid. You have the original Alien, and we sort of think of him as the smart one, as a scout. He’ll hide and ambush people. Then there’s the Warrior

Alien, which we see in Aliens, which is going to be the one that rushes you and comes in volume.”

“It’s the granddaddy of military sci-fi. With next-gen technology, we can finally do it justice. We can really make the aliens look scary, we can make the setting freaky, and we can create the characters the players care about.”

Notes from the screenshots:

- Drop ship
-A huge structure
-Sleeping chamber in Sulaco that wasn’t jettisoned.
-APC. They seem to note that there will be driving segments.
-comparison screens of the movie Sulaco interior with the game version’s interior.
-Facehugger screenshot. Seems to note there is no HUD. (if true, this is even better!!!)
-Pulse Rifle shooting at jumping facehagger, note of possibly being able to use close encounters system to save yourself.
-Screenshot showing first person view of player holding the Motion Tracker, there are 3 squad mates up ahead and one of them is welding the door. Note that those marines are placeholders and they will have unique appearance in final version.
-Turrets firing at an alien
-Huge picture of 4 marines and 3 aliens in a battle. You can clearly see the LED ammo counter on the other Marines’ pulse rifles.
-The graphics are beautiful and authentic to the Aliens architecture and lighting.

So, All in all this game sounds so awesome I nearly wet myself at least 3 times doing this article… you know, maybe alittle bit did come out.

[thanks to Saner]