Aliens Colonial Marines TC is a Doom 2 mod that has us play as Dwayne Hicks as he investigates a colony that has gone silent. He is greeted by the dull pitter-patter of a light rain as he approaches a Weyland Yutani complex that is utterly devoid of all life. Things stay eerily silent for some time as you try to find a way into the buildings and take in the impressive view of the large, detailed map. The atmosphere, the environments, and the sound effects create quite a captivating tension. As you finally find a way into a building and step in only to see a bunch of flickering lights, as well as low hissing, you will be tempted to head right back out that door.
You start off with just a pistol, which is just as noneffective as ever, and a flashlight. There is no case in where you will ever want to be using the flashlight as you will need to take a few seconds to switch to an actual weapon, and that is all it takes to have your face clawed off. Most of your time will be spent indoors, dealing with cramped, long corridors that vastly favor your foes. As soon as an Alien spots you, it will relentlessly pursue you and has the ability to pounce long distances, giving you only a brief moment to either escape or take it down. It can cling on ceilings, are fond of popping out of vents or stalking right around corners for prey, as well as bleed acid which damages you quite a bit if you get splattered upon their death.
They don’t take too much ammo to go down thankfully, so if you are alert and avoid getting blindsided, you can take a few of them on easily. It is all too easy to get cocky due to that and decide to burn through an unnecessary amount of bullets. Especially since it won’t be long until you get the Pulserifle machine-gun that has a grenade launcher alt-fire. Your firepower far exceeds theirs, but they have the advantage of numbers, among other things. In fact, since there are relatively few for most of the first level, you will be tempted to take on the horde you alert towards the end of it. That is ill-advised since they will infinitely respawn and cause you to be underequipped for later missions depending on how soon you realize that you are fighting a battle that just cannot be won.
Memorizing the map when things are quiet is arguably a more important skill than your raw FPS abilities. Once you alert the aliens via an objective you have to complete in each level, they will not stop coming. It is vital that you quickly make your way to where you need to go and only stop to fight when absolutely necessary. Getting lost during these events is pretty much a death sentence as you start to get flooded by the swarm of aliens, giving you no time to open up your map and get your bearings. There are no difficulty options to choose from either, everything packs a big punch and will drain your health at the blink of an eye if you get attacked by multiple foes.
Your biggest asset will be the sentry turrets you can plop around the level. They can serve as an extra pair of eyes to watch your back or a handy way to avoid being swarmed when you place it in an intersection, allowing you to focus solely on what’s ahead. You can carry up to five at once and are not too uncommon if you search a level thoroughly. Aliens see them as a low priority and will ignore sentries when they can go after you instead. When they do turn their attention to your turret, it won’t last long against their claws. It will self-destruct after it runs out of ammo and can not be moved around once set, so be careful you don’t put it somewhere less than ideal in your panic to survive.
Another item at your disposal are flares to brighten up dark areas. I’ve only found them useful in a single location, and instead opted to have the sentries ready to activate should the need arrive. Levels are scattered with a surprisingly generous amount of health and ammo. It is nowhere near enough to combat the ever-growing threat, but I never found myself out of bullets to fire. If you do run out of ammo, you are essentially done for since you have no melee attacks and will simply resort to using your flashlight to at least see what will kill you soon. Other than the Pulserifle, which shares ammo with the pistol, you will have access to a shotgun, flamethrower, and smartgun. Each has its own up and downsides like the flamethrower being equally as dangerous to you up close since its fire doesn’t discriminate. The Smartgun shares ammo with the Pulserifle as well, and another drawback is that you’re immobile when firing it.
The aliens I have talked about so far are of the Xenomorph Warrior variety. You will also encounter both Chestbursters and Facehuggers. Both of them love to hide within corpses and will pop out at you should you get close. They do a considerable amount of damage and are challenging targets due to their small size and fast speed. With the number of corpses lying around and the fact that places with valuable items typically have a couple of poor souls that tried to reach them, you will end up activating them from time to time. You may even want to do so on purpose to avoid a situation in where you are facing off against Xenomorphs and accidentally back into one. Facehuggers are thankfully much rarer. If those things get a hold of you, it is game over as they slowly drain the life out of your now helpless self.
If you do die, you will be set back to the last PDA you found. These are few and far between. By following these intended features, it took me a few hours just to complete the first map. This is by no means an easy mod and will be the end of you countless times. In fact, by the second map, I chose to use Doom 2’s ability to quicksave anywhere. By the third and fourth maps, I straight up cheated by resurrecting myself a plethora of times throughout, which is why I put the ‘Review’ in this title with quotations marks since I did not beat it using skill alone. The high difficulty does wonders to build up tension and anxiety when not shooting things. I admit that I jumped more than a few times as something suddenly popped out and made me waste more of my dwindling supply of ammo as I blind fired at a nearby wall. That is somewhat lost on later maps due to the insanely large amount of foes it throws at you at once.
Xenomorphs don’t have the smartest AI, but are more than capable of making their way to you and can open doors should the need be. Hearing a disarray of noises such as increasingly approaching hissing and doors opening & closing all around you is frightening. This is one of those Doom 2 mods in where you need to bind the ability to jump. More so because sections of some levels require it, but make no mistake, you will typically not be safe wherever you manage to climb to. If you are, then that only gives your other foes an opportunity to catch up to your location. You will need to run, gun, and make split-second decisions on a regular basis to survive this. It may be a Doom mod, but it plays nothing like it. Well, minus the sheer speed of your character, allowing him to outrun even Xenomorphs. The cramped, winding locations of most maps will put a stop to you doing so without memorizing the layout first, however.
There are four maps overall, with one being a small boss arena. The other three will be large, complex levels, containing several objectives you need to complete aside from keycard hunting. Every part of this mod looks fantastic with tons of little details such as cafeterias with actual sprites of food, garbage areas, and scripted events like lights sputtering out when you get near them. When you look at mirrors, you can see your reflection, the dark brewing storm intensifying from the light drizzle seen in the beginning, plus the impressive particle effects. It is quite the looker without a doubt. For as much of a hurry that you usually find yourself in, it can be beneficial taking the risk to explore as to find more ammo, health, and your much-needed sentry turrets. Each level is chock full of secret stashed to discover.
Oddly enough for an Aliens inspired mod, there are no motion trackers to be found. Gameplay-wise, it makes sense I suppose, as these Xenomorphs do not skulk about, they are far more aggressive and will frenzy into trying to immediately kill you. Also worth mentioning is that they swerve while trying to close the distance between you. That in addition to its speed, acidic blood, mobility, and sheer numbers, make them a force to be reckoned with. You are in an incredibly unfavorable situation and will likely die many a time before finally managing to get past a level. This brutal difficulty will no doubt turn away some people, though if you think you are up to the challenge, this is a mod not to be missed.
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