Alien Vs Predator PC Game Review - GameGame

Sir we're ready to begin how old do you think it is ten thousand a hundred thousand alien versus Predator is a first-person shooter developed by rebellion the same team who created the original alien vs predator game way back in 1999 the game doesn't serve as a prequel to any of its predecessors more so it stands as its own separate storyline it seems to be widely agreed that this game is a total letdown well let's just take a look and find out shall we the story takes place in a human colony on a planet called BG 386 focusing on the wey land-yutani corporation as they stupidly try yet again to tame the Xeno morphs and use them as some sort of biological weapon you think those guys would know by now just how volatile and dangerous the Xeno morphs are as you'd expect they soon break out of confinement and wreak havoc Lance Henriksen returns to provide the voice for Carl Wey land and this time his plan is to do something with I don't know some stuff I don't even know anymore all I know is that he pops up every now and then spouting off cheesy philosophical crap about the evolution of mankind or something like that to the game's credit it does look pretty damn good especially when running with the direct x11features enabled the game runs on the SCR engine and there was a lot of love and attention to detail for the source material the dynamic lighting and various atmospheric effects with the visuals can be a sight to behold The Sound of Music shows a lot of Polish despite some questionable voice acting like the games before it you're given the option to play as one of three different species the alien the predator or a human marine these campaigns all offer up three vastly different playstyles and separate storylines kind of the Marine is the most basic of the three using high-powered weapons like pulse rifles and smart guns to take on the never ending waves of xeno morphs that have overrun the colony it's a bug hunt in later levels you'll also have to take on combat androids armed with the same weapons as the Marine animation for the aliens is pretty damn impressive and they move extremely gracefully across all types of surfaces in this storyline your newly enlisted marine known as rookie going around the colony flipping switches and taking orders from another fellow marine named tequila you'll venture through some fairly familiar looking locales involving various colony facilities and make shift alien hives popping flares for light sources and jumping every time your motion sensor gives off its trade mark beep aside from the standard warrior's animal she'll also see the return of the larger armored Victorians as well you do get to fight alongside some other Marines every now and then but this is probably the least improved campaign of the three and it still plays pretty much exactly the same way it did back in the1999 version the only real difference is that you can now use a melee attack to knock aliens back which is pretty damn stupid when you think about it because if an alien ever got its hands on you you'd be torn to shreds in seconds also you're only able to hold a pistol and two other weapons at any one time forcing players to be a little bit more strategic with it placed off predators campaign focuses more on stealth gadgets and melee combat flicking through vision modes to see your enemies more easily and decimating your foes with some high-powered alien weaponry the Predators control scheme has been much more refined since the previous games and now you can quickly choose between weapons on the fly whilst your wrist blades are now permanently attached should you need to open up a can of whoop-ass on anything that gets too close when fighting the human enemies you most often stay cloaked and pick them off one by one from the shadows using tricks to distract them and separate them from the pack before ripping their spinal column out yeah literally holding down the shift button you can let great distances much easier though it is very context-sensitive and it can be hard to make precise jumps under pressure but still this is the campaign I had the most fun with and it shows the most depth in terms of the amount of options left up to the player and then there's the aliens campaign which relies primarily on stealth above all else you play as a xeno morph simply known as number 6 and begin a long journey back to the Queen killing everything in your way somewhat more discreetly taking on a marine with a smart gun or a pulse rifle directly is suicide so you'll have to be a bit more clever than that using your tail you can knock out light sources to stay cloaked in the darkness and even here sloughed lee to draw enemies towards you then it's just a matter of doing what the alien does best you're also given the option to harvest certain enemies instead of killing them it doesn't really seem to have any effect other than just being its own separate animation now no matter who you choose to play as you're gonna be seeing some very similar-looking environments in fact most of these environments are literally recycled from campaign to campaign you may end up from a different vantage point I'll not be able to access the same areas but they're largely just the same copy paste it to pad out the games already short lengths just how short well the marine and Predator campaign will probably take you two hours maybe three to get stuck at any of the horrible boss fights and the alien campaign will take you the better part of an hour to finish even in that short amount of time the game displays all manner of problems regardless of which species you choose to play as the marine campaign for instance is the biggest defender of the lot starters there's no Crouch button just let that sink in fora while keeping hold of certain weapons for strategic reasons is pointless because the game replaces your weapons at the end of a level let that also sink in for a while but the biggest blunder is just how much they've dumbed down the pulse rifle to the point that it feels extremely underpowered it's been shown in the aliens film that a pulse rifle is extremely effective against the xenos to the point that it practically makes them explode from only a few rounds but in a VP you really have to hold your finger down on the left mouse button and just hope for the best most of the time the rounds seem to bounce off their shell like pellets from a BB gun this kind of carries across to all the weapons and with the exception of a smart gun which is criminally underused you just never get that sense of raw power that you got into previous games and then there's the horrible boss fights where they throw you up again stone of the heavily armored Praetorian xeno morphs in a cramped area these bastards can finish you off in one or two hits if you haven't got an explosive weapon saved up I can't even imagine how you get past these guys like I said before the credit controls are probably the most polished instead of having to fumble through your weapon list it's now a simple matter of choosing between one of four weapons with the press of a button the weapon roster feels a lot more refined and some of the questionably useful weapons from prior games are long gone all you've got now is the throwing speed proximity mine a razor edge throwing disc and the Predators iconic plasma caster the mine and plasma caster use up the Predators energy source whilst the spear and disk can be used as much as needed and are suitably badass ripping enemies to pieces it's a bit of a shame that the plasma caster uses up your energy in two or three blasts as it's easily the most fun to use out of the entire arsenal and I've always loved the way that red targeting reticle flies across the screen as it locks into your prey and the melee combat system works it's a thing of beauty you've got a light attack a heavy attack and a block ability and attack style the aliens use as well it sounds simple enough there can be a little bit tricky to get the hang of because it doesn't always work as planned mostly the time you're fighting half a dozen aliens at once and you frequently take hits from behind or beside totally throwing your rhythm on by the end of the game when you've unlocked all of the weapons is when the game truly shines and you'll be bringing down waves of aliens and combat androids with total ease but that's almost too little too late finishing moves are an easier way of getting things done but you leave yourself wide open to attacks from all sides as there un skippable and can go on for up to 5 seconds or more they're cool the first few times you see them but then afterwards you just kind of wish they weren't there at all this is a similar problem when fighting human enemies and most of the time I end up just sneaking past them entirely as it's much quicker and a lot less tedious there's maybe two areas in the entire game that show the capabilities of just how good this campaign really should have been these are some large open areas where there's half a dozen Marines patrolling and you're able to take them down in any way you want now this is what the entire game should have been like instead most of the time it's just these largely linear poorly disguised corridors that force you to take enemies out in a very preset way and lastly there's the alien campaign which mainly suffers from some control problems moving across surfaces can be a little bit disorientating at times and the simple task of dropping from a roof to an unsuspecting enemy below can be a bit of a chore you the type of person that's prone to bouts of motion sickness then this kind of thing would have you heaving into a bucket as the way the screen orientation casually spins all over the shop can be downright vomit-inducing similar to the predator most of the kills for the alien require these long un skippable animations where you leave yourself wide open to being attacked which can result in nearby enemies killing you in seconds the only other thing that I have an issue with is that the alien seems too raw instead of having it to trademark hiss it sounds a lot more guttural than it should but in all honesty this campaign was over before it even had enough time to get under my skin aliens vs. predator isn't so much a bad game as it is an unfree filled one there's some good ideas in there but it just lacks polish and the way they've recycled entire levels across each storyline is just lazy to be fair the multiplayer mode was pretty damn fun but finding a game nowadays is practically impossible which is a damn shame at the end of the day it's good that they've tried something new with the Alien and Predator by expanding the combat system it's just a shame that it doesn't work as intended most of the time I guess if you're a hardcore fan of the films and the other games and it's pretty much ano-brainer to play it you can grab it for dirt cheap which is nice and all but just don't forget the fact that this is again that has a lot of things wrong with it a VP 1 & 2 are largely superior games in practically every single aspect aside from their visuals and if you're new to the franchise and they should be the first place to start.