

The Doc’s “Trauma Station” heals the entire squad in a small radius and works like a charm in narrow passageways while the Demolisher’s assortment of heavy weapons, like the “smart gun” and flamethrower, dole out serious punishment and are helpful when things get dicey. Additionally, you can swap onto different roles during mission prep. Each class comes equipped with two abilities and weapon specializations that can alter the flow of combat. Thankfully, classes add an important strategic component to the action.

Your marine’s personality is disappointingly nonexistent, and character customization is a cosmetic tag-on. Setting fortifications like sentry turrets and mines help alleviate the repetition, but Fireteam Elite has no intention of surprising its players or experimenting with its typical shoot-from-cover mechanics. However, your orders remain to advance upon a point of interest, activate a console or place a scanner, and hunker down amid incoming swarms while navigating linear maps.

Sure, you might traverse the awe-inspiring remnants of Prometheus ’ ancient humanoid civilization (a nice break from the first mission’s dull storage bays and metallic hulls). Staff sergeant Herrera, the aggressive voice in your ear, oversees your progress through each campaign, but her directives and each mission’s overall level design, never change. In every firefight, numerous Xenomorphs or rogue synthetics fill the screen, clambering over one another – from pesky facehuggers and tool-wielding “working Joes” to 7-foot tall, bipedal Praetorians and heavy-infantry androids. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ve come across the illegal-experiment-gone-wrong trope more times than you’d care to remember. Sadly, there are no exciting twists or turns. Your task force is sent to the outer colonies to deal with the fallout. Evil conglomerate Weyland-Yutani is unsurprisingly back at their nefarious antics, sacrificing innocent human lives for unethical alien research. Fireteam Elite’s unremarkable plot takes place throughout four consecutive campaigns. and repetitive mission design ultimately do more harm than your average chestburster.įrom the jump, you create an avatar, choose your favorite class, assemble an alien-slaying loadout, and set out alongside two players (or bots when playing solo) to take down some Xenomorph menaces. The environments – dimly lit corridors and abandoned caverns – sell the atmosphere, but uninspired A.I. Aliens: Fireteam Elite tries and often fails to establish itself in the middle ground. For instance, Colonial Marines’ tired shooting mechanics and bug-riddled environments created a lackluster experience, while Isolation emulated the gripping unease of the franchise’s best movies. Despite the skulking creature’s success on the silver screen, its video game adaptations have been less consistent. The acid-spewing Xenomorph has haunted the dreams of hardcore sci-fi lovers since its iconic first appearance in Ridley Scott’s Alien.
