One of the best arcade style beat em ups I've played.
It was developed by Capcom and released in 1994.You gotta give kudos to Capcom because they took western liceneses and merged them to make a great game,lets not forget how many times western movie liceneses were used to make many horrible games by western developers.
You can play as 'Dutch',the main protagonist from the first Predator movie that Arnie played,or you can play as a cyborg female or as two different Predator aliens(one is a warrior and the other is a hunter).As you would expect,the type of character you play as will affect the power in their attacks as well as their agility.The predator aliens have great agility and can leap across the screen,where as Dutch has very powerful physical attacks but he cannot jump and Lynn(the cyborg woman)has great agility and is skillful at using firearms or bladed weapons and can perform a few special attacks but enemy attacks that hit her body do a lot more damage than with the other characters.The differences between the hunter and warrior predator are the hunter predator does much damage but has limited range with his attacks and cannot perform attacks when in mid-air where as the warrior predator does less damage but can use his weapon in mid-air and hit multiple targets.
The game allows the characters to carry a permanent weapon/s and they can use the weapon until it overheats and then you have to wait for the weapon to cool down before you can use it again.It's a better system than what other beat em up games do which is make you lose the weapon after a while and then make you have to find another weapon again and it means you might have to wait a while for that particular weapon to be available again.You can pick up other weapons to use temporarily if you want for a bit of gameplay variety or to give you a bit of extra advantage on the battlefield,such as picking up a gun to use while your permanent projectile weapon is cooling down.Using your main weapon effectively can be crucial when facing bosses because your main weapon can damage and knock down a boss from a distance.
Some of the boss battles are epic,and include fighting against Queen aliens or giant aliens and you'll even encounter the Queen when she's in her nest and will see people stuck to the sticky stuff on the walls meaning they've had eggs implanted inside them and you'll see egg layers running around and the plants the egg layers come out of in the nest area and it provides great atmosphere and the size and power and devastating attacks of a Queen alien is quite something.
The story even has a bit of a twist and it's not just the aliens you'll be fighting against.
What makes the gameplay for Alien vs Predator more fun than most other arcade style beat ups I've played is the enemies aren't cheap and usually if they land an attack on you it's because you made a mistake and even though the bosses have devestating attacks that cover a big area it's possible to learn their patterns and dodge their attacks.This game is not like other arcade beat em ups in which enemies start constantly landing cheap hits in certain areas in order to burn up your credits and to try to milk more money from you to keep playing the game.However,some stages such as when you're on moving vehicles require a bit of trial by error or guess work and can burn up your credits quickly.
The artstyle for the game suits the theme well,the aliens look like in the aliens movies and quite vicious,especially when they swarm you in numbers and when some of them open their extended-second mouth to try to bite you.The predators look just like in the movies and I like how after you complete a level they'll take off their masks and roar like in the movies.As you would expect from a game from that time,Dutch looks cartoony but he looks bada** too.
I like how the environments mix up urban,industrial and jungle.
This is easily one of the best arcade style beat em up games I've played and is probably the last true arcade style beat em up that I enjoyed before consoles changed beat em ups for the better by giving the player check points and action/adventure gameplay elements.
You can download the arcade version of this game for free and play it on a CPS2 emulator and if you like either of the movie series,you'll probably enjoy playing through this game at least one time.