Jimquisition: A-LIE-ns: Colonial Marines

[SirDerick]

where the hell can i download that demo in the first place(pc)?

As far as i know, this wasn't actually a playable demo, more of a "Let's show you guys ten minutes of *cough* actual *Cough* gameplay."
From the look of the actual game, most of this demo might have been pre-rendered.

 

[labbu]

where the hell can i download that demo in the first place(pc)?

It's a press demo, to be shown on press events to show off the game. It's not freely available.

 

[Something Amyss]

So, basically... False advertising? Isn't that against the law in the US of A?

Unfortunately, "false advertising" is easier and easier to get away with because we've become a culture of corporate lapdogs who will either insist they don't mind being lied to or berate others for expecting honesty in media.

The latter's a tricky point, because we've always had the soft lies in media. Nowadays, we're getting some pretty major ones. bait and switch, marketing claims not even close to true, and demos that claim to represent the game but do not.

I'm fine with demos which are demos for the sake of demos, for the record. It's when you say that such a demo is from the game, or represents it when it doesn't. That's the problem.

 

[saruman31]

I had no expectations for Gearbox and Randy Pitchford to deliver. None at all.

 

[Terminate421]

This demo....just release that alone and I'd be satisfied, seriously. This demo is fucking perfect. How did they fuck up the demo?!

 

[Terminate421]

OK...

But WHAT ABOUT THE MULTIPLAYER? Is it half-way decent? I've already asked this in a similar thread but everyone's apparently still too busy crying about the campaign. Yes, it's crap. Didn't happen. Sorry. Let's move on now, shall we?

From what I've seen, the multiplayer is basically considered passable. Not great, not bad, but passable. It is, however, full of missing animations and low-res textures, just like the rest of the game. And it is NOT worth $60

Honestly, this is one of my biggest gaming disappointments. I remember when GI did a cover story on this like 5 years ago, and I've been waiting and hoping for it to come out ever since. I watched the demo and the trailers, and I plunked down my money for my preorder, and then LUCKILY saw the bad reviews rolling in Tuesday morning.

In the vain hope of some kind of miracle patch that fixes stuff, or some promise from Gearbox that something went horribly wrong during cert/manufacturing and that it would be fixed forthwith, I decided to give them a few days before totally cancelling my pre-order and getting a refund. As of yet though, that hasn't happened.

Their last official tweet (as of this post) was "We?ll have special Borderlands 2 SHiFT codes (from Moxxi, no less) tomorrow to celebrate Loverpalooza -- stay tuned!" I think that pretty sums it all up here...A:CM sucks because GearBox abandoned it to work on Borderlands 2, and then rushed it out the door because they counted on Aliens fans to just lap it up before the word of mouth completely killed it. Show what they think of their customers I guess...

I was lucky somewhat. I pre-ordered it and such and unfortunately had the balls to try it myself. I SOMEHOW got my 60$ back, though for in-store credit, I managed to fixiate that money into a Bioshock: Infinite Pre-order. At least then I KNOW it'll be worth my 60$

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I'll start right off the bat by saying I don't know when this demo was made, but surely a game that has been in development for seven years will have some content cut from it that was at some point meant to be included? Fair enough if this demo is six months old then there is no excuse for it, but if this demo is older than that and is showing a sequence that was going to be in the game but then got cut after the demo was made, well, is it that bad?

Incidentally Jim, Facehuggers only twitch if it's love at first sight. Maybe this one just didn't feel your vibe.

 

[Hazy992]

Wow this is really damning and I honestly can't think of an explanation other than a deliberate attempt at deception.

Could this be a legal matter? This seems like straight up false advertising.

 

[Kyogissun]

I just... I really don't have words. I did not realize that this shit as bad as it... was. I mean I was getting the jist of it from the reviews but, good god.

When was the last time this big of a disappointment happened for the gaming industry? Like... Driver 3 maybe? Or is there something else non-Aliens related I'm forgetting?

I seriously hope Gearbox is in some deep shit for this, they were probably one of the few remaining companies I felt weren't completely fucking up but with this... I seriously hope there's something that went terribly wrong and that this wasn't just the outcome of laziness.

 

[AstaresPanda]

was this demo alone that sold me on it......so very very lucky i ended up being too broke to buy it day one.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

Just found this on Kotaku
http://kotaku.com/5984068/how-aliens-colonial-marines-fell-apart

To summarize:
Sounds like Gearbox outsourced a bunch of shit to another company and they fucked everything up while Gearbox was working on Borderlands 2. Its too bad too after seeing the demo footage - it looks like it would have been a good game if Gearbox hadn't pawned it off on someone else.

 

[Easton Dark]

I managed to fixiate that money into a Bioshock: Infinite Pre-order. At least then I KNOW it'll be worth my 60$

Turns out you never go outside in Bioshock Infinite and you can't use anything other than guns until the final boss fight.

OT:

People should really stop pre-ordering unless there's some game play available to them. Patience saves you disappointment.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Great stuff Jim, this is a most disturbing turn of events. Could they do this if they had more time or is it like Kinect's Milo and it was never possible?

Also it's interesting that I visited Metacritic earlier today and it had 50/100, now it has 42/1000. The difference is that there was 90/100 Electronic Gaming Monthly review, which is so devoid of content it screams P.R. release ( http://www.egmnow.com/articles/reviews/egm-review-aliens-colonial-marines/ ) which has now been dropped. So on the bright side, maybe Metacritic is improving its quality control...maybe...possibly...probably not...

 

[VladG]

This was possibly my most hotly anticipated game of the year, and they somehow found a way to gloriously fuck it up. It's amazing that they somehow managed to surprise everyone with how shit a product this ended up being.

Well, to be fair, this completely fake "demo" was a big reason why the game was so highly anticipated. If the game was anything like that... It might actually have been good.

What baffles me is why the demo looks so much better than the PC version? I mean, seriously, it's miles ahead - fog, lighting, weapon particle effects.. nothing looks like the actual game.

Companies should really be burned for bullshit like this.

As someone mentioned above, this should be treated like false advertisement and punished accordingly.

 

[Magmarock]

OK...

But WHAT ABOUT THE MULTIPLAYER? Is it half-way decent? I've already asked this in a similar thread but everyone's apparently still too busy crying about the campaign. Yes, it's crap. Didn't happen. Sorry. Let's move on now, shall we?

Who cares about the multiplayer? There's enough MP shooter games already we need more single player ones.

 

[FoolKiller]

OK...

But WHAT ABOUT THE MULTIPLAYER? I've already asked this in a similar thread but everyone's apparently still too busy crying about the campaign. Yes, it's crap. Didn't happen. Sorry. Let's move on now, shall we?

I'm not 100% sure how many people actually bought an Aliens game for the multiplayer. It's like asking how many people bought Battlefield 3 solely for the singleplayer, it just doesn't happen. Plus you are totally wrong about saying that the people cried over the game. It's their right since from what this shows they have been conned out of their £40-60 which I guess is a good reason to cry about. So you might want to concentrate on the company scamming you before you ask about the multiplayer, you know priorities.

OK moving on. Isn't pulling crap like this illegal ?

Unfortunately I don't think so. They always put in the safety net of "this video may not be representative of the final product" bullshit. Although I wish someone would take them to task for it.

Personally I found it to be a very generic shooter. The leveling system is cool (as Jim says in his review) but the game is bland and poorly designed/executed at best.

 

[ciancon]

Well...at least the demo looks pretty good? Maybe i'll just download that and enjoy 10 mins of well scripted Aliens stuff.

 

[I.Muir]

You forgot to mention the game itself is buggy as all hell
Within five minutes of co op I fell through the map and kept falling for five minutes

 

[Easton Dark]

People should really stop pre-ordering unless there's some game play available to them. Patience saves you disappointment.

Yep, Pre-Ordering games is an inherently rather stupid consumer practice. Can't say I haven't done it myself several times, but usually on stuff I was rather sure of and I never got burned.

There was another long Total Biscuit rant about it on occasion of Aliens: Colonial Marines:

I have pre-ordered 1 game, 1 only and it will be my last. Coincedentally, it was a Gearbox game, Borderlands. Pre-ordered in 2009 (for the cheaper PC price of $50 which I guess helped) and I can't tell you how disappointed I was. I vowed that day to never again pre-order without seeing the game in action first, the final game.

I also saw that video yesterday. Agreed with everything.

 

[VonBrewskie]

Mother of hell is this disappointing. I'm very glad I forgot to pre-order. I don't think I'll be able to buy Gearbox products again. It's a principle thing. Borderlands is great, but jesus man. This is the second time the company has bilked people out of their money based on hype. (In this case, total bullshit.) I remember seeing this demo awhile back, jaw on the floor, the 6 year old in me giddy with anticipation of finally, FINALLY having a proper Colonial Marines game. I used to read the Dark Horse comics back in the day. I love this franchise. I came home from work, fired up the PC looking for early reviews and was absolutely shocked at what I found. What a disa-fucking-ppointment. Damn it Gearbox. You guys said you were Aliens nerds. Goddamn it. You fucked this one up badly. I was never really into Duke Nukem. I could forgive that. I was pissed for people that I felt were tricked into pre-ordering that game, but that was their choice to make. This is/was also a choice people made, but this franchise isn't Duke Nukem. Gearbox, c'mon. Aliens? A "canon" videogame sequel to one of my, and many others, top movies of all time? That demo that strung all of us hopefuls along and eventually got many, many pre-orders sold? Jesus hell man. You all fucked this one up royally.