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Overview

Aliens vs. Predator 2, much like its predecessors, is a first-person shooter designed around three separate but distinct gameplay styles, each one being that of a different species. There are three campaigns, one for each species (Alien, Predator, or Colonial Marine), and several multiplayer modes.

Gameplay

Just like Aliens vs. Predator (1999), the single-player campaigns are designed around the gameplay features of each species. The progress in a straight-forward way, with a linear series of conventional levels spanning several different environments. This time, however, there is a more coherent plot with actual characters and dialouge.

The Colonial Marine plays very similarly to the Marine in the first Aliens versus Predator game. They use a variety of weapons including: the iconic pulse-rifle that has both normal fire and grenades, knife, a pistol, shotgun, a smartgun that auto-tracks targets, flamethrower, grenade launcher, sniper rifle, SADAR missle launcher, and minigun. The marine wears armor for protection and uses healthpacks around the environment in order to heal themselves. They use a shoulder-mounted flashlight, image intensifier, and flares (flares are only in singleplayer) to improve visibility in dark areas, and they also have a 180-degree motion-tracking device on their HUD in order to detect enemies from a distance. Marines might not be as durable as his or her alien enemies, but they have good firepower and also have access (in some cases) to the powerful exosuit armed with a laser cannon, flamethrower, minigun, and rocket launcher.

Predators play very similarly to how they are designed in the previous game. They must manage both health and energy, but can refill energy using an “energy sifter” and can heal himself with the medicomp. The Predator has two melee weapons this time around: wristblades and a combat spear. The wristblades are weaker and shorter range, but can charge up for a strong single-strike. The combat spear has a bit longer range and does more damage, but cannot charge up. Predators also see the return of many weapons from its predecessor, including: the speargun for sniping, plasma caster for mid-range combat, pistol for explosive weaponry (which now has an alternate fire that fries the Marine motion-tracker and freezes Aliens in place), and the disc. They also have some other new weapons, however, like the SMID-bombs (actually called the Pred-bombs) which are throwable remote mines and the netgun which can trap enemies in a net until they can cut themselves out. Predators can still use the same three vision modes as it could in its predecessor, and can use a cloaking device as well.

As an Alien the player can explore most of the game's environments freely, even climbing across walls and ceilings, just like in the first game. The Alien does not have traditional weapons still, but can use its claws as a primary attack and the teeth for a “headbite” insta-kill. Aliens can also use a tail attack, but it does not do much damage. Instead, the tail attack is used to stun opponenets. Aliens can also now use a pounce attack, which allows the Alien player to move across large areas very quickly. Also, if an enemy is directly hit from an Alien pounce, they are subsequently stunned. Aliens also still see the pheromones of their enemies, with humans showing up with blue pheromones, Predators showing up with green, and other Aliens showing up in red pheromones. Aliens still must eat bodies in order to gain health. New additions to the Alien gameplay is the ability to play as a facehugger and chestburster. There is only one part of the singleplayer in which one can play as these two additional forms of the Alien, but multiplayer settings can allow for Alien players to go through the Alien lifecycle.

Multiplayer makes a return in Aliens versus Predator 2, with several returning multiplayer modes but with new additions as well. The modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Hunt, Survivor, Overrun, and Evac. Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are as expected, either free-for-all or team based frag-fest (either based on a time limit or frag limit). Hunt is where there is one hunter against everyone else. Survivor has a human team against one Alien or Predator, and every human who dies turns to the other side. Overrun pits a team of attackers against a team of defenders; the attackers win if they kill all the defenders before the time is up and the defenders win if they are alive at the end of the round. And finally, Evac has one team trying to make it to the evac point and the other team trying to prevent them from doing so. A new addition to multiplayer is the concept of player classes. Each race has several classes, each with different models, and each with a different weapon loadout. Some classes have more health than others, usually at the expense of speed. Aliens perhaps have the most unique classes and the ones that make the biggest difference. Aliens can play as the Drone (balanced speed and strength), Runner (extremely fast and smaller than the Drone, but very low health), Predalien (slightly slower speed but quite strong), and Praetorian (slow but extremely strong, also cannot walk on walls/ceilings). There is also a completely new playable human team for multiplayer: The Corporates. They play exactly the same as the Marines, but have different weapon loadouts for their classes.

System Requirements

System: PIII 450 or equivalent
RAM:128 MB RAM
CD-ROM: 4X CD-ROM
Video Memory: 16 MB VRAM
Hard Drive Space: 750 MB
Mouse: Yes
Sound Board: Yes
DirectX: DirectX v8.0

Staff Review (By Orca)

Aliens versus Predator 2 is one of my all time favorite games. Now don't go running off just yet; because I enjoy the good parts so much does not mean that I don't have some issues to point out. It is by no means a perfect game, actually quite far from it actually, yet I still consider it one of my favorites. How could this be? It doesn't seem very logical, yet it just works out that way. I personally believe it is because the game soars when it gets things right. And it gets things right way more often than it gets things wrong. It is, quite possibly, the greatest video game adaption of the franchise to date. But once again, there are some issues with it.

Aliens versus Predator 2 has always held a special place in my heart. I remember playing it when I was quite young, right when it came out, even though it was probably not the best thing for an 11 year old to play. But by then I was already an avid fan of the franchise. I loved the Alien and Predator movies dearly, and I remember playing the first Aliens versus Predator and loving it. But this one was the same thing but it looked amazing at the time it came out. I could actually play as the facehugger and chestburster. I could actually stalk my prey as a Predator, or be frightened by the immensely foreboding atmosphere during the Marine campaign. I absolutely loved it. And once I actually got a hold of my own copy, I never tired from it. I played the campaigns about once a year and played the multiplayer portion quite extensively.

The game's singleplayer campaigns hold up extremely well, even to today's standards. Very few first-person-shooter games will give you as much bang for your buck as Aliens versus Predator 2 will in terms of singleplayer, especially nowadays. The game offers three completely distinct and full campaigns: one for each species. Not only do these campaigns feel like full experiences, but they also intertwine with one another extremely cleverly. To be more specific, they all act as standalone plots, but still intertwine in such a way that they craft an overarching plot. And while the plot itself isn't the best the gaming industry has to offer, it is still extremely solid and well-written. You actually feel like, while completing the objectives of your particular playable character's sub-plot, that you are part of a more grand plotline. This is because you experience the same situation from three different perspectives, and you can see the effects of the things you did in the other campaigns. One part that I will always remember is the part in which all three characters coincidentally convene at one spot in the narrative, and end up helping each-other out before moving on. All of the characters are pretty well written as well, with Rykov and Eisenberg serving as well-crafted villains that the players can easily hate enough to be driven towards killing them.

The campaigns themselves also have extremely strong attributes. The Alien campaign has one of the most memorable opening sequences in first-person-shooter history. The opening levels have you sneaking around the Corporate colonial facility as a facehugger looking for a suitable host. You get to sneak around a well-crafted facility and overhear the random conversations of workers and soldiers, it's details like these that go a long way to building immersion into the game's setting. And when you finally find a suitable host, you actually have to bite out of the victim's chest as the chestburster. Experiencing it first-hand was one of the most gruesome and memorable parts of the entire game. The rest of the Alien campaign plays very similarly to the one from its predecessor. You pretty much just go from point A to point B causing havoc and killing everyone. This isn't to say it does a boring job with the campaign, because they do a great job making you feel like a true force of terror and havoc.

The Predator campaign is much better than its counterpart from its predecessor. I actually have difficulty deciding on whether or not I like the Predator campaign or the Marine campaign better in this game. The game does a fantastic job with pacing in this campaign, as it never gets old. The campaign always switches up its gameplay style to make sure the campaign stays fresh. More specifically, it starts out somewhat leisurely with you sneaking around in outdoor environments hunting human prey. It goes a long way to making you feel like a Predator, giving you large open environments and treetops to stalk your prey. The campaign later has more action-oriented moments with bug hunts and a sneaking portion where you are recovering your weapons. Overall, the Predator campaign is extremely memorable on the whole and does a good job making its gameplay styles unique. It also does a great job making you really hate Rykov throughout the campaign and the buildup to the final fight is extremely well done. The only disappointing thing is that Rykov is extremely easy to kill.

The Marine campaign is the other campaign that I cannot decide if it is my favorite. I think for most people though this is the most memorable one of the three. The Marine campaign by itself is probably one of the scariest gaming experiences made. It has a perfect blend of atmospheric and situational scares. It's one of the few games that uses excellent pacing and atmosphere to build up the tension. The game starts out fairly slow, with little-to-no hostile encounters, but the further you go in the campaign the more alone you feel and the more you feel like you're getting further and further away from any allies. Every little beep from the motion tracker makes you feel just a little more anxious. The way the colors are used, which casts a dark blue hue on everything, also builds atmosphere. Throughout the Marine campaign you are under foreboding overcast skies and surrounded by the familiar windy noises of LV-426. The later levels use darkness particularly well, and when you can only see the small area lit by your shoulder lamp and you have to rely on your motion-tracker, it goes a long way to really freaking you out. At moments you actually feel like you're being swarmed. Nothing can beat looking into pitch darkness and seeing blips on your motion tracker coming straight for you.

While the campaigns are well-built, how about the multiplayer? Well, I have to admit, this is where most of my complaints about this game are. The multiplayer modes are fantastic and the levels are all pretty well-designed and memorable. However, the game is very unbalanced, with each species having horribly broken and unbalanced weapons/abilities. The tracking weapons (Predator shoulder cannon and disc as well as the smartgun) are particularly bad because they are far too difficult to dodge. The Predator pistol and Marine sniper rifle are also far too powerful and can easily wipe out an entire team without much effort at all whatsoever. The Aliens are not exempt of overpowered elements, however. The Predalien class is too fast for how powerful it is and the Runner class is so fast that it exploits the game's horrendous netcode. Speaking of which, that brings me to my number one complaint about this game: the netcode. It still boggles my mind to this day that programmers could release a product with such a faulty netcode and never fix it with the various patches released for the game. The main issue is that animations do not follow players' actions fluidly, which results in both rubber-banding and just general animation stuttering. Even when your ping is absolutely perfect, the marine players still do not move in natural movements. Instead, they'll move in short jumpy teleportations. At its best, players will move naturally enough that you can track their movements, albeit with some minor issues. At its worse, it's literally impossible to guess how your enemy is moving in the environment. This makes precision sniping next-to-impossible, which makes human players shoot their rifle randomly. But considering the sniper rifle kills enemies in one hit no-matter-what, people still use the sniper rifle all the time. As mentioned before, the Runner class is the worst culprit for abusing the poor netcode because it was far too fast to render its movements fluidly.

Despite the poor netcode and poor balance, the game is still wildly fun. The variety of maps and modes is fantastic and it does a great job making you feel like the species you're playing as, and the gameplay for each is extremely unique. It's just a shame that they never fixed such serious problems, because I firmly believe that the multiplayer element had potential to be absolutely amazing. One other issue is that not many people still play this game. Since its release, the official servers have been taken down which severely cut down on the amount of players. However, fans have created an alternate master-server and still allow for people to play the game. There are still players, but since there are so few you have to play at certain times to catch any of them online.

Overall, the singleplayer portion of the game is nearly flawless and is the absolute best Alien, Predator, or Alien vs. Predator game experience available if you're a fan of the films. It may have some weird plot-points, but overall it's a solid story that incorporates all of the necessary themes and feelings of the films. Each campaign is well-crafted and memorable, and they all feel like full experiences. The multiplayer portion is fun and had amazing potential, but is ultimately bogged down by balance issues and a horrible netcode. In the end, though, if you have not played this game and are a fan of the franchise then you owe it to yourself to try this game out.

8.5/10