I love the Alien series and I enjoy the Predator series. I never owned a PC back in the day so I missed to two great Alien vs Predator games. So it seems the 2011 reboot is all I have. It's goal was to bring the franchise back to life for the new Alien Queen, SEGA. Can the team at Rebellion bring us a fight worthy of legends? Or is the franchise all dried up?
The story is relatively simple like usual. The Weyland Yutani group is after a power buried on a random planet and the Marines are called in to protect him. Things go wrong and the ship is shot down by and unknown hostile. They crash land and the team gets separated. The Marines are then set upon by the Xenomorphs and it's clear that something is wrong here. You can play as three different characters; a nameless Rookie Marine, a Predator Elite or a Xenomorph label specimen Number 6. Each offers a different story for the most part, but the Marine's campaign offers the most. It's story is just an excuse to get the three races together and that's fine, I guess, but it would be nice for a more in-depth story, especially since the franchise has it in it.
The gameplay was the focus here and it's pretty fun. You control all three races in first-person and each controls very differently. The Marine controls like your average first-person shooter for the most part, but he feels like he's from the past. This is appropriate for the franchise, but it can be a little weird at first. You can throw a flare down to light up a large area, but you can just use your mounted flashlight if you want. The Marine also has the series famous Motion Tracker, a device that beeps faster the closer you get to a moving hostile. You get only a few weapons in the game but they feel good to shoot and it's satisfying killing a horde of Xenos. The Marine can block and can bash an enemy with the stock of his gun, but it defies belief that the lowly human can block an attack from a Xeno or Predator and counter with a bash and proceed to gun down the stunned alien. Sure it's for balance purposes, but still.
The Predator controls are also weird to get used to, but they soon become easy to use. The Predator's primary weapons are his claws and they can be used to kill up close, but he also has some ranged weapons to use as well, such as the plasma caster. The ranged weapons take energy, however, so you will need to recharge at power sources often. The two biggest weapons in the Predator's arsenal are stealth and his jumping powers. When looking where you want to jump, hold the specific button and press the jump button. This causes you to leap great distances and great heights silently. The stealth is fairly obvious as the Predator's can cloak. Sneak up behind any unsuspecting Marine and perform a gory stealth kill.
The Predator has both a light and heavy attack and they can block attacks as well. Their counter attack also knocks enemies down and this will allow the Predator to perform a violent finisher attack, similar to the stealth kills. They are all excessively violent, but fitting and awesome. The Predator can also change to different visors, one for detecting humans and another for detecting Xenos for example. The Predator is really fun to play and they are so powerful that they are limited in multiplayer.
This brings me to the final and most difficult to use; the Xenomorphs. Xenomorph gameplay is similar to the Predator's as it focused on stealth and violent kills, but they have their own twist and that's that they can climb on walls and go through vents. The vents are mostly for story purposes, but climbing on the walls is the real deal. You hold the transition button and this allows you to mount any flat surface you are near allowing you to go right up the walls. This is extremely confusing at first, especially since the controls are a little awkward, but incredibly enjoyable once you get the hang of things. Their combat is a little more simple than the Predator's seeing as they only have melee and stealth combat, but you need to be a little smarter with the Xeno.
As a Xeno, you are a little weaker than the Predator but you have no health items either. Both the Marine and Predator have healing items that can be popped at anytime, but the Xenos are left to rely on automatically regenerating health. This isn't a huge issue since the Alien is the fastest species, but it can be a bit unfair. Thankfully, a lot of the areas are really dark so you can blend in, not to mention the AI doesn't know how to look up.
The final thing to talk about is the multiplayer. It's just your standard multiplayer with your standard modes, but it's made all the more interesting thanks to the addition of Xenomorphs and Predators. Having these species to play as makes it more fun and owning people as a lowly Marine is also fun. It's a tense multiplayer experience that can be hours of fun, now only if people were playing it. There is also a horde mode where up to four Marines fight off hordes of Xenos. It's nothing special, but it's pretty fun and intense. Overall, the game is pretty clumsy, but lots of fun once you get the hang of things.
The music is dark and tense and fits in with the franchise. The voice work is good and it brings back Bishop and his actor linking the game to the film series. The sound effects are nice and gross and they are all taken straight from the movies adding some authenticity to the whole thing.
The visuals are a little mixed, but mostly good. The textures aren't that great overall, but the lighting and character models are great, especially the Predator and Xenos. The environments are taken straight from Aliens and Predators and that's one thing this game does leagues better than the AvP movies. There are the old 80s Aliens style colony buildings and lush green jungles, perfect for both the Alien and the Predator. The real highlight here is the violence, of course. The stealth kills are painfully brutal; chopping off heads, impaling through the eyes, tearing out the necks and ripping the whole spinal cord out while it's attached to the head. It's disgusting and it's awesome. Another neat little detail is the ability to see your body when you look down. It's awesome when you are the Predator and the Marine, but it's even better when you are the Xeno because when you spin around in place, your tail is in your sight showing that they put enough time into it that your tail has it's own movement. It's full of tiny details like that and, while it isn't technically impressive, it's impressive in it's own right.
PROs
- Fun, inventive gameplay
- Uses the source material well
- Fantastic environments feel like they are taken from the movies
- Brutal, disgusting stealth kills
- Playing as a Xeno is the best thing ever
- Three different campaigns
- Lots of collectibles
- Some great little visual details
- Good voice work and fantastic sound effects
- Fun multiplayer
- Nightmare mode is brutally difficult
CONs
- Controls are clunky
- Multiplayer is dead
- Game is a little short
- Story is paper-thin
- Visuals are lacking from a technical point of view
Overall, Aliens vs Predator is much better than expected from a licensed material. It's fun, if a little clunky, brutal and dark. It uses the source material well and the work put into the Xenomorph and Predator's character model is great. It's not a mind-blowing game, but it's an enjoyable one.
Story: 6.0/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Audio: 7.5/10
Presentation: 8.0/10
TOTAL: 7.5/10