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Sega & Gearbox Software Respond to A:CM Lawsuit

Aliens CM News | By ikarop on 03 May 2013 8:48 AM

Sega and Gearbox Software have responded to the class action suit that was issued earlier this week by a consumer. You can read their comments on the subject below.

Gearbox Software: “Attempting to wring a class action lawsuit out of a demonstration is beyond meritless. We continue to support the game, and will defend the rights of entertainers to share their works-in-progress without fear of frivolous litigation.”

Sega: “SEGA cannot comment on specifics of ongoing litigation, but we are confident that the lawsuit is without merit and we will defend it vigorously.”

On a related note, the lawsuit has been assigned an Alternate Dispute Resolution.

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SEGA & Gearbox Software Sued Over A:CM

Aliens CM News | By ikarop on 01 May 2013 4:42 AM

Sega and Gearbox Software have been reportedly sued by a consumer over claims of false advertising in regards to Aliens: Colonial Marines, says Polygon. The lawsuit, filed yesterday by law firm Edelson LLC on behalf of Damion Perrine, claims that Aliens: Colonial Marines was falsely advertised by Gearbox Software and Sega at trade shows, misleading consumers by giving an inaccurate representation of the final product.

“Unfortunately for their fans, Defendants never told anyone — consumers, industry critics, reviewers, or reporters — that their ‘actual gameplay’ demonstration advertising campaign bore little resemblance to the retail product that would eventually be sold to a large community of unwitting purchasers.” Read more here.

In related news, Steam appears to be issuing full refunds to consumers who have filled a complaint with Washington State Attorney. Find more here.

“Valve Corporation has agreed to credit your full purchase price of $49.99 paid for the software product Aliens: Colonial Marines on 2/5/2013. This does not necessarily reflect on the validity of your claim, nor does it preclude you from, or, assist you in seeking private legal remedies. (…) We will retain a copy of your complaint as part of our public record of the firm’s business practices.”

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Aliens: Colonial Marines for Wii U Officially Cancelled

Aliens CM News | By ikarop on 05 Apr 2013 9:24 PM

After giving out confirmation to European retailers this morning, Sega has now officially confirmed that the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines is no longer in development. The announcement has arrived after Sega also revealed yesterday that they will be closing their Australian studios.

A representative from Demiurge Studios, developers of the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines, told Gamespot:

“We were very sorry to hear about the cancellation of Aliens for Wii U. It’s business-as-usual here at Demiurge Studios. We are focused on making Shoot Many Robots for mobile kick ass and we’ve got another unannounced game in the works that we can’t wait to unveil!”

31

Sega Adds Disclaimer to A:CM Trailers & Website

Aliens CM News | By ikarop on 03 Apr 2013 4:24 PM

After a complaint submitted by consumers, the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has forced Sega of Europe to add a small disclaimer to their Aliens: Colonial Marines website and trailers, explaining that the trailer footage shown in all the videos uses the in-game engine, and represents a work in progress. You can read the full response from ASA bellow.

4

AvP: Evolution iOS Download Code Giveaway

Site Update | By ikarop on 26 Mar 2013 11:21 PM

We are giving away four download codes for the iOS version of Alien vs. Predator: Evolution! The game, developed by Angry Mob Games in collaboration with Fox Digital Entertainment, is currently available on the Apple Store and Google Play. You can read our thoughts on this new Alien vs. Predator mobile title here.

How it works: Listed below you will find the four simple steps that you need to follow.

• Be a registered member of AvPGalaxy.
• Answer this true or false quiz about the game:

1. You can play as both, Alien and Predator, in Alien vs. Predator: Evolution. True or false?
2. Neither facehuggers or chestbursters are playable characters in this game. True or false?

• Do you know the answers? E-mail them to us along with your username to ikarop@avpgalaxy.net. Make sure to put Evolution on the subject.
• The competition will be open for four days and be closing Sunday, March 31st. The winners will be picked at random and announced accordingly on Monday, April 1st.

Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions and good luck! Special thanks to 47 and Fox Digital Entertainment for providing us with the codes.

Update: And the winners are: alanwu1233, The_Raven, Galli and Engineer! Congratulations to them and thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway. The correct answers to the quiz were true and false respectively.

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Syd Mead U.S.S. Sulaco Print Giveaway

Site Update | By ikarop on 12 Mar 2013 4:25 PM

We are giving away four high quality prints of the U.S.S. Sulaco by Syd Mead to four lucky fan! As most of you already know, Syd Mead is a visual futurist and concept artist, best known for his designs for science-fiction films such as Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron. Most recently the American artist was hired to design areas of the U.S.S. Sulaco that did not appear in the original film but were shown in the recent videogame Aliens: Colonial Marines.

How it works: Listed below you will find the four simple steps that you need to follow.

• Be a registered member of AvPGalaxy.
• Answer this true or false quiz about the Alien films:

1. The U.S.S. Sulaco can only be seen in the film Aliens (1986). True or false?
2. James Cameron filmed the scene where we first meet the Colonial Marines in Aliens (1986) last. True or false?
3. The shuttle shown in this photo can be seen in Aliens (1986). True or false?

• Do you know the answers? E-mail them to us along with your username to ikarop at avpgalaxy.net. Make sure to put Sulaco Print on the subject of the e-mail.
• The competition will be open for five days and be closing Sunday, March 17th. The winners will be picked at random and announced accordingly on Monday, March 18th.

Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions and good luck! Special thanks to Sega of America for sending us the prints.

Update: And the winners are: Xenoscream, Shasvre, Taxemic and PVBuk! Congratulations to them and thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway. The correct answers to the quiz were false, true and true respectively.

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AvPGalaxy Reviews Aliens: Colonial Marines

Aliens CM News | By Corporal Hicks on 03 Mar 2013 4:53 PM

I know I’m pretty late to the party but I just couldn’t bring myself to write this thing any earlier…As we all know Gearbox and Sega released the eagerly anticipated Aliens: Colonial Marines mid-last month and here’s what I’ve got to say:

“I’m not going to mercilessly slaughter this game because I’m not interested in coasting along with the craze that has become the mocking of this game. I’m just so disappointed in what we, as the consumer, were fed. I imagine this is what it feels like, as a parent, when you utter those words to your spawn: “ I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed.””

You can read the entirety of my thoughts here. Agree or disagree with anything I’ve said? We’d love to hear your comments in the forum.

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First Look at Creative Assembly’s Alien Game?

Games News | By ikarop on 02 Mar 2013 8:21 AM

A new image showing what could be the first look at Creative Assembly’s upcoming Alien game has been spotted online recently at the developer’s official website here. The alleged screenshot, which is edited out of the same office photo on Creative Assembly’s Twitter background, appears to show a female test dummy wearing a T-shirt with a Nostromo logo on it. You can check it below or see it at the source.

Back in 2011 it was stated that Creative Assembly came to Sega with the pitch and created a demo in 6 weeks which was labelled as “fantastic” and “out of this world“.

Sources close to the studio have revealed to us that a demo of an early prototype was based around recreating the feel of the medical bay aboard the Nostromo and lasted for about a minute.

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Ex-Gearbox Developer Talks ACM

Aliens CM News | By Darkness on 20 Feb 2013 1:28 PM

There’s another new article on the troubled development of Aliens Colonial Marines over on Destructoid. It appears they’ve spoken to an ex-developer of Gearbox who has shed some more light on the recent rumours. Gearbox reportedly took people off ACM to work on Borderlands and at one point, Sega decided to cut their losses with the game, which I believe was around the same time AvP was first announced.

“Gearbox was taking people off the project to put them on Borderlands 1,” he says of his time on the job. “This was before  the big art style change happened on Borderlands.  Our team was getting smaller by the month,  making it very difficult to get  the game made. Ironically several  of the team members were ex-3D Realms  people who were saying [paraphrasing]  ‘Finally, we’re going to Gearbox to make Aliens, and  we’re going to ship a fucking game!’  Hah.”

According to our man with the inside track, it was later  learned that SEGA actually canceled Colonial Marines, deciding to cut  its losses after such a long development cycle.

“At some point in 2008, SEGA temporarily pulled the plug on the game,” he  said. “They caught wind of Gearbox shifting resources (despite still  collecting milestone checks as if the team were full size) and lying to SEGA AND  2K about the number of people working on each project. This led to the round of layoffs at Gearbox in late 2008.”

The developer confirms he later spoke with people attached to the project at  the beginning of 2012, and learned they actually didn’t expect the game to ship  in February, given its current state. It would appear staff on the game knew the  thing was a bust, and were prepared for a fresh delay. Obviously, that never  happened, and now we’re here.

Thanks to ikarop for the tip.

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QA Tester Talks ACM, Gearbox & Creative Assembly

Aliens CM News | By Corporal Hicks on 17 Feb 2013 7:21 PM

Continuing the saga that is the truth behind Aliens: Colonial Marines a tester for the game recently posted on Reddit:

“Gearbox didn’t care about the game. They spent the money from ACM on the Borderlands games…When they got the game back, Timegate had done a terrible job. When it came into Sega it was shit basically. Gearbox only cared about fixing “progression blockers” (thinks that stop a player from getting through a level) or crashes.”

The poster also mentioned the Wii U Version is even worse than what’s already been released on other formats.

“Oh wow. Yes okay. I was hoping someone would ask this. I have played the WiiU version. The one that is supposedly the best of all of them? It is not. It is the worst. It is a bit of a joke. The WiiU is basically the same game as the console version but with framerate issues, worse texture loading, and horrendously misguided minigames thrown in. You get a ‘scanner’ to scan enemies and get bonus points that aid your harming them. When you cut open doors (which happens a lot in the game) you have a game where you have to keep the heat ‘optimal’. They just add frustration, and take away even more from the fun. We don’t know if it will come out, Sega are conisdering canceling it, but right now its still going.”

Reddit verified the poster’s identity, leading some credibility to the information posted by the tester. He also talked briefly about the upcoming title from Creative Assembly:

“That game looks amazing. Very dark, very slow (in a good way). The textures and lighting look really really good. I’ve seen it running on a PC. The PS4 devkit looks like a computer. It looks as good, if not better, running as any super high end pc. We did not have those controllers, but they look like what was promised.”

The tester has since deleted his account and posts but the conversation was saved and has been reported at other sites.