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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Despite what its name might imply, bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean death. Not for businesses, anyway. But yeesh, Aliens: Colonial Marines co-developer and Section 8 mastermind TimeGate has some far more frightening numbers to deal with than the looming specter of Chapter 11. The short version? The developer’s total liabilities (i.e. the amount they owe various creditors) fall in the $10 to $50 million bracket, presumably including $7.35 million stemming from a fraud suit by Section 8 publisher Southpeak. Things are not looking pretty, to put it lightly.

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Oh, TimeGate. Still>-unconfirmed (or denied) rumblings have linked you to a rather sizable portion of Aliens: Colonial Marines’ acid-puking awfulness, so there’s your legacy for now. I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t point out that the recently reviled studio’s proven reliably inoffensive in the past, producing middle-of-the-road manshoots like Section 8 and a few FEAR expansions. So it’s with a slightly less mountainous mound of trepidation than expected that I bring you word of Minimum, TimeGate’s new free-to-play shooter/slasher/watch two Greek-mythology-inspired titans go all Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots on each other-er. Promisingly, its inspirations seem to run the gamut from Quake’s speed to Unreal’s arcadiness to Minecraft’s adaptability, but obviously, snapping all those puzzle pieces into a coherent whole is another matter entirely. I must say, though, the achy, breaky, blocky trailer after the break has me sort of intrigued.

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Seeing that Gearbox have put out a 3.8GB patch for their rather woeful Aliens: Colonial Marines makes me feel like a nurse in a hospital drama, the one who sadly, calmly puts an hand on the shoulder of a crying, screaming doctor who’s desperately trying to resucitate an expired patient he thought he could save. “It’s no good,” I would say. “It’s over.” Then we’d have a hug and a cry, and maybe a slice of cake. Only I don’t think it’s possible to hug an entire game development studio, and I don’t know whether Randy Pitchford likes cake or not. (more…)

OK, everyone’s probably bored of this by now, but if you’re still wondering just how the makers of Borderlands 2 could get Aliens: Colonial Marines so very wrong, more has emerged. (more…)

Aliens: Colonial Marines got 99 problems, and looking like it’s from 2005 is one of them. Which is mystifying, given that recent in-game footage clearly showed that a more attractive version of the game did/does exist somewhere. God only knows why they’d put so much effort into a game whose lone memorable achievement is taking as long to develop as Half-Life 2 did, but modders have been busily trying to make Gearbox/Timegate’s mess look a little more as though it was released this decade. (more…)

If Aliens could cry, entire planets, ships, and conveniently placed ventilation systems would be dissolving under a torrential downpour of acid-laced tears right now. See, in spite of their lovable looks and multi-mouthed charm, no one wants to take credit for, well, pretty much anything about Aliens: Colonial Marines. First, Gearbox kinda did, but then TimeGate was accused of incubating Colonial Marines’ loathsome single-player campaign – which prompted Sega to descend from its mountain of unreleased Shenmue sequels and tilt the needle back in Gearbox’s direction. Seems like a lot of fuss to make if it was really all Gearbox at the helm, though, huh? And that’s where a winding Reddit post by an alleged Gearbox employee enters the picture. Further, RPS reached out to a former TimeGate employee (who wished to remain anonymous) to clarify the situation.>

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Of course you remember Aliens, right? Who could forget Danny Glover kicking ass on the Discovery One, Sarah Hamilton shouting, “That’s how they git you. They’re under the goddamned ground!” Ah, the memories. John’s spent the day ploughing through Aliens: Colonial Marines, so he can tell you wot he thinks:>

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