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Review: Alien vs Predator

Thursday, 4 Mar 2010 - 16:00PM

We see many games based on movies these days, and sometimes even the other way around. Although not directly based on a recently released movie, AVP does get everything from the sound effects to the weapons from the fantastic Predator and Alien franchises. Here, developer Rebellion (who made the classic game under the same title back in 1999) looks to bring a successful adaptation of the movie franchises to the current generation of consoles. But will the developer achieve its ambitious goal, or do their recent titles reflect what is yet to come?

AVP is set into three different single player campaigns, one for the Marines, one for the Aliens, and one for the Predator. They all follow the same paper thin story, but from different perspectives, spanning 8-10 hours of gameplay in total. 

The story is rather clichéd, with a mixture of best bits from the franchises all put into one. As a brief overview, the Marines main goal throughout the whole game is trying to gain Predator technology after their ship get’s shot down, landing on an unnamed planet. Unsurprisingly, it’s not quite as easy as it sounds, as the Predators react by fighting back, attempting to defend what is rightfully theirs. As an Alien you start out imprisoned by the humans and narrowly escape death. Predicatively you break out of imprisonment and vow to seek revenge on the humans, usually gaining your objectives from the queen Alien. Throughout the game you get caught up in the war between the Marines and Predators and have to fight for survival while sticking to your orders. 

The story is most definitely best seen through the eyes of the Marines, as you actually get a clear grasp of what you’re doing straight from the off. Unfortunately it’s not the same for the Aliens and Predator until a fair bit into the very short campaign. Another obvious bonus of playing it from the Marines perspective is that they speak English, unlike the Predator and Aliens who don’t and everything has to be conveyed in subtitles. Overall the Marines follow a story set around a structure you’ve seen many times before, obviously making it easier to follow, but unfortunately this time around it’s one of the most uninspired attempts. 

Even with its criticisms though, the Marine campaign is the strongest of the bunch. Rebellion have really nailed the tense, and sometimes scary feelings of being a Marine in the dim dark corridors you so frequently have to fight through. The use of lighting and shadows is used perfectly and engineers some infrequent but good scares along the way. I did sometimes find the game a tad too dark though, you use flares to find your way and to see your enemies but even when playing the game with all the lights of and brightness turned up a fair bit, it’s hard to see your way.

Despite having some nice touches in the atmosphere aspects, the actual combat is bog standard. We’ve seen it all before, and a lot better too, the guns seem underpowered, and have no iron sight which is a bemusement. You can also block attacks from the Aliens and Predator, in a melee system that is very reminiscent of a game of rock, paper and scissors. Playing as the Marine is very simple, almost too simple, the actions and additional features offered here are such a disappointment, and don’t come even close to what they could and should be like. Another thing is that it doesn’t take long to get bored and annoyed with the Marine campaign. Even in the short time you play it, you'll end up switching it off, time and time again for something more complex and interesting. 

In a massive contrast to the gameplay of the Marines, the Predator is utterly confusing. For starters you can pick up four different types of weapons on top of the awkward melee system and you can switch between different vision modes at the same time, all while appearing invisible. Fair enough it’s nice to see what was in the films but the button configuration Rebellion have decided on for it causes great confusion. The different weapons you can use have to be picked up from awkward places on the battlefield and are very much overpowered, usually killing an enemy in one hit. Strangely the blades - used for melee - are then pretty weak. And even if you do attempt a heavy or light attack to hit the enemy, your attack is pretty ineffective and whether you hit the enemy or not seems as if it’s down to the toss of a coin. It’s also possible to kill an enemy in one swift movement if their either stunned or in front of you, but you have to get into just the right position to initiate it, as it’s context sensitive. Seeing the severed head of a Marine held up by a Predator is certainly one of the high points of the game, I just wish there were more action outcomes for it, simply because they become tiring quickly. 

The melee system is exactly the same for the Aliens and has exactly the same stupid frustrations. Although the Alien is again a lot simpler than the Predator, with only having the light, heavy and instant melee kills to cause havoc with. Luckily the Aliens do have something to differ then to the Predator in the form of agility and speed. Unlike the cumbersome Predator, the Alien campaign allows you to crawl on any surface and run at blinding speeds, but even that can give you problems to the context sensitive sections, as you speed makes it harder to line up what your trying to do. The ability to be able to run on ceilings and walls can also be very disorientating at first and will end in many deaths, but you do get used to it. 

The best graphical part of AVP is certainly the instant kills; they have great textures and fantastic gory detail. It’s just a disappointment that the rest of the game looks as if it was released rather a long time ago. The textures are muddy and everything is either grey, black or brown in throughout the game. Luckily the most important aspects – the lighting and shadows are done really well and enhance the dark, grimy feel of the game. 

On top of some average graphics, Rebellion have done pretty well with the audio side of the game. Every well known, nitty-gritty sound from the movies have been incorporated it into the game, from the hum of the pulse rifle to the hiss of the Aliens, it’s all there. 

Once completed there is no real reason to play through the single player again, there is audio logs to collect but their so uninspired in content that I don’t see why anyone would bother playing through the whole mediocre single player again to pick them up. Luckily AVP does have a saving grace up its sleeve: multiplayer. There are a number of different game modes, the usual Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are on offer, but then some specifically created for the AVP universe, such as Infestation and Predator Hunt. These are very enjoyable (if there are an enough people) and it’s something that you will actually go back to. You have your ranking system as well, but sadly you only unlock skins for ranking up, so there is no real incentive to do it. However my biggest concern with the multiplayer is the servers. If someone leaves a game, it’ll automatically end and once a game has finished, you’ll taken straight back to the ‘Select a game type’ screen and end up waiting another 5 minutes for the ridiculous auto-match to find you a game. 

To conclude, there were big hopes for AVP, and for one I personally thought it would deliver, sadly it really hasn’t and has come out as a mediocre title at the best of times. Boring game design, outdated mechanics and an uninspired story are just some of the lacklustre features of this title. It seems that every decent aspect of the game is ruined by some sort of problem.

It may appeal to hardcore fans of the movies and the multiplayer serves as quite a surprising amount of fun, but in all there are much better games to spend your hard earned money on this month. 

+ Good multiplayer
+ Spot on sound effects
+ Nice use of lighting and shadow effects

- Boring, repetitive gameplay
- Many confusing controls
- A story we’ve all seen before 

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