Aliens: Colonial Marines - WTF Happened!?!

[dux]

http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=244911

[Warby]

Look what you did, Randy! All joking aside, I'm as puzzled as everyone else as to what happened. Not too long ago GBX released Borderlands 2 - a 90% metacritic title - and now they're putting their reputation as a studio on the line by releasing...this.

DNF didn't count

As things stand right now, Borderlands 2 feels more like an exception. Aliens was weak, Duke was terrible and it's been a while since Brothers in Arms was any good. And not to be overly critical, but to my naive and young gamer brain a game like Borderlands seems slightly more forgiving to make than many other kinds of games. I think players' love of loot, leveling and co-op smooth out any rough edges quite a bit. With that in mind, I personally question exactly how much game development muscle they got left at Gearbox. :/

EDIT: I hope this doesn't come across as dicky.

you succeed at articulating my thoughts exactly !

[Taylor Swift]

THEY n33d to make a game based on prometheus, quick!!!!!!!

[LiVinGHeLL]

Yeah.. this is why I preordered the game. I feel like I have been Dead Island-ed. =[

[Izuno]

Yeah.. this is why I preordered the game. I feel like I have been Dead Island-ed. =[

My thoughts exactly. I preordered after I saw that demo, too. I mean, it was gameplay, not a trailer, so I thought "ok...this is awesome. I'm in." At the time I had a stack of BestBuy gift cards so I used some to preorder...in other words because it was through BestBuy online it won't get to my house until Feb 18. (Seriously, BB, wtf?) So I don't even have the game yet and I'm already thinking of taking it back unopened and exchanging it for other games.

But...instead I plan to rent it for a day (if possible) just to test it out myself first. I keep coming back to this thread hoping somehow it's all a big mistake and the game is actually blowing people away.

In any event that post Dux linked on gearbox's forums is interesting and plausible about how they outsourced a lot of the campaign and it this was the result.

If all true, interesting lesson about what you can get from outsourcing. Managing multiple big teams/titles at once is really complicated and maybe GBX was just really ambitious, though FOX and Sega involvement may have made it worse. If FOX has final approval on a script then that does tie your hands.

Anyway, I am still loving Borderlands 2 (happy customer here) so I haven't lost faith in GBX, just hope that whatever they do next doesn't turn out this way.

[Puddy]

As things stand right now, Borderlands 2 feels more like an exception. Aliens was weak, Duke was terrible and it's been a while since Brothers in Arms was any good. And not to be overly critical, but to my naive and young gamer brain a game like Borderlands seems slightly more forgiving to make than many other kinds of games. I think players' love of loot, leveling and co-op smooth out any rough edges quite a bit. With that in mind, I personally question exactly how much game development muscle they got left at Gearbox. :/

EDIT: I hope this doesn't come across as dicky.

you succeed at articulating my thoughts exactly !

I guess we're both overly critical dicks then.

[mjens]

Yeah.. this is why I preordered the game. I feel like I have been Dead Island-ed. =[

Sad but true, still awesome joke

Edited February 14, 2013 by seir

[Thrik]

You do have to wonder if Randy is actually completely detached from what goes on at Gearbox, because what he's said about Duke Nukem Forever and Colonial Marines has been so consistently out of whack with the reality that I can't fathom how someone could say the kind of things he's said with a straight face.

They're seriously tarnishing their reputation with these bad games. What's interesting is that both bad games were high-profile releases using IPs that people would probably buy into regardless of game quality, which also raises some questions of ethics in Gearbox concerning how much they're willing to sell themselves out when they know the game will probably sell well anyway.

Unfortunately it's a double-edged sword because while they may enjoy good sales now, the likelihood of another IP owner trusting Gearbox with their franchise decreases monumentally with every bad game they release.

[Rick_D]

just played the second mission and it's really not a good game at all. it's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. it's competent, but it's competent for 2005.

it lacks gameplay, VO, audio, level design polish. the basics are there but another year and a good set of game directors could have made a real difference.

what a shame.

[Taylor]

http://forums.gearbo...ad.php?t=244911

Edit: Never mind I don't have to be all cryptic. It says the project was shelved multiple times for another project, at least two examples and an etcetera, and then states Sega "wasn't super pleased about the delays," implying this was not an... official shelving.

It sounds like GBX are taking on way too much than they can handle, and sadly a product that's going to sell anyway will be the most neglected.

Edited February 14, 2013 by Taylor

[KoKo5oVaR]

Maybe at 3/4 of the dev, someone deleted the build and they had start again from 9 months ago and pretend nothing happened to cover his murder

[FMPONE]

If this sells very well then GBX is playing a very dangerous game with gaming fans, it might keep the studio open but nobody will forget these failures

[Zyn]

With A:CM being the top seller on Steam for a couple of days before release, it might have sold very well but many feel buyers remorse and demand refunds.

[Beck]

With A:CM being the top seller on Steam for a couple of days before release, it might have sold very well but many feel buyers remorse and demand refunds.

This is why I rarely buy games before release unless it's pretty much guaranteed to be awesome (Valve games, GTA, Battlefield etc...) So many games these days are rushed out of the door full of bugs with reviews embargoed until the day of release because of less than perfect scores.

To be fair I did buy Borderlands 2 before release but I enjoyed the original a lot. Borderlands seems to be the only thing GBX has done well in the past few years.

[blackdog]

This is why I rarely buy games before release unless it's pretty much guaranteed to be awesome (Valve games, GTA, Battlefield etc...)

Same here.

I feel like being polemic and say that last GTA was something not to preorder... I did, and by the time i got it, my PC was trashed (for its own reasons), but the game was unplayable on any average PC around and not easy on top-of-the-line anyway. I later played it on the Xbox and I was pretty much disappointed, I did convinced myself from the trailers that the game was more mature and dark than previous titles (Vice City is still one of my all time fav) when it wasn't. On top of that the story was simply disappointing and I find they totally missed the delivery of the final act, since you get to kill a guy that they don't drive you to hate during narration... hell, he's hardly around anytime during the events!