--Dr. Hoenikker, Aliens: Fireteam Elite
Not the storytelling or horror masterpiece that some of the films are, Aliens: Fireteam Elite alludes to James Cameron's Aliens even in its title, with its multitude of xenomorphs that the Colonial Marines go to war against. The game is meant for three players or one player with at least two NPC assistants to clear its four small campaigns. Accordingly, you can play a single-player mode offline, but the game might continuously show a screen encouraging an Xbox Live subscription unless you back out and quickly select a mission, or just restart the game. Very limited mechanics and environments mean that the game is likely to be much more enjoyable with friends. One new thing that Fireteam Elite does get right is the introduction of new xenomorph varieties, and the enemies expand to include creatures tainted by the pathogen of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. What wasted opportunities for better themes, storytelling, lore, and atmosphere Fireteam Elite has thanks to its extremely limited repetition and very minimalistic production values.
Production Values
Loading times from the main menu to the main hub are very fast, but the graphics are far from coming close to showing the full power of the Xbox One. Blurry textures and repetitive environments do not exactly help in bolstering the visual strength of Fireteam Elite. The pathways also tend to be very small and straightforward, yet sometimes have branching pathways that lead to nothing but random dead ends, an odd thing for maps that are so needlessly simplistic. There is voice acting. In dialogue with characters in the hub, the camera leaves the third-person position and shows the NPC in question close up. The NPCs speak, but the screen looks strange for a console release like this when they do. Their mouths do not move even though the camera shows their faces, with their subtitles on the left side of the screen and the character model on the right. For this type of game, the result is not very cinematic, though the Alien franchise is of course best known for its films.
Gameplay
The levels are found in four brief campaigns, each having three approximately half hour missions that progressively become more challenging. A small variety of different resources are acquired from completing any level that can be spent on weapon attachments, cosmetic options, and class-specific or universal perks. After beating the final campaign mission, other game modes unlock, such as a wave-based Horde mode and Point Defense mode, where Engineer devices that prevent earthquakes must be defended from xenomorphs that are destroying them. Restock Turrets mode has the player once again fend off waves of aliens that occasionally drop limited ammunition for turrets. There is actually more variety in the xenomorph types across campaign levels and alternate modes than in most of the individual movies. Some spit acid, some have reinforced, larger heads, and some are green with acid just waiting to burst out. Facehuggers and humans or other beings infected with the pathogen of the Engineers also get integrated into the enemy types.
Standard xenomorphs, though, regularly come out of vents or crevices if you just stand in place, and you cannot pause missions because of the way the co-op system is set up (yes, this extends to single-player). There is a lot of vulnerability in Fireteam Elite. In a game with more diversity in its gameplay, actual attempts at a stronger story, and a greater emphasis on the xenomorph's potential for stealthiness, this combined with the inability to pause could have made for an incredible accomplishment of atmospheric tension. Part of the vulnerability also happens to come from a problematic source: in single-player, the two NPC androids who accompany you on all missions might not shoot at the aliens that emerge from holes at all, at least not until they attack the player!
Regardless of which difficulty level I played on, there was only the capacity to hold a single medical kit, and it is these AI companions (who are literal AI characters in the universe of the game) who must revive you. For the most part, they will try to help you up if all health gets depleted, but sometimes they run around for a few moments unnecessarily before coming to your aid. There are ways to enhance your character beyond cosmetics to provide a better chance at not relying on the NPCs, including perks that have to be equipped on a grid. As the level of a specific class increases, more spaces open up on the grid, although even at it largest, not every perk can be equipped at once. Some go so far as to alter the special abilities of a given class. Other than individual classes, specific weapons and the overall player rank can also be leveled up. There are also consumables like landmines, turrets, and defense drones that can be brought into missions, which especially help when larger, more durable xenomorphs converge on you all at once.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
A trio of Colonial Marines is sent to rescue a Weyland-Yutani scientist named Dr. Hoenikker from an orbital refinery station above the planet LV-895. The recovered scientist testifies to corporate experimentation, which prompts the Marines to explore the planet below, which turns out to be a world the Engineers visited. Weyland-Yutani's willingness to sacrifice human life and wellbeing to perform reproductive experiments with xenomorphs and to tamper with the pathogen left by the Engineers threatens Earth, as corporatist greed once again serves as a major driving force in the Alien franchise.
Intellectual Content
The opening cutscene refers to how xenomorphs lack moral concern, introspection, and other things found in humans (or at least humans have the capacity for them). Even so, very little of the sexual horror of the series and almost none of the Lovecraftian atmosphere with the Engineers of Prometheus is preserved in Fireteam Elite. For a game to build off of the narratives in both Aliens and Prometheus and not sink into either of these philosophical and thematic issues is to squander massive opportunities, and although optional conversations in the hub do touch upon the rampant corporate abuse the older movies explore, the campaign missions themselves have almost wholly undiluted action as the focus. This is one of the least philosophically explicit pieces of media I have ever seen from Alien.
Conclusion
What could have been a masterful action-horror expansion of an incredible IP only amounts to a mediocre, undeveloped shooter that hints at its higher potential. With a more elaborate story, better animations, and greater variety, Fireteam Elite could had more to offer in its campaign(s) than a largely repetitive gameplay loop and challenge cards to alter various aspects of a mission, a feature that contributes to an almost arcade-like presentation. Daily and weekly tasks also borrow from what was once mostly part of mobile games. These are not bad things to put into a game, but for them to be included instead of almost anything that lifts the levels out of monotony is a poor choice. Fireteam Elite manages to not be an abysmal game more by straddling the line of sheer mediocrity than by actually having genuine strengths.
Content:
1. Violence: Green, acidic blood sprays out or pools when xenomorphs are killed, though it fades quickly.
2. Profanity: "Fuck," "shit," and "damn" are used on occasion.
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