Port Authority: Aliens: Colonial Marines

The Alien film franchise is visually stunning, making Aliens: Colonial Marines an opportunity for an equally gorgeous PC game. After the stellar job Gearbox did on the PC version of Borderlands 2, I was hoping to see the same kind of sweet sweet lovin' in these settings menus. Sadly, it was not to be. This is a mediocre port at best, and while the PC version might be better off than the technical boondoggle that is the Xbox version, that's about the best I can say for it.

You've read our Aliens: Colonial Marines review, right? Good.

System Requirements

CPU: 2GHz dual-core processor
RAM: 2GB
Videocard: Nvidia GeForce 8500 / ATI Radeon HD 2600 or better
Hard Drive: 20GB (Note: our install folder only weighs 6.15GB)

DRM

This is a Steam game, so obviously you'll need that and an internet connection to play. Offline mode works fine in single-player, of course.

Graphics Settings


The sad fact is, Aliens: Colonial Marines isn't gonna be pretty no matter what you do. Judging by the character models, textures, and effects, it looks like it should've come out roughly five years ago. Gearbox did at least give PC gamers some options:

Vsync and FXAA (on/off), seven options for Field of View, and five options each for Texture Detail, World Detail, and Shadow Detail.

It's a fairly barebones set of graphics options, though I can't complain about that FoV slider -- the initial default setting nearly made me wall-eyed.

Quality Comparisons

This is a port of an ugly console game with a few options thrown in, so don't expect a graphical stunner even when you've got all those sliders pushed to the max. Oddly, most characters and some objects in the environment cast no shadow whatsoever, even when shadow detail is maxed out. Setting the texture slider to the max made me double-check to make sure that it was on high simply because I couldn't believe the quality could get any lower than that, but yup, they could. And for some reason, the alien goo that sticks people to walls looks dramatically different with medium textures, but pretty much the same between high and low. A glitch, perhaps?

Mouse over to compare settings.

Quality: Low

Quality: Medium

Quality: High, FXAA On

Mouse over to compare settings.

Quality: Low

Quality: Medium

Quality: High, FXAA On

Mouse over to compare settings.

Quality: Low

Quality: Medium

Quality: High, FXAA On

Audio Options


The authentic sound effects and soundtrack are among the best features in Aliens: Colonial Marines. Fittingly, it's Dolby Digital 5.1, so you can hear the hiss of an alien creeping up behind, however there is no typical stereo option or other sound configurations. Beyond that, the options here are what you would expect, including Master, Music, SFX, Dialog, and Player Chat sliders. Mercifully, you can mute player chat if you fall in with a bad crowd.

Control Settings


Keys are fully customizable, impressively allowing even the tilde and F keys to be mapped, and recognizing all mouse buttons. I appreciated that I could map keys specifically for my Marines and create a second set of customized controls for my Xenos. There are also a number of options for toggling or holding various actions like aiming down the sights, sprinting, crouching, and Xeno wall-climbing. Gamepads are also supported, and customizable.

Menus

Easily managed. It could use a standard Main Menu button option to avoid clicking the Back button repeatedly when you're deep into menu options, and I would have liked to be able to use my mouse wheel to scroll through lists, but it's responsive and nothing is difficult to find.

Performance

A framerate cap is in full effect, but thankfully Gearbox had the good sense to lock it at 62fps rather than 30. Unless you've got a fairly fancy setup and excellent vision, you probably won't notice it. Running on my Core i7 CPU and GeForce GTX 560 TI GPU, FRAPS reported my framerate at a near-constant 62, regardless of settings. It ran smoothly for me overall, and I never experienced stuttering or crashes.

Multiplayer

Everything runs through Steam, so it was easy to start or join a game, find friends who were playing, receive invites to join matches, and send out my own. This is strictly P2P multiplayer, though, so don't expect to browse server lists, or to be on equal footing with players with low pings.

Saves


As expected, saves are checkpoint-based, and there's only one save slot. Even though I always prefer anytime/anywhere instant saves, I can at least vouch that these checkpoints are plentiful enough that I never found myself frustrated that I had to traverse a ton of territory I'd already cleared.

Conclusion

After the bang-up job Gearbox did with Borderlands 2 on PC, the port of Aliens: Colonial Marines is a big disappointment. The core PC options are there, but beyond the surprising addition of FXAA, it does nothing to take advantage of the power of today's PCs.

Port Grade: C-