I really like a number of those games. The sense I’ve gotten from some user and critic reviews is that Fireteam doesn’t do enough to stand out in an established genre, so it ends up feeling rote. An Aliens coat of paint over a familiar experience. I’m glad to see that sentiment isn’t universal because I’m in the mood for a quality Aliens game. It’s been too long.
Let me try again. Is there enough of the production design of Alien and Aliens – grimy, lived-in analog tech and ships – in the game to please fans of those two movies? One of the issues some of us have with Prometheus is it replaced that version of the future with flashy but sterile production design, and I wouldn’t care for that having too much of a presence in an Aliens game. (And somehow and for some reason those movies all take place in a shared universe)
I’d say that the maps that are there right now, are evenly split between those two design directions. Or rather, a slight overweigth towards the old-school Alien and Aliens design.
As for new maps contributing to the story, I’d hope so? Right now, each map tells a story in a pretty nice way, so I don’t have any reason to think the new maps won’t.
Based on what you are saying here - Go get the game!
They are clearly read as being on the defensive, which seems to actually mean ‘the game is repetitive yes, but the excuse is, the whole genre is!’.
Except, it isn’t. That’s a gross oversimplification.
Having the same core gameplay doesn’t mean a lot. Nor that list of games. In fact in that list I see games with totally different levels of repetitiveness!
Even with the same core gameplay, different games have different amounts of content that will make it less or more repetitive (number of maps, number of weapons, enemy types, gadgets, etc), they may have a better or worse ‘AI director’ which mixes thing up, they may have different character classes or not, they may have progression systems that differing abilities, game modes, etc.
Hi there Turintur - I don’t know if you’ve played the game?
I could easily have said - NO, the game isn’t repetitive, because I dont see it as such. I see it as a fun game, with a lot of good gameplay and a lot of options to make each play in the game different.
BUT - Every game, by definition is repetitive, since its the same few actions you do over and over again. You can’t very well shoot monsters in many different ways. You can’t very well jump over fire in many different ways. Each game is defined by its genre and as such, has a certain type of gameplay.
Some may find Skyrim repetitive. Some may find puzzle games repetitve, or card games, or what have you - Because in essencee, they ARE repetitive.
What I was trying to do was quantify what the gameplay was, and how I felt about it after a somewhat large amount of time in it.
This game have pretty much all of this - Game modes, difficulty levels that matters, different classes, unlocks, progression systems in every which way, tons of weapons that are different but not upgrades, but sidegrades. And all this is already here in the thread.
So, instead of doing the internet agressive post thing here, you could have lead with what you thought of the game instead.
It is viable for solo players. You can easily enjoy it as a single player game on casual difficulty. In fact, I’d recommend playing it that way first. There’s some really cool stuff to discover.
But if you want to take advantage of the escalating difficulty levels, if you want to play this like the tower defense/horde mode game it wants to be, if you want to flex all the cool tactical options to manage the flow of aliens, you will have to find human players.
Not just tolerable, but I’d say pretty darn brilliant. I love the various levels in this game, and how they explore different elements of the Aliens universe.
I actually disagree that it’s repetitive. It’s less repetitive than Left 4 Dead or World War Z. Those games have no analog for what Aliens: Elite Fireteam is doing, which is arguably a spoiler, but here goes: different areas have entirely different kinds of enemies with different kinds of gameplay.
Ok. It’s still hard to get excited about shooting endless waves of aliens outside of environments inspired by the first two movies, but I’ll try it out after my budget resets. I’m glad I won’t feel tethered to other people once I do. I don’t know why I’m so worried about repetition, anyway. I’ve been really enjoying Space Marine lately. I think it’s better now than it was 10 years ago. Eschewing a loot system ended up being the right choice.
How exactly is Fireteam a tower defense game? Isn’t there just one turret class in the game? I love to hear it, though. Tower defense needs to appear in more games. There’s a fascinating, full-bodied tower defense mode in the newest Monster Hunter, with unique loot and distinct pacing and difficulty. I’d be impressed if Fireteam can compete with that.
Fortunately, there’s more to Aliens: Fireteam Elite than that. Let me know if you’d like spoilers. For what it’s worth, I was delighted at the sense of discovery this game offers, but if you want that, you have to go in blind.
The Left 4 Dead model is a lot about moving from one end of the level to the next, with occasional set pieces. The characters are distinguished only by which weapons they’ve picked up. Aliens: Fireteam Elite has much more discrete set pieces – it feels very run run run pause run run run pause – and they each play out like a tower defense scenario. This is partly because of the deployables and how the enemies spawn, but also for how the character roles work. Each character “class” has a different role, with different tools for managing the flow of enemies: the gunner is direct damage, the demolisher is bursts of area damage, the technician is support (AOE debuff and turret), and the doc is healing. It’s not quite that simple, of course. And as you level up a class, you get a lot of lateral options to change how it plays. The weapons, also, are wonderfully different from each other (I’m surprised how much variety they managed without adding lasers and plasma blasters and whatnot). Then there’s the recon role, which doesn’t even come into play until you’re trying harder difficulty levels (which is why you don’t unlock it until you’ve finished the campaign to unlock the harder difficulties).
It all feels much more like a tower defense game dropped into a Left 4 Dead format than a straight-up Left 4 Dead clone.
Sorry for the confusion. Did you ever play Aliens vs. Predator 2? That was the best place to shoot Giger aliens for a long time. Problem is, it’s two decades old, and looks and feels like it. I accept that if I want to shoot Giger aliens in a modern game, I’m going to have to do it in levels filled with giant stone Prometheus heads and ipod tech. And I accept that, I do, it’s really not that big of a deal when the game is as good as Tom makes it sound. I’m eager to try it out as soon as my budget allows.
I assume you thought I was referring to that stealthy Alien game from the Total War people. I haven’t played it. Is it any good?
Sounds great. I’ll pass on the spoilers, though I bet I saw them in reviews or official trailers.
Does Fireteam give you anything for playing on higher difficulties? Besides access to the recon class. I like that a whole facet of the gameplay is unavailable until a second playthrough.
Yes, very much so! That was my thinking exactly as I started playing.
Two things come to mind, both very big for me. The first difference is that you don’t have to grind to get to any of the cool tools in Aliens: Elite Fireteam. World War Z is really stingy with letting new players have fun toys. And it take for-fucking-ever to level up and unlock stuff in that goddamn game! But Aliens: Elite Fireteam pretty much gives you everything up front, and your reward for playing/grinding is just more options, more flexibility, more tweaks.
This game is a fantastic expression of the Alien universe and I couldn’t be happier with how well its locations and creatures are suited to this kind of game. And I say that as a borderline fanatic for zombie mythology! But the way aliens interact with the level design is something you simply can’t get in a zombie game.
Oh, just to be clear, that’s just a gif from the 1979 movie and not from Aliens: Fireteam Elite. My point was that this game is very different from World War Z because it’s so consistently expressive of the Alien universe. The movies’ production design, creature design, hardware, tone, mythology, and so forth. And while you can see elements of the Nostromo’s design throughout the Katanga refinery (one of the game’s main locations), I don’t think there are actually any of those drinking birds in a crew galley. At least not that I’ve seen.
Oh. Whoops. Well, it sure looked believable on a small iPhone screen last night. I wanted to believe the developer placed that specific homage in one of Fireteam’s levels. At least their Joseph Conrad-adjacent referencing is on point.
Now see, I was about to say that was a fun reference to Yaphet Kotto’s character in “Live and Let Die” but a quick IMDB check tells me that his character was actually “Kananga”. But oh well.
