It is not tactics, it is the fear that drives you together. Trapped within the bowels of the Hadley's Hope base on LV 426, with just five other marines and a whole lot of darkness, no one wants to be left alone. And believe us, in space, everyone can hear you scream.
Gearbox Software is currently putting the finishing touches to its horribly authentic Aliens tie-in and we've made our first acquaintance with the game's extensive multiplayer mode. Or at least a small part of it. With E3 looming, Gearbox is only showing one map – Last Hope – and one mode, Team Deathmatch. Apparently there will be several other options, most of them objective based, and all specifically designed to explore the asynchronous nature of the gameplay. This is all about marines v aliens, of course – players can opt for either side, both offering their own abilities, attacks and progression systems. But essentially, you're either the hunter or the hunted.
I played several games as a marine (Gearbox staffers took care of the alien side all day during our preview), and already it's a fraught, frantic and often terrifying experience. The level takes place in a wrecked section of Hadley's Hope, a multi-levelled hell hole of blind corridors, steel walkways and open cargo bays. Amid the darkness, aliens pour in through ventilation shafts, clinging to ceilings and walls, and making slashing attacks at their human prey. Hitting the left bumper button on an Xbox pad brings up the motion detector, an exact replica of the movie device, allowing you to spot incoming xenomorphs – but at the price of lowering your weapon, leaving you scarily vulnerable.
We had three load-outs to call on, each consisting of a primary weapon and a pistol. The pulse rifle is basically a sub-machine gun, offering a fast rate of fire, but not much accuracy; the assault rifle is an M16 derivative with burst fire and greater precision; and then there's the pump-action shotgun, which causes exactly the sort of close-range carnage you expect and demand. Indeed, in this game, against an enemy that only kills through melee attacks and has no projectile option, this usually niche option really comes into its own.
Each weapon also has a secondary fire option. In our demo, the pulse rifle and pump-action both featured grenade launchers, while the assault rifle had an underslung shotgun. There will be more firearms and secondary options in the final game but Gearbox isn't saying much apart from that it will be introducing some of its own newcomers. The flame-thrower is definitely in there, and while glancing at some concept art on the walls at Gearbox's office in Dallas (more on that another time), I saw references to M83 grenade rounds, M3A SMGs and a Neusturmgewehr 23 rifle … whatever the heck that is.
So anyway, this is a game about running through the darkness wildly shooting at beasts that attack quickly and often in packs. There were two main alien types in our demo: the tougher soldiers, based on the xenomrophs from Aliens, and the lurkers, styled more around the lone creature from the first Alien movie, offering more agility and deadly lunge attacks, but less health. Aliens also have a kind of heat sensitive vision which layers the screen in a greenish hue, showing the outline of nearby marines even through walls.
The fact that aliens always know where you are, and can scale every surface, radically changes the tactics for marines. You can't hide, you can't camp and you can't go it alone. Indeed, you probably won't want to. Within 20 seconds of our first game, journalists were instinctively huddling their characters together, not really out of strategic necessity, but out of fear – you don't want to be alone in there. During the game the Gearbox staff are regularly shouting "stray sheep", whenever they spot an isolated marine – they then work together to pick him off.
And there's more. When downed, Alien corpses continue to spray acid and walking past a body can burn a marine, causing a steady reduction in health. At certain points in each bout, the aliens are also able to spawn a more powerful xenomorph breed, which the nearest player can then take control of. On our map it's a crusher – a gigantic, muscular ox-like beast with a butting head and super-fast charge attacks. It's an interesting system, like scoring a killstreak in CoD, and it ups the tempo of the action considerably as marines frantically pound the monster with gunfire (allowing other aliens to sneak up unchallenged).
To even things up for the humans, each map has weapon pick-up points offering more powerful hardware. In Last hope, there's a smart gun, which provides its own HuD highlighting nearby enemies and auto-targetting anything that moves and bleeds acid. The ammo clip only holds out for a few frenzied seconds, but its enough to get multiple highly satisfying kills.
For the most part though, the atmosphere is that of James Cameron's movie: terror and panic. The audio is perfect here – we get the skittish modulating noise of the pulse rifles and the haunting analogue bleeping of the motion detector. Brilliantly, you can hear the detectors being used by other players so you have this quiet symphony of pulsing bleeps – and when they all start to quicken, the tension is palpable. Whenever a marine is attacked, his gutteral screams echo through the facility, so that there's a constant soundscape of violent death.
Gearbox isn't saying anything about the progression system now, but we seem to be looking at something very similar to Modern Warfare. Marines earn both XP and cash for assists and kills, and at the end of a bout, it looks like you rank up based on your proficiency with specific weapons, unlocking new guns and upgrades as you go.
Each primary firearm has four customisation slots, and the onscreen icons suggest different types of ammo and new underslung extras are among the options. It also appears that there are two slots for clothing – perhaps allowing you to buy better body armour. Intriguingly, any XP you earn in multipayer also affects your Campaign character, and vice versa, so there is a close sense of integration between the two modes.
Aliens, meanwhile, appear to have six more organically focused custom slots – perhaps allowing you to run faster or swipe with more damage potential. Perhaps because of their ability to run along walls and ceilings, the xenos are controlled in third-person, counteracting the disorientation felt while controlling these monsters in Rebellion's Aliens vs Predator game.
Visually, this is an incredibly accurate approximation of the Aliens' world. The whole environment is bathed in a deep, low blue light, providing little in the way of illumination against the mostly black walls and floors. Shafts of white light stream in through air vents, while red warning signs flash, and water trickles ceaselessly in through ceiling fans. Essentially, it's like stepping into the movie environment – unsurprising, as both Ridley Scott and Alien concept artist Syd Mead were consulted during the development process. For Alien fanatics it'll be a breathtaking experience.
A question mark always hangs over the longevity of asynchronous multiplayer modes. Will there be enough left in the experience after the novelty of playing as aliens wears off? And will players eventually happen upon exploits and weaknesses in one of the species that render online competition hopelessly one-sided? It's difficult to tell. Certainly, Gearbox Software, which started out making mods and updates for Half-Life and has since crafted stellar shooters like Brothers in Arms and Borderlands, knows what it's doing in this sector.
The meat of this whole thing could be the supposedly innovative objective modes we haven't seen. Personally, I'm hoping for Capture the Facehugger, in which two teams of marines have to chase the spider-like beast through the Sulaco without being impregnated. I have more ideas like this, Gearbox, if you're reading...
• Aliens Colonial Marines will be released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn
