[B][I][U]Aliens Vs. Predator[/U][/I][/B]
[IMG]http://www.bravenewgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/avp_g4w_2dpack_pegi-noscale-727x1024.jpg[/IMG]
[B][U]Overview[/U][/B]
3 Different species collide in an interstellar battle for supremacy, the humans testing and using alien specimens, the predators vying for control over their territory which the humans have discovered while the Aliens expectedly escape and cause havoc for the other species.
I must say, i've been looking forward to this game for a long time, although Rebellions more recent efforts have put doubts in my mind as to how much they could disappoint me. Did they meet the goals of fans and surprise other gamers who looked at the title with severe skepticism? Or did they fail and deliver a mediocre, at best, title that only echoes what was once a thriving franchise in the gaming community? Well we will see.
[B][U]Graphics:[/U] 9/10[/B]
With Aliens vs. Predators' advanced graphics it's almost hard to say it isn't something to gander at and appreciate while you unload clips into Xenomorphs and Predators alike. Its dynamic lighting helps to show off the grand architecture and complex environments with reflective lighting and dynamic ambient lighting. It's textures have amazing amounts of detail and can show you every inch of a Xeno's, Marines, or Predators body and weaponry with astounding accuracy leaving fans of the series relishing every minute of all the game has to offer, especially in DirextX 11 with it's Tesselation and advanced lighting. The way the light shimmers off of water and the sleak, black, Xenomorph bodies is almost something to behold while treading through sewers with debri hanging from the ceiling and garbage on the ground with a light source or two showing a path. Although, there are some small graphical glitches you may encounter, although not too common and only noticeable for a slight second, it doesn't pry away from Rebellions efforts to bring the AVP universe to life with it's rich level design and compelling array of variety in environments, changing from claustrophobic, dark interiors, to large outdoor area's with realtime backdrops of enourmous buildings towering hundreds, possibly thousands of feet above the player seamlessly.
[B][U]Controls:[/U] 8/10[/B]
At first they take some getting used to, especially the Alien since it has a dizzying role of going from wall to ceiling, to floor, and then back to the ceiling, but everything is taken into account so well, it works smoothly to create an easy way of transitioning from all the different surfaces as an alien, and jumping from treetop from treetop as predator. Melee can be frustrating to some, and may not fully be able to grasp it too quickly, but with enough play time it's sure to come into it's own as you advance throughout the game, countering, blocking, and finally, finishing opponents.
[B][U]Story:[/U] 7.5/10[/B]
The story is satisfying and straightforward, not overly complex and it provides a nice amount of twists and surprises hidden within it. Although the Predalien, which is introduced so early in the Predators campaign, doesn't appear again until much, much later in the story, making you wonder what happened to it throughout the rest of the story, aswell as throughout the marines story, as they take place pretty much on the same time frame. I will also say that the ending to the Aliens story, although exciting, to see what becomes of our little xeno friend at the end, becomes completely null from what you will soon discover upon starting the marine or predator campaign. So apart from the questionable details of the predalien and the lack of each species stories combining more throughout the game, the story isn't an award winner, but it was a very pleasing experiance, which leaves itself open.
[B][U]Gameplay:[/U] 9.5/10[/B]
With the 3 different races, it offers variety of plenty sorts for all gamers, Marine for the intense, survival horror esque, first person shooter experiance, and Predator and Alien for the stealth approaches, but each in their own way as the Alien must rely on speed and agility while the Predator relies on tactics and brute force. As i played through the Marine campaign i found myself elated throughout it's entirety, with a nice variety of enemies, a large array of weaponry to use at my disposal against synthetics, aliens, and predators, and the seemingly neverending feeling of despair as the marine sloshed his way through brutal, bloody battles and escaped from enemies that never quit, as the aliens jump from wall to wall dodging your gunfire. The Marine truly was an exhilirating struggle for life as you fought to keep facehuggers off you, bash at aliens which had their legs blown off, clawing and grabbing at you, running and hiding from the Predators firing off their shoulder cannons at you and laughing in the background, giving you the sense that at any moment they could jump down and make a trophy out of you. There are also collectible audio diaries scattered throughout each level which you can collect and listen to, to gain more knowledge on what happened there and about the facilities past. No other campaign quite offers the reward of truly experiancing earth shattering intensity and horror like the moment you accidentally wonder into an egg den armed with a flamethrower and seeing one of them open right before you, or having the aliens blended into the environment and come crawling out of the walls like in the movies.
Alien was refreshing to play again, with fond memories of hiding on the ceiling and hissing at civilians and soldiers, causing them to flee or spray their weaponry in the direction they think you are, only to quickly run behind them and headbite them, only this time, the gore is upped, and the AI is smarter but still has the same dynamic feel like in the original although they won't run screaming from you or drop their weapons this time around. No, this time the marines are tough, they have sentries set up, they have flamethrowers, they have auto targeting smartguns, shotguns, "they've got tactical missles, sharp knives and pointed sticks", this time, there ready for you.... Almost. Like in the original you can also hiss, but this time it serves a more important function, leading a soldier away from a group perhaps or out into open area, although be careful, if the marines seen too much or becomes too nervous, it will ignore your calls for the desire to rip your steely fangs into there skulls and play it safe. Transitioning from surface to surface soon becomes a natural instinct as you whip out lights with your tail creating a veil of darkness around you while you jump halfway across the room before they even knew you were there. The Alien has 3 weapons at his disposal, light attack, for quick ambushing, heavy attack, for stunning your prey and commensing a finisher on them, or tail whip, which you perform while on a wall or ceiling, which also knocks them down but is much quicker. Crawling right above the heads of unwary marines as you lay your trap and take them out has never fealt so natural or satisfying until now where you can litterally impale enemies with your tail, head bite their eyes or brains out, or even rip there heads off.
The Predator. The lord of the jungle, the ultimate hunter, the demon, all names derived from the fact that the Predator is indeed what his name implies. Through every level you jump from treetop to treetop, rooftop to rooftop, rubble to rubble, or mabye you prefer a more direct approach? Wizzing by unsuspecting marines while cloaked, startling them, or mabye you want to lay some mines for a patrol to stumble upon and then take out any survivors with your spear or Shoulder cannon? The Predator truly is the most sandbox experiance throughout all 3 campaigns and certainly lives up to his namesake. Trophy killing is a glorifyingly violent situation in which your tear the skull from the marines body along with his spine (sometimes), one trophy kill i find to be particularly interesting, is how the predator pulls the marines head off by ripping his spine out of his stomach and pulls his head out along with it. Stealth killing is also prevalent in the Predators campaign, along with the Aliens. Although as a predator, sneaking up on prey is all the more easier, with the ability to cloak and jump behind a marine, he'll have a wristblade through his chest before his buddies are even aware your near them! Fighting the aliens as a predator is also it's own reward, and when it's 3 on 1, you know it's a fair fight, tossing a disc blade at one, slicing it's leg off and causing it to fall from where it was on a wall or ceiling or mabye causing one to explode in a fashion of limbs and blood with a charged shot from the shoulder cannon, you take out your prey how you want to, although i feel like the predator should be given a speargun or plasma pistol to his arsenal. Either way, at the end of the day, playing as the predator shows what it's really like to have power.
[B][U]Multiplayer:[/U] 8/10[/B]
I haven't been able to get into too many online games so far, but from what i've experianced, it is very fun, especially the specific game modes tailored for the game such as Infestation or Predator hunt, where the Predator must eliminate the marines within the given amount of time or in infestation where there is 1 alien and the rest are marines and the alien must kill players to add forces to the xeno horde. It uses both a matchmaking system and a browser based system, with matchmaking having either normal player matches or ranked matches. There are also 7 total game modes, and 8 total maps put together for all game modes.
[B][U]Overall:[/U] 8.4/10[/B]
I found Aliens Vs. Predator to be an extremely satisfying throwback to the times when Rebellion knew how to make good games and from the weeks i've spent going through the levels of AVP GOLD 1999 over and over again. It's a great game that offers a unique atmosphere with a blend of survival horror, stealth, and FPS all in one box with a well worked MP. Theres no other experiance quite like AvP in the gaming genre and it still proves to be a working combination to this day, showing that yes, Aliens and Predators DO work well together and yes, this IS a truly great game to start the new year off with.
[U][I]*Please do not merge this thread*[/I][/U]
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Missed the other thread." - RayvenQ))[/highlight]
I'd say overrated but I would be lying.
This almost feels a bit biased.
Nice little review.
[QUOTE=TheNoiseExplosion;20296713]This almost feels a bit biased.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, and what review isn't?
Also, spoiler tags are ["sp"][/"sp"], no quotes.
[QUOTE=zeldar;20296617]I'd say overrated but I would be lying.[/QUOTE]
IGN rated it an 8.5....
And i only wrote what i experianced, i wasn't trying to be biased if that's how it came out, that's just what it was like for me, everything i wrote can be done ingame and can be observed from the levels/AI.
Sad thing that the specimen had to go that way.
I feel that Multiplayer deserved a 9, but other than that I'd say it's pretty solid. The story stunk, I cannot argue with that. I laughed, though that Weyland just HAD to fuck things up by opening the predator sacred site.
[QUOTE=MutantBadger;20297951]I feel that Multiplayer deserved a 9, but other than that [B]I'd say it's pretty solid[/B]. The story stunk, I cannot argue with that. I laughed, though that Weyland just HAD to fuck things up by opening the predator sacred site.[/QUOTE]
Thank you.
I gave MP an 8 because, well, i felt it was good, but it had it's problems (hosts leaving disconnecting, lobby migrating, sometimes matchmaking taking up to 5 minutes to locate a single server for a specific game mode).
I hate how all these reviewers are slandering it with innaccurate overviews of the game, specificaly gameinformer and gamestop to be precise. I don't hate reviewers that rate it low, i hate it when they say things that simply are not true, for instance ""Awkward and inconsistent controls", that's not true at all, i had no problem navigating my way through the levels, sure i would accidentally mess up everyone now and then as an alien, but i blame no one else but me, i don't blame games for my sloppyness, another one "Poor level design" the levels are designed wonderfully, i don't see anything "poor" about them, the attention to detail is definately there as you can see carefully constructed environments with barricades, scorch marks and melted holes in the environment from the Aliens acid blood.
[QUOTE=bud389;20296379][sp]You are transported to the spaceship hovering above the planets surface at the end of the alien campaign, then you turn into a queen, although at the beggining of the marine or predator campaign, you see the predator ship blow up the very same spaceship[/sp]
[/QUOTE]
wrong. [sp]the Marlow was the ship that the Rookie came from. Number 6 was still active planetside when the Marlow was hit. Number 6 was sent to a different spaceship shortly after, when the Rookie kills the Matriarch. you can ever hear some Marines talking about the Marlow during the Alien campaign.[/sp]
[QUOTE=Xenomoose;20298291]wrong. [sp]the Marlow was the ship that the Rookie came from. Number 6 was still active planetside when the Marlow was hit. [B]Number 6 was sent to a different spaceship shortly after, when the Rookie kills the Matriarch[/B]. you can ever hear some Marines talking about the Marlow during the Alien campaign.[/sp][/QUOTE]
That's a good point, i may have to fix that.
[QUOTE=KigJow;20297614]Sad thing that the specimen had to go that way.[/QUOTE]
Epic that it turned into a motherfucking [sp]Queen[/sp] i feel bad for whoever the fuck is on that ship now, especially Weyland
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