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Overview

Aliens vs. Predator is the third title in the main AvP first-person shooter series, following Monolith's Aliens vs. Predator 2. It was created by the developers of the first title, Rebellion Developments. Like the other two titles in the series, it features both singleplayer and competetive multiplayer modes. It has three gameplay styles, one for each species, and three campaigns.

Gameplay

Much like Aliens versus Predator (1999) and Aliens versus Predator 2, Aliens vs. Predator (2010) is a first-person shooter that features different gameplay for each of the three species. There are three intertwined campaigns as well, just like previous entries. There is also a multiplayer mode, featuring many of the gameplay modes from the first game in the series. For the basic modes, there is Deathmatch, Species Team Deathmatch, and Team Deathmatch. Deathmatch is free-for-all, Species Team Deathmatch has three teams pitted against eachother (one team for each species), and Team Deathmatch has two teams of mixed species. The more specialty modes include Predator Hunt, Domination, Alien Infestation, and Survivor. Predator Hunt puts one player as a Predator and the rest of the players as marines. The Predator player must kill as many as possible in order to score points and add time to his countdown timer. If his countdown timer runs out or is killed by a marine, then he becomes a marine. Domination has a team of marines fighting a team of Aliens for map control. Teams score points by holding more flags, much like the Battlefield series. Alien Infestation pits one Alien player against a team of marines, and each time a marine dies be becomes an Alien. Lastly, Survivor has a team of four marines fighting against endless hordes of Alien forces.

The way melee combat is handled is the largest gameplay change since its predecessor. In this game, there is a complex melee fighting system in which players have access to attacks and blocks. Both Aliens and Predators have access to light attacks, heavy attacks, blocks, counter attacks, and pounce attacks. Light attacks are quick but can be simply countered with a block. Heavy attacks can break through a block but require a short “charge up” time to perform; during this charge up time the heavy attack can be canceled if the enemy performs a pounce attack. Pounce attack is performed by “targeting” the enemy (default “Shift” key on PC) and performing a light attack, this will make the Alien or Predator player lunge at the enemy from a far, but it still counts as a light attack. Finally, a counter attack can be performed by immediately executing a light attack after the enemy's light attack hits your block. Marines only have access to the light attack, block, and counter attack.

The other general gameplay addition for both Alien and Predator players is the “stealth kill” and “trophy kill” system. By sneaking up on unsuspecting prey, Aliens and Predators can perform an instant kill against the enemy. Also, if the enemy is close to death, Alien and Predator characters can perform a “trophy kill” from the front.

Aliens can climb on any surface just like the previous games. The Alien can also jump directly to a surface just by looking at it and pressing the jump key. Aliens can see the pheromones around enemies still, but they aren't color coded anymore. Aliens can also see enemies through walls. When using the heavy attack on a surface other than the ground, the Alien can perform a “tail attack” which makes the Tail lunge out like a spear. The game offers an “orient to surface automatically” setting, which will make it so you can run freely without having to press a key to orient to new surfaces. Aliens can also knock out lights in the environment, making it easier to blend into the dark environments.

The Predator has a higher emphasis on melee combat in this game, as mentioned above with the combat system. The Predator has significantly fewer weapons in his arsenal in this title, only having access to: wristblades, throwing spear, plasma-caster, throwing disc, and proximity mines. The Predator still uses both health and energy, with energy being used for energy-based weapons and healing kits. There are energy nodes throughout the level to restore energy. The Predator still uses two vision modes, the blue vision mode to see humans and the green ones to see Aliens. One new feature for the Predator is the focus jump mechanic, which allows Predator players to easily jump to new ledges.

The Marine plays largely the same as previous titles, having access to a wide variety of weapons such as: the iconic pulse rifle (which can fire grenades as well), the shotgun, smartgun, sniper rifle, flamethrower, and a pistol with unlimited ammo. Marines still use armor and health, and have a 180-degree motion tracker on their HUD.

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
Memory: 1 GB System RAM (XP)/ 2 GB System RAM (Vista)
Graphics: DirectX 9.0c compliant video card with 128 MB RAM (NVIDIA 7900 or better, ATI X1800 or better)
Hard Drive: 16 GB free hard drive space
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c

Staff Review (By Alain)

The proverbial Holy Grail. The treat we’ve all waited for more than a decade to be released. Our beloved site director, Orca, already blessed us with a review for Aliens vs. Predator, which you can find over in the forums. However, we all know site directors are drones that can’t write. And thus, I bring you a (mainly) unbiased review, with different mainly the same the exact same words as Orca.

[Editor’s Note: The only views aloud are those of Orca. His will is law. Heil the Whale.]

As with the predecessors, the benevolent gods were gracious enough to give us three campaigns; one for each race – Marine, Predator, and Alien. Each story follows the same basic story line, with the Marine and Predator stories that run a bit longer than the Alien counterpart, the weakest out of all three. While running around and slapping around Colonial Marines with your tail and eating out faces is certainly a good time, you can only do so much with a story line that involves such. In the basic scheme of things, humans make a mess of things as usual. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation discovers a vast temple, and wastes no time in busting in the door to find the special surprise inside.

The Marine campaign starts out with two ships, one identified as the USS Marlow, given the orders to perform a combat drop. A cloaked Predator ship then uncloaks and destroys the USS Marlow. At this point, Major Van Zandt orders the remaining ship to land. During the drop, Marine player Rookie, better known as the Bitch, is knocked unconscious. After the landing, Rookie is then sent around the colony doing various tasks in attempt to regain power, getting systems online, regaining communications. This side of the story begins in a lab, where several humans are kept and used for harvesting aliens. As one of the humans regains consciousness, a chestburster soon emerges, and the player chestburster is branded as Number 6. Cut to the full grown Number 6, you find yourself in shackles being used for testing. During one of the tests, Number 6 receives orders from the Queen to escape. In its attempt, 6 is gassed and recaptured. During the opening of the temple doors, power is cut and 6 is again released, this time successfully escaping and also releasing fellow Aliens as well as the Queen. With the arrival of the Marines, 6 begins killing them off and shutting down the colony’s systems.

Starting a little bit differently, the player finds himself in a small tutorial, namely to get one accustomed to the Predator HUD. Upon completion of the tutorial, the player and a few other Elite Predators are sent to respond to a distress signal received by Youngbloods. Upon arrival at the planet, the body of a Youngblood is discovered, and their wristplates set to self destruct for obvious reasons. Moving into the temple, the forward base set up by the Colonial Marines is disabled and Aliens are released. Throughout the campaign, the player comes across the other Elite Predators and obtains additional weaponry, such as the mine and smart disc. Entering the ruins, the player acquires an ancient mask capable of spotting Aliens, as well as showing a playback of the first victory that the Predators had over the Xenomorphs at this temple. As the player moves through the campaign, he comes into an arena, and battles a Praetorian. Once the Praetorian is defeated, the player is granted the combi-stick. Venturing further, the player is ultimately faces off against a PredAlien (as seen to be created in the Alien campaign). Once the PredAlien is killed, the temple is wiped from existence, and the player returns to the ship.

Overall, much of the gameplay is rather repetitive, however it does offer a genuine storyline that can be fun to complete. However, it leaves something to be desired, as all three campaigns can be completed in a matter of a day or two. Most of the “boss battles” (ie; Marine vs. Praetorians, Elite Predator; Alien vs. Elite Predator; Predator vs. Praetorian, PredAlien) are halfway decent. The biggest gripe lies with the final battle against the PredAlien in the Predator campaign. It is arguably the most repetitive aspect, as it can be defeated by doing no more than spamming the Plasma Cannon, and letting it recharge while the PredAlien awkwardly retreats and stomps in attempt to cause collapse of the room.

Perhaps the lifeblood of almost any modern game now, the multiplayer unfortunately leaves much to be desired. While it can certainly be fun when you’re having a good streak, or if your team happens to be winning, it is more often incredibly aggravating in how gameplay was laid out. As seen with AvP2, the “easier” weapons (ie; Plasma Cannon, Disc) are over used. If those aren’t being used in a fight, you have to be in a constant circular motion in order to avoid being “E-killed”. A good idea on paper, however, it was poorly implemented. The basic idea behind the E-kill was to act as Trophy kill, and disembowel your foe in one of numerous graphic ways. A sweet idea indeed, however, when it’s all that is used it quickly grows old as it becomes not a fight of who has more skill and/or know-how, it becomes a fight of who-can-press-E-first.

Most of the maps are relatively generic and aren’t poorly designed or anything spectacular either. With the exception of Pyramid. I believe Rebellion did something wonderful with the map, creating an ever changing environment. Better yet, as Marine the moving components actually appear on your Motion Tracker, which can certainly create a slight sense of vertigo as it is suddenly much more difficult to differentiate the Alien bleep rushing at you from the moving map bleep.

Damage is also another issue in multiplayer. Many of the Marines weapons are fairly lame in terms of the damage they deal out unless you happen to be shooting someone pointblank in the face. The smartgun, while does well at tracking, does very minimal in the damage it deals and often takes more time than you have to kill someone. The flamethrower is borderline useless, as the primary does next to nothing for damage. The secondary on the flamethrower, while a decent idea, was again poorly implemented. The idea behind it is to spray fuel on the ground, and then hit it with your primary to essentially create a wall of fire. However, seldom does it find an actual place in multiplayer, due to both the speed of the game, as well as the extreme lack of damage. The pulse rifle, shotgun, and sniper are truly the only load outs that are at all acceptable. Often with the pulse rifle/sniper however, firing in the facial region typically is the only way to succeed.

The Alien feels rather neglected from multiplayer gameplay, as the pounce does not stun as the Predator pounce does and the secondary attack takes much longer to wind up than the Predator counterpart. Perhaps the one advantage that the Alien has over the other two species is it’s increased speed, allowing for easier access to those wonderful Trophy kills. The Alien also has the ability to wall climb (duh) and use its secondary attack without any warm up, so the tail can be spammed away, typically killing any opponent within two lashes.

The Predator, I believe, is the most unbalanced species in the game. Their pounce, ironically enough, stuns the opponent, and momentarily knocks them down. This seems odd to me, as seen above, as the Alien pounce does no such thing. Again, as seen above, the Predator heavy attack has a much shorter warm up time than that of the Alien, and is not nearly as noticeable as the foreign specie counterpart is. In addition to all this, you also have the Trophy kill, as well as a one shot kill Plasma shot (although, in all fairness, it can be fairly easy to dodge if you’re on top of your game). The disc is also fairly absurd, as you can now attempt to control where it goes. With patching, the damage it does has been reduced to avoid one-shot-kills, however it still does a good number on any individual.

All in all, I found this game to be fairly decent. I don’t believe it was what we were all hoping that it would aspire to be, however, if Rebellion were to release the SDK for it I believe great things could be done to make it go that much farther.

Single player is nothing too amazing. The campaigns are fairly short and can be completed in just a few hours of game play. However, getting three campaigns is almost like getting three games in one, if not for the length issue. Overall though it provided an enjoyable story, and I had fun with it. Unfortunately however, it’s nothing that’s great enough to make you want to go through it again.

Multiplayer, while fun at first, is what I find to be weakest for this game. Unbalanced species combined with an uncanny need for incredibly low latency to avoid those Trophy kills don’t add up to much of a good time

6.5/10