'Aliens: Colonial Marines' coming February 2013

Acting as sequel to Alien 3, the oft-delayed video game Aliens: Colonial Marines has been dated for launch on February 12, 2013.

Acting as sequel to Alien 3, the oft-delayed video game Aliens: Colonial Marines has been dated for launch on February 12, 2013.

Being made for Nintendo's new Wii U, as well as PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Colonial Marines has a gilt-edged opportunity to turn the Wii U's tablet controller into a film-mimicking, alien-tracking radar screen.

Work on Sega's Aliens: Colonial Marines has been going on since 2006, and even before that as a canceled PlayStation 2 title for a different developer and publisher.

In the meantime, Colonial Marines' current studio Gearbox Software has released Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway, Borderlands, and Duke Nukem Forever -- a game which was first announced in 1997 by previous custodian 3D Realms.

By moving to February 2013, the Aliens game avoids a potentially embarassing clash with Gearbox's other project, the highly anticipated Borderlands 2, which is due September 2012 but published by 2K Games.

Instead, it hunkers down a fortnight away from another of this fall's delayed blockbusters, BioShock Infinite.