Aliens Screenshots

The first screenshots of Aliens: Colonial Marines have hit the net and thus far they look pretty promising. There’s been a fair number of alien games released, often with predators thrown into the mix as well. While many of the earlier console games were entertaining due to mass slaughter of aliens, not many of them really grasped the proper way an aliens game should work: lots of darkness, tension and fear. The human storyline of Alien Versus Predator 2 grasped this concept very well, with plenty of dimly lit corridors, overhead vents for aliens to drop from and a good dose of worry about what would be around the next corner. The screenshots for the newest game seem to show that they’re taking things in a more realistic direction. There are no huds of any kind in evidence. If you want motion tracking, you’re going to have to use a handheld one, presumably limiting your response time with firearms. They of course have the ever popular automated sentry guns as well as the handy pocket torch used in the second film. The screenshots show marines using the torch to weld shut a door, which says that the overall goal of some points might simply be survival and escape as opposed to hunting down the deadly xenomorphs. The monsters themselves look evilly spectacular, their carapaces glistening slightly in the light. One of the shots shows an unfortunate marine on the floor trapped between two aliens while you look on from a ventilation shaft overhead. There are of course a few shots of the facehuggers, who are arguably more frightening than the aliens themselves (I know I’d take being killed instantly over having an alien pop out of my chest). They show the underside of one of the spider-like creatures as it leaps towards the players perspective and it looks positively disgusting.