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You can use this thread to post your reviews in. I'm opening this now as I know some folk have received their copies early.

So my copy arrived on Saturday. Didn't take long to isntall and a short update for day one.

It's a decent game. Play wise it is repetitive but that said I was playing it in single player but still had fun. With people you can interact with I think this will be a lot more fun. Match making wasn't bringing up any results for me but this is 4 days before release, I'm guessing when more people have the game it will be easier or perhaps it was turned off until release date? I think setting difficulty and levels in matching making may saturate the amount of sucessful matches you'll get.

It can be a little hard to know what to do outside of the game play. Setting up and customising skins/weapons took a little while to figure out but once you do it's easy to set up. Annoying you need to run around everywhere on the ship to do different things but I remember one of the Call of Dutys (Maybe WWII) doing this.

I've noticed a couple of glitches with the camera. If I hide behind a wall I can't jump over then try to get up and move away, the camera glitches back and forth a few times. Likewise if you're backed into a corner the character vanishes and it can be hard to know where you are in relation the what's going on. Nothing that I haven't seen in other games and not the end of the world gltiches.

All in all for the price, it's a decent buy. Single player will tire quickly but multiplayer should be where it's at. I'm certainly not let down by this and looking forward to joining some people for games.

So I've had it since Saturday as well like Ferengo but can only share brief thoughts as I've only got to mission 2 in the first campaign because of my necessity to play on "intense" and what I hope is my mate's awful internet, and not the game having connection difficulties.

+ crisp presentation and surprisingly detailed textures which really pop in 4K.
+ when it comes to a last stand situation it feels authentically "Aliens". Was really fun watching the sentry turrets deplete and the Aliens break our line
+ challenging. And this was without the use of challenge cards.

- some voice-overs and dialogue is a bit cringe. Aliens excelled (sharp witty dialogue) in this that's why I have the bar high
- last night we couldn't play one bloody mission. Could be because we're playing pre-launch though or just that my mate's internet is quite poor?

I can feel this reviewing rather well which is pleasantly surprising and a huge testament to the folks at Cold Iron.

So we just finished the 2nd mission of the 3rd campaign. Taking a break for RT to sleep, but I'm really enjoying it! The level and environment design in this campaign is on fire.

Played the first campaign last night. Got stuck on the second mission, the game is definitely way more challenging than I expected. Was a good time though, I'm really enjoying the collectible items scattered throughout the missions. The aspen beer can was a nice touch.

Trying to play now on XB, crashed after creating my character lol.

Trying again

- played a few minutes with bots, enjoyed it. Graphics on the xenos are a bit of a letdown compared to what I've seen of the next gen or pc screens footage. (I'm playing on the Xbox One x)

Aside from needing some optimization fixes, I'd say this game is really good

Beat the first level, really enjoyed it even though it was just me.

The gameplay is mindless fun and overall it's got a lot for franchise fans. Also the soundtrack is excellent, actually elevates the game a bit imo.

I did notice there has been no human blood or gore at all thus far. Even when someone is picked up by the warrior or pounced on by the other special variants. It's been a game I wouldn't worry about playing around the kiddos, so far at least.

I've finished 2 levels. It's fun, but looks like its getting better. I'm going to up the difficulty though.

I put in my first couple hours last night, here's some random first impression thoughts.

The Deluxe Edition I spent $30 extra dollars on. Woah boy, what a waste of money, maybe the biggest waste for a "Deluxe Edition" in my experience at least, all for a small handful of cosmetics, some that aren't even noticeable in-game. Enjoy that extra Christmas money Cold Iron!

Music was uneven for me. Some of the moody cuts I liked, some of the faster paced tracks didn't have enough umpf and sometimes distracted me even.

Move your mouths! Sometimes I can live with AI talking without their mouths moving at a minimal basis, but considering you're dependent on having dialogue repeatedly with AI crew to accept missions, purchase upgrades, learn lore, rinse-repeat, the lack of mouth movement feels old generation cheap. Feels like a cost savings measure. And the one guy working on the Power Loader kept moving his mouth, but nothing was coming out! ::)

The game crashed while I was in the queue so I switched it over to bots. And thankfully, the bots played well. Pleasantly surprised with some decent A.I.

Graphics were fine. No where near as good as the overclocked footage on IGN but I'm playing on a PS4 Pro. It's decent graphics for a PS4 Pro. Nothing special, nothing awful.

Fun factor is the best part. It literally often felt like a coin-op arcade game where I'd put an embarrassingly amount of quarters to continue. There's no sense of fear or dread here, it doesn't feel like a correct interpretation of Aliens 'the film' unfortunately. There are some frustrating moments here or there where I feel I should logically be able to jump this or climb that - nope, find another way. But lots of mindless shoot-em-up fun for sure!

Two major concerns ringing in the back of my mind so far:

No Cross Play. This game feels like will live or die by its replayability and that will require friends. And the lengthy way "leveling" occurs here, I don't believe a great many will want to start from scratch again just so they can play on other friends' platforms, if they even have that option.

25 Minutes to Spare. I had 25 minutes to spare before I had to hit the pillow for work last night and I couldn't start another mission because I feared it wouldn't be enough time - its not like I could save my progress- so I moved to an entirely different game. It's not a great aspect. If these missions can run 30-45 minutes, I wonder how many random real-player Fireteams are going to experience someone cutting and running because dinner is ready, or mom is calling, or this or that. We'll see.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 25, 2021, 12:52:59 PM

25 Minutes to Spare. I had 25 minutes to spare before I had to hit the pillow for work last night and I couldn't start another mission because I feared it wouldn't be enough time - its not like I could save my progress- so I moved to an entirely different game. It's not a great aspect. If these missions can run 30-45 minutes, I wonder how many random real-player Fireteams are going to experience someone cutting and running because dinner is ready, or mom is calling, or this or that. We'll see.

This is a really good point. I work from home and fancied a cheeky mission before I logged on for work this morning - I really cut it fine as the random chap and bot I was playing with kept getting downed, and stretched it out. Almost the opposite of that casual pick up and play, a little bit. Fortunately we all died a few minutes before I started work!

My copy finally arrived this morning and I got to play about an hour or so. I mostly spent time creating my character and exploring the Endeavour hub area, and went deliberately slowly on the first mission, which is the only one I've done so far since I've seen so many pre-release videos of it that I figured it wasn't like I'd be seeing anything new.

So far I've really been liking it. It definitely gets fun and intense when the really big hordes show up and you're diving all over the place an switching weapons because reloading would take too long. And when the big boys like the Drones or Warriors appear they can definitely make things extra fun.

I only went through that first mission with two AI teammates, but they did well. I'm not the higher the difficulty the less helpful it'll be to have them in place of real people, but for standard difficulty they're great.

I really like that there are collectible on the missions that have some lore attached to them that you can hear characters talk about when you get back to the ship. Ever since I saw the little info blurbs on the weapons in the IGN preview and after hearing that Andrew Gaska was involved, I've been looking forward to seeing and reading all that stuff, and noticing all the ways it fits in to the RPG.

Still need to find one on the Endeavour itself, but the ones I've nabbed so far have been cool.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 25, 2021, 12:52:59 PMThe Deluxe Edition I spent $30 extra dollars on. Woah boy, what a waste of money, maybe the biggest waste for a "Deluxe Edition" in my experience at least, all for a small handful of cosmetics, some that aren't even noticeable in-game. Enjoy that extra Christmas money Cold Iron!

It seems like most of what you're paying for with the deluxe edition is the season pass for the upcoming year's worth of cosmetics, so maybe by August 2022 you'll be able to enjoy all of what you paid for. :P

I checked and the veteran's pack is going for £8 on the Playstation store here. That's more than I was hoping it'd be, but I'll probably still get it anyway as it looks like there are a few cool things in there. The season pass though I'm just going to wait and see what sort of things they have in the first drop before I make a decision on (though it seems like all you can get at the moment is an expensive "deluxe edition upgrade" instead, rather than the pass on its own).

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 25, 2021, 12:52:59 PMMove your mouths! Sometimes I can live with AI talking without their mouths moving at a minimal basis, but considering you're dependent on having dialogue repeatedly with AI crew to accept missions, purchase upgrades, learn lore, rinse-repeat, the lack of mouth movement feels old generation cheap. Feels like a cost savings measure. And the one guy working on the Power Loader kept moving his mouth, but nothing was coming out! ::)

Yeah the lack of moving mouths despite how often the characters talk definitely sucks. It's a very nice-looking game overall, but that part just feels cheap.

I'm not asking for full lip syncing here, but some movement would have been good.

Regardless that's a small thing overall. I'm very much looking forward to playing it again later, and with some actual human teammates.

I haven't played it since last night, but the music in the first two levels, meh.


Fun factor for me is enhanced by the fact that I have a 13 year old son and we have 2 gaming PCs side by side. I'm loving it. He's the one who dragged me through Colonial Marines probably 30 times when he was 5 lol. We had a good time last night. We can see some weaknesses in AI here and there, as well as some Aliens that are getting stuck. I'm happy we bought it, but I echo the sentiment about the deluxe edition. Not worth it.

Only had time to poke around in the Endeavor and play the first mission solo, so far. Ran out of ammo twice and had the squad wiped just before the final elevator arrived, so didn't achieve much by the end of it all. It quashed any ideas that this was going to be a spammy shooter though, as others in the genre can be. Managing resources does add some genuine tension, and I'll be much more conservative with ammo in future!

Some random thoughts:

- Is it just me, or does going through the campaign with only Alpha and Beta on your squad make it creepier than if you were alone? Nice job replicating the experience of synth-phobia, I guess!

- I'm surprised that we can't add decals to our outfits, like you can with the weapons. I know it was never explicitly promised, but somehow the coverage gave me the impression that we'd be able to do this. Even Colonial Marines had that to some extent!

- I consider myself average-to-good at this kind of game, but man am I finding it hard to hit the swarms of runners! The speed and general manoeuvrability they have makes it really hard to track them. Reminds me of the interview with Rebellion years ago (on the AVPG podcast, if I'm not mistaken) where they talk about having to slow down the alien movements and introduce pauses between attacks just to allow players a fair chance of landing a shot on them. Even in third person it's not easy to keep track of.

Yeah I spent a while increasing the aiming and ADS sensitivity after I encountered my first swarm. I really like how they can crawl on the ceilings and walls too. Makes it so that even if the motion tracker is telling you there's one there you might not necessarily see it because it could be right above you. Definitely helps it feel more "Aliens" than if they were all just running along the floor like the enemies in most of these types of games do.

And yeah I ended up running out of ammo and having to use a medkit a couple of times on the first mission, so I'm sure on the higher difficulties the resource management side of things should really help make it a lot more tense.

Yeah, I was relieved to find my first medkit in a hallway somewhere. I wasn't certain if it was going to be just the one per mission.

Also I was rather surprised I wasn't hit with a tutorial. I was thinking - they are just going to throw you into the mission without some sort of shooting range / holodeck / quick instruction? But I found the hud pretty intuitive and quickly picked things up.

I've only played the first mission, but my general impressions are pretty good.

I ended up buying just the hardened veteran pack or whatever the ten dollar one is, and I'm kind of glad I did because the default helmets just look goofy to me, as do much of the default armor.

It feels like what I expected it to be, an arcade shooter. I've seen someone liken it to EDF, which isn't too far off.

Anybody going into this expecting a highly authentic experience is probably going to not enjoy it as much.

I've played the first two campaigns (on PS4 Pro) and I'm enjoying it so far. Once again this is not a full budget title so we forgo certain niceties like lips moving when characters talk. For me its a minor quibble. But what I find myself being reminded of a lot while playing, blasting away the hordes of runners in corridors,  is Alien 3: The Gun.

Quote from: StanSwitek on Aug 25, 2021, 08:22:30 PM
I've played the first two campaigns (on PS4 Pro) and I'm enjoying it so far. Once again this is not a full budget title so we forgo certain niceties like lips moving when characters talk. For me its a minor quibble. But what I find myself being reminded of a lot while playing, blasting away the hordes of runners in corridors,  is Alien 3: The Gun.

Alien 3: The Gun also popped into my head when playing earlier. Probably due to a lot of the enemies being runners,  but also because the action is so arcade like.

Mission 3 upped the difficulty in the last phase on standard. So.....looking better for sure. The flamethrower is pretty epic.

Kind of what I expected.  I've only played through the first campaign so far and got wiped at the end of the first level of the second campaign, so my opinion could sway up or down in the future.

I've played so far with only the AI bots, as I always solo these third person online shooters first to catch the stories and then replay missions with people.

I wasn't initially impressed with the first level, but found myself enjoying it more and more as the game progressed.  It still isn't better than any modern third person online shooters that I have played like Division or Ghost Recon, but it isn't godawful in my estimation like I was worried it would be.

An oddity:

No lip sync.  What the hell dudes.  It's just odd as hell.  Especially when you can walk by background models that you can't speak to and they are moving their mouths to talk to each other.  So when you get dialogue with NPCs it just feels weird that there is no lip movement.  If the game sells well enough I expect this kind of thing will be fixed in a new update but still.........just weird.  Same with the background animations of certain characters.  Characters should move around and do different task between missions.  The powerloader has to be pretty freaking clean now. 

Weird thing I liked:


AI teammates being androids.  I mean, it makes sense.  Especially since I played as technician.  Reminded me of whats her name from defiance. 


The story so far: There actually is some and it kind of makes sense.  It's not as good as isolation because isolation felt personal to Amanda's character. 

In third person online you are kind of just a spectator to bigger events happening around you.  You influence things to be sure, but you are just a part of the story, not THE story like you would be in a survival horror or most FPS.  The glory goes to your squad, not just you.  Or at least that's the way it is supposed to go.  If you John Wick your way like me then......So I've not been mad that so far that this hasn't been isolation.  Though I can see how Marines vs Kenner Aliens would upset people.

Marine and universe lore.  Still waiting for gigantic penis Army soldiers to make an appearance in the Alien universe, but this game so far has done a respectable job of building up background and lore for the Marine Corps and its role in future of US/UA history. 

My ideal game now would be to have Marine vs movie Aliens where the Aliens move to outflank and outmaneuver you while you use your superior tech to put them down.  This kind of game was my ideal game when I was 13. 

It's not gorgeous but the aesthetic is very Alien/Aliens inspired.  I can dig it.

Things I don't like so far:

Why in god's name would a pistol be a primary weapon?  It makes no sense.  Running around with a literal close quarters weapon as a primary and not vice versa is silly.  I know you can insta switch so its not really any kind of big deal but it is literally one of those think about it things.  Your primary should offer suppression and range over your CLOSE quarters weapon if it doesn't............then it is the cqw. 

Mass swarms.  The variety of enemy types are the only thing that saves the gameplay here.  But when it is mostly runners or their variants it gets boring quick.  Should've done some different gameplay sections where alien swarm wasn't the primary obstacle.  Maybe it gets better later.  But I'm guessing probably not.

It is one of those unfinished releases.  Like most 3rd person shooters, there seems to be obvious plans for expansions.  BUT this is a double edged sword if not enough people buy the game to warrant those seasons.  Still probably better for the business, but shitty for the fan. 

Anybody know how well it is doing?

Not scary.  But this is part of the monster being cooked.  We all know what the Alien is now and what it does.  It is never going to be as scary as it once was, but this game doesn't try very hard to offer any fright. 

Early take:  6.5/10.  Not terrible.  Not marque Aliens title either. 

Definitely better than ACM but what is that really saying.

I'd put every other title with Alien in its name ahead at this moment (that I've played, and that is most of them, but not all). 

I was quite annoyed trying to find other players on PS4, for the Gift of Fire mission. I tried over and over again and it wouldn't put players into my party so I had to play with AI. I wonder if this is a bug, or there's just not enough people playing to fill my squad.

While I wait on a patch so I can actually finish the thing I'm just going to give my impression of it and not any sort of final grade. I doubt that my opinion will change that much but provided it does I'll follow up with a second score.

As is this the game is broken.
It's hordes from when you start the level to the end. It's not all xenos but all specialty xenos are sponges and so are the guys with guns. Chapter 3 is also nearly unplayable due to framerate or even a mixture of that and the servers shitting themselves. You could go solo, but your backup A.I is a crapshoot whether they fire on enemies or run into the middle of a room to die. And really the A.I is almost a necessity since when they work they'll do wonders taking out the copious amounts of Runners. Alternatively they will eat glue and they'll run into a horde of synthetics or xenos and do nothing but die. I dealt with this immediately making me wonder how this thing got passed QA other than this thing has jumped from company to company to the point they just want the game out. f**k it, it's shipping.

- Matchmaking seems to be broken hardly getting a squad let alone a full one. And I do mean even getting a squad, you do risk the game not even giving you A.I which will cause your game to crash.
- Sound cuts mid sentence or audio cue
- Audio cues for things like roars or warning for a prowler is a crapshoot whether it activates at all
- Sound in Chapter 3 is playing overtop itself in sections like with Cynthia.
-  Framerate tanks considerably but gets bad in Chapter 3 and apparently even worse in 4. Since I cannot complete the game due to framerate I will only be commenting up to Chapter 3.
- Xeno spawns are not just limited to vents or holes but can appear out of thin air in front of the player. This includes specialty xenos like Warriors and Drones.
- Damage is being dealt before xeno attack animation ends
- Maps unload as you enter new areas, in Chapter 3 this removed a portion of the level behind me not obscured by the door. Upon turning around to get ammo I found a void where the hallway used to be.
- Xenos fall through the map. Not sure why but this is something I'm seeing fairly often, great for getting rid of that annoying spitter but bad in that it is a bug.
- Not sure if it's a bug but nobody is lip-synced.
- Not sure if it's a bug but textures are PS3 quality in terms of appearance. Something is off here but I can't tell if that's developer design or if that was something to do with graphics.

I might be missing something but that's what I saw on my playthrough in terms of bugs.

The game otherwise is a horde shooter and it never ceases. You do not get a break in the action because one room to the next it's even more xenos. This might be where the framerate issue is coming into play because for the amount of enemies on screen the game may be lagging. This might explain Chapter 3 where you have the headcrabs (I don't give a shit what the name is, that's what they are) who spawn in massive quantities. The specialty xenos like spitters, prowlers, and drones are good ideas. They break up the action a bit but early game they're as spongey as the drone or warrior. They become less an issue later on but the game wants you to burn ammo and it's not helped by how many enemies will require the better part of your reserves. Having to play solo due to matchmaking issues has made this really noticeable. The leveling system I didn't see too much of, I'm trying to get new weapons, I'm trying to minmax characters. It's fine and pretty straightforward but I don't feel like I can really play with it due to how much it costs to get newer weapons and gear. Though I will concede that I haven't played every class so there's obviously stuff I'm missing.

As is though the game's buggy (no pun intended) and while I forced my way through Hunting Grounds blue screens I could in that at the very least reach level cap whereas here I'm struggling to get through a single level. And really even if I could complete it I want to complete it to give it a fair chance, but I honestly can't imagine myself replaying it otherwise. It's all horde. The first mission is indicative of everything else I've seen barring synthetics and whatever Chapter 4 has but I can't see it since the game is so bugged.

D+
Cannot complete the game as it currently stands. The gameplay loop is shallow. The game is full of bugs literally. Wait for it to go on sale and or play with friends. You're likely not getting much of anything from this unless you're on this board or just need something to play.

Quote from: StanSwitek on Aug 26, 2021, 01:20:06 PM
I was quite annoyed trying to find other players on PS4, for the Gift of Fire mission. I tried over and over again and it wouldn't put players into my party so I had to play with AI. I wonder if this is a bug, or there's just not enough people playing to fill my squad.

So this is me.

My second experience last night, my party settings were public, I got into the queue and couldn't find any real players to play with. This is the first week of release and I repeat, I couldn't find anyone to play with. >:(

We know there's no crossplay, but is that even mean between generations? Perhaps it works in Private Matches, but if I'm on PS4-Pro, do I not get in the queue with PS5 players? Is that just another filter that minimizes a player pool, along with I assume the campaign level you're selecting, along with the difficulty level you're selecting that narrows your compatible player search? Perhaps. I dunno. No players to find.

Well either way, I played again with da Bots last night and they seemed to be my undoing. I was playing the last Hoenikker mission where he's armed with a handgun helping, and those final Alpha swarms did me in - twice because both times those Alpha and Beta knuckleheads died on me first, and I couldn't survive the swarms alone last man standing.

Did I say I think the A.I. is smart? Maybe not. If I have to run to an ammo box to reload for a sec, instead of holding the line, they like to stop shooting and run with me. Will those knuckleheads even revive you if you're down I wonder....? Haven't even gotten there yet.

So last night. Second impressions:

My first try with bots.... so much arcade fun!

My second try... err, do I have to spend another half hour redoing the entire thing?

My third try... f*ck no. I'm turning it off.

Yep I'm with you VM. Another annoyance is no checkpoints, which helps to make this a game you really can only play in short (controlled) bursts, an hour or so at a time. Because if you get to the final encounter of a mission and die you're going all the way back to the beginning, so I think the hell with it and do something else. There's no restart mission option even, you have to choose to return to base (if you're in a squad and return to base, this could take a long time loading, and sometimes hangs quite a while, because I think it waits until all 3 players are loaded), and then start the mission again from there.

and as to your question about PS4 being matched with PS5 players, I don't think that happens. No crossplay whatsoever even between generations of the same system. I am pretty sure. So  I think its a matter of just not enough players available. Which is a shame. It also doesn't help that there's no filters, as you said. You can't just say, please put me into ANY game, I don't care the difficulty, if there's cards enabled, I just want to play with PEOPLE!

Glad I haven't experienced any of the framerate or sound issues.

Runs great on my xb1x

The matchmaking is broken though.

You gotta be partying up to get the most out of this game. Like Hunting Grounds, this kind of game just loses so much if you're not communicating and playing with buddies.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 26, 2021, 03:49:01 PM
You gotta be partying up to get the most out of this game. Like Hunting Grounds, this kind of game just loses so much if you're not communicating and playing with buddies.

Nah, I mean yes, to a degree, both are best when playing with your buddies.....BUT.... I have taken down many o' Predators while pairing with people I don't know playing Predator: Hunting Grounds. So much I can't even count. And it was fun! I even made some Playstation friends in the process. And there's always people to join with in Predator Hunting Grounds within a 20-30 Second wait time, good players or bad. And you can play alone as a Predator too.

But Aliens Fireteam Elite feels like you can't defeat the game without real players, and as of yet (at least for me) there's no available players  to find in the queue.

Dont forget either that once the servers are down you can only play this game with the bots, so beating the game wont be possible then on medium settings or higher.

Peer to peer matchmaking is a thing, and I'm pretty sure that's what this game is already using anyway.

The first couple of times I tried I didn't get anyone to team up with either, but every time since then it's found random people pretty much immediately. I'm guessing it's just down to release teething troubles, as is the case with a lot of games' matchmaking to start with (unfortunately), and hopefully it'll improve over time.

So far I have encountered a bug where the sound cut out at the end of the first mission of the second campaign and I had to do the last fight in almost total silence (twice) which sucked, but that's about the only major problem I've had so far.

For various reasons I haven't been staying up as late playing games as I often used to these last several months, but I'm hoping to get back to that a bit more with this game and hopefully be able to get into some full teams with people I can actually talk to and coordinate with, because that's definitely going to be key to finishing these missions on the harder difficulties.

Quote from: Kailem on Aug 26, 2021, 04:22:21 PM
Peer to peer matchmaking is a thing, and I'm pretty sure that's what this game is already using anyway.

The first couple of times I tried I didn't get anyone to team up with either, but every time since then it's found random people pretty much immediately. I'm guessing it's just down to release teething troubles, as is the case with a lot of games' matchmaking to start with (unfortunately), and hopefully it'll improve over time.

I'll keep trying!

QuoteSo far I have encountered a bug where the sound cut out at the end of the first mission of the second campaign and I had to do the last fight in almost total silence (twice) which sucked, but that's about the only major problem I've had so far.

Yikes!

QuoteFor various reasons I haven't been staying up as late playing games as I often used to these last several months, but I'm hoping to get back to that a bit more with this game and hopefully be able to get into some full teams with people I can actually talk to and coordinate with, because that's definitely going to be key to finishing these missions on the harder difficulties.

Yeah, Vampire Kailem is missed...  :laugh:  but a regular mortal sleep schedule is probably healthier for ya.

Quote from: StanSwitek on Aug 26, 2021, 02:23:17 PM
Yep I'm with you VM. Another annoyance is no checkpoints, which helps to make this a game you really can only play in short (controlled) bursts, an hour or so at a time. Because if you get to the final encounter of a mission and die you're going all the way back to the beginning, so I think the hell with it and do something else. There's no restart mission option even, you have to choose to return to base (if you're in a squad and return to base, this could take a long time loading, and sometimes hangs quite a while, because I think it waits until all 3 players are loaded), and then start the mission again from there.

Yeah, I don't quite understand the thought process behind this design with missions as long as they are.

Quoteand as to your question about PS4 being matched with PS5 players, I don't think that happens. No crossplay whatsoever even between generations of the same system. I am pretty sure. So  I think its a matter of just not enough players available. Which is a shame. It also doesn't help that there's no filters, as you said. You can't just say, please put me into ANY game, I don't care the difficulty, if there's cards enabled, I just want to play with PEOPLE!

That last point you made is an Excellent one! Why can't there just be a big PLAY button so to speak.

All one can do is pick a console, pick a map, pick a level on that map, pick a difficulty level, and then cross your fingers that others made the same exact picks that you did and want to team up.

Went into this with zero expectations given how long it's been in the works, that's almost always sign of trouble behind the scenes.

It's surprisingly decent in some ways and then really bad in the ways that should have been easy to do great.

The positives are that the guns feel alright, from the flamethrowers right down to the handguns, if you can aim they can kill pretty good. Bonus points for actually having shotguns that can kill beyond two metres.
The weapon customisation and levelling up had me a bit concerned at first that this would be some destiny type deal where your guns become useless on higher difficulties if you haven't invested in them.

To test that I started the game on intense right away and had not much trouble with two randoms, apart from a few deaths on mission two, but that was because of that monica alien being a complete bullet sponge. Got past her using a double health challenge card and finished the rest without much trouble, so yeah the combat rating thing really doesn't matter.

The aliens themselves are decent on your first time through, but the flaw shows up on your second time in any level. Their travel paths are so scripted that once you know them you can be prefiring into their spawns before they even pop out, not to mention the big fights are way too scripted as well with certain types of aliens always going to spawn in certain areas and at specific times. I don't think challenge cards can change this enough. Although one interesting thing is that if you run through a level enough times some new mini objectives can appear or be moved to a different area which can have unique encounters of their own.

The synths are pretty standard firearm enemies so there's not much to say about them.

The "pathogen" enemies are pretty underwhelming given the scope it has to make pretty much whatever you want? So they made flood infection forms, zombies and a camo enemy with huge telegraphing of its attacks, the drone does its concept better already.

The classes are okay from what I seen, I mainly played as a technician so they seemed the strongest to me especially once you get a flamethrower turret. The gunner and assault are alright too, if you know how to aim and not blast your teammates in the back of the head.
The doc seems kinda pointless though, their trauma kit takes medkits to charge and then leaves you waiting around while enemies keep spawning.
The recon is a lot more useful, you can be almost a one man army with their supply bot giving you infinite ammo, only downside is the mapper bots destroying frames when you activate them.

Now the odd part is this game does player customisation worse than colonial marines somehow, you can only pick an outfit a piece of headgear and that's it, no choosing armour plates, colour of your armour, accessories, types of shirt, putting decals on YOUR armour, none of that.
How do you mess that up in a game which seems to want you to care about how you look?
Even the weapon customisation is nothing amazing, it's about on par with colonial marines.

Also the horde mode in this is pretty meh, there's only one map and it's devoid of interactivity. You may as well just sit where you spawn in because that's where the ammo box is and the locker where you can buy consumables. After ten waves you get some rewards and can keep going or leave, to me it was boring as hell. Again colonial marines had a more interesting horde mode since you had a reason to travel around the maps in that, also it had maps, plural.

The story is whatever, just there as an excuse for the game and none of the voice acting is very good and trying too hard to be quippy. It was exemplified to me when during a shootout my guy unenthusiastically said "maybe we got 'em demoralised" completely deadpan and I was just thinking wtf, Hudson said it sarcastically because that was his character, just repeating what he said in a completely different situation is not funny or cool, pretty bad writer(s) on this game unfortunately.
Also one bullshit point is that the colonial marine ship you're in can't just shoot the refinery the alien hive is in because it's "too big", rolled my eyes right there surely they could have come up with a better reason why you must go back onto it and you could still blow it up along the way.

The music honestly left no impression on me, can't remember even a bit.

Going forward they obviously want to introduce WY as a faction and also Hyperdyne, but does anyone want that? Two more factions of shooting enemies in an aliens game, how exciting. It would be more interesting if they do some more with the pathogen, there was some mention of other animals it could affect I think, that they haven't seen it work with yet.
Also with the queen on the refinery dead seems like it's time for the ones on the planet to make a queen of their own.

Overall, it's just an okay game but really doesn't excel at what it should given how limited in scope it is.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 26, 2021, 04:14:22 PM
Dont forget either that once the servers are down you can only play this game with the bots, so beating the game wont be possible then on medium settings or higher.

It's peer-to-peer.

I love this game so far.  Started mission 4. Gameplay is solid, atmosphere is great, sound is very well done and guns feel powerful.

Love the xenomorph variety but wish there were a few more types.

Also wish the android ai was a lot better and a text based chat and dedicated servers.

The net code is rock solid and I can find players to play with easily on the pc. It runs great too with my fairly modest setup.

Overall the game is very polished. I'm very happy with the result. Much more so then Predator Hunting Grounds.

Overall 9/10 for me.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Aug 26, 2021, 02:12:26 PM


My second experience last night, my party settings were public, I got into the queue and couldn't find any real players to play with. This is the first week of release and I repeat, I couldn't find anyone to play with. >:(

We know there's no crossplay, but is that even mean between generations? Perhaps it works in Private Matches, but if I'm on PS4-Pro, do I not get in the queue with PS5 players? Is that just another filter that minimizes a player pool, along with I assume the campaign level you're selecting, along with the difficulty level you're selecting that narrows your compatible player search? Perhaps. I dunno. No players to find.

From my understanding cross gen play is supported. Whether or not it is working as it should, I can't say. The way matchmaking filter is setup seems flawed to me. I understand jumping into a queue only for the chapter I'm on to avoid spoilers, but I can't seem to open up the difficulty and card options to ANY or remove those filters entirely, which I'm guessing narrows my matchmaking significantly. I had trouble finding a match on Standard and switched to Casual and was able to find players. Does that mean the pool for Casual players is larger? I don't know.

I can see how having matches listed wouldn't work with the Endeavor hub system they have setup between missions, but it's just another roadblock to finding other players. Hopefully they can refine the system in future updates.

As for the no lipsync it bothers me a bit too, but I understand why it isn't there. With multiple players being able to talk to the same character at the same time, they'd have to either load you to another screen so that each player could see individual animations (essentially loading the same character three times at the same time to play different animations) or make it so only one player can access the character at a time in a session at the hub. I haven't played many other games that use this hub system, but I imagine a lot avoid it by hiding their character's faces behind a mask or helmet.

It doesn't look great, but it's probably faster, saves on performance, and generally less intrusive than the alternatives. 

My biggest annoyance so far has been hearing the VO repeatedly rushing me to do some task during some of the objectives that require you to interact with some object in the game. The end of mission 3 in the first campaign, made me want to tear my hair out because I'd hear the damn dropship pilot squawking some sarcastic order, over and over again while I was being torn to sh*t by xenomorphs. That character in particular is very annoying, mostly due to her VO. I appreciate them being inclusive of all these different nationalities, and yes Aliens had some extreme character types, but some of  the characters sound like borderline stereotypes. Just sticks out like a sore thumb.

The more I play it, the more I get the sense it was suppose to be a significantly bigger game. There are areas that are very large, but are not utilized much, and lots of long hallways that lead to nowhere, which makes me suspect there were probably alternate routes planned at some point or maybe to be added later.

Considering the Foxnext sale and the Fox Disney merger it wouldn't be too surprising if that was the case.

Aside from technical issues, I'd say this is a better game than AvP 2010, hell, I'd say this is in the top 5 Alien and Predator games

Yeah I finally got a chance to play with my brother and when we went to start the level I was booted out. Then we spent the next 30 minutes trying to get back into the same game without luck.

Hope they patch soon

Haven't seen anyone mention this, but missions DO have variation upon replay, the first mission has alternate routes and enemy spawns everytime I replay it again

Finally got to play with my bro, we did the first mission and I felt the game was more difficult with a human player lol. I also noticed the changes on each replay.

Anyway we had a blast and barely made it onto the elevator in time. I've only played the first campaign so far, been taking it slow. But aside from the bugs the gameplay is just really fun imo.

Third night playing, third impression.

BAD:
I've turned 180 on Alpha and Beta. The AI is just the pits. In a big open area they're fine, and there's mostly big open areas, but their insistence on thinking they're next to you when there's a room wall between you and them, or their willingness to stop shooting and follow you everywhere to a switch, or a lane, or an ammo box - items they can't interact with - makes those robotic knuckleheads the worst.

I wish there was some sort of mechanic where you can order Alpha and Beta to stand their ground. Would make all the difference. Last night I noticed some Aliens running past them, sometimes between them, and heading straight for me. WTF! I just head-cannoned they wanted me for the hive. :laugh:

Now while three of my usual suspects I play with were already in a game together....grrr....however

GOOD:
....I did find two other buds that picked up the game and I did several levels with them and had a blast. Extreme arcade-like fun. Playing with real live people for this one is where it's at. Hopefully my matchmaking is working next time I try, because I want to retire A.I. Beavis and Butt-Head for good!

Quote from: newbeing on Aug 26, 2021, 07:09:38 PM.
The more I play it, the more I get the sense it was suppose to be a significantly bigger game. There are areas that are very large, but are not utilized much, and lots of long hallways that lead to nowhere, which makes me suspect there were probably alternate routes planned at some point or maybe to be added later.

Considering the Foxnext sale and the Fox Disney merger it wouldn't be too surprising if that was the case.

We all read the Alien Blackout press release, but who knows if Aliens Fireteam Elite being a MMO was just a typo or a MMO was truly the original intent. It certainly feels like the original intent while playing it, and a typo on an official press release would be just so damned unusual - those things are triple checked. I'll be interested once the Devs are on the record with it, but I wonder if they would feel comfortable revealing the game was reduced in that way.

The game does feel strangely, oddly incomplete to me so far, kind of a patchworked in a way to make it feel disconnected to itself. But when in the heat of the gameplay, killing Aliens arcade-y style has been so much fun that it doesn't get in your way of having fun. Will it eventually wear on us, coming to the forefront perhaps 3 months from now? 6 Months from now? Perhaps, but the enjoyment I'm getting out of it now might say the cost of the game was worth it.  :)

The AI needs to get the hell off my heels. Even worse in a 3rd person game. I've seen very few bugs. 


The voice acting is as bad as 90s FMV game voice acting. Wow. Some of it is good though. The armory fellow.

My biggest gripe as an Aliens fan is no grenade launcher on my pulse rifle and no M240.

Okay just beat the game, short review... SPOILERS:

The Praetorians were awesome but you don't get a final boss fight with the Alien Queen screw that. Liked the enviromnents and enemies types that separates the 4 campaign, diferent classes, abilities and leveling them all up is fun, higher difficulties are challenging.

Its fun but the lack of a proper storyline with cutscene just bothers me, I have been a singleplayer story based gamer all my life, hell even AVPClassic had at least a cool looking cutscene at its start and end. Characters speak but their mouths don't move lol. Its fun when you are playing with friends but so most games are.

Quote from: razeak on Aug 27, 2021, 07:40:42 PM
The AI needs to get the hell off my heels. Even worse in a 3rd person game. I've seen very few bugs. 


The voice acting is as bad as 90s FMV game voice acting. Wow. Some of it is good though. The armory fellow.

My biggest gripe as an Aliens fan is no grenade launcher on my pulse rifle and no M240.

The game says the pulse rifle in the game is the successor, m2 version, less ammo and no grenade launcher for better aim.... But the m1 had good aim and did everything better and had a grenade launcher so this m2 is a big downgrade to me, logicaly it shouldnt even replaced the m1.

Quote from: judge death on Aug 28, 2021, 02:50:53 AM

Quote from: razeak on Aug 27, 2021, 07:40:42 PM
The AI needs to get the hell off my heels. Even worse in a 3rd person game. I've seen very few bugs. 


The voice acting is as bad as 90s FMV game voice acting. Wow. Some of it is good though. The armory fellow.

My biggest gripe as an Aliens fan is no grenade launcher on my pulse rifle and no M240.

The game says the pulse rifle in the game is the successor, m2 version, less ammo and no grenade launcher for better aim.... But the m1 had good aim and did everything better and had a grenade launcher so this m2 is a big downgrade to me, logicaly it shouldnt even replaced the m1.

The m1 had a ridiculous high recoil, it's why they say "short controlled bursts" in the movie

Quote from: judge death on Aug 28, 2021, 02:50:53 AM

Quote from: razeak on Aug 27, 2021, 07:40:42 PM
The AI needs to get the hell off my heels. Even worse in a 3rd person game. I've seen very few bugs. 


The voice acting is as bad as 90s FMV game voice acting. Wow. Some of it is good though. The armory fellow.

My biggest gripe as an Aliens fan is no grenade launcher on my pulse rifle and no M240.

The game says the pulse rifle in the game is the successor, m2 version, less ammo and no grenade launcher for better aim.... But the m1 had good aim and did everything better and had a grenade launcher so this m2 is a big downgrade to me, logicaly it shouldnt even replaced the m1.

I know. I just wish it was an option.

So I've put about 30 hours into this so far, I've completed on Standard and Intense, done a good few rounds of Horde getting to Wave 20, and I'm working on my written review, but in short I do really enjoy it. Solid 7 out of 10 for me. I've got my concerns with it, but as it sits now, I'm having a blast - as long as I'm playing with friends.

I've put a little over 7 hours into the game going in with little to no expectations, and so far I've overall been enjoying the game for what it is.

Alien Isolation this is not as it really trades immersion and authenticity for arcade style point and shoot action, but I'm not really complaining because that was one of the few things I was expecting and so far it's been a genuinely fun experience in it's own right. The story is nothing to right home about and in fact I've just been skipping through a lot of it... especially anything to do with prequel content because I'd much rather just shoot it then shoot it again just to be sure. I really recommend playing with people, even if it's just random matchmaking with no mics because that's still preferable to the bots I think, not even because of their performance but because the bots mere presence just strike me as really boring, I'm a man who can appreciate puns but this pun gets old after exactly 3 seconds.

That's all I got really for now.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 28, 2021, 10:45:34 AM
So I've put about 30 hours into this so far, I've completed on Standard and Intense, done a good few rounds of Horde getting to Wave 20, and I'm working on my written review, but in short I do really enjoy it. Solid 7 out of 10 for me. I've got my concerns with it, but as it sits now, I'm having a blast - as long as I'm playing with friends.

So far my score is aligning with you.

That one map though?  10 out of 10!  :o

I'm not sure how many hours I've put into it so far as I've replayed a lot of missions, but so far I've really been enjoying it.

I've just started the third campaign (WOW is that map cool! Really hoping for more of that sort of thing in the next couple of missions) and I haven't minded replaying stuff I've already done even with randoms. The shooting and gunplay feels really satisfying, there's always "just one more upgrade" in reach that entices you to play one more match, and it's overall just a lot of fun.

It's certainly better playing with friends over randomers or by yourself, but even when I'm not I'm still having fun.

I feel about the same as you guys.

Warts and all its still just really fun. I think being a fan really ups the enjoyment factor though.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Aug 28, 2021, 10:45:34 AM
So I've put about 30 hours into this so far, I've completed on Standard and Intense, done a good few rounds of Horde getting to Wave 20, and I'm working on my written review, but in short I do really enjoy it. Solid 7 out of 10 for me. I've got my concerns with it, but as it sits now, I'm having a blast - as long as I'm playing with friends.

That's great to here. Glad to hear that enjoying it. Cannot wait to read the review. I ended up writing one up the other day

I would say: 6/10 if you play it alone and on standard ot intense settings, harder levels I havent been able to due to limits to the bots help and games deisgn flaws. A weak 7/10 when playing with others, again limits of the game design, bugs and limited options.

If it fixes that, give more stuff to unlock and use credits on, more customizing and bug fixes, and better dialog and charachters actually talking then its possible to reach 8/10.

After putting around 20 hours into the game, playing both solo and with friends
I'd say I recommend this game wholeheartedly for any Aliens fans that enjoys shooters in general, the game was made to be played with friends tho (Sure, you can use the "any game is better with friends" argument, but this one was designed around it, so it gets a pass imo), and by having at least one bud, you will have a blast, some levels feel repetitive, and some feel a bit too linear, voice acting could use some work, but for a team of 40+ people, this is really f**king impressive, I had barely any hopes for this game when it was announced 3 years ago, and frankly, I'd say this is one of the better Alien Franchise games we've ever gotten
While I could list a lost of pros, I'll list the cons as they are more important imo, be wary, Spoilers!

Spoiler

So, I'd say my biggest gripe with this game is the lack of boss battles, some enemies are presented as bosses, such as Monica, and the Crushers at the first level of Chapter 3, but even then, I would be lying if I said they satisfied me, the Queen section is disappointing, I really wanted to be able to take her down myself.
Another Con that I already mentioned, is that some levels get repetitive, while this can be solved by taking breaks from the game, if you play all of it at once, it  can start feeling a bit like a shore.
While gameplay against the Xenos is very fun in all difficulties, I'd say Gameplay against the Androids gets worse the higher the difficulty, on Standard, they are fun to fight, and feel satisfying to kill, on Intense and above, they all become bullet sponges, and it quickly gets tedious to fight them.
Another enemy faction that is underwhelming to fight are the Pathogen, only 4 enemies is really, really dissapointing, I really hoped we would get some spicy Neos or Deacons, but alas, the only movie mutant we got is the cut Farfield Revenant
And of course, the bugs, but they are slowly getting fixed

[close]

Overall, I'd give this game a 6/10 if you are a friendless internetless mofo, and an 8 if you have some good friends that also enjoy this franchise.

I'd give this a 5/10. Just average. I think Alien/s games lend themselves better to narrative, story-driven games with lots of atmosphere. The mindless shooting is cool, but I feel like it works better with some added depth and adventure. FE just feels like a more fleshed out version of the "extra" modes that you'd find in prior games. It is fun though, don't get me wrong, I just think it's a bit like junk food.

Quote from: PsyKore on Aug 29, 2021, 03:44:50 AM
I'd give this a 5/10. Just average. I think Alien/s games lend themselves better to narrative, story-driven games with lots of atmosphere. The mindless shooting is cool, but I feel like it works better with some added depth and adventure. FE just feels like a more fleshed out version of the "extra" modes that you'd find in prior games. It is fun though, don't get me wrong, I just think it's a bit like junk food.

What an excellent analogy!

As a fan of both the old EU and the movies, which I've kept compartmentalized from each other, I've enjoyed it more than I disliked it. 

However, I think that it has the benefit with me of relying on the nostalgia factor of all the EU media I've collected since my HS years, which was a long time ago.  I don't know how this game would sit with fans that have not had that experience.  The last definitive Alien game was Isolation, and while FTE looks like an Alien game, it suffers a lot of what online third person shooters do, it feels you are just barely scraping the surface level of the Alienverse.  Like your just walking along and occasionally the alienverse sends targets for you to shoot at.  There simply is a lack of immersion that Isolation had.  It is however, a much easier game to get into.

If it does well enough for a sequel, or if it is going to take the route of online shooter games and continually update, they need to do things in the various maps that let you interact with the universe. 

In the start of the third campaign the friendly NPCs are just background, I led the Aliens to them and there was no reaction to the Aliens or no reaction by the Aliens to the Marines.  Background NPCs need to move from one job to the other.  Some of your command in the ship is always in the same place etc.  That kind of stuff is trivial, but noticeable. 

The first division initially suffered this, got better with the DLC, and then by the second game it did feel much more immersive.  I doubt FTE will have the sales numbers that the division did though. 

What kinda annoys me too is seeing how f**king incredible the Engineer aesthetics are in this game - and all it did was make me want a proper game based around that. Maybe a self-contained, explorative survival-horror adventure that does what Prometheus couldn't. I just saw so much potential in the visual design.

Going solo still I made it to the weyland synthetics in the second campaign and things became very difficult with Alpha and Beta. Fighting synthetics and Aliens is too much for them.

It doesn't help that I never like fighting humanoid enemies in my Alien games.

Since one could argue that WY is the main antagonist of the Alienverse, it doesn't bother me when you have to shoot up company goons. 

Yeah I know, I just prefer player vs xeno gameplay.

I had my doubts about this game, but the more I play the game, the more I like it. I haven't finished the game yet (have 3 of the 4 campaigns completed on standard), but I feel like it's a solid 8/10 for me.

Knowing that I couldn't just plow through the campaign (on standard difficulty) is what made it finally click for me. It's about building up your combat rating before tackling the later missions, which is kind of a clever way to get people replaying the previous missions and in turn keeping the multiplayer aspect alive. Going back leveled up and replaying missions is a blast as you clean house and help out lower level players.

I can definitely see how the game could get a lower score if someone is just trying to get through it as fast as they can, especially on singleplayer. I will fault the game for not emphasizing the importance of the Combat Rating mechanic more.

If i gave this game 10/10 and minus a point for unpolished mood elements, I would say this:
minus 1 point for your customizable characters not having enough verbage or a chat wheel (the emotes are cool but to give it a percentage of usage per game i would not even think about doing it that often because it interferes with the pace and you rarely see them doing it you're running)  - I do think that chat wheels can get spammy and detract from the mood too.
minus 1 point for Lost Potential in setting the mood per mission in each campaign- i would have liked to see a slightly more dramatic opening to each campaign or per mission in each campaign to give it some personality.

But the Hidden Potential for them to add creative updates are remarkably huge considering that most devs(including this one) for online games get frequent content updates.
So thats a +3 points in my book.


By adding the Empty Husks, and other pathegens I feel like they are ready and willing to add new original content in line with the newer films. I'm all for this!

I WANT To see a horrific insergence of engineers.
I WANT to see more of the planet's details.
I WANT to believe there are other planets or moons to be alluded to and possibliy given a mission on to find juggernauts either infested or missions to explore the terrain and ships.
That said, I also feel there NEEDS to be some homage to what HRGiger's work represents and some elements that build this concept. Not saying they should just add a painting inspired by Giger's work, but add an element to the story designed to allude to his concepts. I want people to still figure out what the word "Necronomicon" means. I want people to scratch their heads on what that means  in the Ridley-verse.
In addition:
I WANT to see the eggs to be transparent as they were in the original film. They also explode ingame like they are made out of paper. I want to see some REAL evolution of the eggs to be a very very odd biological thing.Yeah i know, we can't make them deform where we shoot it, so  maybe make a really messy organic mess that looks like aloe mixed with chicken meat. Right now, its been exploding the same way its been since 1999 AVP!!!!

I WANT to visit this Pala Station, the research facility on the planet surface of LV-895.It's the one last place that has been the suspect of alien activity on the planet as this site has indicated : https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Pala_Station.

Otherwise, this game is f**king perfect and visually polished. The mix of aliens is palatable. They are sometimes easy and at time difficult.
Their ragdoll physics is at times funny. Not all the time. But sometimes there are moments that make me chuckle. I think that rare moment is enough (you dont need it like the way it is in RDR2 or PHG). Due to the serious tone of the game it doesn't need those funny rag doll moments at all. I don't think we will be seeing a montage of footage showing rag doll aliens either. They are just too rare as apposed to the latter.

Im also not opposed to the lack of lip sync in the story based elements either like some video reviews have pointed out. To me they made it a point not to include it. That only means that -globabally, it was unnessary- or that since there is text on the screen it made it a moot point. It doesn't bother me because I read the text. In games like Horizon Zero Dawn (which the camera literally is identically in the interaction scenes), they went out of their way to render all it. Im guessing they used an algorithm to match text to phonemes. So here, there was none of it which means they could just easily add that at anytime in the future and remove the text (its just preference at this point).

I've been playing this with my husband over the last few days, and even though I went in with low expectations (we thoroughly despise the new "lore"), the story problems can be easily ignored, because this is legitimately fun to play.

Or was.

The first campaign was fun up until the dropship sequence. We're playing on Casual, which, in theory, should be the easiest difficulty. Casual should not be throwing Warriors at you faster than you can kill them. It took us three replays to accomplish that mission, which is unacceptable for the easiest difficulty.

The third mission for the second campaign is rife with bullshit. The androids shouldn't be harder to kill than Xenomorphs. On Casual, it shouldn't be taking us three or more tries to complete a mission. This felt like a much higher difficulty than it should have been, and it made the game frustrating, stressful, and the fun was rapidly sucked out of it.

The game feels unbalanced and overly-difficult to complete, when it should be possible to complete even with one person, especially on the easier difficulties. Yes, having more players helps, but just because this game can be played in multiplayer doesn't mean it should HAVE to be multiplayer. If that's how it was meant to be, then singleplayer shouldn't even be an option. And it shouldn't take multiple attempts to beat a single mission on such a low difficulty, and players shouldn't be forced to replay missions just to level up and get enough attachments and perks to advance further in the story, which does feel necessary at times. Yes, people have completed the game on Standard, but most of them probably had a full three human players and/or had to replay various missions multiple times. That shouldn't be necessary for anything less than the hardest one or two difficulties at the most. The other thing is that maybe some people have beaten the game simply because they play so many games in general that they're just good at most games, but that's still in indicator of a major balance issue. It should be possible for someone who's not a "serious" or "professional" gamer to beat a game like this reasonably easily on such a low difficulty.

I also have serious doubts about claims that people have completed this on Extreme or Insane. I have no clue how it's been on consoles, but this is the global achievement page for Steam as of when I considered writing my review in the below attachment.

Either Steam is wrong, or people are lying to impress others. Regardless, the difficulty balance needs a lot of work.

Have you been leveling up your classes, equipping perks, modding your weapons and using consumables?
Also, the Warriors in the third mission can be ignored since when the 4 spawns you can just escape, I've been playing on standard and intense, both solo and with friends, and frankly I've been having a good time

I get this game on standard requires all your classes to be there "full stop". You can't win with everyone trying Gunner and leveling that up all the way through. You need a guy witha  grenade luancher, and another guy with other gear like a sentry gun or other such hand held explosives.Full Stop. No doubt you can't finish 10 waves of Hordes without grenaders (at least two-thats a hint for you). This is all on the standard difficulty.

QuoteCasual should not be throwing Warriors at you faster than you can kill them. It took us three replays to accomplish that mission, which is unacceptable for the easiest difficulty.

Quote from: TheSailingRabbit on Sep 01, 2021, 09:03:31 PM
Yes, having more players helps, but just because this game can be played in multiplayer doesn't mean it should HAVE to be multiplayer. If that's how it was meant to be, then singleplayer shouldn't even be an option.

I think this is a fair criticism.

QuoteAnd it shouldn't take multiple attempts to beat a single mission on such a low difficulty, and players shouldn't be forced to replay missions just to level up and get enough attachments and perks to advance further in the story, which does feel necessary at times.

Yeah, the 'replay value of the replay' as I like to refer it as, is definitely going to wear on some people. Even the lowest difficulty is surprisingly difficult for it's type. But I think it's per design. Cold Iron needs you to repeat content for this game to last long enough to be a fulfilling experience. It's all comes down to your internal make-up on how this will grate on you.

Even once complete, some of my friends are the type of people that have the need to max out every class, every weapon - repeating missions as long as it takes. They need to 100% a game - it's an itch that needs to be scratched. Me, not so much. I just want to win it. After winning I unlocked a 5th class (soon there will be 6) and I can feel I won't have the drive to max level all of the classes. Maybe 2 or 3. The repetitive nature will just be too much of a yawn I think to max level them all. So I guess I personally land somewhere in the middle. :)

What new lore exists to take issue with?

(Considering the type of gameplay involved I was not under the impression that there was any.)

There's a ton of new lore in the game. Too much in some instances, as I'm 99.9% sure a couple of the collectible intel pieces spoil the ending and several key details of the Colonial Marines Operations Manual RPG campaign that I've still yet to play (Andrew Gaska was consulted on this too).

Every weapon has lore attached and every level as three collectible pieces of lore-related stuff to find, plus the between-mission briefings you get from the various characters. I can easily see a lot of this stuff making its way into the RPG officially in a few years if they keep publishing it and moving the timeline forward for that long.

Personally I loved it, especially after playing the RPG and reading through all the great stuff they've done there to create a really cohesive "Alien universe".

Quote from: acrediblesource on Sep 01, 2021, 09:15:54 PM
I get this game on standard requires all your classes to be there "full stop". You can't win with everyone trying Gunner and levelling that up all the way through. You need a guy witha  grenade luancher, and another guy with other gear like a sentry gun or other such hand held explosives.Full Stop. No doubt you can't finish 10 waves of Hordes without grenaders (at least two-thats a hint for you). This is all on the standard difficulty.

QuoteCasual should not be throwing Warriors at you faster than you can kill them. It took us three replays to accomplish that mission, which is unacceptable for the easiest difficulty.

I've finished 10 waves of Horde on standard multiple times and nobody has ever been using a grenade launcher. There are certainly some classes that seem to be better than others, but I'd say either your characters must not be levelled up or you're been playing with some bad teammates if you're finding it impossible to even get to that point.

Okay but I'm struggling to discern what could be so controversial to cause the Sailing couple to hate it so?

(That doesn't already exist via the recent books and RPG.)

Me either. I thought all the lore stuff in the game was great.

I just assumed Sailing just dislikes the prequel lore in general.

The game is pure EU cheese when it comes to lore.  As someone able to look fondly on the old eu, it doesn't bother me.

How so?

It's much more the new EU from the RPG imo.

Exactly my point and that's not.

At least in video game though I can just button mash through a good chunk of the prequel lore.

But when I'm clicking too fast it makes it look like I'm also putting short controlled bursts into people at the end of our brief conversations too... which isn't actually too much of a stretch for me so I approve.

Gaska has tied the prequel lore in so nicely that I'm surprised how many people still hate it or refuse to acknowledge it.

I feel like it's very nicely melded together in this game too. I do wish there was a stronger narrative to go with it though.

Oh I just don't like the prequels to begin with, nothing Gaska can do about that.

I'm just on this ride to point and shoot.

Cringe.

Yeah and unlike F&S, it's quality prequel lore.

It is indeed.

I still prefer the old biomechanical space elephants than the big albino men, but yeah the RPG and this game following it makes the Prequel lore more bearable

I like having both.

Same

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Sep 04, 2021, 01:34:37 PM
Oh I just don't like the prequels to begin with, nothing Gaska can do about that.

I'm just on this ride to point and shoot.

Yeah, I personally enjoy Prometheus, but I'd jump at a chance to retcon it all. And to me, at the very most, Engineers should have been looming mysterious eerie statues surrounded by strange architecture and never realized through a living manifestation. #MaintainTheMystery.

I think the engineers add a background element to it all. If you only understand one thing from the engineer's race is that they are a cult like society whose only purpose (in the films) play a role in  sacrificial ceremonies. There is even a statue depicting this in AFTE. Without speculating much, you know this ceremony is the act of destruction. I'm not sure how long ridley can keep their story this simple but I think it adds a mysterious touch to it. We can go further in saying that they represent the Cenobite from Hellraiser (or perhaps the art of HR GIGER) but shouldn't go further into details but of course we could. Without the engineers, we lack the (evil/satanist/morbidity) element  and the films can't all be just be cherry pickings from Giger's works. There is alot in that world that shouldn't be ignored and i think part of the magic in this film is the possiblity that his entire works are involved.

If you take a look at other films like Poltergeist, where GIger's monster is featured, the elements are forgotten way too easily because nothing about that film points back to more of his work. This is also evident with his work on Dune.
But with Alien, people basically got into his work because he basically designed every evil element in the 1979 film.
and the more Alien films we get without his involvement keeps interests further away.

I can't stress how much Giger's influence on the franchise was part of iit's long term success.

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Sep 06, 2021, 12:43:08 PM

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Sep 04, 2021, 01:34:37 PM
Oh I just don't like the prequels to begin with, nothing Gaska can do about that.

I'm just on this ride to point and shoot.

Yeah, I personally enjoy Prometheus, but I'd jump at a chance to retcon it all. And to me, at the very most, Engineers should have been looming mysterious eerie statues surrounded by strange architecture and never realized through a living manifestation. #MaintainTheMystery.

I don't get  lot of time to play and I'm not very good. So I'm still trying to beat the second campaign on standard with just bots.

This game is not easy for me  :laugh:

I need to just start playing with random and hope for the best.

My written review is now up!

https://www.avpgalaxy.net/games/aliens-fireteam/review/

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Sep 08, 2021, 05:40:19 AM
My written review is now up!

https://www.avpgalaxy.net/games/aliens-fireteam/review/

Great review Hicks. 'Twas a fun read. And you decided to use that .5 in your score!  Nice!

QuoteYou need to be communicating to really get the most out of this game, especially when you crank up the difficulty and it really does become more than that arcade shooter you first thought it was

Was that for me?  ;D

Nah lol bulk of this was written before the podcast.

So RidgeTop, Shevvie and I tried to make a dint on the campaign on Extreme the other day. Jesus Christ, is it hard. We did the first mission, but we tried 3 times or so on the second mission and couldn't make it through as yet. I'm sure I killed RT on one go through which cost us the mission, another time we triggered the next part of the mission while trying to escape another part. The whole "edge of control" feeling that Cold Iron was going for...yeah, I get it.  :laugh: Looking forward to trying again.

Yeah, even the Runners take a lot of ammo in Extreme to bring down!

I'm on the 3rd mission of campaign 3! I'm not having too many issues with Alpha and Beta either. However I don't think I'm a good enough gamer to play above standard lol. I've found it pretty challenging as is, don't know how extreme would be possible  :laugh:

Quote from: 426Buddy on Sep 08, 2021, 03:45:30 AM
I don't get  lot of time to play and I'm not very good. So I'm still trying to beat the second campaign on standard with just bots.

This game is not easy for me  :laugh:

I need to just start playing with random and hope for the best.

This is how it's currently going for me. I've replayed the third mission of the second chapter several times solo and I just can't beat what I assume is the final onslaught of androids. Makes me think I need to play with actual humans to beat it but I just want to beat it once on easy for the story before I join other players. Also with other players I notice that it becomes more mission oriented with them driving the pace whereas I like to sometimes stop and appreciate the level design details. So I like it but I do think it's a bit too difficult on easy mode and wish there was a better checkpoint system so I wouldn't have to replay the entire mission.

Stop up on the electro rounds and sentries to take in and save them for the end!! That section was so much f**king harder in the preview build too.

I only had to try that mission 3 times on standard single player. As long as you kill the special syths quickly it's not too bad.

I'm stuck on 4-1 now though, only tried it twice but having some trouble.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Sep 15, 2021, 02:03:46 PM
Stop up on the electro rounds and sentries to take in and save them for the end!! That section was so much f**king harder in the preview build too.

Cool thanks for the tip!

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Sep 11, 2021, 09:48:21 AM
So RidgeTop, Shevvie and I tried to make a dint on the campaign on Extreme the other day. Jesus Christ, is it hard. We did the first mission, but we tried 3 times or so on the second mission and couldn't make it through as yet. I'm sure I killed RT on one go through which cost us the mission, another time we triggered the next part of the mission while trying to escape another part. The whole "edge of control" feeling that Cold Iron was going for...yeah, I get it.  :laugh: Looking forward to trying again.

Have you guys gotten any further? I've managed to make it up to the only way to be sure with randoms so if you guys need a hand let me know

I finally beat the game on standard and with bots. I have to say I had a lot of fun with this game, all in all it gets a solid 8/10 from a biased Aliens fan. It has surprising depth to the classes and all the builds and upgrades.  All the stuff around the gameplay is pretty deep but the gameplay itself is simple and repetitive even though there is some strategy. The main thing is that it's f**king fun as hell. The weapons feel great and there is a million things to love as an Alien fan. This is the best looking alien hive I've seen in any game, jaw dropping in the final campaign. There is pure joy to be found in the art of some of these levels and visuals.

My main issues are that matchmaking launched as a mess and there have been some crazy bugs. There should be a mid save point in these levels or a safe area for when life happens in the middle of a mission. And while I really love how the lore is presented this game really needs a bit more of a narrative. I like the story but it's needs more connective tissue. Even if it was in the form of cutscenes at the start and end of each campaign. That I think would have really gone a long way toward making the story more satisfying to experience. 

Spoiler

Also we should have been able to fight the queen, it's not a big deal but it's a bummer. I still enjoyed seeing her though.

[close]

I think it's more than worth price of admission  and I recommend it to all Aliens fans. I was concerned leading up to the game but it has surpassed expectations, great job Cold Iron!!

8/10

I'd do a pro and con version.

Things i like the most.

+ The Varity in the guns, skins and cosmetics.
+ The enemy Alien Varity is wonderful.
+ Sound Design on the Aliens is bloody fantastic!
+ Graphics really do the universe justice, from enemy designs to environments (Which are gorgeous)
+ Character classes and leveling up along with the perk system.
+ Challenge Cards are a great idea!
+ Different themed stages, Classic Alien corridor, to engineer/ Prometheus style levels, to Hives, and Derelict levels. All are great!

Things i dislike or i think are bad.

- The Voice over constantly telling you where things are coming from is annoying and removes tension.
- Alien spawns are very predictable and aren't random if you do the levels enough.
- Matchmaking is garbage, you often have to drop out every 30 seconds and re-join to find people. Player base is sparse.
- AI Bots are garbage in general and just stand in the way, and have no classes or abilities to be useful.
- Some Classes/gun combo's make the game trivial and too easy to farm the first level over and over for exp.
- Very Short campaign.
- Some Under powered guns and some OP guns.
- No animations on characters when they speak.
- Needs a PvP mode i think for longevity
- Could do with a drop in style matchmaker.

The negatives aren't game breaking by any means, and it's just things that could be fixed over time. I'd recommend the game on PC at retail price for sure if you're a fan or not.

I'd give the game a honest 7/10 tbh.  It's not a bad game, it's well designed. Has good intentions, and does the universe justice and the gameplay is decent. It's just not amazing or anything like Isolation was. But not as shit as A:CM.

This is what I said in Toho Kingdom : The game is pretty decent, aside from some glitches here and there (which are fixed now).
The story isn't really something special like in alien isolation but it's good enough. Gameplay is what carries the game, this game is obviously took inspiration from the left 4 dead series, which means this game is like a PvE where is there is a swarm of enemies with some unique variations with different tasked to take your down. I'll say they did a pretty good job with the gameplay loop where it's repetitive but they found a way to make it fun.

So it's been two months and we finally got around to making our podcast review. My husband and I have changed our thoughts on Fireteam several times, based on what we've seen and read.

We managed to get about five-and-a-half hours of podcast content out of a game with very minimal content.

If you don't have the time (especially since we haven't gotten our Spotify up and running--it's a bitch to connect a WordPress site to Spotify and we really need to set aside time to work with it), here's the summary:

We have a lot of problems with the physics, the weapons and weapon naming system, the story, the characters, the music, and how Cold Iron has handled the game and its release. But we still admit the game is fun to play as a time-killer, and we like the outdoor sequences and Engineer facility. That's it.

Here's part 1:
https://youtu.be/0ROYZpCw6Nk (https://youtu.be/0ROYZpCw6Nk)

Part 2:
https://youtu.be/ZN6sFG_yuAQ (https://youtu.be/ZN6sFG_yuAQ)

Part 3:
https://youtu.be/WIwrvVAXbWA (https://youtu.be/WIwrvVAXbWA)

Okay so when this first came out, I had it for PS4. It was an okay experience. Very much Colonial Marines levels for me. The bots weren't doing so great. The enemies seemed to just lurk and then pop in when they pleased. It was all just meh.

The first patch and such I hung in there. It got a little better. But just didn't feel up to par. So I gave up and traded it in. I had enough of it feeling like I was missing out because I wasn't online.

Since then landed an Xbox Series X. Been accumulating a little collection. Halo Master Chief Collection being one of them. Yesterday, I got GamePass and was happy to see Fireteam Elite available. Isolation is there as well. But my curiosity was piqued for Fireteam.

Would it handle the game better on the newer system? Was the Xbox One and PS4 versions subpar in quality because they were last gen?

Well, I will say that I feel like the Xbox One to Series X comparison is like the 360 to One comparisons. Or PS2 to PS3 if you will.

The first thing noticed was the atmosphere. This feels like the movies now. It just dripping in it. The lighting in the game is so beautiful. It's not super bright anymore as it's using a more realistic lighting engine. The xenos blend in with their environments better. Its all so damn good. The AI for the bots felt better.

The fact that was running in 4K at 60fps was also a huge factor. It made everything feel more chaotic and kinetic. That wonderful feeling the movies gave us.

Haven't gotten too far into things this go around. But it definitely changed my tune on the game. Super happy with it.

So I finally got a PS5 about a month back and decided to download the PS5 version of Fireteam that was included with the PS4 disc purchase. Note: none of your progress transfers from the PS4 version so it's a brand new start (you still have to insert the disc and oddly enough it will always ask if you want to download the PS4 version with all progress intact). Starting from scratch was fine with me as I wanted to start over regardless and play through all the campaigns. Performance wise I noticed a huge difference in how smooth the game ran compared to my first play through on PS4. Graphics-wise the improvements were just barely noticeable but an improvement nonetheless.

This time around I wanted to find all the hidden intels as I went and return to base after the 3 level missions with all 9 intels ready and getting all that juicy lore in one go for all 5 missions. I found doing this improved the "story" aspects of the game for me. Lastly by having the Pathogen campaign already purchased and being able to play through after destroying Katanga also made the game feel more complete especially finishing with that short but sweet cutscene.

Overall I found the PS5 experience to be far superior to the PS4 and am grateful that they included a free upgrade for PS4 users.

Besides   requiring some improvement fixes, I'd say this game is great 8)

I just got this game and I was able to play it for the first time. To start, I'm not to much into this kind of game (3 person shooter), I'm most get used to Alien Isolation kind of game or more recently Amnesia The Bunker but since Fireteam Elite was on sale and I'm a big Alien fan I give it a shoot. So far I'm only playing for an hour and I'm loving it, I'm playing on Intense difficulty and I'm already dying 4 times... It's very difficult and also for thar I'm loving it (I didn't want another Colonial Marines were even on Ultimate Badass it was a walk in the park). As an more a Alien fan, I'm using the Nostromo cosmetics which are really cool, I'm also loving the Dog Catcher skin of Alien 3. So it's matter of time that I get used to this game, so far I cannot pass the first level... Those Alien Warrior are tough as hell.

So... Any suggestions of you or Mother?

Glad you are enjoying it, as for advice...

Use the "Tank Armour" challenge cards that double your health if you insist on playing it by yourself on the higher difficulties.

You also might want to look up some builds for balancing your survivability and damage output.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jul 01, 2023, 10:59:24 PMGlad you are enjoying it, as for advice...

Use the "Tank Armour" challenge cards that double your health if you insist on playing it by yourself on the higher difficulties.

You also might want to look up some builds for balancing your survivability and damage output.

Thanks! I already pass the Mission 1 of Priority One, I'm playing the Mission 2... Man, that "Monica" Alien is hard. I'm going to take your advice of use challenge cards. For what I'm playing, for me the most effective class is the Technician, the capacity of place sentry guns and the Charged Coils help me so much. It's a very addictive game, I really like it.

I'm glad you're thoroughly enjoying it. I'm a big fan of the Hyperdyne Twinhammer.

I finally got around to playing this game over the weekend. Downloaded it for free, as it was a game of the month on PlayStation Plus. Truly love it so far! Reminds me of a 3rd person Left 4 Dead/Back 4 Blood and the mechanics feel a bit like Resident Evil 6 in a way.

Currently on the 3rd part of the first mission and died horribly by the hoard. 

just wanted to give my take on the game since i've been playing it a lot recently.i think its one of my favourite games currently with the nice level design that still interests me each time i play. i also love the large variety of fun and interesting weapons available too you i love equipping a new one and learning how best to use it as i level up my only real problems with it are that their wont be much if any content coming too it now and i still lag and disconnect from games regularly