Movie-based games are a tricky business, on one hand you have rich background of material to help mold a game that stays within the guidelines set by the movies, and on the other you have small budgets, teams, and development cycles, often leading many movie based games to be mediocre at best, and downright awful at worst. Aliens: Colonial Marines, is a FPS based off the Aliens franchise that is currently in development at Gearbox Software, who are best known for their port of Halo to the PC and the wildly successful Brothers in Arms series. The difference between this game and most movie-based games is that Aliens: Colonial Marines is receiving the attention and care that most movie games need, and anything Alien deserves.

CVG recently had a sit down with Mike Gallo, producer on Colonial Marines and found out some of the nitty gritty details. First, the game will take place directly after the events in Alien 3, endeavoring to clear up some of the unanswered questions about what happened after the incident on LV-426, and the prison planet. As you work your way though the campaign and answer those unanswered questions you will take the role of several different Marines, allowing you to see the story unfold from several different points of view, in the cooperative mode you and 3 of your friends will each play a marine as you work through the campaign.

The campaign will see you and your team exploring many different locations, some familiar like the Sulaco, and some all new, though Gallo went on to say that the new locations will stay within the realm of the Alien universe.

On that note, Gallo went on to talk about recreating the elements of the Alien films: “Since Aliens is our closest influence, we have strived for authenticity to the film that players have never seen before. The look of the game is directly inspired by the film, down to the film grain and lighting. We’ve hired Syd Mead to go back and create new concepts based on artwork that he made over 20 years ago”

Aliens: Colonial Marines is coming out for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and is set for Q4 2008 release.