Home Gaming Aliens: Colonial Marines was sold on lies

Aliens: Colonial Marines was sold on lies

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lies

Aliens: Colonial Marines is out – and it’s a travesty. It’s a horrible, slipshod game that was in no state to be released. Blame whoever you like; Gearbox, TimeGate Studios or publisher SEGA , but the game that people are playing is a far cry from the game that was promised. The game was sold entirely on lies – and they’re lies that came right from Gearbox president Randy Pitchford’s mouth.

 

Watch this video of a demo walkthrough of the game by Pitchford – and look at all the features things that just weren’t in the game. It becomes quite obvious, based on the disparity between the final game and this demo, that it was little more than a target render sold off as gameplay – which is pretty disgusting from Gearbox, and tantamount to false advertising.

For a more comparative look at the disparity between the “demo” and the final release, have a look at VideoGamer.com’s comparison video. Note that they compared the demo to the final PC release, on maximum settings – so consoles aren’t to be blamed here.

So how did it go so, so very wrong? According to Redditor throwawayacm who claims to have been involved with the project has spilled the beans. It could be made up nonsense, but ties in pretty well with what we’ve heard about the game’s troubled development.

First off, due to me breaking NDA, I can’t provide any proof that I’m not just talking out of my ass. But I figure you’d be interested in hearing what I have to say regardless. I’ve been on the project for around a year and a half, so some of the following are things I’ve heard from more senior guys.

Pecan (the internal codename for ACM) has a pretty long history. SEGA, GBX and 20th Century FOX came to an agreement to produce an Aliens game around 6 years ago, after which SEGA almost immediately announced it, long before Pecan had even started production. The game has been in active development in the past, only to be shelved in favor of another project (Borderlands, Duke, etc), and each time it was resumed it would undergo a major content overhaul.

SEGA, naturally, wasn’t super pleased about the delays, but GBX got away with it for a long time and the contract between SEGA and GBX kept getting augmented to push the projected release further and further back. The last time it was resumed, GBX outsourced a good portion of the game to outside companies. Initially, the plan was for TimeGate to take the majority of campaign, GBX would take MP, Demiurge and Nerve would handle DLC and various other focused tasks. This decision was made mostly so that most of the developers at GBX could continue working on Borderlands 2, while a small group of LDs, coders and designers dealt with Pecan.

Somehow the schedules for Pecan and Borderlands 2 managed to line up and GBX realized that there was no fucking way they could cert and ship two titles at the same time. Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind, even as Pecan’s Beta deadline got closer and closer. In April or May (can’t remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension.

About 5 of those 9 months went to shipping BL2. In that time, TimeGate managed to scrap together 85% of the campaign, but once Borderlands 2 shipped and GBX turned its attention to Pecan, it became pretty apparent that what had been made was in a pretty horrid state. Campaign didn’t make much sense, the boss fights weren’t implemented, PS3 was way over memory, etcetcetc. GBX was pretty unhappy with TG’s work, and some of Campaign maps were just completely redesigned from scratch. There were some last minute feature requests, most notably female marines, and the general consensus among GBX devs was that there was no way this game was going to be good by ship. There just wasn’t enough time.

Considering that SEGA was pretty close to taking legal action against GBX, asking for an extension wasn’t an option, and so Pecan crash-landed through certification and shipping. Features that were planned were oversimplified, or shoved in (a good example of this are challenges, which are in an incredibly illogical order). Issues that didn’t cause 100% blockers were generally ignored, with the exception of absolutely horrible problems. This isn’t because GBX didn’t care, mind you. At a certain point, they couldn’t risk changing ANYTHING that might cause them to fail certification or break some other system. And so, the product you see is what you get.

Beyond gameplay, the story has been raised as an issue several times. I can’t really comment without feeling bad beyond saying that the script was approved by 20th Century FOX, and that the rush to throw a playable product together came at the cost of the story. Campaign does a pretty bad job of explaining a lot of the questions raised at the start of the game, and so hopefully there will be DLC to flesh that out a bit better.

In the end, the game was ultimately cobbled together with different bits of different things from different developers – but the ultimate responsibility has to lie with Gearbox – even though it seems they’re happy to throw Timegate under the bus.

Honestly, it’s just shameful.

Last Updated: February 14, 2013

41 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief Erwin

    February 14, 2013 at 13:05

    ONE MILLION PK’s TO THEM ALL! EACH! Dammit, this is terrible. Bad bad practise. Sies! SIES!

    Reply

  2. jac7

    February 14, 2013 at 13:16

    He who has created the header should helm all future games in the Alien franchise.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      February 14, 2013 at 13:23

      AMEN

      Reply

  3. Valshen

    February 14, 2013 at 13:19

    HEADER IMAGE WIN!

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      February 14, 2013 at 13:23

      Made me laugh quite hard that one!

      Reply

    • DieJason

      February 14, 2013 at 13:52

      Only watched that movie for the first time on Sunday, damn epic

      Reply

    • Kobus Nel

      February 14, 2013 at 14:21

      Indeed. Watched Memento again a few weeks back. Awesome. Header win! 🙂

      Reply

  4. matthurstrsa

    February 14, 2013 at 13:22

    It does seem like they were forced to ship a product they weren’t happy with. Anyway, like you say, its Gearbox’s name on the product, they must take the blame.

    Reply

  5. ElNicko

    February 14, 2013 at 13:26

    once again , a big thank you to Lazygamer and Geoff for diving on this grenade and taking one for all of us. This just looks plain Shyte !!

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      February 14, 2013 at 14:32

      Geoff likes “taking one” in general 😛

      Reply

      • ElNicko

        February 14, 2013 at 14:37

        ahem , and how would you know that “little” fact sir ??

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Erwin

          February 14, 2013 at 14:43

          SPIES….shhhhh

          Reply

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            February 14, 2013 at 14:59

            He also likes “face huggers”

          • ElNicko

            February 14, 2013 at 15:09

            otherwise known as ‘Girls’ from Springs…….

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            February 14, 2013 at 15:12

            XD

  6. Trevor Davies

    February 14, 2013 at 13:26

    If Gearbox is lead developer then they’re responsible for whatever rubbish their sub-contractors have dished up. The end.

    If was the same story with DX:HR & their outsourced boss battles.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      February 14, 2013 at 13:46

      AAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH. I forgot about those battles, thanks for the reminder…

      Reply

      • Trevor Davies

        February 14, 2013 at 14:44

        They didn’t release a demo for this did they? Apparently developers are against them because they cut into sales of crappy games trololol

        Reply

  7. Daryl Eksteen

    February 14, 2013 at 13:28

    Those poor bastards that forked our R500 – R600 to buy the game based on the original demo. It’s absolute BS!

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      February 14, 2013 at 14:31

      Wonder if they can get a refund? CPA and all?

      Reply

      • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

        February 14, 2013 at 15:00

        I am sure every country has laws against false advertising. There must be some basis to take a stand surely

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Erwin

          February 14, 2013 at 15:14

          I hope so. Would be nice if such a rule was perma enforced. That way, devs HAVE to deliver a good game.

          Reply

  8. Kagutsuchi

    February 14, 2013 at 13:28

    Ah man, that sucks. This makes me grateful that at least Borderlands 2 was top notch.

    Reply

  9. Tarisma

    February 14, 2013 at 13:29

    so in the end no one really gave a fuck about Pecan and players are left with a pile of steaming shit.

    This is a prime example of why I no longer pre order games

    Reply

    • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

      February 14, 2013 at 14:28

      Exactly my same reason too. I always wait till after the game has been released so that I can’t get trapped like this.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief Erwin

        February 14, 2013 at 14:31

        GOTYE for me!

        Reply

        • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

          February 14, 2013 at 14:40

          Looking at the poor quality of the game and all the things simply just missing I don’t think I will be getting this. Not unless they release a large patch fixing all the crappy gfx issues/clipping/missing sections

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief Erwin

            February 14, 2013 at 14:46

            A patch you say?

            TO THE LAB!!!

    • Admiral Chief Erwin

      February 14, 2013 at 14:29

      You said it man!

      Reply

    • Kobus Nel

      February 14, 2013 at 15:55

      Yup! Hard lesson learned with CoD:BO2. Worst thing is, it’s bound to my steam ID so I can’t even sell it. ERMAGERD RETERDERD!

      Reply

    • Banana Jim

      February 28, 2013 at 18:48

      Agreed, this actually sums it up for me perfectly, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5Uj4XIT1Y

      Reply

  10. M

    February 14, 2013 at 13:37

    More like “Work in REGRESS”….

    Reply

  11. HolyBolter13

    February 14, 2013 at 14:03

    WOW WOW WOW, That is just bloody SHOCKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply

  12. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    February 14, 2013 at 14:27

    This is horrifying. I am ashamed of this for gearboxes part. Wow. Just…. wow

    Reply

  13. That Tall Twit

    February 14, 2013 at 14:46

    Oh my… that is just sad. I was looking forward to the game so badly.

    Reply

  14. Sir Captain Rincethis

    February 14, 2013 at 15:22

    yeah, if the president is lying through his god damn teeth about a product so shit hell itself would reject it, it makes me want to boycott their games. But then I remember Borderlands 2 and my resolve dissolves.

    Reply

  15. Riaan.

    February 15, 2013 at 08:07

    Worst part of all of this, is that this game had/has soooo much potential. If these asshats weren’t trying to develope to huge games at the same time, and gave ACM it’s deu attention, they could have made an EPIC game. I really looked forward to it and am pretty damn dissapoint. One thinks if they just had one year of working hard on this, it could have been one of the games of the year. But those comparison clips, between demo and finali product are so damning.

    Reply

  16. Purple_Dragon

    February 15, 2013 at 08:17

    I’m so glad I waited for reviews. I was going to get it based on the videos I had seen, everything looked brilliant and the graphics were looking great.

    It’s not right showing a demo and saying that is what it is going to be. Rather be up front and say the game may look like this, or something like that.

    Reply

  17. Admiral Chief Erwin

    February 15, 2013 at 08:49

    First video was quite kak…

    Watching second now…

    Reply

  18. Admiral Chief Erwin

    February 15, 2013 at 09:05

    WOW, first video was bad. But the second? OH MY FLIPPING FLAGNOG!
    Terrrrrrrrrrible

    Reply

  19. OVG

    February 15, 2013 at 16:51

    SEGA are a bunch of pussies for letting them walk all over them especially after the reviews of Duke Nukem.

    Depending on how much money was squandered, SEGA need to sue.

    Reply

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