In the wake of a string of progressively more disappointing Alien vs Predator (and that third guy) games, the world rejoiced at the announcement of an actual Aliens game, one that would continue the story in the tones set by eponymous movie. It was to be a return to form of the best aspects of the Alien franchise, free of the crossover garbage that never actually brought about anything worthwhile. It had some great concepts, an ample budget, plenty of time, and lot of expectations riding on it. Shame it also had something else ride it into the ground.
In what must be a first, just about every review of the game so far has been incredibly negative, with reviewers citing a horrible story, extremely dated graphics, bad coding, even worse netcode, bugs, bad design and just about anything else that you can think of when it comes to a bad game. And that’s just on the PC version, as both the 360 and PS3 have it even worse apparently. The most obvious and egregious part of the whole debacle is the AI, both human and xeno, as it has issues navigating, identifying enemies, understanding the concepts of walls and doors, as well as occasionally getting confused over how to use the ground.
And if all that wasn’t enough, there are rampant rumors running around about a fair chunk of the game being outsourced (mostly the singleplayer), as well as all of the preview builds that people got to see ahead of time being tailored to obfuscate the game’s flaws. The multiplayer appears to be the only redeeming feature the game has, in that it’s merely generic, limited and uninspired. And while you may not have to suffer the AI in multiplayer, you’ll be treated to xenos bugging out on all kinds of terrain.
Thus far, the rumors are unsubstantiated, and we’ll be reserving judgement on the game as a whole until Fear and the gang get their At First Glance out later this week, but regardless of what we think of the game, things are looking bad and the blame game has already begun.
