AvP 3 PC is a different beast to the console offerings, wish Gamespots *cough* reviewers would realise this...
My specs : AMD Athlon 54 x2 4600+ , 4 Gig ram, GTX 260 (196.34 drivers), X-fi Extremegamer soundcard and running on Win 7 64 bit Home Premium (retail).
Settings: 1920x1200, High Textures, 16x Anisio, Dx11 mode.
Aliens versus Preditor (AvP) features some of the most well known iconic characters to have cloaked and burst onto the screens, as such its pretty hard to satisfy everyone when making a game about them, someone is going to find flaws.
Rebellion made the first AvP and captured its feeling and atmosphere, it literally scared me witless at the time. Monolith gave us AvP 2, and with it came interesting additions to the franchise and improved the MP so that it managed to keep a few servers full for a long time.
Rebellion is back with a third AvP, and fans wondered what it will bring to the table.
AvP 3 drops most of what Monolith brought to the game, namely classes and the much debated life cycle, however it also brings back the atmosphere of fear and claustiphobia from the first AvP game, as well as some truely horrific trophy kills.
AvP 3 features 3 species in an all out brawl with the Marines packing the heat with an arsonal of conventional weapons, the Preditors bring in some nasty alien weaponry and gadgets to help them stalk thier prey, and the Aliens coming in with insane speed , agility and pure fury.
This is a recipe for pure mayhem and its a meal fit for the fans.
Lets get down to the bones of the game, the PC version of AvP 3.
The game features 3 single player campaigns one for each species and lets the player experience 3 different perspectives in this 3 way brawl.
The Marine campaign is the best of the 3 species, delivering the fear and claustiphobia of the movies, and runs the longest at about 5 hours.
The Preditor and Alien campaigns clock in about 3 hours each, and serve to give the player a good opportunity to see with the Preditors helmet assited vision modes, and run around in the nimble clawed hands and feet of a deadly Xenomorph.
AvP 3 also introduces a intresting melee mechanic that has garnerd both praise and damnation from fans. Melee in AvP consists of Light and Heavy attacks with variations of both depending on the species and situation, melee also features blocks and counters.
In short a player can block a light attack, and if successfull can counter, a player cannot block a heavy attack but can use a faster light attack to interupt the opponents heavy attack.
A player who learns to recognise the attack animations and has some decent reactions can block, interupt and counter enemy melee attacks and turn the tide on a opposing player.
The main critism leveled at the melee is that the players lock on and auto aim at melee targets, making it very difficult to evade melee attacks and when lag is present it makes for some suprising hits and deaths.
The other big touted feature is the trophy and stealth kills, the notable difference is that Trophy Kills can be blocked if the victim has enough health and Stealth Kills cannot but require the killer to be behind his prey to execute.
Both Trophy and Stealth kills are suitably gory and indicitive of the franchise but are pretty long and in Multiplayer can lead the killer to recieving the same punishment from another player, in fact some trophy/stealth kill trains can occur.
The graphics of the game wont win any prizes for pushing graphical frontiers, they do convey the setting in a adequate fashion... the models of the Xenomorph are particularily noteworthy.
The audio also deserves a mention and worth praising as it does an excellent job of literally creeping out the player, or adding some serious impact to the action on screen.
The majority of the audio remains faithfull to the franchises.
The controls of the game are reported by many to be bad, but I found them to be suitable on a Mouse and Keyboard, by the time your have progressed through the campaigns you should be more than prepared for the Multiplayer.
The Alien controls do take some time to get used to due to the speed and agility of the creature, and its ability to walk on any surface... this can be disorientating at first and takes a few tries before you are sprinting and jumping all over the place.
There are also options to assist in the transitioning, and turning off motion blur will make it easier on the stomach.
The accusations of the controls being bad may be accurate for the gamepads, but for players used to WASD controls the controls are more than useable, and if not then a bit of remapping makes them more handy.
Multiplayer features 6 modes from standards like FFA DM, Species Team DM or Varied Species Team DM and Co Op Survival matches versus hordes of AI Aliens, to AvP specific types... namely Preditor Hunt, where one player is a Preditor hunting the other players who are Marines, or the Infestation mode where a team of Marines must survive against a Alien, each Marine killed respawns as a Alien player.
Now for the bad...
Unfotunately AvP 3 PC suffers from launch bugs, some are pretty serious as well. The most noted bug is the Dx 11 mode where players experience periodic stuttering where the game will pause for 5 - 10 seconds before resuming , the frequency and duration differs between machines, currently the work around is to play in Dx 9 mode.
Other bugs noted are loss of saved games, loss of gained rank, texture and geometry glitches, and long matchmaking times in the Multiplayer.
Some other bad news is that while Dedicated servers will be in the PC version, they are not ready yet and will be added in beta form soon after launch.
Overall its a mixed bag, fans of AvP2 will miss the features taken out like classes and life cycle, fans of the franchise will appreciate the atmosphere the game imparts and adrenaline junkies will love the frantic fast paced multiplayer experiences.
I would best describe AvP 3 PC as a blast for the fans, and a solid, if uninspired shooter for the rest.