Aliens Versus Predator is a technical remake of the original AvP game by Rebellion that debuted in 1999 on the PC. Its been over ten years since then, and Rebellion, Sega and 20th Century Fox pictures have all collaborated to make a game for the fans of this comic book-gone game-gone movie-gone game again. Now, I know that’s a lot to process, but if you take a step back, you see that this game has a lot to offer for everyone, not just the fans.
AvP has three campaigns, one for each “species” in the game: Marines, Predators and Aliens. Each of them feel inherintly different, but all of them pretty much go along the same story line, with little overlaps here and there. Examples of this would be, each campaign has the same levels, it just depends what order you play them in by which character you choose.
First up are the Marines, which is the campaign you should definetely play first. The feel of this campaign is very survicval horror, with a sense of peril, tension, danger and low ammo. You only get to take control of a few weapons, ranging from the shotgun, assault rifle, and even the smartgun. They do a good job of making this campaign overflow with horror, as you see your comrades being sucked into vents and pulled into darkness. Light is your best friend in this campaign and you do not have much of it to go around. You are constantly stalked by Xenomorphs, and you can hear and feel them behind you thanks to good sound design.
Next up is the Aliens campaign. This one is by far the most fun, as you have to stalk your prey and use darkness to your advantage. It is a lot more fun and interesting than the marine, but it is probably the most frustrating at the same time. It is frustrating mostly because of the point of view. When you are jumping around to the ceilings and the walls, you can sometime loose track of where you are and what your doing, making it pretty difficult to figure out whats going on. Also, in the campaign I found that it was really hard to find out what your objectives were, and how to achieve them.
Last but certainly not least is the Predator campaign. You play as a rookie predator that has to prove himself in the hunt. The predator ultimately has more weapons at his disposal along with two vision modes that allow him to see Xenomorphs and Marines in darkness. I have to say that I enjoyed this campaign the most, because it really made you feel like a bad-ass. You can just mow down enemies with every tool you can think of.
Overall, the gameplay is pretty good; however the controls for the marine can feel pretty stiff. The shooting is not very acurate, but then again neither is the melee combat of the other two classes. The control scheme is good without being too convoluted. It plays well, but occasionally can be frustrating. The main draw for the two melee classes is sneaking up behind your enemy to perform a one hit kill, which is very easy to do. So, this makes the Marine campaign a little more difficult while the other two can be almost a breeze.
This brings me to the graphics, which are by far the weakest part of the game. The texture work is pretty bad, with very muddy textures. The CG cutscenes are pretty well put together, with those graphics being the best in the game. The animations are not too bad, even to the point if you turn around quickly enough as the Alien, you can see your tail flailing around. However, when you kill enemies, the ragdoll physics of them dying are pretty poor, with the bodies getting stuck in awkward positions.
The thing that brings this package together is the multiplayer. Rebellion has put together some interesting gameplay modes, while also throwing in the almost overdone Survivor mode, with you playing as a marine fighting off waves of Xenomorphs. It may be overdone, but this is one of the most fun modes in the game. Other modes include: deathmatch, species team deathmatch, mixed species team deathmatch, domination and one other unique one: Predator Hunt. This mode pits a team of Predators and a team of humans switching places to see who can get the most kills. Multiplayer may seem like a good package unto itself but it has some problems of its own. I will give it a compliment and say that I didn’t really experience any lag.
When I started a match however, players would randomly get booted out of the match, leaving me to play a fifteen minute match with only two other people. Also, it has a problem with people in your party being kicked as you enter into a lobby. The biggest problem of all though, is that there is virtually no one playing this game online. I think it would shine and people would be able to look past the problems if you could get a good group playing some matches. Hopefully this will improve over time, and there will be more people to play with.
As an overall package, you are getting a lot when it comes to AvP. With three campaigns, a co-op mode, and five other multiplayer modes, there is lot for you to see and do. However, the problem is that every aspect has its flaws. There are times where you are going to just want to put the controller down and say: “I can find a better game somewhere else”. However if you stick with it, you will find something to like underneith it all, and will definetly have some fun with Aliens Versus Predator.
