Aliens Versus Predator: Extinction

"Lack of polish causes an anticlimax"

Alien Vs Pred Extinction is one of a series of games based around Alien Versus Preditor however it is the first RTS in the genre. Hopefully there will be another as this game was on the whole an enjoyable experiance.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics are reasonable but nothing particually special. The in-game graphics seem to have a blurryness about them, the close-up side view provides a nice level of detail on the characters however is to impractical to be used to play the game.

Sound: 9/10
All the sounds are taken from the Alien Vs Preditor libarary and so are both authentic and very nice. The music creates a great atmosphere particularly when playing as the aliens. The only critasism would be that each unit a single responce to being selected and that the Marine Synthetic sounds like Dale Winton with a lisp.

Story: 8/10
A resonable enough effort at a story I have played games with far less of a plot. Sadly not presented with any video sequences either at the start or the end of missions. Saying that the graphic art displayed at the start of each mission is very nice.

Control: 8/10
The control system, providing you use the default and follow the training missions is reasonably straight forward and on the whole enjoyable to use.

Gameplay 8/10
On the whole the game is very enjoyable the number of different species make the game very enjoyable and provide a varied experience. It is also hard enough to keep you busy for more than an hour on the later missions. The A.I of your troops is not really up to scratch more than once I would be leading a large group off to deal some death and I would be informed of a battle somewhere unrelated on the map and find a hopelessly outgunned unit AWOL on a suicide mission. It does tend to happen when negotiating tight gaps and provided you keep a good eye on everyone they will all make it.

Longevity 4/10
I took three nights to complete it on Normal however there are few incentives to play it again no end of game movie no nothing, you can win medals and activate cheats but why would you want to?

Overall: 7/10
Good game to play once but could have done with a little more effort and a little more player reward to create a truely classic game.

More haste, less speed.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/03