Sega have released a video of the Alien: Colonial Marine's demo show at to this years E3 with Gearbox's Randy Pitchford providing some additional commentary. I've posted the video below, which seems to show a good slice of the game, but thought I'd take this opportunity to to share some thoughts on the Aliens franchise in general.

First up though is the video.

Randy seems to forget that he's supposed to be commentating towards the end. A bit weird, but I guess he's trying to recreate that 'buddy buddy' chat he hopes people will have when they're playing co-op. Whenever I play co-op conversations tend to go:

Me: "Where are you? I'm lost.
Buddy: "I'm right next to you."
Me: "Shit. shit, they're everywhere. Where are you?"
Buddy: "Still right next to you."
Me: "Aaaaah. Quick revive me, revive me!"
Buddy: "Sigh."

Anyway I digress.

In my early teens I had a trinity of franchises that I cherished above all others: Predator, Terminator and Aliens. In particular I had a fondness of the Aliens franchise driven primarily by encountering the Aliens Book 2 comic (featuring beautiful artwork by Denis Beauvais). I would watch the first two films over and over again and devour any comic stories I could find.

Then Alien 3 went into its hellish production and while I think David Fincher (who has continued to be a favorite director of mine) did a good job with the pup of a script it marked the start of the franchise's decline.

From then on its seemed as if people queued up to dilute the greatness of the franchise with there own crazy ideas. From Alien Resurrection to this:

Even the great Aliens Books 1-3, that I thought were a far more interesting continuations of the Aliens story, where no longer 'canon' so they changed all the character to fit (which in my mind created a huge hole in the plot). With each new reinterpretation, new species of aliens or supposedly clever plots idea, a little bit of what made those first two films so engaging got killed.

So while I think that Gearbox have done a good stab at presenting the ideas and look of the Aliens movie, this isn't really getting me excited. Let's hope Ridley Scott can restore some respect for the franchise with his Alien prequel.