Aliens and Predator have gotten a bad wrap in the past decade or so. With the not so great Aliens vs. Predator movies and such games as Predator: Concrete Jungle and a couple of games based on the AVP films both franchises were on life support. However, things are starting to look up with the release this year of Predators to theaters and Aliens vs. Predator to the gaming community. The film has been well received by both critics and audiences and will hopefully lead to a new series of films for both series. However, the game has much more work to do.
Aliens vs. Predator abandons the contemporary setting of the movies for some time between Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. Humans are well aware of the xenomorph threat to the point where killing the things has apparently become the expressed mission of the United States Colonial Marines. Xenomorph biology is taught in basic training and most civilians would much rather kill themselves than be face hugged knowing full well the results. It's an interesting setting and a good choice as it gives the game free reign to cover a time period that has been left mostly untouched.
This all leads to the games high points which are namely it's setting and atmosphere. Everything about this game screams Aliens and Predator. The Human colony is on a dusty and dirty planet (whose name is almost never mentioned) and everything has that old and used look to it. The humans are all regular blue color miner types or scientists and act the stereotype. The colony has nice touches like a techno thumping bar complete with holographic strippers and the requisite audio logs from various inhabitants. The Alien hives all look appropriately wet and disgusting and the Predator's tech all looks like some kind of high tech fetish wear.
The sounds are also spot on. Pulse Rifles make their distinctive fast paced spurts, Aliens let out their bizarre elephant roars and hisses, and Predator clack menacingly and mimic voices. So, basically Rebellion nailed making this look and sound the way it should.
Now, on to the not so good which is basically everything else. The game is broken into three campaigns in which you will play as a Marine, Alien, and Predator. The story involves the discovery of a Predator pyramid on the aforementioned Human colony, Bishop Weyland showing up to open it, the inevitable Alien infestation, and the Predators coming to clean up the whole mess. There are some further details involving story from the first AVP film and the original Predator encounters with Xenomorphs but it's all pretty peripheral to the goings on. Of course I'm paraphrasing since the entire story is presented in such a disjointed and confusing way that you can't really bring yourself to care about anything that's going on. All three campaigns begin at roughly the same point but then weave and intertwine in such a way that they never quite intersect. There's also a blatant set up for a sequel in all three but I suppose that's par for the course.
The gameplay basically falls into two catagories: shooter and melee. The shooting is competent if uninspired and the melee is...not. The Marine campaign is the highlight as it most captures the Aliens feel of a lone Human trying to get out of a situation gone terribly terribly wrong. The shooting is responsive and the weapons do what you would expect them to do. All the weapons have primary and alt fires. It also takes up roughly half the game.
The remaining half is split between Alien and Predator which are both heavily melee oriented. This is by far the weakest part of the entire game. You're expected to believe that Aliens and Predator are going to block and counter each other boxing style until one of them goes down. It's totally unrealistic and plays in such a clunky way that it sucks any fun you had in the Marine campaign straight out of the experience. Also, if you can manage to sneak up on an opponent you can perform an elaborate finishing move which treats you to a brutal one shot kill. The downside to these are that they repeat often and you're still vulnerable to damage while performing them.
Oh, and the Aliens abilities to crawl on any surface are fun in theory but nausea inducing in practice. You also can easily become horrifically disorientating leading to you having no idea where you are or which direction is down.
The AI is also rather retarded. Often Aliens will bug out and jitter back and forth in the same spot. Human opponents will either act completely retarded and not notice you killing their buddy beside them or become precognitive and gun you down from a mile away. The bosses are also a major let down as they often can be taken down in a minute or so especially with the Predators arsenal which is borderline unbalanced.
There is also a full suite of multiplayer modes with some quite interesting twists. In addition to standard Deathmatch and the required Horde mode you can also play as a Predator stalking enemies or an Alien trying to "convert" a bunch of Humans. I'm sure these are great but the multiplayer community six months after release has pretty well died.
So, basically Aliens vs. Predator is a game which will thoroughly scratch a fan of either franchises nostalgia. That won't last long though as the glaring gameplay issues will quickly lead to frustration. The AI issues and the drawbacks of the Alien and Predator campaigns kill any good will which the early segments of the game create. Pick this up only if you're a huge fan of the source material or can find it cheap. Hopefully Rebellion learns from these mistakes and improves in the discussed sequel.
