Recent reviews by HotelCharliHill

the randomization of the plane route for where you drop PLUS randomization of where gear is makes every game different. with decent communication you can have great squad games. learning curve on how to stay ahead of the 'blue zone' is a little tough, as is weapon control and learning bullet drop, but this is one of the funnest games to play. So many kinks have been ironed out since release, and it feels a little more simulated than ultra-arcade-ey "Cod Warzone." This is the better choice for sure. Near-perfect blend of "Arma" and "CoD" Yep, there are janky moments where things don't feel right, but it is so much better than it was even a couple of years ago. totally worth it.

Well... I bought this game, and finally played through the campaign. Here's my thoughts.

Some of what this game should have been:

ALIENS the movie, with a different story so you could experience the terror and the claustrophobia other USMC marines surely felt. Aliens hiding in ducts or blending in with hive-walls just like in the movie, waiting for the perfect moment to slither or lunge into action for a creepy-jeepy moment or a jumpscare. Moments where you're with your crew feeling safe even though truly you're just a pile of fish in a barrel waiting to die, other moments where you're off on your own holding your breath, trying to sneak through and not die, or at times rushing in hopes that you make it. Times where you have comms with teammates so you get help OR better yet, interesting story bits that move it all along, but long stretches where you don't have the constant annoying banter so the vulnerability of loneliness sets in. Scripted in-game events where teammates are plucked out from around you just like you helplessly watched in the movies where you may or may not be able to react fast enough to save them. Moments where aliens uncoil themselves from the hive walls like the opening of venus fly traps. Similarly points where you come across dead marines or marines in need of help who were cut off, marines that have gone mad from the horror they have experienced, and marines in the hive needing release. Level design that is mostly cramped, rarely open so every turn you are expecting aliens, BUT not aliens in all shadowy corners so sometimes it's the expectation not met that unsettles you the most. WAY less ammo, way more feeling of desperation, a much more frightening sense anytime you're outside the colony and exposed to the awful environment. I sort of expected something like Alien: Isolation but BETTER in every way, and with aliens you could kill. Maybe 'open sandbox' seeing as you're on a planet in a colony with very few options of where to go. Intense, horrifying realism...

So what did we get from SEGA?

The AI was TRASH.

Sometimes the aliens would be rushing and then stop only a few meters away in the crouch and then wait. It was as if the game prohibited more than a certain number of aliens from attacking at once. They would stay there waiting to be killed and they wouldn't retaliate.

Other times they would 'hide' behind a crate or desk as if waiting for scripting that says "GO!" because you haven't entered a room far enough... but you can see their tail swaying above them... and their shadow on the wall. Or sometimes they'd have already attacked, and cease attacking and 'hide' in the same fashion. It made zero sense.

Also their scripted or permitted "travel paths" were so limited and pathetic that they would only come from the same directions, ruining any potential for suspense or surprise.

Also, often you could hear sounds through walls that should have been thick enough that you can't hear anything, perhaps bass at best. I also noticed before many, many sealed doors opened the same "gunfire, aliens screaming" soundclip played... and it was the same file again and again. Way to break immersion entirely. It was so dumb and OFTEN UNNECESSARY because on the other side there was no fighting going on nor any indication a fight had just been happening.

As for the team AI, sometimes they were shooting everything, sometimes nothing, not even in front of them. So you couldn't rely on them whatsoever. It's so terrible playing a game where the AI kills everything before you even see them, like aimbot snipers. But it's equally terrible playing with AI teammates that may as well not be there, as they just get in the way and give you a false sense of security. Dreadful.

Most of the game you have these teammates with you, but why?

The writing for the story was so horrible, so so horrible. As most pathetic FPS campaigns anymore there's always that "guy on the comms" telling you what to do. They know if they put someone with you to "guide you" they're terrible to have around, but they also treat the player like a moron and can't write a level layout and queues in an interesting way that's not so on-the-nose it is annoying, so they have that person telling you what to do the entire time.

They honestly tried to use the ALIENS license to make a fast buck on the Call of Duty thing that was all the rage back then. That's what it felt like, "Call of Duty meets Aliens," done poorly. Why the huge emphasis on Weyland Yutani security forces? Nobody wanted that. Where did the hundreds and hundreds of WY soldiers come from? The Marine ship was roughly the same size of the Sulaco... the Sulaco carried about 20 crew. Somehow yours has a battalion of Marines? You hear "platoons are out there!" but you NEVER get a sense of the scale of your assasult expeditionary unit - what a waste then. You never see any indication in your ship that it's even possible there's that many. Nor do you see them all together in parade assembly or anything. And when you see the WY ship in the DLC it's also around the same size.. but held hundreds and hundreds of disposable security guys PLUS hundreds and hundreds, if not a thousand civillians tricked into coming along to be the hosts of a xenomorph infestation (I killed about that many aliens)? Just made no sense.

I should mention I installed the TemplarGFX 'total overhaul' mod over the game. Apparently only some maps were remastered with it to have better lighting and that showed. Sometimes it was evident, other times evidently not on. Also the AI was supposed to be drastically improved. I don't for a second believe the AI was ruined by the mod, I think it was always bad - I know this because every review of this game at launch said the AI was brokenly terrible, described exactly like my experience was, and it was never fixed, and the people I met through STEAM to play with said their experiences were the same.

The other huge gripe was the map design. HUGE, HUGE open areas again and again so aliens had no choice but to dash across big distances where they were easy to kill. How did the devs try to solve this? Make your aliens capable of jumping 50 meters through the air, I kid you not. Never do you see aliens jump this far in any movie, and physics and xenomorph biology tell you it's not possible, but there it was. It was so sickening.

What the heck was with the Unreal engine? It looked TERRIBLE. Honestly while playing the game I couldn't help but think, "Didn't DOOM 3 look WAY better than this for lighting and ambience???? Why not use that?!" so I went back and looked at DOOM 3 and maybe it looked better... but honestly something could have been better. The game was too bright, and the environs were too clean.

As well the field of view was so confined. Now I didn't want a weird skewed perspective like I'm playing QUAKE ARENA at 270 degrees, just bizarre... but this felt like I was looking through a square box, like an ancient CRT monitor even though I was on a gorgeous widescreen. Just odd. The only time this was acceptable was one you were using the Smartguns, and that's because you use the smartgun by looking through an eyepiece. This was good. They also captured the Pulserifle quite well, but the devs can't get the gunfire sound right - it just plays the typical "burst" .wav from the movie again and again, even if you tap and shoot a single bullet. That's not how guns go bang-bang... They should have put some effort into figuring out how to make it work. Oh, and just because the grenade launcher is underslung doesn't mean shooting from the hip while looking over a thigh-high wall should make the 20-mike-mike blow up in your own freakin' face and kill you... Thaaaankssss....

Oh there's more to say but STEAM said no more typing. See my full awesome review at my blog via my profile info.

Well I played through a game I've owned for years, meant to stream, but never did... and having been reading through and streaming Alien comic book content, it felt like time :)

You definitely get your money's worth in terms of game-length.

It's quite long, but not 'grindy' feeling. I wasn't TRYING to get it over with. They did a great job interspersing the game with transitions from ship to station to ship to the hive, and the changing environment and then the realization there's a hive (which you visit) and many more aliens, that was introduced quite well. Later seeing the beginnings of the hive in other areas of the station was good tool.

Great colors throughout as well as capturing the design/props/feel/aesthetic/environs of the original ALIEN.

Overloading the reactor in the Servastopol was FEARSOME and really made you feel like you could be blown away at any moment. Really stellar. Excellent job.

The 'working joes' were quite scary, and the version 2.0's were even more frightening because of how much damage they could take. They were in some respects scarier than the alien.

Amanda Riply REALLY needed to work on her shotgun skills - getting the next shell in the action via pumping was WAY too slow, so slow I died because I was trying to shoot a first facehugger, than pump, then shoot the second which was a big fail. Jerry Miculek is in his sixties and he's WAY faster (as seen here).

Nightmare mode needed to be clearer in defining its lack of a map. I played 5 hours and got stuck in the most ridiculous spots because I simply didn't have a map. I had to restart in HARD, and that was so much better. But I also played with the "Unpredictable Alien AI" mod, and I hope that didn't ruin the game mechanics. I did not notice the alien doing short, repetitive patrol routes right around where I was no matter what, so maybe I didn't rob myself of the best experience. Mind you, what's good about the alien doing a 20 second lap around the player even though the player hasn't made any news? It didn't make sense, it was annoying, hence the need to employ the mod.

Also, great use of the music from the original, and excellent implementation of the 'music queued' sequences; sometimes suspenseful, sometimes very dramatic (often times too loud for a guy trying to hear an alien stalking them but still good).

One thing that seemed amiss was never turning a corner in the ductwork with my flashlight out to see the alien just sitting there, waiting. I really wanted the alien to surprise me or hunt me in a duct as one would expect from watching the films.


... I was tempted at times to fire off the shotgun to see if it would actually pursue me through the duct. It never did, although one time it pulled me out as I'd just entered, which was nice and freaky. Many good startling points in this game, although I didn't jump for most of the 'jump-scares', just a couple. In the larger ducts with the red, plastic frames around the grey doors, the alien DID come in that vent and get me, but nothing that would have added to the claustrophobic feeling of not being able to get away.

I must say though, they also did a superb job interweaving the original story of Alien (having Sigourney Weaver do her own voice was a great touch). The whole story behind how the xenomorph got on the Sevastopol was great also.

For the ending, the game left on a note that looks quite ambiguous? She gonna die out there? Or be picked up for a sequel? Very dreary ending. I suppose though, that they usually were in the films too.

Definitely worth playing through once, good enough to earn a great score, but I can't see myself obsessing over any of the other modes to replay this. Time to move on to ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES!

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