I was horrified. Not cause its bad, just cause its was nightmareish to play. It scared the crap out of me
It was some years ago i played this game. Somewhere around its release. I love the predator movie (mostly cause of the Minigun :), and I really love the Alien series, Especially the second movie - Aliens. I read allot about the Alien vs Predator on the forgotten console "Atari Jaguar". But I never came around to by the Jaguar, and off course not the game. When I saw that a PC version was gonna come out, I just hade to test it. And I hoped that this was going to be good.
But heck! the Nightmare was back. Not cause the game was bad, it was great. In a rather usual FPS way, the controlls worked almost as they should and so on. But the nightmare was in the shape of tenseness ... and Aliens! The Claustrophobia and so on was so intense that I actually in a terrified reflex threw away the mouse when I had my First Contact with an Alien ... there, in the creepy foggy hall, right after the open lift ... in that dark, cavelike room.
The mouse just flew out of my hand, and hit the floor, and I jumped up like actually been stalked by a real life alien. This is by far the most horrified experience i ever had in any type of media. Game or Movie. And I not the faint of hearted one. I love horror movies, and Survival horror genra of games. But this game made it mark in my brain ... burnt in to my retina for a long time :)
This is one of the best Licensed movie based games ever created. It manage to capture the horror the marines must have felt on the windy colony planet in "Aliens".
I Actually never finished the game. My nerves killed me and I just hade to let the game go. Sadly. The scanner sound was so perfect. the feeling and darkness of the game was perfect. And the thing that you can play as a predator or even an alien also makes the game a bit bigger.
But as an alien, the game is nothing as half as scary. To get the real nightmarish feeling you must play as the Marine. Thats the hard way to go, strait way to psychic care :) The Alien and Predator campaigns are just something to make the game last a bit longer EFTER you finnished it as a marine.
Now ... some 6 years later. AvP 2 have come out, (Hav'nt played that yeat). The AvP have aged, and other games have made horror better. But AvP was still a hard game, mostly for its criticised saving problems (wich was patched later to let you save everywhere for the yellow players :). I hope a AvP3 for the Next Gen machines comes out soon. That makes it all perfect, and so damn scary that no-one actually manage to play the game right thrue , without loosing his mind!
Over and out ... In space no one can hear you scream!
Heil H.R Giger ... the Father of the Alien creature.
// Rc - jadeLoTuZ - 2006