A game can't just be aimed at a single audience. For the crowded shooter market in particular, you've got to be good, and you've got to appeal to a broad swath of players. Aliens: Colonial Marines might be able to pull that off. It's got four-player, drop-in co-op for the entire campaign. It's got a ton of distinctive, cool-sounding weapons. It looks like it'll have some great setpieces and intense scripted moments. The shooting seems responsive and fast.
But there's a specific audience out there that's been waiting for Aliens: Colonial Marines. An audience that knows what planet Hadley's Hope is on, that remembers the last stand in Operations. And Aliens: Colonial Marines is really that audience's game.
It's not that surprising. Every Gearbox employee I've spoken to has used reverent tones in talking about how they feel about the Alien series. After all, as Gearbox Chief Creative Officer (and former director on the project) Brian Martel put it, "I've been ripping off Aliens for my entire career. Now, I get to do it for real."
That love comes through in the little touches in Aliens: Colonial Marines. I'm not talking about the easy tugs at your nostalgia either - the old standbys are there, like the sound of a pulse rifle, the escalating whine of a motion tracker picking up... something. Developers have been using easy Aliens throwbacks for decades now, but Gearbox seems to be going for something less cheap.
The premise fits snugly into the existing continuity between Aliens and Alien 3. You're part of the marine platoon sent in response to a distress call from LV-426, the home of Aliens' "shake-and-bake" terraformed colony, Hadley's Hope. That call came from a marooned contingent of marines from the troop transport Sulaco, and... all of this will either confuse you or get you hard.
There's not a lot more to say about Aliens: Colonial Marines right now. It's still around a year away, though it looks good and runs pretty well. It sounds like an Aliens game. There are pulse rifles, shotguns ("for close encounters"), smartguns, sentry turrets, power loaders... POWER LOADERS. You'll venture through familiar areas from Aliens after you're marooned on the rock that is LV-426 -- because why wouldn't a platoon looking for shelter make their way to the planet's only colony? You'll find Operations, home of Hudson's Last Stand TM, and you'll in turn realize the futility of human barriers to Xenomorph ingenuity.
Again, you'll either get all of that and find your anticipation for more info on Aliens: Colonial Marines' campaign and multiplayer rising, or you'll keep half an iota of attention on another possibly cool shooter. But regardless of which it is, Gearbox is pouring its heart into elaborating on a film that changed science-fiction, that's influenced video games for the entire 25 years they've existed, because everyone at Gearbox loves it. And as someone who's been right there with them since I sat cowering under a blanket on the couch next to my dad, watching a movie I had absolutely no business watching on HBO at the age of six, I'm cautiously optimistic that someone will finally get it, and get it right. Even if that developer did make marine chatter during the demo.
