A Game I Don't -THEN- A Game I Do

So if you've stumbled upon this there's a decent enough chance you like videogames.  So allow me to give you my brief thoughts upon one of the biggest games coming out this year, where "big" in this instance means millions of people are going to buy it and if it's good millions more will as well.  This as opposed to a game that's not "big", which really just means those kind of sales figures aren't bankable quite yet. That one comes second.

I'm talking first about the latest rival to Call of Duties "shoot guys in the face while playing soldier" Throne, Battlefield 3. Here are my impressions based on the newly available Public Beta aka the multiplayer demo.

You shoot people in the face. A lot. But it looks nice.

Ok ok, that's unfair. Also that's a generic cheap shot that, after playing the demo, really should be left directed at Call of Duty not Battlefield.  It just seems to ask more from players while the competition seems ok with "allowing" people to play any mode as if were deathmatch and only suffer minor, if any, penalty for it. The deeper aspects, like using cover and the environment, seem more prevalent here. But I'm a nub so feel free to disregard.

I did play several games of Rush, trying my best to make use of each class, but I just don't see the appeal here.  It's satisfying when you accomplish something I suppose, I did at one point deactivate my teams triggered control point at least, but the dedication required to be good at something like this, I just don't find the premise of shooting meticulously detailed real world soldiers with meticulously detailed real world weaponry engaging enough to sink that kind of time into.  Much like the detail work of Gran Turismo is wasted on a satisfied pedestrian like myself, I simply cannot fathom how having the guns in these games so true to the real life counterparts is worth the time and money the devs must spend on it. A generically depicted SMG works just as well in a videogame as the commercially available real life stock model.

Don't get me wrong I'm as anal retentive to the details as anyone else is about what they enjoy, just look at the crap I write about here, I guess I just don't understand how or why its guns and war that give so many people wood. I like my violence a little more escapist thanks.


Now I'm going to talk about a game that guaranteed won't sell as well or get as high review scores. Not that B3 won't deserve them, the quality there is obvious, just not meant for me.  This one is. In this one you shoot monster in the face and try to avoid the shower of acidic blood.  When I play a soldier boy I want to  face off with something other then non-Americans, I want to shoot some: Aliens.

Gearbox Studios, the guys who did Borderlands, are putting together a FPS based on the Alien series of films.  This one though is taking itself very seriously as a direct sequel to the second movie, the James Cameron directed Aliens.

Now in the past people have done games where you play as the Marines from the franchise but only the Aliens vs Predator games have ever really been good. Some would argue not even then.  But the strength to those titles was always that you had the three contrasting play styles of the three species, Alien, Predator and Marine, to add depth and variety to the gameplay.  But this is a game where you only play as the Marine, the most atypical FPS class in AvP games by far, and then commit yourself to how ever many hours of shooting at melee locked monsters who will be rushing you down.  Certainly from a gameplay mechanic standpoint they have an uphill struggle ahead of them in being able to craft a playable game out of what's traditionally a story telling franchise.  Certainly the potential is there to go beyond simple room clearing encounters with wave after wave of alien, being a FPS doesn't stop you from also being able to pace it as you please and tell a great story.

That's my high hope for this game.  It's not going to be the next big blockbuster, that's for games like Battlefield whom millions already know they're going to buy and play over and over constantly with their buddies and strangers alike.  No this game has the chance to really just be what it should be, a really tightly made Aliens game, a game where you experience the encounter of this batch of Colonial Marines first hand and what ever that entails.  If it has the balls to be an "Aliens Game" and not simply an Aliens themed FPS, which from what I've seen from Gearbox's released press is something they're looking to do, then it has potential to be a really memorable experience.  Gotta be true to your strengths, to yourself, right?  It worked for the Batman game and it's not like anyone was even asking for a really good Batman game.

They're even putting in segments where you use the little hand torches to weld doors shut behind you. That's great.

You play as one of the Marines sent to investigate the disappearance of the Sulacco team from Aliens.  This of course is the thing that logistically "would happen next" after Aliens, they even talk about the impendiong rescue team in the film.  Though not in anyway an official sequel to the story, does it really matter? Think of it as a what if scenario.  Gearbox you have my attention hooked with your premesis already, I can only hope you deliver on it.  Its looking good.

Also from a gameier place after the story is over this one really needs a Wave Mode. Call it what you will, Wave, Hoard, Annihilation, whatever, same concept.  First time I played it it was called Skirmish and was in Aliens vs Predator 2 one the PC.  Those skittery little bugs running all over the walls and ceiling make for an intense experience, especially in tight corridors.

Oh after this one guys how about a game based entirely from the perspective of the Alien itself?  Those were always my favorite bits of AvP games, it affords a very unique playstyle of aggressive stealth action.