Aliens: Colonial Marines, from SEGA, Gearbox and (mostly) TimeGate Studios is not a very good game. That’s about the highest praise I can give the title; a game that essentially insulted gamers and Aliens fans by being a last generation rushed-to-market mess. Now, on the PC at least, it’ll be getting a little better.
The game will be on the receiving end of a hefty 4GB patch; adding, among other things, a high-resolution texture pack and “various visual improvements.” In addition to that, a number of AI improvements have been made; bringing the game just a little closer to that impressive, unfortunately fake E3 demo footage
3/18/2013 Update
General
- Improved texture resolution.
- Various visual improvements.
- Added mouse smoothing to options menu.
- Fixed crashes tied to launch and motion tracker.
- Added additional safeguards to better protect save data.
- Resolved an issue where a player’s level could sometimes appear incorrect when backing out of a party.
- Addressed several scenarios under which players could spawn without a weapon.
- Changes to better prevent audio from sometimes cutting out during end of mission cinematics.
- Fixed issue where Xeno death animation was not properly calculating momentum of the killing blow.
- Smart Gun animation now properly tracks targets.
- Addressed some instances where Xenos would display erratic animations.
- Increased light radius for player’s shoulder lamp.
- Adjusted aim assist to better reflect player input.
- Addressed an issue that could sometimes cause co-op player revival to not work under certain circumstances.
- Addressed issues with players not spawning into a level properly.
- Fixed a marine player invincibility exploit.
- Resolved several instances where players could walk or fall outside of maps.
- Addressed an issue where Ripley’s Flamethrower (bonus content) would sometimes fire continuously without player input.
- Fixed an issue that could cause localized text to sometimes display incorrectly.
- Addressed an issue where weapon ammunition was not always highlighted properly.
- General user interface improvements.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.
Campaign
- Tweaked enemy and friendly AI to be more aggressive and responsive.
- Modified campaign difficulty to account for improved AI responsiveness.
- Improved enemy collision detection regarding doors and Power Loader.
- Addressed some issues that could cause improper warping for co-op players.
- Various tweaks to address instances where NPC characters would not always properly navigate to objectives.
- Players will no longer bleed out immediately when downed in a Power Loader.
Versus
- Fixed issues that could cause clients to report inaccurate results and statistics.
- Addressed instances where a map would appear to “pop in” when loading into a new match.
- New Xeno appearance customization added.
- Multiplayer teams should now correctly auto-balance between rounds.
- Increased duration of Lurker Pounce Challenge “Cat-Like Reflexes” from 10 to 20 seconds.
- Fixed issue where certain multiplayer challenges would not unlock properly for all characters.
- Crusher pick-ups now correctly appear as highlighted for clients.
And while it’s great that Gearbox (or whoever it is they’ve outsourced the patching to) is trying to fix this mess, unfortunately, no amount of patching can turn Colonial Marines in to a good game.
Last Updated: March 19, 2013
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
March 19, 2013 at 11:18
The moment you need a 4GB patch so close after release to fix things that should have been part of the original release is when the industry has failed.
AndriyP
March 19, 2013 at 11:21
No patch should be over 300mb evers otherwise its a part of the game that SHOULD have been shipped with
Admiral Chief Erwin
March 19, 2013 at 11:26
Amen
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
March 19, 2013 at 11:27
Games shouldn’t even need patching so close to release except for small nigly things that may have been missed. So really anything over 100mb close to release is actually bad.
It shows a lack of quality control
AndriyP
March 19, 2013 at 11:29
“It shows a lack of quality control”
It shows absence of quality control
Fixed it for ya
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
March 19, 2013 at 11:32
Lol. Indeed. Thank you 🙂
HvR
March 19, 2013 at 12:58
Think of it as QA DLC
mornelithe
March 19, 2013 at 13:15
Tell that to WoW, Blizzard laughs at your 300m patches. And tell that to Arma, there’s nearly a gig in patches just to get to the current version.
There should never be a limit on patch sizes, because the last thing we want to be doing is forcing developers to pay more attention to the size of the patch, than the content, bugfixes, and engine improvements they’re planning on including,
Colonial Marines may have been a crap game, but not every game that has hefty sized patches is requiring it because the game itself is terrible.
Draco Lusus
March 19, 2013 at 13:29
With WOW, you are patching a MMORPG world, I would think code runs a lot deeper than a FPS. How big is the current WOW install now, 25GB? 4GB is a content patch, not a code / bug fix patch…
mornelithe
March 19, 2013 at 14:32
It’s actually 23.8g at present, though, probably a tad smaller given the size and amount of screen shots I have. WoW has numerous types of patches and hotfixes, which are much much smaller. But yeah, they routinely have massive content updates.
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
March 19, 2013 at 15:03
It’s O.K for an online MMO to have patches on a regular basis. It’s expected because there is always something cropping up that needs fixing.
It’s when this trend is carried over to non-MMO games (such as A:CM) that it becomes a problem.
I don’t mind patches as long as they make sense. But a 4GB patch of things that should have been part of the game release anyway? That just doesn’t quite sit right with me. I’m all for fixing things in patches, but when a patch is released so close after release because of glaring issues that never should have made it past QA, it kind of frightens me and indicates incompetence.
mornelithe
March 19, 2013 at 15:37
I think by and large people know which games suck to begin with (and if you don’t, your fault, do your research), trying to force developers to adhere to a pre-determined patch size is only going to hurt games that don’t blow.
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
March 19, 2013 at 15:48
I think you misunderstand. It’s not that there should be a predetermined patch size. It’s more that there are these huge patches that don’t make sense.
Yes, I understand things slip through the cracks, but taking Aliens as an example, it’s not ok to have a 4GB patch of things that should have been in the game in the first place.
Having a patch that says “Fixed a strange bug where X happened when Y was done in a specific order”? That’s ok.
Having a patch that says “Fixed an issue where it was impossible to do X or Y regardless of what you do”? That’s not ok because how did that get past quality testing. Surely the same issue would have been picked up on testing?
Big patches are fine. But big patches less than a month after release? That’s not ok. That’s the main problem I have.
Am I making sense?
mornelithe
March 19, 2013 at 16:17
Heh, I think you misunderstand me. Aliens Colonial Marines was universally regarded as a shit game by reviewers, looked like crap in the leadup, and people still bought it. Of course it needed a 4g patch, the real question is, why bother? At this point, there’s no fixing the damage that’s been done. So, a 4g patch is simply a waste of time, in my opinion.
To be honest, I prefer patch/update sizes to be completely un-regulated, because first and foremost, I have no real knowledge of the intricacies and size of their code. I also have no idea what they’re planning on introducing at a later date (many patches will be in preparation for future updates).
Things always slip through the crack, you should see my diatribe on WoW from the Greg Street interview. Everything I said there was 100% accurate, and Blizzard has a QA team AND a public test realm….
But, long story short, a crap game shouldn’t be purchased. For those who did purchase it without actually performing their due-diligence, that’s ultimately the fault of gamer’s. Not the developer. They may have made a crap game, but they didn’t force anyone to buy it.
TechniKyle
March 19, 2013 at 11:46
Any patch right after release is a fail in my opinion.
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
March 19, 2013 at 11:50
Yes and no. If it’s a patch to quickly fix a minor detail that may have been overlooked then I am ok with it. But it needs to be small. 100mb or less in my opinion. Any more than that is just unacceptable.
I think it’s a mark of quality when they can release a patch quickly to fix a small issue that may have crept through all the testing.
I think it’s a mark of laziness and incompetence when they need to release a patch to fix glaring issues that should have been impossible to miss during quality testing. This is what usually happens and why patches are so big. Because they let the glaring issues go through even though the knew about them thinking “Meh we can release after launch as it gives us more time to get it right”
Admiral Chief Erwin
March 19, 2013 at 11:26
4GB? 4GB?????
I.
DON’T.
CARE.
Friggin sell out fools
Daniel Keevy
March 19, 2013 at 11:47
It’s so nice to see them finally out of Beta..
Twakkie
March 19, 2013 at 11:58
Lol
Scoobaz
March 19, 2013 at 11:47
If I had this game where would I download this from, la internet cafe?
My 3G at home is 2GB+1GB. Lolz. They “assume” everyone on the planet has adsl uncapped.
4GB patches, Always on DRM, microtransactions, Pay to win.
WTF is going on? You know what’s said about assumptions. It’s the mother of all fcuk ups.
Sir Captain Rincethis
March 19, 2013 at 11:51
Agreed brother. Amen to that.
boet
March 19, 2013 at 11:53
“They “assume” everyone on the planet has adsl uncapped.”
Their target market has, if you dont have quick uncapped internet access, the gaming industry coudnt care less about you. Sad but true.
mornelithe
March 19, 2013 at 13:25
“WTF is going on?”
The Xbox 360 and PS3 happened. This generation happened. You had a handful of folks warning the direction this was going, and nobody listened.
When Capitalism discovers a new economic bubble, everyone and their mother flocks to it to exploit it as much as they possibly can. And that’s pretty much what’s happened here; either we as consumers, force the industry to moderate it’s control tactics, or there will soon be a collapse where gamer’s become disenfranchised by the state of games and stop rushing out to buy every new title. And that could have pretty dramatic effects on all developers.
I wonder what would happen at Activision, if the new CoD bombs, like sells 500K units? Or Grand Theft Auto 5 sells under a million?
TechniKyle
March 19, 2013 at 11:47
I have games that are smaller than that patch!
Sir Captain Rincethis
March 19, 2013 at 11:50
I have said from the beginning, kills this steaming pile of crap with fire. I constantly get updates on Facebook with people who are actually defending the developers with ‘they are trying, you complained, they have listened’ bullshit. It’s like if I went to a restaurant and ordered a steak that gave me the shits and the restaurant said sorry by handing me a loo roll, would I say thanks? Well maybe to the loo roll, but not to this crap!
Juan Peter Auret
March 19, 2013 at 12:15
Well ….. ahem! sc2 hots was an 8gb patch in my opinion. And I don’t see anyone complaining. Maybe im just on the wrong site 😀
umar bastra
March 19, 2013 at 12:23
all I can say is
matthurstrsa
March 19, 2013 at 13:08
That’ll teach you to buy games on release! It just isn’t a good idea. Sure, you get gems now and again (Tomb Raider comes to mind) but for the most part, you’re beta testing and server testing. You’re all a number, and that number is 37.
Kobus Nel
March 19, 2013 at 16:36
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