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People you followTaggedGeneral - Opinion/EditorialCommunity ReviewsOff-topicCommunity PodcastersBloggers Wanted ResponseLetters to Dtoids EditorsGet InvolvedGeneral BadassnessJoin a Live Stream EventListen to CommunitoidJoin a Playdate EventCompete in a ContestTimeGate resumes show a LOT of Colonial Marines work
The Aliens community has been digging hard to get to the bottom of the ever-winding Aliens: Colonial Marines story. The latest development involves the unearthing of a number of resumes attributed to TimeGate employees, revealing the extent of their work on the game. If they're to be believed, Gearbox's helping hands did more than just helpful handiwork. One designer claims to have done a lot of work formerly attributed to Colonial Marines' "lead" studio. Steve Baroski is one such developer. As TimeGate's lead level designer on Colonial Marines, Baroski reveals he was working with between five and eight developers to create environments for the solo campaign and multiplayer maps, up until 2012. He says Gearbox "took over principal development" in 2012, at which point he "transitioned to a consultation role." Baroski spent two years with Aliens, in which time he worked on all stages of level development, worked with the creative director and design director on level direction, fixed scripting problems, and created demos for public viewing. Next up, we have Jeff Smith. This senior software engineer, in the employ of TimeGate, oversaw development of the user interface "for other programmers, designers, and artists to take over and polish to completion." He designed the game's matchmaking lobby screen, worked on player loadout screens, and integrated support for Steamworks and PSN. Robert Hallwood was the principal level designer, and claims to have led the team responsible for Colonial Marines' now infamously unrepresentative E3 2011 demo. He also worked on campaign maps, enemy scripting, mission scripting and story development, as well as lighting and audio cues. Finally, level designer Nathan Wood claims to have created the entire first level of the game, including layout, combat scripting, lighting, and event hookups. These resumes seem to undermine SEGA's downplaying of TimeGate's involvement, revealing the studio to be in on it from the start. It's worrying that, despite such influence on the project, neither Gearbox nor SEGA publicized the studio's work until the game actually launched, and even then it warranted little more than a passing credit in the game's intro. In every other aspect, from the years of pre-launch hype to the box itself, Gearbox has been treated as the developer of Colonial Marines. Not a co-developer, not an overseer -- the developer. In any case, the work detailed on these developers' sites seem to corroborate prior allegations that Colonial Marines was outsourced, and that TimeGate did far more than the "20-25%" of work Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford claimed. This is all before we get around to what Nerve and Demiurge did, too. What exactly was left for Gearbox to develop? [Thanks to J. Struthers and other members of the Aliens fanbase for their help!] Did you know? You can now get daily or weekly email notifications when humans reply to your comments.
8:00 AM on 05.03.2013 Aliens: Gearbox defends its right to mislead customersBoth Gearbox and SEGA have responded to a class action suit that alleges customers were lied to during the development of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Both companies are happy to defend themselves and seem unswayed by the threat...
8:00 AM on 05.01.2013 Aliens: Colonial Marines gets class action suit for liesSEGA and Gearbox have been slapped with a class action suit for Aliens: Colonial Marines, accused of lying about the game to get it sold. It was only a matter of time. Edelson LLC has taken the case, which alleges that ...
10:00 AM on 04.23.2013 SimCity, Colonial Marines, and The SilenceRecently, John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote a compelling article on SimCity, and how Electronic Arts' maintenance of radio silence has demonstrated total effectiveness in getting everybody to shut up. The basic argume...
12:45 PM on 04.05.2013 Aliens: Colonial Marines Wii U canceledThose of you left caring may have noticed Aliens: Colonial Marines missed its Wii U release launch window. There's a very good reason for that -- SEGA finally decided to shoot the lame dog in the head, and has quietly cancele...
8:00 AM on 04.03.2013 SEGA admits Colonial Marines trailers are unreflectiveFollowing an upheld complaint with the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, SEGA Europe has admitted that trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines do not reflect the game's final (shoddy) content. The complaint was upheld...
8:30 PM on 03.22.2013 Aliens vs. Predator Evolution gameplay demonstratedAliens vs. Predator: Evolution has been out on Android and iOS devices for a little while now, but a new dev diary video going over gameplay mechanics and the abilities of the Xenomorph and Predator characters has arriv...
10:15 AM on 03.21.2013 Aliens: Colonial Marines 360/PS3 update releasedI'm sorry, dear readers. I've still not "gotten over" Aliens: Colonial Marines. After a set period of time, gamers tend to get aggressively apathetic over certain situations, and seem to grow angry if someone else isn't as re...
8:30 AM on 03.20.2013 Aliens: Colonial Marines 'Bug Hunt' DLC out nowAliens: Colonial Marines' long-awaited (haha) "Bug Hunt" downloadable content is now available on Steam, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network. It's a wave-based survival mode that, given the general brevity of the game's hyped ...
6:00 PM on 03.19.2013 4GB Aliens: Colonial Marines patch available for PCGearbox continues to demonstrate that, contrary to popular idioms, you can actually polish a turd. Aliens: Colonial Marines is being made shinier -- but no less stinkier -- in a 4GB PC patch that improves textures, A.I. behav...
2:00 PM on 03.04.2013 Review: Alien vs. Predator: EvolutionWhen the makers of Alien vs. Predator: Evolution saw the negative press and subsequent fallout regarding Aliens: Colonial Marines, they must have laughed. I imagine them bellowing obnoxiously, roaring their gleeful approval t...
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