Beautifully rendered carnage marred by faulty controls.

User Rating: 7.5 | Aliens vs. Predator X360
By jeffidiyah | Review Date:
The AVP reboot, as I like to call it, has a lot of things going for it. Smooth graphics, a myriad of ways to kill your prey, and three completely different ways to play the game depending on the character you choose. It isn't simply a question of picking who you think looks the coolest, or who has the weapon set you prefer. Each character requires a different mindset in order to effectively use them. The Alien is best when you use it to stalk and wait for the perfect opportunity to pounce, delivering a quick and satisfying kill. The Predator gives you a chance to be a true hunter, allowing you to lure your quarry away from their zone of safety (if there is such a thing) and pick them off one by one. The Marine, while the most orthodox of the first person perspective choices, gives you a sense of dread as you feel like a soft piece of meat in a den of ravenous wolves, making your survival at the end all the more satisfying.
That being said, this game has its flaws. Quite a few of them. The AI is a bit too stupid for such a pretty game that is otherwise fairly well polished. The aforementioned luring aspect of the Predator can be used and abused because the idiotic enemy NPC forgets it was just tricked mere minutes ago. It even forgets it has just seen a Predator and chased it for 5 minutes before losing it in the forest at times! The control scheme, while it tries hard to be innovative, falls short on responsiveness. Especially the kind that is required in a FPS. The hair-trigger timing that was implemented does not quite sync with the somewhat sluggish manner the game responds to button presses. While I see no way to get around the control scheme based on what was needed in the game, I just wish it felt more fluid. Ninja Gaiden was a game that required a fighting game's worth of complex button pressing, yet it felt highly fluid.
I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to play a unique FPS, away from the now mundane feel of the Halos and Call of Duties. While those games are much more well done, they won't offer the kind of Sci Fi thrills of AVP.

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