Accurate Portrayal of the Colonial Marines?

[Aceburster]

Aside from technical issues, plot issues, gameplay issues, or any other issues people have with the game... what does everyone think of the Marines themselves?

Do you think that the 3 main characters felt like Marines? Would the characters have faired better or been more interesting if it were [insert your 3 favorite Marines] instead? Did the banter and characters general attitudes toward situations and each other fit your image? Do the SHARP/Assault/Battle rifles fit into your image of what kind of arsenal the Colonial Marines should have?

Im sure somebody will point out rediculous things like the design on the bottom of their boots dont match the movie or something goofy but in general I think that whoever was responsible for the development of the "Marine image and gear" did a pretty good job. I felt like the cast of Aliens could sit down in the mess hall with the cast of this game and not stick out like a sore thumb. Cept Keys... He is a moron.

How do yall feel about it?

[SM]

Possibly they acted more like real marines - but bore little resemblance to Cameron's marines (which he said were more Vietnam era regualr army anyway).

The constant spouting of "we don't leave marines behind" was appallingly bad.  It was just all terribly forced badass cock waving.  The very antithesis of the film marines once they'd actually confronted the Aliens.

[Aceburster]

 Thats one thing I really thought about and I dont think its a design fault with the character designers as much as its a fault with whoever designed the story itself. At no point is there a real sense of doom or desperation. Theres apcs everywhere, dropships all over the place, power loaders, big guns and "100" marines roaming around Hadleys.

I can see the Colonial Marines going through big battles and killing lots of people without blinking an eye which is why I think it works for this game, its exactly the kind of attitude the marines from the movie had up till the aliens showed up and if they didnt lose most of their people and way home in 10 minutes they probably would have continued to be the "ultimate badasses" Aliens or not.

But thats asking for a different game.

[SM]

In context, with them pwning Aliens left right and centre, they're not likely to fall apart like their 2nd Battalion, 9th Regiment brethren, because there's little to be scared of.

[Local Trouble]

Realistically, the marines should pwn the aliens in a stand up fight.

[SiL]

Depends on your definition of "stand up fight".

[JokersWarPig]

Realistically, the marines should pwn the aliens in a stand up fight.

There's a whole lot of factors that'd play into that....one of the key ones being numbers on both sides.

[RagingDragon]

It all depends whether or not the Aliens have the advantage of surprise. In the beginning of the game, they appear to.

I think they entire idea of having permanent AI "story" partners is terrible in an Aliens game. The movies are full of grisly, screaming death, and frankly it makes things a bit scary.

If you had a squad of marines that weren't invincible, and would occasionally (or maybe immediately?) get killed in horrifying ways, or abducted and just dragged off during some firefight, it would be scary as hell and possibly even make you care about your comrades if they weren't dumber than sticks. This is based on the assumption you could make something like that dynamic though.

Without the death, and especially without the friendly fire or acid, where's any real threat? Space raptors, with dull claws and teeth.

I think that's what works so well in some of the multiplayer modes, plenty of non-scripted death. You can hear other marines screaming and watch their little blips disappear on the tracker at times. It's quite atmospheric, but then again, the Aliens are also actually dangerous in mp.

[Aceburster]

It all depends whether or not the Aliens have the advantage of surprise. In the beginning of the game, they appear to.

I think they entire idea of having permanent AI "story" partners is terrible in an Aliens game. The movies are full of grisly, screaming death, and frankly it makes things a bit scary.

If you had a squad of marines that weren't invincible, and would occasionally (or maybe immediately?) get killed in horrifying ways, or abducted and just dragged off during some firefight, it would be scary as hell and possibly even make you care about your comrades if they weren't dumber than sticks. This is based on the assumption you could make something like that dynamic though.

Without the death, and especially without the friendly fire or acid, where's any real threat? Space raptors, with dull claws and teeth.

I think that's what works so well in some of the multiplayer modes, plenty of non-scripted death. You can hear other marines screaming and watch their little blips disappear on the tracker at times. It's quite atmospheric, but then again, the Aliens are also actually dangerous in mp.

I coulda sworn that i read forever ago on the GBX forums that they were going for that approach. 4 guys, each specializing in something and AI/players would have a turnover rate as they got killed. Maybe its just wishful thinking on my part.

They did go with the least common denominator with gungho action and cannon fodder aliens... yea it pisses me off too but I think what they gave us still fits the description of a colonial marine, just not the scenario I would have liked to see them in.

[Local Trouble]

Ideally, the aliens should all act like the goddamned Batman, not the Hulk.  I play Arkham City, snatching up bad guys from the shadows and think that this is what the aliens should be doing to the marines.

[Xenomorphine]

especially without the friendly fire or acid

These two are the single biggest opportunities to instinctively eliminate Leeroy Jenkins behaviour in the game. That they weren't implemented in all difficulty levels is quite the glaring error and will guarantee the usual clusterf**king happens in multiplayer.

Ideally, the aliens should all act like the goddamned Batman, not the Hulk.  I play Arkham City, snatching up bad guys from the shadows and think that this is what the aliens should be doing to the marines.

That's actually the kind of thing I was suggesting for hypothetical AVP game sequels, a long while ago. It's precisely how those games should try to model the behaviour. Even during the big fight near the end of the film, they're not all just roaring and running straight ahead, they're leaping between cover like biomechanical armoured ninjas.

When you play 'Arkham City' like an Alien, it becomes a lot more fun than intended.

[pixelbaron]

The 3 main characters barely felt like characters. There was nothing unique or interesting about them. In the films you could tell their personalities within minutes and in this game you had a whole six hours to get to know them.

They were just mouthpieces for the dreadful story and dispensers of dialogue that the developers probably thought the fans wanted to hear.

[ScardyFox]

I thought it was fairly good. I watched Aliens beforehand and then played and it was decent. The biggest thing I didn't like is there should have been a period of panic and dread set in. Marines or not, it would take time for such resolve to develop from coming across something so utterly hostile, alien and grotesque (using your fellow marines as host and dying in such a chest burstery way).

It would have been horrifying and it wasn't. This is set afte the movie to where xenos are still unknown, that wasn't felt enough to me.

[OpenMaw]

They couldn't make up their mind about how much marines knew anyway. O'neal refers to the smoothies as "lurker" pretty much right away in the game... How does he know? What the Hell am I missing?


I don't think it's an accurate portrayal of the marines as we generally knew them from Aliens. Even they weren't quite this freaking macho all the time. All the marines stopped doing any sort of that crap when they saw the first body. You can see the moment all that bravado goes away. It's right when they find the first body in Sub Level 3.

"...Holy shit..."

You just feel the tension wind up a few more notches at that point. There's none of that in Aliens CM. With a full group of marines, or not, the tension should still be there, that at any moment a horde of these things could show up and decimate everybody.

[Xenomorphine]

They couldn't make up their mind about how much marines knew anyway. O'neal refers to the smoothies as "lurker" pretty much right away in the game... How does he know? What the Hell am I missing?

I remember pointing that out when the IGN play-along video showed up.

Suspect it might have just been a scripted segment of multi-player audio they forgot might show up in single-player, but after having watched through as many of the missions as I have, I don't think a phrase like that would have really suited any place.