Aliens: Colonial Marines

[Elomin Sha]

Not much to say about this game. It is an unfinished BETA that has promise. The scary parts aren't scary and the exciting parts aren't exciting. The enemy soldiers are extremely stupid and cheap. The story is intriguing but that is it.

[RedNightmare]

Well, it's just a beta, so it doesn't have to be finished [/sarcasm]

Yeah, this was a pretty big fuckfest. Totalbiscuit used it as a nice example of why you shouldn't preorder games.

[Kayden]

Yea pre-ordering games is kinda stupid because you don't know if the game is good or not. Also I found out my dad bought it for the 360 so that means I'm going to try it sometime this week to laugh at how bad it is.

[Utilitarian]

Well if nothing else this game has been a gold mine for video game comics and writers -_^ So... as someone who never bought or played it I'm actually kind of happy it does exist!

[JackSlack]

Jim Sterling's been doing herculean work covering the fallout of this game. He's now reporting that Gearbox embezzled money from SEGA, given to make A:CM, and used it to make Borderlands 2. Wow.

[Genghis Ares]

The embezzling thing is total horseshit. Gearbox is/was being paid by Sega for A:CM, Ubisoft for Furious 4 and Hell's Highway and the next BiA, 2K for Borderlands and it's 4 DLCs(all of them outsourced BTW), Borderlands 2 and it's 5 DLCs(outsourced as well), Duke Nukem and it's DLCs(Game and DLC were all outsourced as well). All of this occurred over that 6 years period.

Gearbox was being shifty, but you can't say they stole from SEGA when they were being paid at the same time for other work you know nothing about involving companies and contract you have no knowledge of. This SEGA guy apparently thinks SEGA is only company that paid Gearbox for a product. And therefore anything else they made must have been made with their money..

[Kayden]

yea I'm just guessing this but I think Jim is trying to make Gearbox look really bad since he has been waiting for this game for ages and was incredibly sad it was a total failure.

Also there is really no evidence to suggest that this so called "whistleblower" even worked for Sega for all we know its just someone trying to troll people.

[Genghis Ares]

Yeah, maybe.

After reading over it again, nothing really seems substantiated from other things I've read or know about already. It's possible he worked at SEGA but in another department/project and this stuff is second-hand info he's reporting.

Who knows?

The most recent Kotaku article about this seems closest to what I know and have heard.

[empath]

Well, Sterling has a reputation for being the Fox News or Howard Stern of gaming journalism - he makes extreme, shocking statements to garner attention. WHY U MAD?

My opinion of Gearbox like somewhere along he mean of all this stuff; they're barely a 'game developer' anymore, more of a 'middleman' - they don't publish, and unless it's their own IP, they sub-contract actual development work out to others, usually with poor results.

[Kayden]

That's why I don't pay attention to anything Jim spouts out and why he shouldn't really be quoted or held seriously.

[Genghis Ares]

Gearbox stills develops games. They worked internally on all on the Brothers in Arms games and the Borderlands games and they actually did work on Aliens a some time ago, they just couldn't really focus on it anymore and they made a business decision to outsource it. Duke Nukem was technically outsourced, but in reality they bought the game and helped the current developer Triptych complete it, including moving them into the same building. DLCs and such are a different story, a lot of times they are tacked on after other deals have been made and outsourcing is one of the best options to get them done in the shorter design and development phases they are given.