It crops and zooms anything wider than a standard monitor. I’m my eyes that’s not supported at all. Most games do it that way though. Thank goodness there often is often a fix found by the community. Devs think crop and zoom is “supported”. Most of my games I have to insert some line into an engine file or something to get proper UW.
Okay, this is really fun.
I’ve only played with Bots, and they are competent so far - but the gameplay, the variety of classes and weapons, and levelling up, gaining skins and so on - all in all, this is pretty damn good!
Also - its obvious that they had some Alien RPG consultants, since some of the stories, and dialogue has direct ties to the new Alien RPG (Both the new Colonial Marienes book, but also the core rulebook). I love that kind of attention to detail, in what is essential a shooter were the vast majority will ignore any lore and conversations.
I caught a little of McMaster and Tom playing this the other evening, and I have to admit it looked decent. Not sure if either of them want to chime in on some options of the game. :)
Can I just point out how refreshing it is to play a multiplayer game at launch that… actually fucking works. No disconnections every 20 minutes. No endless queues at startup that result in ‘cannot contact server’ messages. Just straight in with my two coop partners with zero issues whatsoever.
I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened. Fingers crossed it keeps up. It’s a sad state of affairs but kudos are kudos.
Outside of that this is a really solid shooter that nails the look, feel and aesthetic. Perhaps a bit unremarkable this side of Outriders, but as a Aliens: Colonial Marines refugee I take solace in its competence.
I haven’t had an issue with lack of ultrawide support for quite some time but there’s been a sudden run of them this year. Dark Alliance, The Ascent, and now this. It’s getting pretty annoying, I feel like I travelled back in time 5 years ago.
That said, in the first two cases there was a user mod/hack fix available real quick. Which is all the more annoying that the developers don’t do it.
In another demonstration of my legendary willpower and resolve, I saw this was £5 off on Fanatical and bought it. I’ve only played an hour so I won’t post impressions yet but I (thankfully) had a lot of fun with it.
I can’t be arsed to write a long impressions post right now but after spending some more time with this game I’m pleased to say I still really like it.
I think the key thing is to set expectations. Big, sprawling open world game this isn’t. It’s “just” a pretty linear third person shooter, not terribly dissimilar to Left 4 Dead as the thread title suggests. But if you’re happy with that, particularly if you’re a fan of the franchise, I would absolutely recommend it.
The classes are not only different enough to be worth trying them all, but they’re also well balanced in my opinion. The gunplay is actually excellent and personally, as a huge fan of the franchise (I even like Prometheus!) I will never get tired of hearing those iconic weapons - not to mention the distinctive screech of an alien being killed in the face.
I’ve heard it gets repetitive, but again - expectations. I didn’t buy this thinking it was going to be my main game for the next several months. I bought it because I wanted some casual pick-up-and-play set in a fantastic universe; this game delivers, and then some.
In fact the only downside I could mention so far is that there are some minor performance dips on a system that smashes the recommended requirements.
Hearing the shooting is good is a plus. How is the game in general? Is it pretty janky/rough or does the moment-to-moment action feel pretty good?
Doesn’t feel rough at all. It’s a very tight production. It wants to do one thing, and it does it very well.
About the shooting, one of the things that made me hesitate to begin with was hearing a few complaints about the guns having no weight. That is absolutely not the case at all. The guns feel meaty, and very different from one another too. And as I’ve said already, the sounds being authentic to the films is the icing on the very tasty cake.
There’s nothing quite like jogging down a corridor and spotting a drone emerging from the ceiling just before it gets a chance to drop on you, blasting it with a gun that sounds exactly like its film counterpart, and hearing that distinctive screech as its head bursts open in a spray of acid. Or seeing one burst from a vent behind your squadmate and frantically spraying it with SMG fire before it takes your friend unawares.
In the interest of balance, I’m trying to think of what might put someone off the game, other than it being a simple corridor shooter. The lack of checkpoints might be a deal breaker for some, I guess. I just failed a mission at the last possible moment; we’d fought our way to the end and were literally seconds away from victory, but we were overwhelmed. There is a squad revive, but if all three of you go down, that’s it. Back to the beginning you go (and no rewards except what you picked up enroute, and XP).
I guess you might also call it repetitive, although that’s slightly unfair in my opinion. As I said, go in knowing it will give you many hours of casual fun but probably won’t be your “main” game.
Also I couldn’t say how viable it is single player. So far I’ve had no problem being matched with other players (an automatic process with the added option of inviting people from your friends list), but when the population starts to fade and you increasingly rely on AI bots, who knows what effect that will have on the game.
Between the tight gameplay, the excellent shooting and weapons, the well thought out and balanced classes, the set pieces, the sounds and imagery from the films, I personally find it an extremely enjoyable experience. It’s a simple corridor shooter, but it’s a very good simple corridor shooter.
AI Bots are fine at the standard level - Its all I’ve been playing with so far, and I’ve completed the first two campaign areas so far.
And I am curious about matchmaking -. there is no voicehat, right? So I Can safely do that without asshats yelling?
That’s right, there’s no communication of any kind. Unless you count emotes.
I’m almost done with the second campaign. As with the first, the end of the last mission has a particularly difficult horde to deal with and we just got overwhelmed (also it was two of us plus one bot).
Still loving the game. Anyone got a favourite class? I’ve mostly stuck to the technician so far because there was a “tactical opportunity” to beat a certain number of missions with it. I love that class. The cooldowns on the abilities are pretty generous (almost instant for the turret if you take the trouble to pick it up instead of detonating it) and that Magnum is a beast. It can’t hold much ammo in each clip but christ do those shots count. Around 347 damage per shot I think it was? Way higher than the M4A1 or the smart gun (per round).
In fact the Magnum is so good that I’ve started to get options to change it for something else and simply haven’t bothered. The auto pistol and riot gun look interesting but the Magnum does insane damage and I have a perk that boosts its fire rate too.
I am only missing the last mission in the last campaign so far.
My favorite would be Technician as well, or Demolisher -. they are a beast, and the autocannon thing is just pure joy to use.
How on earth does anyone get the Recon?
I don’t know for sure, but I believe it unlocks when you beat all four campaigns.
I’m not a huge fan of the smart gun but it definitely came in handy when I activated a “no HUD” challenge card! :D
Playing as Doc primarily and its great fun minus the heal station regchare mechanic.
I find as i get higher in the campaign more pugs know to let me handle all the healing and i can keep a charge on it.
Last three missions to go.
One of this game’s dirty little secrets is that all the different weapons are pretty good in their own way. They also feel different from each other, and some of the mods you can slot make a big difference.
It unlocks after you finish the last mission. Which makes sense, because the class is based on helping out with situational awareness, which isn’t something you need until you’re playing the harder difficulty levels. And you don’t unlock those until after you’ve finished the campaign on standard or lower difficulty.
-Tom
I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of the Jason McMaster streams enough to put this back on my radar, but I have three concerns:
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Is this a viable game for solo players? What about with internet randoms?
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It looks like the game is trying to bridge the gap between the wonderfully tactile Syd Mead aesthetic of the 80’s movies, and the bland iPhone future of Prometheus. If so, is it tolerable?
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seriously, just how repetitive is it?
Very much so - I completed the entire campaign with bots on normal difficulty.
After this, I’ve played exclusively with randoms, and its great - no voice or chat means they cant troll you, and all want the same so its been great.
huh? Its extremely well done - the levels are fantastic so far.
how repetitive is any game that features the same core gameplay? I have 25 hours in it so far, and its fine. New maps and a new class is out in a week as well.
It’s as repetitive as any other co-op horde game. Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood, Borderlands 2/3 with co-op mode, Call of Duty Zombies, Vermintide, Zombie Army Trilogy, etc. It’s all about grinding in its most basic sense.