The history behind Aliens: Colonial Marines is pretty interesting. Its development has been in an on-again/off-again status for several months now, leading into years. Gearbox, who had been busy with their own stuff, including an upcoming Brothers In Arms reboot, Duke Nukem Forever and the recently announced Borderlands 2, was eager to get something done with the game, but for some reason, Sega kept shuffling the project around – especially following the release of Alien vs. Predator. But now the project is back on full force, with Aliens: Colonial Marines set to crash land on the Xbox 360 in 2012. Sega recently invited us to get an extended behind-the-scenes look this weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo, complete with a rebuilt LV-426 bunker and a pair of soldiers carrying bad-ass pulse rifles. No aliens, though – so no, we’re not impregnated. Thank goodness.
Rather than make the game a sequel to the two lackluster films that have come out, Colonial Marines leads to the event prior to the 1986 sci-fi classic, James Cameron’s Aliens. A group of marines find themselves visiting LV-426, which is in ruins following a catastrophe in space. But when they arrive, you guessed it, they run into unexpected visitors, in the form of nasty aliens that do damage with their jaws and impregnate their victims with embryos that hatch from eggs, leading to the birth of even more aliens. So, as one of the few surviving Marines from the initial attack, you’ll need to use your weapons and your cunning in order to stay alive. This game has no shortage of adrenaline. There are tense moments that build up to the firefight with the aliens, particularly in the beginning, when you start rummaging through LV-426 and small things occur to keep you on your toes, such as a panel falling loose or an embryo shuffling around in a sealed container.
But then the fun, with Aliens coming out of the “goddamn walls” (movie quote there) and popping up from all over to do you damage. If you’re not careful, they’ll jump on your rather quickly, forcing you to fend them off with a mean melee attack, followed by a shotgun blow to the head. (Why doesn’t the alien blood damage you, though? It’s like acid.) The stage led us through LV-426’s lower levels, before we were forced outside to deal with a new breed of alien, a large, bull-like charger that’s got a pretty nasty head butt. He bursts through walls and damages containers fairly easily, so your best bet is to run – in which the character did in the demo. He does some pretty nasty damage to the door, but then leaves when his smaller friends come running in from another spot.
This feature hands-on preview concludes on the next page, please click Page 2 below to read more of our thoughts on SEGA's Aliens: Colonial Marines.
