Recent reviews by IJHicks

Until Sony removes these requirements to have a PSN account, which was not a requirement, until they wanted more data for their scummy board to say, look at how many people are on PSN. I am completely out and will be boycotting anything Sony related.

But anyone who disagrees feel free to purchase it and let Sony collect your data and then lose it repeatedly.

https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/

So this is the 1st Aliens game that is pretty faithful to the films and better yet it doesn't do what a lot of Aliens licensed games do and put the xenos to the back and have you fighting weyland forces because have to cater to the CoD plebs.

I'd rate this as a pretty solid Aliens game that pays homage to Aliens, from the sounds to the atmosphere to the look and feel, the only thing that could make this any better is if it was FPS and played coop in which case it would be what we all wanted ACM to be, but as a RTS it is very solid.

The story is pretty solid and the maps are huge, with the ability to leave the map and return with everything how you left it so don't forget to sprinkle some mines on your way out as these will remain*

Some cons of the game however are you can't send a single marine to a location to use their weapon like say the recon who you might want to silent snipe something, there is a work around by setting a waypoint then halting your other marines, but it the marine being sent out may not stop precisely where you want them as they still take into account the squad formation.

Mines are so overpowered and once you've got them all you have to do is keeping laying them out like chocolate sprinkles.

*Sentry guns left on the map will be damaged and need repaired if you move to another floor or leave and come back

This game is missing so much from the previous titles that where fixes to silly issues that came up.

You cannot set the arc of your HMGs from buildings so its pot luck whether they face the right directions.
Unit upgrade Icons are from previous titles, grenade launcher for Africa corp is the Piat icon.
The retreat paths are beyond a joke in some cases where the unit will actively take the longest possible route.
The game is missing replay functionality unless you count the work around that may or may not work.

This feels like a stripped down version so that when the console release happens it's easier for the plebs using control pads to not have issues with being slower with micro than mouse and keyboard, yes I know consoles can use mouse and keyboard but a majority most likely don't.

Also is it bad that CoH which was released what 17years ago actually looks better?

**Additions to review**

It gets worse with team colours you don't know whos who as theres no names and no slight shading variation like previous titles. Unique colours are useless also.

The Guastitori under 6 minute base rush destruction with no counter if the routes into the base are remotely open and the only option is to retreat anything with AoE but as soon as the pizza boys start planting the demo explodes anyway with damage

Map Pings are not very visible.

The unit under attack/dead notification, you get this for team mates also so there is no easy hit space bar to go-to the notification for your units only.

**Update 04/04/2023**

Now uninstalled so much is wrong with this glorified beta.

The recent patch was mainly to add in a cash store, not one person requested this yet they spent time and effort adding this in, absolutely disgusting. 1 Patch note even says they improved the fire or smoke effects on the sherman... again no one asked for this.

The bug fixes are minor at best, still leaving huge bugs and balance issues.

Retreat and walk across a mine, your troops now move slower than the enemy until they are dead or reach their retreat point.

Grab select units to quick retreat and you happen to grab a vehicle too.... reverse on the vehicle takes precedence over you retreating troops, you then need to un-select the vehicle to then retreat the troops.

Another glaring bug area select anything and accidentally select some retreating models and you can't give any commands until you un-select the retreating troops.

Select munition surplus for the US which halves the munition cost for troop weapon upgrades.... only applies to paratroopers on the field... drop a new squad have fun paying full price.

AA Vehicles shooting air units out the air across the full map, then making airdrops/strikes etc take longer to recharge, even when you drop in your own base so you can at-least get things dropped before they get shot down.

Call in units getting stuck out of map because the auto build or you put a building in the wrong place and the unit is then stuck with no control outside the call in point.

Accidentally build to close to impassable terrain, oh your units are now stuck and you can't even delete the building.

Path-finding on vehicles... what path-finding half the time they will stick into each other like a couple of horny teenagers

Path-finding on retreat... suppose to be the shortest direction... I've seen units retreat forward along a wall to then run back along the other side which leads to the same route they could have taken.

Units walking through to the other-side of smoke revealing themselves as they don't know how to throw or fire over smoke with their grenades/rifle grenades.

There are more bugs than just this I just don't have the time or inclination to log them all, I don't know who they used to QA this game besides alphas and betas for the general public to test which would never work, they need good quality QA testers who will spend the time bug hunting instead of using it as a I can play this early.... not that any of the bugs or balance issues in the alpha and beta got fixed... to busy pandering to the this doesnt look good crowd......

Balance in this is out the window, you would think they would have looked at the issues from previous titles when it came to balance and QoL.

Blobs are worse in this.
Certain blobs are anti everything
Certain factions + Doctrine choices means you do not need to tech
Call in units at 0cp have no initial cooldown
The recent slight balancing done in the we want to make a cash shop patch was some shared abilities and only 2 factions got any balancing done to them... lets be clear they didn't take it in small steps and balance all, they just hit 1 start for US and not much else, still nothing to stop certain factions coming into your base with demos within 5 minutes.

I cannot and will not recommend this game to anyone, give it a year and it might be fixed, but I have a feeling this will go the way of Dawn of War 3.

I have uninstalled this and gone back to CoH2, I wish I had the chance to refund this PoS but sadly I wanted to put time in to try and see if it was worth it... and it is not worth the price even if it was free right now.

**Update 06/06/2023 - The recent patch**

I am starting to realise this game is beyond saving currently as the dev team do not look like they do basic QA Testing on the game or look at bug reports.

Downloaded the recent patch to test it out.

The new map, which you can't play in normal match making, which they said was similar to The Sheldt is more akin to a 3v3 vire river valley, it looks nothing like The Sheldt, again proving they haven't played the previous titles, its either that or they are acting stupid in the hope of people being nice.

Reported a bug back on 22/03/2023 giving a very detailed explanation including video of how to recreate the bug consistently, I work in QA I know how to write a bug and test it for replication, I received a response within an hour, surprisingly fast I thought, stating they appreciated the steps and video detailing it....... fast forward 2 patches and more than 2 months later.... it's still in the game, you might think it's a huge fix, but no it really isn't it's just setting a flag so that an upgrade applies to newly produced units, it works with all other units but this unit it only applies if they are already on the field, create a new unit and no upgrade.

They also seem to have buggered the Esc Menu while in game, probably broke this in their rush to rush the console version out, press esc once and it works try it again and well it doesn't work until you use the middle mouse to move screen, worse still this also stops other binds from working until you move the screen.

They have only now implemented names on unit cards and for units if you want that mobile gaming experience, it's only taken them since the release to add something that was in the originals from the start.

The Balancing team is beyond a joke, lets look at 1 of their changes.

Airplanes performing paradrop abilities are now invincible.

You might think thats good I can always count on my airdrops getting in no matter what....

In this case you'd be wrong, think about Paradropped infantry you set up air defence to stop getting behind a defencive position, well thats now a waste as you can't even damage units that are landing until the whole squad lands let alone down the aircraft before it spits out some angry infantry with demo charges etc to go ham on your units.

The perfect balance to this and to balance out all AA units would have been to add a delay in switching between AA and Ground targets and vice versa and for the AA mode to have a limit on the area it can cover, this would have solved the original issue off AA shooting across the map to kill aircraft and then the AA damage could have been left for the m16 and upped for all other units for AA duty.

I would type more however I reached the text limit, do yourself a favour if you have read this far, do not purchase for now

Come a long way from only being in space and only single player still some bugs but overall an enjoyable experience

like the pringles advert... once you pop you can't stop, adictive as hell and you'll feel like you're in hell trying to survive

Highly recommend if you like

WW2
Tactics
Team and Squad Play
To play an army thats not U.S.
To play in a setting not normally selected
Asymmetrical gameplay (Sorry but copy paste sides is boring and War wasn't fair deal with it)
Realism to within the boundries of a small team and the game engine (This is not a AAA developer with 100s of people working on it)

Don't play if you are any of the following

Bunny Hopper
CoD Fanboy
Battlefield Fanboy
Can't work in a team/squad
Cant deal with Assymetrical gameplay (I have seen forum posts whinging about the no4 having 10 rounds and the k98 only having 5, or the Bren vs MG42)

Again I have to state not a AAA developer or large team and it's still a billion times better than the AAA Aliens Colonial Marines gearbox shambles.

Terrible game run up to release was a massive bait and switch could have been so much more.

Host game press inventory button Fatal Error this seems to be a big one to get through Q&A even after the game was delayed.

Skip all other avp games this is the original and best

I hope CA choke on charging for this as DLC