Aliens Versus Predator 2

""A superb first-person shooter.""

Aliens vs. Predator 2

Introduction:

Since I am a a fan of the Aliens and Predator series of films, I may be a little biased while writing this review. However, I am first and foremost a videogamer; and that is where my critique stems from. Whether played Single or Multiplayer, this game is great (although Multiplayer does have its flaws).

The first AVP threw together Humans, Predators, and Aliens in a slightly haphazard mix, riddled with a nonexistent story, little or no direction, buggy AI, and crash-happy programming (it currently won't run well on Windows XP without a patch--it even has problems with Windows ME). The Multiplayer was also broken in favor of the Predators. But for all of its faults, it was still a terrifying game with a good heart that a patient gamer could appreciate, even above all of the technical issues.

And so, here we are again, the "sequel" to the PC version of Aliens vs. Predator, although the two have absolutely nothing in common, story-wise. Same core idea, completely different packaging.

Story - 8/10

For a FPSer, AVP2 has a rather decent story; in the year 2231 AD, on planet LV-1201, a research facility sends out a distress call to a Marine starship, calling the human aspect of the game into view. Incidentally, a Predator ship also receives the call, and lands on LV-1201 for some big-game hunting. Oh, did I forget to mention that LV-1201 is literally overrun by Aliens?

Survive (or try to) as a Marine, search for your captured clanmates as a Predator, or simply overrun and save your Empress as an Alien. Even with three different characters to play, the story is unlike other FPSers since they overlap, requiring you to play each race all the way through to understand the whole story. Often, while playing as one species, you will see your selfsame character as another species, but won't be able to get to them. It's a great interweaving of various plot threads.

However, you'll receive most of the story through the various little speeches that characters deliver when you get near them, as well as in your Mission Parameters Screen as little journal entries. So it's easy to pass them up entirely and miss otherwise crucial (or interesting) parts of the story. Just the same, a new player will spend most of his time getting accustomed to the controls and understanding what he/she must do to complete the mission, that what the characters are saying off to the side doesn't even register until you have a moment to sit back and listen to all of it. To get the whole story, you'll have to play through the game more than once with each species, which gets a little stupid to have to go through the same game again just to understand what the hell was going on in the first place.

Various cutscenes fill in the gaps, but there are too many references to things and events that don't even happen in the game. For example, several scenes talk about "disappearing artifacts;" unless you buy the Primal Hunt expansion, this won't make any sense.

It would've helped to have a little more story in this game, if only to get some more characterization on Harrison, the Marine main character. It's hard to peg what kind of guy he is; if we're with this guy for a great deal of the game and guiding him through peril, we'd like to know a little more about him.

Graphics: - 8/10
The environments are straight out of the Aliens movies, whether it be inside of a futuristic complex, a loading bay, or the Alien-infested Hive. Characters look, move, and act realistically, although the gore factor doesn't seem to be as high as one would think. Very rarely will you see blood spraying every whichway. But the wreckage left behind in areas where Aliens have been through will unnerve the hardiest player on their first try through the various levels. Bodies will be left behind, of course, but they're more eerie than gruesome, especially when you see a chestbursted victim leaning against a wall. Graphically, this game is as advanced from AVP1 as AVP1 was from, say, Wolfenstein.

But you'll need a pretty recent computer to run AVP2 well and without choppiness. On my machine: 933 MHz, GForce4 MX 420, 512 megs SDRAM, it runs choppily in large, open environments. And trust me, since a fair amount of the action takes place outdoors, lower-end computers in this day and age will chug along in those sequences. Indoors, however, in both Single and Multiplayer, the game runs quite well.

Some visual problems have been fixed from AVP1; in the original, if you were to blast an enemy apart, each body part would send out a blip on your motion tracker, even if they weren't moving. So in a very dark area, you would have to wait for the objects to disappear for your tracker to clear up. Not so in AVP2; only moving objects will set it off. This leads to interesting situations, where everything from dangling chains to small insects will make you think an enemy is right around the corner.

There are many events that make this game "cinematic," such as watching a Predator attack on a bridge over a chasm, or an exploding pipe overhead, which is cleverly designed to resemble an Alien head. Not all of the enjoyment of this game is derived solely from blowing things apart.

Sound: - 9/10
In terms of sound libraries, AVP2 has the best, since it does have 6 films to draw from. All of the Predator and Marine/Corporate weapons are perfectly captured from the films, as are all of the various Aliens sounds (except the facehuggers-they were switched for some reason). The voice-acting I found to be not unpleasurable, if a little overacted at times. Unlike the Primal Hunt expansion, the voice actors here do a relatively good job for this type of game and bring a great deal of depth to the goings-on.

Some weapon sounds are new, like the Marine's minigun and rocket launcher, and the Predator's timed mines. Music and outside side effects are usually incidental, such as when you hear Aliens crawling about in the ducts above you, or when you hear the Predator catching a hapless victim in the echoing distance of a darkened and ruined facility. It's meant to keep you, the lone player, off-balance. And trust me, it does.

My only gripe is that you cannot taunt your opponents in Single-Player like you could in the first AVP. It would be great to see human trophies shiver as you roared as Predator or hissed as an Alien while hidden, or to see a Predator or Alien become enraged as you taunt them as a Marine. Wishful thinking, I suppose, for AVP3, should it ever be made.

Gameplay/Interface: - 9/10
The controls for all species are dead-on, as is customizing the various controls and graphics settings. Like any good FPSer, you won't get lost within the minimal amount of menus possible. As long as you have a good mouse, what you see is what you get. Basic (but nonetheless incredibly useful) WASD stuff.

However, some mouses won't work right with the game; it won't react to my Fellowes Optical Mouse's scrolling wheel, meaning to zoom in an out takes reaching over for two unused, relatively close keys. Each species has seven missions in total, although the mission time can span from five minutes to a half-hour, depending on how much ground you have to cover, and how many times you'll have to restart the level when you die. And most missions are broken down into several sections; unfortunately, to get to a favorite part of the game you have to play the entire mission to get there instead of starting up at that sub-level point.

In the first AVP there were hidden levels and certain challenges for each level. For example: getting a high dartgun accuracy on a certain level would give the Predator the infinite ammo option, completing the game on the hardest difficulty would unlock all of the extra levels for that respective species, etc. There's none of that in AVP2; there's just the urge to play the game straightforward, so there's no metagame going on; you just point and shoot and run instead of concentrating onheadshot after headshot for bonus items, abilities, and weapons. The only reward you get for exploring for secret areas or items (of which there are none) is a dead-end, or perhaps a lethal trap. So playing through the game like a pro won't make any difference from someone who barely does what's required of them.

You'll get at "Hardcore" level exactly what you receive at completing the "Normal" challenge level. Although the harder you go, there are often more enemies at intervals when you're meant to encounter them, they die harder, you take more damage, and that's it; none of this requires a great deal of mental stretching to accomplish, just good aim and the urge to keep restarting the mission when you die. It wouldn't be hard at all if you could Quicksave, since the hardest part is the fact that you take a monstrous amount of damage whenever you get hurt. Other than the "Hey, I did it!" feeling you'll get, there's really no incentive to play AVP2's missions at their most difficult, since there's nothing telling you that you have beaten it with more difficulty (For example, Quake III displays on the level-select screen the hardest level each board has been beaten on).

Marine: 9/10

The Marine has it the hardest, since his vision is the poorest. He has neither the multitude of Predator visions, nor the Alien pheromone sight. So most of your concentration rests on listening to your environment. The unrest in the Marine game is that you never know what to expect (at least on the first time through). One minute you could be against a pack of Dog Aliens, the next moment you're hunted by a Predator who's already made trophies out of everyone around you, the next you could be the unlucky soul in an egg pit (don't get too close!).

This time around, there is a logical placing for all of your enemies. Most Aliens in tight levels are either Dog Aliens or normal drones. Larger, more open areas usually house Praetorians. There's even a reason why you would confront a Predalien in the Pods. Missions where you don't fight any Aliens usually have a Predator, instead, that wiped them all out prior to your arrival. This wasn't the case in the first AVP, where the locations of enemies didn't make sense, often making you fight both Preds and Aliens within moments of each other; why, for example, would facehuggers be mulling around a power control station a million miles away from the Hive and any eggs? Never will you stop and ask: "Why the hell was that there?"

The Marine missions would be perfect if not for the fact that it seems the developers gave a half-hearted attempt at the last two or so missions. They're not scary or incredibly challenging, they're just there. I beat them with only one or two restarts when I was killed, as compared to the earlier missions where I died every few minutes if I screwed up.

In the Single-Player missions, you'll have more than a few pointless weapons. The knife you'll only need once, and is useless against any non-human opponent. The Grenade Launcher (even with its various cartridge applications) is inadqeuate in a single-player game where you're always on the move. You need to fire a lot, fire hard, and fire fast; that's why the Pulse Rifle, the shotgun, and the Smartgun are probably the only ones you'll use in great amount. Other weapons you'll hardly ever see, like the Sniper Rifle, which appears only once so close to the end of the game that it's idiotic.

Something I've recently noticed, too, is how the computer will switch you to an inadequate weapon when your current weapon is out of ammo. Everybody who's ever played a FPSer knows that using a Rocket Launcher in close quarters is suicide; so why does it switch from the Smartgun to the Rocket Launcher when I have more than enough Shotgun shells? I realize that the two are next to each other in your weapon "slots," but there should be an option to switch to "next-best weapon for the occasion." More than a few times have I killed myself because the computer switched me from the Smartgun to the Launcher when an Alien's up close and personal.

Another problem is that sometimes, you will see other Marines come under attack by Aliens or Predators, and the game is set so that they're supposed to be killed right before your eyes. But what happens when you save them? (which is possible) Answer: absolutely nothing. If you save them, they'll maybe give you a line of speech, but nothing else. They don't join you, they don't give you weapons or items for saving their lives. In some occasions, the Marines don't even respond to your presence, and will just stand there looking around stupidly. I'll chalk this up to the fact that the Marine missions are all one-man jobs; there's no teamwork involved. So you'll never see a mission like in Aliens where you and your buddies have to defend an area from bugs; you're always alone and always moving.

There is also no Skeeter Launcher like there was in the first AVP, which sent an explosive disc bouncing around before going off in a bigass explosion. It had a lot of potential in the first game, but it was too unruly to use and too rare (and there were practically no open environments there). It would've kicked ass in AVP2.

Alien: 7/10

The Alien missions have always been about survival and minimal conflict. You're the least hearty of the three. The controls are dead-on, no mistake about that. My lack of Alien enthusiasm stems from the fact that it's not scary at all; as the Alien you play the monster that lurks in the darkness. Never will you jump in fear or get unnerved as the Alien. This section of the game plays well, the controls are solid, and the atmosphere is there, but not the mood, just as it was in the first Aliens vs. Predator. Other than the pounce attack, there's nothing new on the Alien front, other than the removal of the fish-bowl Alien vision. Often when you storm an enemy, you'll do so alone, which doesn't reflect the Aliens' swarming power as seen in the films (the original Alien doesn't apply; Ripley wasn't armed to the teeth, as most of your enemies here will be).

A visual problem with the Alien is the bob and weave as you climb on walls; your head always stays oriented with your body. So if you climb over protruding beams, your field of vision will bounce up and down as you do. This probably causes motion sickness in some people. Give us movement with WASD keys, and the ability to pivot your POV with the mouse, and it would be fine.

Predator: 8/10

Now I'm a big Predator fan at heart, and you can do pretty much everything you see in the two films. All of the weapons are there (except that wrist thingy in Predator 2; that's in the expansion) and they act just as you imagine they would. From chopping Aliens apart with the Disc to taking Marines' heads off with the Dartgun, you'll never be at a loss to find new and inventive ways of finding (with 4 visions modes), stalking, and killing your prey. The Pred also has a superjump which allows for much more mobility than the first AVP, his Medicomp can heal you back to full-life if you have enough energy, and you can use your Energy Sifter to gather as much energy as you like (compared to the first AVP where you had to wait around for energy to recharge). You're a tank, and it comes through. Only poor planning and bonehead moves will get you killed.

Of course, all I've just said makes the Pred a little too overpowered. Low on health or energy? Run back to where there are no dangers and regain it all in an instant. With the Alien vision, it's far too easy to see any bug from a mile away as a bright white on a blood-red field, often ruining the element of surprise that the game intends. The levels for the Pred are very streamlined, almost like (if not more so) the Alien missions. If you see a tree that looks like interconnected platforms, chances are you'll have to use those. Finally, with certain weapons (coughEnergyPistolcough) you can wipe the floor with almost any enemy, boss or not, which ruins the challenge at times when you can paralyze a massive Praetorian Alien and kill him at your leisure (when otherwise it would be difficult with even the Disc).

The Predator still cannot climb walls (he could easily do this in the films), and doesn't have any kind of grappling hook as in the bonus missions in the first AVP. Other than his superjump, he's only a little more mobile than humans, which doesn't reflect the films at all. Also, the Medicomp is no longer considered a weapon; and it can't put you out if you're on fire like it could in the first AVP, which is a load of crap. Would the Predators really overlook the fact that they might be set on fire just because it's a sequel? This game happens about sixty years after the first AVP; their tech wouldn't go downhill in ability, now would it?

Difficulty: 8/10
This is one of the few FPSers that requires you to think and plan instead of running and gunning. That'll get you killed really quickly as any of the three player options. You must plan, conserve ammunition, choose the best weapon for your environment, stay constantly wary of your surroundings, and have a pretty strong sense of direction. Chances are charging through an egg pit won't turn out well, as will charging a mounted sentry gun head-on.

Replayability: 8/10
However, once you play through all the missions, you'll learn what to expect, since most of the events are scripted, like an Alien crashing through the ceiling, or a Predator hunting you through a certain level, or the best path through all the dangerous sentry guns and other traps. Even a single play through tells you precisely what you always need to do and what to prepare for. In that aspect, AVP2 falters for its lack of randomness, but even so, the game is never easy enough to laugh off. In certain parts you will constantly be on your toes (egg-pits and the Hive especially). A desire to replay the game doesn't stem from the challenge, but from the atmosphere; that is, if you like that kind of futuristic haunted-house feel.

Multi-Player: 7/10
This topic is a mixed bag, in truth. To make it an interesting game, you need all three species playing simultaneously. To make it fair, you need about 1 Predator, 2 Marines, and 3 or more Aliens; which is hard considering not many people have 5 others to play with on a LAN. But if you can get 5 or more on a LAN, this game rocks.

Positive:

In the positive aspect, it's great to sneak around as a Pred or Alien and lunge at unsuspecting humans. Just the same, almost all of the levels are large enough not to be crowded, but not wide and flat enough to give those with projectile weapons an edge. The levels are filled with ducts and out-of-the way corridors stockpiled with weapons for either Predator or Marine/Corporate. It's a great feeling when you snipe a fully cloaked Predator with the one-shot kill Sniper Rifle, or turning on Alien LifeCycle and watching humans flee from their facehugger opponents, who are small and fast. For the Alien there's also the Queen Molting, which can be set to turn any Alien into a leviathan-sized Queen with enough consecutive kills.

Negative:

However, it's not all sunshines and lollipops. There are also many negative aspects to the Multiplayer option. AVP2 is like rock-paper-scissors if you use only two species. With equal amounts on both sides, Humans will always win over Aliens, and Predators will always win over Humans. The only sure-fire way to beat a Predator is to have 2 or more Praetorian Aliens.

First of all, the Predators really got screwed over in the Update Patches. The once-powerful Disc is now made slower and with less tracking ability; you have to be in someone's face to use it effectively now. If a Predator is cloaked and isn't moving, Humans will never find him. He can be seen by a Rocket Launcher's homing missiles or if he has an auto-aim weapon equipped(even if the Pred isn't moving), but most times they'll stick to the sniping Dartgun and take headshot after headshot, until he runs out of ammo. Only when they move do they show up on tracking devices, and are a faint blur on your screen (but only if there's a light source around to illuminate their silhouette).

Humans vs. Humans is just plain stupid. Whoever gets the Rocket Launcher or Smartgun always wins. Location-based damage is also a realistic option, but hitting certain points on a target is entirely random. For example: I'll fire a whole clip of Pulse Rifle shells at my opponent and hit mostly his body. But he can fire from the exact same distance, and with dumb luck, take my head off in one shot.

The Aliens' strengths sway back and forth. A facehugger is helpless against a Smartgun-equipped human and a Predator with his shoulder cannon. And even if you do snag a target, there will be an incubation "lull" where the same respawned enemy can come back to his own corpse and kill you as soon as you burst out of his chest as a chestburster. This makes no sense and is by no means fair; they're not technically dead until you burst out of them, so why do they have a chance to respawn beforehand? And for some odd reason, facehuggers cannot latch onto other Aliens, even if it's a free-for-all. Why?

Also, the update patches bring the human Exosuit and the Queen into light. But jumping into an Exosuit and wreaking havoc will tick off all other players to no end. Even if you do destroy the Exosuit, the human can jump out before it's destroyed, avoid dying, and attack you while you're still working on the machine. And the respawn time for the Exosuit is just too fast for my taste, and for some reason cannot be targeted by the Pred's tracking computer.

The Predalien is also screwed from the get-go since he has no headbite, therefore he cannot regain life. The Primal Hunt expansion pack rectifies this, but $10 for just that is too much to ask.

If an Alien attains Queen status against just Humans or just Predators(sans Energy Pistol), it's game over. They're stronger, faster, and tougher than all other Alien subspecies put together. Your only hope is to hide in some narrow duct where the Queen can't fit, and can't tailwhip you (the distance on the tailwhip is grossly overpowered). And since there are assuredly more Aliens in the level, they'll protect the Queen by charging you from behind. And when you die and respawn, the Queen will be inevitably charging towards you.

Some levels seem to be constructed exactly like a maze, where you fight the level itself, trying to find someone to kill instead of straight-forward combat. This is a big pain, and doesn't make sense as to why humans would build a labyrinthine science lab or multi-tiered military base almost completely devoid of ladders. He (or she) who has the high ground usually wins.

There are interesting gameplay variations, like Evacuation (where Human players must make it to a dropship, while being chased by Aliens, before their number of lives or their time runs out), or Class-Based Weapons (where players can only use a certain kind of weapon), and other standbys like Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. However, on teams you're relegated to the same species, which as I've said before is unfair with only two species. There is no Capture the Flag mode, but this would take a lot of effort on the designers' part to make it fair (Aliens could, for example, run faster and move through ducts quicker, making it easy for them to score points).

Basically, Multiplayer is a great deal of fun at first when players don't know precisely what to expect or how the levels are constructed. But after they learn the nuances, the limits, how to play as the varying species, and the locations hidden opponents can possibly be in the level, this game gets bogged down and often turns into a Cold War where the first player to make the tiniest mistake ends up dead. This game is a wonder for the first few weeks, but after awhile, you'll see games that last for an hour or more, just because a Human doesn't quite know where a Predator is and plays it safe, or where an Alien can only wait patiently for a victim to walk beneath him.

Multiplayer gets old quickly if overplayed.

Closing Statement:
All in all, one of the best FPSers I've ever played. The hang-ups on Single Player are nil if you have a lightning-fast computer, but Multiplayer is definitely not for those players who always cry "fair," because it seldom is. Compared to other games of this sort, there is a lot going on in terms of gameplay, leaving simplicity out the door.
I recommend this game to anyone who has the computer to handle it effectively and has $20 to spare for AVP2 Gold, which includes the core game and the Primal Hunt expansion (see my review on that[6/10] if you wish). Play this in a dark room alone, and you'll definitely require a change of shorts.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/03, Updated 08/27/04