The Game's Development Story Discussion

[redxavier]

It's not just the high quality of the visuals in those screenshots though, it's the atmosphere and feel of them that's different to the final game. The implication of immersive co-op play, the possibility of being in vents or ducts above the corridors, rooms of facehuggers, the fear that comes with watching multiple blips on the tracker as a buddy marine welds a door. I get more feeling out of these pre-rendered stills than I do when playing the game.

Of course, that's the point of these bullshots. To instill strong enough emotions to make us want to get the game as soon as humanly possible.

And no, I don't buy that current generation consoles are unable to produce the same sort of quality of lighting and textures. That's a poor excuse.

[YutaniDitch]

And no, I don't buy that current generation consoles are unable to produce the same sort of quality of lighting and textures. That's a poor excuse.

I agree with you... A particle system for fogs, weather FX, shaders, etc, are quite capable of being done by current top game engines... I have always thought that the reason most games never match the demo videos of these engines is devs« lazyness, pure and simple! One example: STALKER! The richness and diversity of textures in that game engine is what makes the world so believable!The excess of specular lighting is one of the things that bothered me in games ever since Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory! Wet surfaces are suppposed to look wet, but not everything! And basically, what bothered me most in ACM was the outdoors ground textures! Also, if you compare AVP2 2010 with ACM, another quite obvious problem rise immediately: the size of things on the screen, even at 1080p, in my case! The size of characters, objects, corridors, etc,looked more like a 3rd person POV to me than an FP one! IT is almost like they used third-person perspective with a first person gun in it! I have seen this in other games, but it was most noticeable to me in this one!

[Inverse Effect]

I guess, but this what I wanted the game to look like:

















Looked pretty good all the way back in 2008. 

Yeah, back in 2008 i was so hyped. No hud style gameplay, instead your hud is on the guns and stuff. That would of been epic. I would of loved free roaming gameplay around LV-426, random spawns for Xenos, suvival, all went into trash for a basic FPS where you run and gun Xeno swarms and humans.

Hi guys

Pre-rendered or not, there are engines that can get that lighting, shading, light sources, etc... The U3 engine was more than capable to achieve it... hell, they could have mixed the FEAR engine and the DOOM 3 engine and spawn far better graphics than this ACM game!

Fact is that they had the tools, but not their heart in the right place! Once they signed the contract, gearbox had 3 years to do it...I even accept that in 2006, the engines were still like SOURCE, CRYENGINE 1 and Id's DOOM3 engines, but for cripes sake... to get this as a result, I would prefer a cross between FEAR and DOOM3 and be done with it...!

Any news regarding a possible lawsuit against Crapbox?

What developers do with engines is completely up to them with how they code and optimize it.

Even doom III which came out in 2004 with a few minor mods on it looks better than A:CM

[Xhan]

Even doom III which came out in 2004 with a few minor mods on it looks better than A:CM

Did this a year after launch:

[YutaniDitch]

Even doom III which came out in 2004 with a few minor mods on it looks better than A:CM

Did this a year after launch:

That is what I am saying, TOO MUCH specular lighting! It looks like you hosed the entire set with water! That is my main boggle with today's graphics, they use and abuse the specular lighting!

[VonPelz]

Some more information, basically just confirming most of the stuff that is out already. The story just never dies it seems!

http://segaawakens.blogspot.nl/2013/02/that-eventual-aliens-colonial-marines.html

http://www.destructoid.com/gearbox-embezzled-aliens-colonial-marines-money-246558.phtml

[ShadowPred]

"Whoever wins, we lose."

[Xenomorphine]

Interesting stuff.

Considering all the rumours which have sprung up, I'm now more surprised that bad news wasn't leaking on a frequent basis about this project, while still in development for all those years.

[Gren_86]

This article is very intriguing even though nothing has been officially confirmed by the three parties involved Sega, GBX and Timegate.

http://www.destructoid.com/gearbox-embezzled-aliens-colonial-marines-money-246558.phtml

[Gren_86]

Interesting stuff.

Considering all the rumours which have sprung up, I'm now more surprised that bad news wasn't leaking on a frequent basis about this project, while still in development for all those years.

At least they managed to keep us in the dark for quite some time, we have to give them credit for that. 

[Grey_Yautja]

This article is very intriguing even though nothing has been officially confirmed by the three parties involved Sega, GBX and Timegate.

http://www.destructoid.com/gearbox-embezzled-aliens-colonial-marines-money-246558.phtml

At this point, there's no believing anything, 'cuz Sega won't give two craps to sue Randy Bitchfraud and Gearbox. The money does the talking for them.

[Xhan]

Some more information, basically just confirming most of the stuff that is out already. The story just never dies it seems!

http://segaawakens.blogspot.nl/2013/02/that-eventual-aliens-colonial-marines.html

http://www.destructoid.com/gearbox-embezzled-aliens-colonial-marines-money-246558.phtml

Sorry, but part of that is pure bullshit.

SEGA knew the game was shit in November of last year and still demanded it ship in the current window, and SEGA was the one the rescinded the cancellation order themselves. this was a known thing then; it's not remotely surprise.

The current regime of SEGA never wanted the license in the first place, fired the guy that bought it.

Gearbox also didn't just sit on their ass. Yes, they absolutely 100% f**ked up and f**ked up in so many ways, but work on the game was active all the way up to cert.

Timgate also made some horrendous product and kept a straight face when they shipped it back to gbx as is.

Even doom III which came out in 2004 with a few minor mods on it looks better than A:CM

Did this a year after launch:

That is what I am saying, TOO MUCH specular lighting! It looks like you hosed the entire set with water! That is my main boggle with today's graphics, they use and abuse the specular lighting!

Has nothing to do with the specular highlights and everything to do with hell being slimey.

[YutaniDitch]

Xhan, who is more to blame, the guys that outsourced (crime nº 1 in my book - if they didn't want to do it, they shouldn't have signed the contract with SEGA in the first place!) and second, TimeGate did the best they could with such a giant endeavour ldropped on their almost novice laps! This is not TimeGate's fault at all! Gearbox had the DUTY to oversee the progress by TG, in the first place! They did  a pisspoor job at that! SEGA, well, they had AVP a couple of years back, so that comment makes no sense to me! They did an arguably good job, with Rebellion, and ACM looked incredibly promising in the 2011 demo! So, maybe SEGA wanted it back in because Gearbox made some more empty promises! It is quite obvious that Gearbox has a lot of explaining to do, especially where all the SEGA money went! IT is clear that oursourcing the game made them save a few million, so SEGA,if they were smart, they protected themselves from any INTENTIONAL wrongdoings from a company whose rep is damaged beyond repair! NO credible company will give them money in advance now without heavy scrutiny from them during pre-prod, prod and post-prod...!

Gearbox is already burned with the news and accusations, and I think Sega employees have the right to be outraged, because it is true, their money was diverted for unscrupulous one-sided agendas by Gearbox! And 2K should come clean about how much money did they give Gearbox to do B1!

Has nothing to do with the specular highlights and everything to do with hell being slimey.

You missed my point... Look at the games at the time and post_SPLINTER CELL - CHAOS THEORY...! The specular lighting is everywhere! Even in surfaces like clothes and skin that isn't supposed to be THAT shiny! And Hell is not supposed to be slimey at all! OR have human-like structures, for that matter! I can understand some iron structures to shine, but rocks, clothing and skin shinning the way they do NOW, that is my concern! Only wet surfaces or metallic structures are supposed to shine like that! And I misspoke, it doesn't look like you hosed it down with water, but rather OIL! I don't know how people aren't constantly slippering on the floor, in games! HAHAHAH I don't know if that is a problem of the graphic cards, but they need to stop that! I can get specular lighting in the HIve, and Aliens, and so on...! But if you saw the ALine movies, you know people's skin can shine with sweat, but not the armor! Or weapons! We all know the weapons have a coating that prevent them from shining and giving away the shooter's positio!

[ikarop]

http://kotaku.com/5986694/from-dream-to-disaster-the-story-of-aliens-colonial-marines

[Xenomorphine]

The lack of anyone knowing what the final story was and constant rewrites is gradually confirming my suspicion that this was the 'Alien 3' of the series' computer game era... Which has a certain measure of karmic irony, considering what some involved on the project said about that film.

Regardless, without saying too much, this appears to correlate with some of what my own source has been saying. I'm still attempting to verify which of the companies they were directly involved with, but it's looking like Gearbox. They informed me that a lot of headaches were involved with trying to fix all the various problems which kept cropping up, for the same reason as Xhan has been alluding to: Fixing one thing made several completely different other things fail and compounding the issue, because of all the different coding mess, every time something was tried.

Which, ultimately, does not bode well for future patching attempts...