As Halo Infinite gets closer with a release date December 8th. I decided to try a new Aliens game.
Aliens Fireteam elite is a 3rd person co-op shooter developed by Cold Iron studios. They have a few projects under their belt. This one also tried to sneak out onto the stage without anyone noticing. Due to the previous controversy of Aliens Colonial Marines I think they wanted to make sure if it was a flop it would not be as big. only two trailers and a steam page. The game its self also seems very small in scope. It consists of 4 missions each with 3 parts. 12 missions in all really. It also has a horde mode as well that becomes unlocked after a first playthrough of the campaign. Standard difficulty is also not very hard either. the standard edition will run you 39.99 on steam. So close to full price game with very limited gameplay. It is also unknown if they plan on having any DLC or not. On the bright side though, no microtransactions. You heard it no microtransactions.
Breaking this review down will be a few areas. Design, story, difficulty and fun.
In the design department it is a class based 3rd person shooter. each class has their own weapons and abilities to bring to a fireteam. They even have a skill tree you can unlock. Regardless of class you can also buy equipment with in game money. It plays a bit like left 4 dead as well. You can play co-op online or play with two AI teammates. the campaign is more fun with people though. The AI are fine, but people make it more fun. You can also go back to the lobby after each checkpoint is reached. in the lobby you can get story dialogue, get gear, edit loadouts and skills.
The environments take inspiration from Alien isolation, and use the same tools they used to make the game. The station in the game seems to be a old segsson station like Sevastopol was. Even has working joes. Guess Segsson had more luck finding aliens than weyland. It also has some dirt side missions that are more like the ruins from AVP 2011. Either way the environment design and sound design are good. not excellent, but good. better than colonial marines.
Even so the gameplay when working properly is fast and can be fun. However in my time playing it had a enemy not spawn right so my team and I had to die to reset it. At hour 2 the whole game crashed and there was a few alien AI glitching out every once and a while. this is where is resembles its retarded cousin Colonial Marines the most. But still it does better.
One annoying thing I also found was the Aliens are outlined in yellow when using iron sights. Personally I thought this was not inline with what I want from Alien. Mainly because I want to be a bit frightened and looking over my shoulder for them. But most games based on Aliens seem to try to reenact the final battle in the control room a bit too much. I want it to be more the battle in the hive. to question where the aliens are and fire at anything looking at me funny. But even still the game remains fun.
Xeno variants also make a return like the spitter, prowler, drone, soldier and more. as I said before the gameplay loop is like Bug hunt meets left for dead.
Story wise there is not much to tell, its a aliens game we know the drill. Marines have vague expectations get ambushed by Xenos, and then find out Weyland is experimenting with them. One interesting point is on the dirtside missions. I wont spoil but I was surprised they went in that direction. The dirtside missions were some of my favorite for this game. Also beyond the last set of missions it was the most difficult as well.
as for difficulty it really isnt that hard of a game once you understand teamwork, the classes and equipment. I blew through the missions in singleplayer and co-op on standard without even going down once. I consider my skill to be at a c+ range so those good at games won't get much out of this until the end.
The big question is did I have fun. The answer is yes, it can definitely improve but the game was fun. It's the type of game you can fire up after a day at work and veg out to. Doesn't require much brain power to enjoy and I don't know who doesn't like blasting hordes or enemies. It has a lot of team tactics you can use. Much of its fun is like that you get from left for dead. The game isn't horrifically challenging unless you have dead weight teammates or bugs causing lag or crashes(happened twice in 10 hours with sporadic lag). But has interesting enemies, guns and environments. The game clearly is on a small scale so if it fails it didn't have to much invested. But I would say is worth a look at for Aliens fans. If money is a obstacle maybe wait for a sale. But overall it was a fun experience and did succeed in being better than aliens colonial marines but not as profound as alien isolation.
Comentarii