Back in November, the Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines studio Gearbox Software filed a suit against their former lawyer, Wade Callender, accusing him of “exploit[ing] Gearbox s generosity and trust for his own personal gain.” The suit was not particularly interesting, alleging that Callender did not fully pay back a loan he borrowed to secure his house, and that he used a business credit card for personal expenses.

Then, last month, Callender counter-sued, accusing Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford of “siphoning” a $12 million ( 9.34m) “secretive ‘Executive Bonus,'” as well as a number of significantly more salacious details that have rocketed the case into the public eye.

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In what feels like The Games Story Of The Year, during the Steam summer sale the much reviled Gearbox title Aliens: Colonial Marines was marked down to a stupidly low three dollars. A modder happened to notice that in the INI file for the game, there is a single typo that is — get this — responsible for many of the awful AI choices that the xenomorphs make in the game… like running directly at you on their hind legs instead of crawling on the walls and using ducts to surprise you. A once horribly broken game is now… functioning? Thanks to a single letter? Sure. That’s about at 2018 as a games industry story can get.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

You probably haven t and you probably shouldn t. A year before the world finally got the Alien game it deserved with Alien: Isolation, the burning wheely bin known as Aliens: Colonial Marines was dragged into public view and stank out the industry with countless bugs, terrible writing, awful levels and magically teleporting NPCs. There were so many problems, they were coming out of the god damn walls. … [visit site to read more]

I mentioned Gearbox’s woebegotten Aliens: Colonial Marines in snarky passing earlier, and so was surprised to see the disappointing Xeno-shooter crop up in the news for Actual Reals. Turns out there’s a mod intended the make the lousy not quite so lousy. My main question at this point is why?> … [visit site to read more]

Rumour has it that the decrepit Arkham Knight port beat a retreat on account of Steam refunds. After all, what better way to get a dastardly developer to blush and shuffle its hooves than to reverse its cash flow? Until June, when no-questions-asked refunds came into force, such a feat was impossible. Perhaps, after years of pro-consumer jabs at Microsoft and other corporates, Valve sought to make a material gesture that player interests are truly the heart of the Steam empire. Or perhaps they dislike being sued. Hint: they are currently being sued.

By now, you ve likely encountered a shop and have a reasonable feeling about how refunds should work: if it doesn t do what it s meant to, you take it back. Nothing could be simpler. Refunds for digital products or, as is often the case, licenses for digital products are a legal hellscape of false assertions and misinformation, in large part a product of outdated legislation that no one is keen to test in court. To sift through the muck, I got in touch with Ryan Morrison, founder of the New York law firm by the same name (and no relation of mine this side of the 17th century). Whether you re European, Stateside or in the wrong hemisphere altogether, here s the plain English version of where and through which service your purchases are best protected and why some retailers still risk refusing refunds.

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Gearbox Software, the studio that developed dreadful nonsense in the misshapen form of Aliens: Colonial Marines [official site], have been dropped from a lawsuit that claimed the developers – with publishers Sega – falsely advertised the Aliens game with unrepresentative demos.

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As Sega and Gearbox scrap over liability in the class action lawsuit from folks who bought Aliens: Colonial Marines and felt more than a mite deceived, it’s getting a bit messy. Sega have dug out a big bag of internal e-mails to establish who exactly is responsible for some of the misleading marketing, including the E3 2011 demo that looked better than the finished game. Naturally they’re saying Gearbox were complicit, and that at times Gearbox president Randy Pitchford was “doing whatever the fuck he likes”. Oof.

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We sent Brendan to Creative Assembly to meet the star xenomorph of their new first-person survival horror, Alien: Isolation. While he was able to file yesterday’s extensive hands-on report from the field, he has not been seen since. But a crack team of RPS androids infiltrated the facility and recovered a sticky voice recorder with his name on it, containing an interview with Al Hope, Creative Lead on the project and Jon McKellan, Lead UI Art & Design. Here is a transcript of that interview, in which they discuss why this is true to Alien, who else players may encounter, how they think they can keep a single foe scary throughout, hiding in lockers for ten minutes and how and why Ripley’s daughter is the protagonist. (more…)

We have all been burned by past Alien games and I would like us to maintain a healthy scepticism about Creative Assembly s recently unveiled Alien: Isolation, which I went to see and play just before the turn of the year. With this in mind, I believe it an obligation, before we begin discussing this new threat, to observe a moment of silence in which we can all remember the brave souls we lost to the Colonial Marines disaster.

*an eerie hush envelopes the world as billions of people solemnly mute Spotify>*

Thank you.

The good news is that, despite keeping that scepticism intact, my recent hands-on with Isolation has given me cause for hope. With luck (and no small amount of effort from the development team) we are a little closer to having an Alien game that actually captures the feel of the original movie. (more…)

Welp, seems that time’s up for TimeGate. After the Section 8 and Aliens: Colonial Marines campaign dev filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, reports recently surfaced that the entire operation’s now kaput. I did a little digging of my own, and sources very close to the company confirmed the reports to RPS without hesitation. Details are still fairly scant at the moment, but you’ll find a few after the break.

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