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Aliens: Colonial Marines demo vs. final build

Anton Sugar said:
Animations are janky, but the mutated xenos can't see--they can only hear you. So once he stops moving, they lose "track".

FWIW, it has been regarded as one of the better sequences of the game, from what I've read.
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Arent all xenos blind? I mean I dont see any eyes. Also why would a life form that always evolves in more deadly forms suddenly decide to walk about like a blind cripple?
 
Anton Sugar said:
Animations are janky, but the mutated xenos can't see--they can only hear you. So once he stops moving, they lose "track".

FWIW, it has been regarded as one of the better sequences of the game, from what I've read.
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I thought it was hands-down the worst part of the game.

Also I don't understand how aliens can be blind, since they have no eyes.

Edit: I can maybe see how that Co-op dynamic can improve it. As a single player experience it's pretty awful though.
 
HK-47 said:
Arent all xenos blind? I mean I dont see any eyes. Also why would a life form that always evolves in more deadly forms suddenly decide to walk about like a blind cripple?
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I don't know if there is any canonical explanation for xeno sight. Aliens 3 basically had "xeno vision" as people were chased, and I thought there was a scene where a xeno watches a character perform a pretty small action (raising his arm to press a button? can't remember...).

I'm not defending it--I haven't played it--but their concept, at least, was that they've lost their sense of vision...whether that's pheromones or something, who knows?

There was this really good xenofilia-kinda site that went into detail on this stuff, but I can't find it now.
 
I'd love for Joe to get on here with us, but at the same time I'm not a fan of making exceptions for certain people either. He's joining the forum as a regular user just like everyone else and is subject to the same rules we are on here, so if they're going to fast track Joe then they should be letting in others at the same time.

Devils advocate, etc. etc.
 
1stStrike said:
I'd love for Joe to get on here with us, but at the same time I'm not a fan of making exceptions for certain people either. He's joining the forum as a regular user just like everyone else and is subject to the same rules we are on here, so if they're going to fast track Joe then they should be letting in others at the same time.

Devils advocate, etc. etc.
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I'm pretty sure NeoGAF has made a lot of exceptions for certain people if they're involved with the press, development, etc. That or I've seen a crazy number of coincidences.

In those cases I don't mind it. My approval took nine months, though, just so us plebes can compare.
 
1stStrike said:
I'd love for Joe to get on here with us, but at the same time I'm not a fan of making exceptions for certain people either. He's joining the forum as a regular user just like everyone else and is subject to the same rules we are on here, so if they're going to fast track Joe then they should be letting in others at the same time.

Devils advocate, etc. etc.
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I understand where you're coming from. But the mods have made dome special exceptions for the media and developers.

Then again, I was able to log in almost instantly after my sign up. I think I just happened to sign up at the right time, though.
 
I remember Jim Sterling also wanted to sign up but still no go for him. Frankly, having Jim and Joe around here especially in this specific time can add a lot to the conversation. These two are really huge Aliens fans.
 
AJ_Wings said:
I remember Jim Sterling also wanted to sign up but still no go for him. Frankly, having Jim and Joe around here especially in this specific time can add a lot to the conversation. These two are really huge Aliens fans.
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Yes, do it! Drop that Dookie!

angry-joe.gif
 
The differences are basically criminal to me. It's worse than the Killzone fiasco.

First, even though I want to blast TimeGate Studios (and Gearbox, and SEGA, and everyone else right after) out of an airlock, it's clear they can do better work than this. Section 8, the FEAR expansions, and Kohan (which EviLore personally vouched for) are not exactly middling. This game was in development hell far too long and I'm sure there were some unrealistic expectations involved.

That Pitchford would O.K. what amounted to a performance target is insane. He and Gearbox were on the hook for this game and should have never promised what they couldn't deliver (mostly) themselves. Sub-contracting or not, the final product had best be stellar or your head's on the chopping block - and appropriately, not only for bald-faced lying in your demos, but also squandering a very rich, well-developed IP.
 
HK-47 said:
Arent all xenos blind? I mean I dont see any eyes. Also why would a life form that always evolves in more deadly forms suddenly decide to walk about like a blind cripple?
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It's never stated directly in game but I would guess the obvious explanation is radiation from the nuclear explosion of the atmosphere processor mutated them. Why the colony in general managed to survive that though is anyones guess.
 
It seems a bit unclear, but almost certainly not optical vision.
The creatures possess no visible eyes; Giger mandated this in his original design, because he felt that it made the creatures much more frightening if one could not tell they were looking at them. In the Alien vs. Predator series, the game implies that the xenomorph sees using it's attack tongue.[7] In the original Alien film, the top of the creature's head was semi-transparent, with empty eye sockets of human appearance visible within. This element was dropped in later movies, but reused for the Predalien design, on the front portion of its skull.

In Aliens, the adult creatures are lacking the smooth carapace covering their heads. In the commentary for Aliens, it was speculated that this was part of the maturation of the creatures, as they had been alive far longer than the original xenomorph. This maturation process involves the now adult xenomorph shedding the smooth dome-like plate covering its head, leaving the skin underneith to be exposed. In Alien³, a fisheye lens (which creates a perspective similar to that of a peephole) was used to depict the Xenomorph's sight. Whether this can be considered sight or just a filmed representation of the creatures' sensory perception is unknown.

However, in the novelization of the movie Alien, the creature is held mesmerized by a spinning green light for several minutes. Due to the absence of clearly visible eyes, it is possible that the creature uses echolocation to see its environment, much like bats . It may be for this reason that Xenomorphs hiss almost constantly. Though it may have the ability to see through an unknown structure, as they evolved differently from life on Earth. In the 2010 Alien vs. Predator game, it is mentioned on one of the Marine audio tapes that Xenomorphs have vision.

Xenomorphs may be able to detect their 'prey' through electro-reception. This is the method sharks use to detect even the most hidden prey. Creatures with the electro-reception sense can detect the electromagnetic field all animals produce allowing them to detect the creatures heart beat. This would explain how xenomorphs always know where the humans are.

And as depicted in the Aliens vs. Predator games, the Xenomorphs can detect their prey using pheromones .
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Natural Selection 2 Team member comments on it
The degree to which we feared ACM was, in hindsight, crazy. Potential release dates for NS2 were discussed with reference to ACM's potential release date. Around the lunch table, we pondered the pasting reviewers would give us if they were simultaneously reviewing a AAA mega-budget aliens vs marines title.

At shows like GamesCom, PAX-East, and E3 I walked around the ACM super-booths in awe. I spoke to ACM PR reps and they had no idea what NS was. I watched the demos (especially the E3 one) and thought... 'How can we possibly stand up to these guy on the aliens v marine stage?' I walked around the Power Loader in multiple countries and shook my head at the poor luck of having to face this Sega/Gearbox monster in our launch window.

Now, I'm filled with sadness. Sadness at being an Aliens fan and not being able to experience LV-426 like I had imagined I would. Sadness that we spent so much time being afraid of a game that we have beaten on Metacritic by 30 points. Sadness that the launch trailer for ACM probably cost more than 30% of the entire development budget of NS2.

With that marketing machine, with that moneypot, with that kind of development time, with that kind of bullet-proof intellectual property, ACM should have been an absolute hit.

No, UWE won't be milking the poor reception of ACM. To do so would make us wankers, it would be dishonorable. Remember when Warfighter exploded? Activision ran a targeted ad campaign hitting every single Warfighter keyword with CODBLOPSII pre-rolls and banners. I'm sure it got them sales. But it also said much about the kind of company they are.

There is a very subtle aliens reference in the Gorgeous Trailer, but it was scripted in long, long ago. Well before we even realized ACM was landing at the same time as the update. Now, I just hope the press won't can us for 'trying to milk failure.'
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There was a post in their forum mentioning how Natural Selection 2 should ride on the Failure of this game. This was their response. Classy and interesting.
 
Ah, NS2. I played the shit out of NS1 when I was a teenager, bought NS2 and played it for like an hour. Just couldn't get into it and was bored to tears with the game. I guess that ship has sailed for me.
 
1stStrike said:
Ah, NS2. I played the shit out of NS1 when I was a teenager, bought NS2 and played it for like an hour. Just couldn't get into it and was bored to tears with the game. I guess that ship has sailed for me.
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Same, played it for like 10 hours. Lost interest. Gorges lost what I thought made them fun to play and had too many other issues that bothered me because it wasn't ns1.
 
Another potential lore-fail, in relation to the rationalizing of a certain character during the ending.

Ending spoiler

The way Hicks (urh), claims he identified that Weyland was fake via no breathing -- I have a distinct memory of reading somewhere that these andriods simulate breath as to fit in with their human peers and avert tension.
Or am I wrong?
 
Messofanego said:
Did not disappoint, absolute shredding. lol at the Gearbox devs talking in those dev diaries.

Mikey Neumann: "It's different, we're approaching the first person shooter differently. We're even approaching how we have a main character talk within first person, in a totally different new way that I don't think anyone's done before."

ivprUhc.jpg
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Fucking hell, there's even an Alien clipping through the desk in the interview vid...

...gearbox dropping bombs from day one.
 
Yeah, that 10 minute long preview video looks like they took the assets and level design from an earlier build of the game and made a pre-rendered video just for the sake of that showing.

Nokterian said:
Watching the video now. This gon b gud :D

Joe posted this on twitter he wants to engage here to talk about it on GAF.



https://twitter.com/AngryJoeShow/status/302152758927183872
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Welcome to NeoGaf Angry Joe. Enjoy your 4-6 month wait for NeoGaf approval... Nice review though.

I was excited for this game too when it was first announced in 2005. I remember talking to one of the developers back then who was part of the project, he was excited about it back then too. But he left development a few years later. The previews like the one in the first post looked great. But all the reviews and impressions just disappoints me... I loved the AVP series going all the way back to AVP Gold on PC, so my excitement for this game was high. But it's a damn shame that the game seems like such a big letdown.
 
Anton Sugar said:
So basically, xenos see however the fuck the director/devs decide.
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Pretty much. I prefer the cold horror vibe of the original Alien - in that, you had no idea how the Alien knew where you were, but there was no doubt that it did know exactly where you were. How - because it was Alien.

TBH although I found Prometheus a big disappointment Ridley got one thing right in his comments - the Alien creature has been squeezed dry : there is nothing Alien left about it anymore.
 
Wow, that level of deception is pretty amazing. There had to know that the final game wouldn't look like that at that point, wouldn't they?
I demand blood for this! Heads must roll!
 
While you wait for Joe, you can have the inferior me.

So yeah, this demo stuff. At least as late as March last year, Gearbox was happily showing off that Sulaco intro demo, which, as we all know now, looks far superior to the real game. The other demo, the one I walked through for Jimquisition, was shown multiple times at E3 and PAX. I've seen it "played live" before. Anyone who went to PAX can tell you they pretended to play it -- had controls set up and everything.

Rewatching it on Youtube, motion-for-motion matching what I saw "played" at PAX, makes it pretty clear it wasn't real gameplay. It was always a conceptual mockup.

Now, that's fine, yes? Developers do "concept" footage all the time. I know someone here said my Jimquisition was "BS" because of this. However, unlike Killzone 2 or similar not-really-gameplay videos, Gearbox never 'fessed up. What's more, this "gameplay" was used multiple times for trailers and screenshots. It was never presented as anything less than actual gameplay, that would feature in the actual game. At least we knew Killzone 2's first footage was fake before the game came out.

Not once was anybody told that the screenshot of the power loader fighting the Alien Queen was pure fantasy. Right up until I had code in my hand, I was never told not to expect the things I'd been told to expect. Imagine my surprise when the Queen is fought ... oh wait, I said fought. Ha ha. I'm not actually laughing, there.
 
EGM1966 said:
TBH although I found Prometheus a big disappointment Ridley got one thing right in his comments - the Alien creature has been squeezed dry : there is nothing Alien left about it anymore.
Click to expand...
Agreed 100%. The Alien creature has been too visible for too long.

Great icons of horror are at their best when you have no idea what you're seeing. This is also one of the reasons why, in gaming, Pyramid Head became so well known (and inherently ruined). The encounters in Silent Hill 2 were such that you rarely ever got a good hard look at the them and the strange shape was difficult to comprehend. Once others started re-using the iconic image, however, it lost any sense of terror it may have once had.

However, unlike Killzone 2 or similar not-really-gameplay videos, Gearbox never 'fessed up.
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The Killzone 2 thing blew over simply because the end results were so damn impressive in their own right. It was (and still is) a remarkable looking game with a unique style that you simply don't find anywhere else.
 
Sweet, I like angry joe's stuff. I want to commend him on his ACM review. It was very good and funny. The "You fucked it up" line at the start was awesome.

Also I got the Aliens vs Predator game from 2010. Is it any good?
 
Jim Sterling said:
Not once was anybody told that the screenshot of the power loader fighting the Alien Queen was pure fantasy. Right up until I had code in my hand, I was never told not to expect the things I'd been told to expect. Imagine my surprise when the Queen is fought ... oh wait, I said fought. Ha ha. I'm not actually laughing, there.
Click to expand...

Those screenshots are still being used for the backgrounds on the games steam library page. In fact, all the screenshots ive seen any time i go to load the game are the pre-release bullshots.

I know bullshots and 'target renders' are part and parcel of the industry but in ACM's case its made ten times worse by Pitchfords blatant lying about it. "sophisticated AI", "this is all in game footage from the 2nd mission", its disgraceful. Like being sold a Mercedes but getting a Morris Minor.
 
Jim Sterling said:
While you wait for Joe, you can have the inferior me.

So yeah, this demo stuff. At least as late as March last year, Gearbox was happily showing off that Sulaco intro demo, which, as we all know now, looks far superior to the real game. The other demo, the one I walked through for Jimquisition, was shown multiple times at E3 and PAX. I've seen it "played live" before. Anyone who went to PAX can tell you they pretended to play it -- had controls set up and everything.

Rewatching it on Youtube, motion-for-motion matching what I saw "played" at PAX, makes it pretty clear it wasn't real gameplay. It was always a conceptual mockup.

Now, that's fine, yes? Developers do "concept" footage all the time. I know someone here said my Jimquisition was "BS" because of this. However, unlike Killzone 2 or similar not-really-gameplay videos, Gearbox never 'fessed up. What's more, this "gameplay" was used multiple times for trailers and screenshots. It was never presented as anything less than actual gameplay, that would feature in the actual game. At least we knew Killzone 2's first footage was fake before the game came out.

Not once was anybody told that the screenshot of the power loader fighting the Alien Queen was pure fantasy. Right up until I had code in my hand, I was never told not to expect the things I'd been told to expect. Imagine my surprise when the Queen is fought ... oh wait, I said fought. Ha ha. I'm not actually laughing, there.
Click to expand...

Welcome to NeoGAF Jim Sterling, enjoy your stay. :)

It's pretty atrocious how they went about this game pre-release... =\
 
Jim Sterling said:
While you wait for Joe, you can have the inferior me.

So yeah, this demo stuff. At least as late as March last year, Gearbox was happily showing off that Sulaco intro demo, which, as we all know now, looks far superior to the real game. The other demo, the one I walked through for Jimquisition, was shown multiple times at E3 and PAX. I've seen it "played live" before. Anyone who went to PAX can tell you they pretended to play it -- had controls set up and everything.

Rewatching it on Youtube, motion-for-motion matching what I saw "played" at PAX, makes it pretty clear it wasn't real gameplay. It was always a conceptual mockup.

Now, that's fine, yes? Developers do "concept" footage all the time. I know someone here said my Jimquisition was "BS" because of this. However, unlike Killzone 2 or similar not-really-gameplay videos, Gearbox never 'fessed up. What's more, this "gameplay" was used multiple times for trailers and screenshots. It was never presented as anything less than actual gameplay, that would feature in the actual game. At least we knew Killzone 2's first footage was fake before the game came out.

Not once was anybody told that the screenshot of the power loader fighting the Alien Queen was pure fantasy. Right up until I had code in my hand, I was never told not to expect the things I'd been told to expect. Imagine my surprise when the Queen is fought ... oh wait, I said fought. Ha ha. I'm not actually laughing, there.
Click to expand...

I, too, remember seeing the Loader screenshots on the Steam page.. I'm not actually surprised to find out that stuff isn't even in the game. PS I love you
 
Jim Sterling said:
While you wait for Joe, you can have the inferior me.

So yeah, this demo stuff. At least as late as March last year, Gearbox was happily showing off that Sulaco intro demo, which, as we all know now, looks far superior to the real game. The other demo, the one I walked through for Jimquisition, was shown multiple times at E3 and PAX. I've seen it "played live" before. Anyone who went to PAX can tell you they pretended to play it -- had controls set up and everything.

Rewatching it on Youtube, motion-for-motion matching what I saw "played" at PAX, makes it pretty clear it wasn't real gameplay. It was always a conceptual mockup.

Now, that's fine, yes? Developers do "concept" footage all the time. I know someone here said my Jimquisition was "BS" because of this. However, unlike Killzone 2 or similar not-really-gameplay videos, Gearbox never 'fessed up. What's more, this "gameplay" was used multiple times for trailers and screenshots. It was never presented as anything less than actual gameplay, that would feature in the actual game. At least we knew Killzone 2's first footage was fake before the game came out.

Not once was anybody told that the screenshot of the power loader fighting the Alien Queen was pure fantasy.
Click to expand...

Just like BiA:HH.

Btw... welcome to gaf.
 
Good to see you on GAF Jim, you've managed to articulate the disdain I feel for the putrid disaster that A:CM is far better than I ever could. I just end up a tourettes-induced stupor whenever I think about it, mostly because of what it could've been instead of what it ended up as.
 
HyperMusic said:
Good to see you on GAF Jim, you've managed to articulate the disdain I feel for the putrid disaster that A:CM is far better than I ever could. I just end up a tourettes-induced stupor whenever I think about it, mostly because of what it could've been instead of what it ended up as.
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It's been tough to resist just carving "ALIENS" backwards into my forehead and headbutting the walls, but I like to think I've remained composed enough to be a tad more productive than that.
 
Just thinking about the possibility if what developers like Visceral and 4A Games can do with the license and witnessing what Gearbox crapped out makes the whole situation more disappointing.

Oh, and welcome to Gaf Jim. :)
 
Good to have you on GAF Jim, welcome! We got something positive out of this mess at least, you and Joe coming on here. Enjoyed your Jimquisition video as well.
 
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