So, after spending some time with this game... I couldn't do it. A:CM has been the single most frustrating experience playing a video game I have EVER had. You know how your intuition has this funny way of telling you not to do something? Well, let this be a lesson for anyone who decides to ignore said intuition.
Now, I APPLAUD TemplarGFX for the excellent mod that they put out -- this is how I played A:CM. Even with the graphical upgrades, the AI tweaks, and the overall improvements to the game that were made, you cannot, as the old adage says, polish a turd (though they did an amazing job at it). No matter how much fixing was done to the game's glitchy architecture, there was still a lot of issues with things that should matter like story, characters, and gameplay. This game had very brief moment's of good atmosphere (on the surface of LV426) and some of the level design demonstrated a genuine attention to detail. However, this in itself was not enough. While showing some promise, it ultimately fails to do what other games in the series have been able to do: provide a genuinely thrilling experience in line with the movie properties it is based on.
Admittedly, my first foray into modern Alien gaming started with Acclaim's Alien 3 for the SNES, then moved onto AVP Gold, AVP2 for the PC and then AVP 2010 for the PS3. The latter I had fun with even though it was based on source material (the AVP film) that I found less than enjoyable. I was impressed, however, that the game developers, in my opinion, seemed to have improved on the source material and made a good extension of that universe. For someone who wasn't used to gaming in HD, that was enough to drag me in. But then, a few years later, came the cream of the crop... Alien: Isolation. Not enough can be said of that game... what a masterpiece. Because A:I should be the benchmark by which ALL Alien-based games ought to be measured, and because I went into A:CM already knowing of its faults, some may say that it is a little unfair to compare the two. I disagree. A:I understood how to make the universe work, A:CM thought it understood what Aliens was about, and while focusing on intensity, let other things fall drastically by the wayside.
Man, I wanted to come in here and rant, but I think that after typing this out I have realized that people can make mistakes and it just sucks that this game was not more enjoyable -- even after the great work done on it by the modding community. But, because there are developers out there who worked on this game who have families, and who make mistakes, I hope that at least my 19 bucks went on to help them.
