Published by: Sega
Developed by: Rebellion
Release Date: February 16, 2010
Available on: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
INTRO: Man, if there’s one thing I love it would have to be the first couple of Alien movies. Alien and Aliens are two of the greatest, genre-defining Sci-Fi movies I’ve ever seen. I also really dig the original Predator movie. Boasting action, testosterone and balls to terrify even the Arrow, it sports a great cast of action heroes who must face the ultimate hunter in The Predator. Of course it can be argued that the sequels to these movies don’t hold up very well and I won’t begrudge that point. I especially won’t even touch the AvP movies, which barely deserve a mention.
GAMEPLAY:
This one isn’t about celluloid though, this one is about the newest entry in the videogame world, Aliens vs. Predator. A spiritual successor to the awesome PC game of years past, you can once again suit up as the Alien, the Predator or the world-saving marine in three different campaigns for world domination.
Well, let’s discuss. We’ll start off with the Marine campaign. This one is easily the weakest link of the series and if this were all the game had to offer you’d be really disappointed. Coming off like a weak-sauce FPS, this one could have used some more work. You can’t line up sights- no precision aiming (unless you use the sniper rifle). Aliens will dodge your bullets even when it might seem like you hit them- even if you’re using explosive stuff like grenades or flamethrowers. On top of this, when you’re fighting the aliens you’ll constantly be doused in acid from their exploding bodies. You’d better learn to love the melee attacks because you really need to use them a lot.
Now, I can give the game points for being tense during this campaign but tension can be a loose way of defining something when you are walking through a dark hallway and then getting hit by monsters you can’t even see. Don’t let me completely dissuade you though because there are some scary moments and you truly do feel like you’re fighting for your life at times. I suppose if I had to sum things up, this campaign feels a bit like a low-rent version of Doom 3, which is several years old now.
The alien campaign has you playing as an alien named 6- an escaped test subject. Now you can climb ceilings and you’ll spend all of your time trying to sneak up on your enemies in order to kill them. This means a lot, and I mean a lot, of melee combat. You’ll find yourself taking out lights to drench environments in darkness and for the most part the stealth thing works. With the alien though, luring in prey isn’t easy. You have the opportunity to make noise to distract and ideally you’ll run away and climb a wall or ceiling but this can be pretty disorienting and you’ll find yourself confused more often than not. I also found the combat to be frustrating with the alien- you have some cool options for killing people like harvesting them for trophies and spearing them through the chest, but I found the whole rock-paper-scissors heavy/light/counterattack system to be frustrating and it never really felt organic.
My favorite campaign was the Predator campaign because it’s pretty much a decent relative mix between the alien and the marine. Plus, the Predator is a badass hunter who has a lot of great weapons at his disposal. You can really feel like a Predator here, stalking prey from trees and using your badass camouflage. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel as invincible as a Predator when I was playing- you’re spotted easily by the aliens and dying in what felt like 30 seconds at times takes away from the experience. That said, it’s fun to do ‘trophy kills’ and rip the skulls out of your enemies and feels rather satisfying. You really give it to those marines and aliens and that just seems right.
Again though, there’s just more options for the Predator to use and that rounds this campaign better than the the two. You can cycle through your vision types to spot foes and using the movie weapons like the smart discs, the lance and plasma rifle mounted on your shoulder is a blast.
Luckily for you, the story ties itself together so that you can freely switch your races between levels as you play. The story isn’t anything fantastic, but if you get sick and tired of the race you’re playing as (and believe me some frustration will be setting in), you can swap things out which makes the game a bit more tolerable.
Gameplay: 6.5/10
GRAPHICS:
This is not an overly pretty game, and at times it looks positively last-gen which is disappointing because these franchises are very visual. Some parts of your environment are incredibly bland and that makes some important things difficult to find in each campaign. The graphics are passable but don’t provide the ooh that you’d hope for in such a major release. Animations are stiff and jerky, there’s clipping issues and some bad draw-in happening here.
Graphics: 7/10
AUDIO:
The sound in this game is actually quite well done, providing some authentic and movie quality effects that will remind you of how awesome these characters and their accompanying films can be. The music is awesome too, very movie-quality.
Audio: 9/10
FINAL VERDICT:
Ultimately, I enjoyed my time with this game but I feel it has a few limitations stopped me from loving it. First of all, the control system is pretty tough to master and feels a bit poorly mapped out. The marine campaign is pretty weak, and I felt like the difficulty of the game turned the badassery of each character down a few notches. There are some good touches, cool scenes and great kills that make this game a good investment for serious fans. Those who are passing fans should probably just give this one a rental.
Final Score: 6.5/10