I need to make it clear that before going into reviewing "Aliens: Colonial Marines," that James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986), the superior, action-packed sequel to Ridley Scott's infamous, landmark 1979 deep-space horror/sci-fi flick "Alien," is one of my all-time personal favorite movies.
"Aliens" is my fifth favorite movie of all time; I grew up with this movie, and I personally consider it to be far better in every conceivable way and fashion, than "Alien" (though I must also readily admit my great fondness for Scott's original masterpiece).
So you can imagine my surprise when news finally came out that a video game billing itself as a genuine sequel to Cameron's "Aliens" was in development. Unlike most people who have relentlessly trashed "Aliens: Colonial Marines" since its February 2013 release, I feel that I'm somewhere in the middle. I at least thought it looked nice, and it was good to see some sort of continuation - however sloppy - to "Aliens." The story to "Aliens: Colonial Marines" basically details a war between the United States Colonial Marines and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation's private army of heavily armed hired mercenaries, who are illegally breeding the hideous Xenomorph creatures using captured Marines and innocent space colonists as hosts.
It all sounds exciting, doesn't it? But it does have many issues...
The game itself has an incredibly clumsy story - which I already detailed briefly - that thoroughly contradicts established events from the film, and game-play that's pretty typical of any high-tech first-person shooter in recent years, since it was stated fairly early on by the developers that the game would feature squad-based game-play (we all thought it was going to be a war game in outer space, like the movie), and would feature the return of genuine flesh & blood performers from Cameron's 1986 action epic reprising their original roles from the film - Michael Biehn (Corporal Hicks) and Lance Henriksen (Bishop); if you could get the additional DLC packs, additional actors from the film - Al Matthews (Sergeant Apone), Mark Rolston (Private Drake), and (?) Bill Paxton (Private Hudson) (?) - would also be reprising their roles.
In terms of basic first-person shooter game-play, "Aliens: Colonial Marines" does feature some of the iconic weaponry from the movie, as well as familiar locales on-board the Colonial Marine space vessel the USS Sulaco, and the ruins of the space colony Hadley's Hope on the desolate planetoid LV-426 (and there's even a sequence in the middle of the game featuring the Derelict Spacecraft from "Alien" and featured briefly in a restored scene from the extended director's cut of "Aliens"). The game does not, however, recreate the claustrophobic tension and terror of Cameron's film (much less feature any of the landmark score composed for the film by James Horner), and most of the game's confrontations feature you gunning down hordes and hordes of approaching Xenomorphs (though you'll have your AI comrades and maybe a robot sentry or two to aid you - somewhat). There are little tasks you have to complete here & there to advance the story, but much of everything in "Aliens: Colonial Marines" consists of the player shooting aliens.
Some of the gun battles where you encounter the alien creatures can be frustrating - and even overwhelming (but not in a particularly good way) - at times, which is about the only authentic thing about them that even comes close to Cameron's "Aliens." Other than that, it's a pretty straight-forward first-person shooter that initially billed itself as the future of the "Alien" franchise in the video game world (which is ironic considering the possibility that "Aliens" has arguably had the single greatest influence on the overall development of the first-person shooter genre).
Despite the clunky story, there are a bunch of little tidbits that reference Cameron's film, which shows that the game developers may have spent too much time watching the movie rather than understanding it and trying to recreate the action and suspense it delivered.
"Aliens" will always rate as one of my all-time greatest movies, and one of the scariest, and most action-packed, sci-fi films ever made. The game that aimed to expand its story and legacy - "Aliens: Colonial Marines" - is not so much. It's a big disappointment, albeit an enjoyable disappointment. I got my kicks out of playing this game, mostly by enjoying the numerous references to "Aliens" (which include having to collect dog-tags of the Colonial Marine characters, among other little items, from the film), which took me back to the moments where it all started.
It's all too bad, really, because this could have been an EPIC, EPIC game-changer...
7/10
