Wealth of images arrives for Aliens: Colonial Marines

If you’ve seen the brief snippet of gameplay footage for Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines unveiled at the E3 Expo, you’ll already know that it looks like both a faithful digital rendering of James Cameron’s 1986 movie, but also a solid first-person shooter in its own right.

But if you’re still not convinced, take a look through this generous gallery of still images that has also emerged from the expo. Detailed and atmospheric, they’re filled with props and settings that fans of Aliens will immediately recognise. Everything from the movie’s power loaders, weapons and sets has been faithfully recreated. In one shot, you can even see a patina of wear on a space marine’s pulse rifle.

And then there are the aliens themselves, which look impressively like the movie monsters themselves, whether they’re in their early face-hugging form or at their full-grown, eight-foot-tall stage of development.

Other shooters may have arrived long before Colonial Marines, and freely borrowed ideas from the 1986 film in the process, but I can’t help feeling a little frisson of excitement at the thought of playing through a proper recreation of the monster-infested LV-426. At the very least, it’ll get me out of the habit of sneaking around the house, tennis racket in hand, pretending to be Private Hudson.

Sadly, the game’s not out until next spring, which means I’ll have to keep up the pretence for a little while longer.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is due out next spring for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Wii U.