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by Jerry Whorebach 02/13/2013, 6:29pm PST |
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Mischief Maker wrote:
I'm totally willing to agree with Fabio and Jerry on the superiority of regenerating health bars for isolated competitive firefights against enemy soldiers. That's not what the movie Aliens was about and that's not how you translate it to a game.
Guess who agrees with you: whoever the fuck actually made Aliens Colonial Marines (it's complicated). You can tell because the health system in ACM works NOTHING LIKE HALO. In fact it might be the polar opposite of Halo. You get two bars: armor and health. Armor is destroyed when you take damage, and can only be replaced by finding more. Health regenerates, but the bar is divided into three segments, and it only regenerates within a segment - so if your health ever drops below 33%, you'll never get it back up above 33% again without a medkit. All this does is provide a mechanical consequence for hiding while you catch your breath that doesn't involve some kind of fucking stamina bar, and prevents the autosave from catching you in a situation where you'll die from a single drop of acid; it doesn't eliminate resource management or even make what resource management there is any less tedious. If this minimal amount of regeneration is enough to spoil the suspense of being a marine who goes from sprinting around at full speed, crouch-leaping and circle-strafing and running backwards for hours on end at 1% health, to FUCKING DEAD at 0% health, I'm sorry but I don't know what to say to you.
Anyway, if you're still looking for someone to blame for the sorry state of Aliens FPSes today now that the developers of other, much better games are off the table, may I suggest... the developers of this one?
throwawayacm wrote:
First off, due to me breaking NDA, I can't provide any proof that I'm not just talking out of my ass. But I figure you'd be interested in hearing what I have to say regardless. I've been on the project for around a year and a half, so some of the following are things I've heard from more senior guys.
Pecan (the internal codename for ACM) has a pretty long history. SEGA, GBX and 20th Century FOX came to an agreement to produce an Aliens game around 6 years ago, after which SEGA almost immediately announced it, long before Pecan had even started production. The game has been in active development in the past, only to be shelved in favor of another project (Borderlands, Duke, etc), and each time it was resumed it would undergo a major content overhaul.
SEGA, naturally, wasn't super pleased about the delays, but GBX got away with it for a long time and the contract between SEGA and GBX kept getting augmented to push the projected release further and further back. The last time it was resumed, GBX outsourced a good portion of the game to outside companies. Initially, the plan was for TimeGate to take the majority of campaign, GBX would take MP, Demiurge and Nerve would handle DLC and various other focused tasks. This decision was made mostly so that most of the developers at GBX could continue working on Borderlands 2, while a small group of LDs, coders and designers dealt with Pecan.
Somehow the schedules for Pecan and Borderlands 2 managed to line up and GBX realized that there was no fucking way they could cert and ship two titles at the same time. Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind, even as Pecan's Beta deadline got closer and closer. In April or May (can't remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension.
About 5 of those 9 months went to shipping BL2. In that time, TimeGate managed to scrap together 85% of the campaign, but once Borderlands 2 shipped and GBX turned its attention to Pecan, it became pretty apparent that what had been made was in a pretty horrid state. Campaign didn't make much sense, the boss fights weren't implemented, PS3 was way over memory, etcetcetc. GBX was pretty unhappy with TG's work, and some of Campaign maps were just completely redesigned from scratch. There were some last minute feature requests, most notably female marines, and the general consensus among GBX devs was that there was no way this game was going to be good by ship. There just wasn't enough time.
Considering that SEGA was pretty close to taking legal action against GBX, asking for an extension wasn't an option, and so Pecan crash-landed through certification and shipping. Features that were planned were oversimplified, or shoved in (a good example of this are challenges, which are in an incredibly illogical order). Issues that didn't cause 100% blockers were generally ignored, with the exception of absolutely horrible problems. This isn't because GBX didn't care, mind you. At a certain point, they couldn't risk changing ANYTHING that might cause them to fail certification or break some other system. And so, the product you see is what you get.
Beyond gameplay, the story has been raised as an issue several times. I can't really comment without feeling bad beyond saying that the script was approved by 20th Century FOX, and that the rush to throw a playable product together came at the cost of the story. Campaign does a pretty bad job of explaining a lot of the questions raised at the start of the game, and so hopefully there will be DLC to flesh that out a bit better.
I'll answer some questions, but I have to run soon, so it may take a while for responses. |
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Anyone picking up Aliens: Colonial Marines at launch? by fabio 01/23/2013, 12:46am PST
I'm strongly considering it by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 01/23/2013, 2:57pm PST
Go Hudson or go home by WITTGENSTEIN 01/23/2013, 9:09pm PST
6 days! NT by fabio 02/06/2013, 9:44am PST
Apparently it sucks beyond belief. by Fullofkittens 02/12/2013, 10:33am PST
=( by fabio 02/12/2013, 10:48am PST
Re: =( by Mischief Maker 02/12/2013, 10:53am PST
That was in this game's trailer too! by fabio 02/12/2013, 11:07am PST
I actually agree with Fabio on this NT by Cannibal Dave 02/12/2013, 11:42am PST
Not for an Aliens game by Mischief Maker 02/12/2013, 8:28pm PST
Come to think of it... by Mischief Maker 02/12/2013, 8:37pm PST
Re: Not for an Aliens game by fabio 02/12/2013, 9:45pm PST
AvP 2000 is a scarier Quake, SS2 was a broken Thief. Have you played it? NT by Apples and Oranges Comparer 02/12/2013, 9:50pm PST
FPS games should never have innovated beyond Quake. NT by fabio 02/13/2013, 6:37am PST
Sounds like you really hate the version of this game that exists in your mind. by Jerry Whorebach 02/13/2013, 6:29pm PST
I do! by Mischief Maker 02/13/2013, 7:13pm PST
No one is saying Rebellion's sophomore AVP isn't the pinnacle of Aliens games. by Jerry Whorebach 02/14/2013, 2:43am PST
If it was tryly Gary Gygax-style, Armor Points would be replace with THAC0 NT by Mischief Maker 02/14/2013, 7:16am PST
I just beat Halo for the first time, and the health system was my favourite part by Jerry Whorebach 02/12/2013, 12:37pm PST
The official Bungie standard for difficulty is "Heroic". NT by Gutsby 02/13/2013, 10:32am PST
Which disgustingly corrupt reviewer didn't get the memo? by Fullofkittens 02/12/2013, 1:33pm PST
"Gearbox knocked it out like a cranky Queen on the wrong side of an airlock" by laudablepuss 02/13/2013, 12:49pm PST
The Alien (and Predator) franchise is dead. by Eurotrash 02/13/2013, 3:42am PST
That is an awesome .gif NT by WITTGENSTEIN 02/13/2013, 7:30pm PST
$5!!!! NT by fabio 08/30/2013, 3:06pm PDT
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