Aliens vs Predator Review
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Aliens vs Predator is a shining example of a single player game that has not evolved as the gaming world has. Despite advances in storytelling and pacing throughout the industry this game seems to blatantly ignore all with dire results. Split into three short campaigns the single player brings forth repetition, nonsensical design and imbalances in one package. You will be transposing the exact same levels up to three times by the time you finish the Predator campaign with very little changes to their design. Fortunately the graphics engine does an impressive job at rendering the large levels and the different species within them. Some of the multiplayer modes do work quite well when each species is allowed to flourish. Single player lets you play as a Predator and an Alien but it seems to focus more on the Marine.
The Marine campaign is almost twice as long as the other species campaigns, but at 3 hours it still manages to get repetitive and insultingly generic. At first the good use of sound and the motion tracking beeps will have you living the tense life of a Colonial Marine straight from the movies. Things go downhill steadily however as some AI Aliens start having trouble navigating close quarters. The Alien animation is good, but it’s still not quite as smooth as the universe demands. One thing that will worry you quite quickly is that apart from Corporal “Tequila” the rest of the Marines will repeat boring pieces of dialogue like they were part parrot. “Don’t let your guard down” says a Marine as he stands stationary against an oncoming wave Xenomorphs.
Attack of the swamp Aliens! The sniper rifle was a bad choice
The Aliens themselves are only a challenge in as far as acquiring their changing position during the single player. The motion sensor will guide you to these wall hugging critters as they descend from every angle. Running backwards through chokepoints will make your life much easier and at times trivial. Later in the game you face “combat androids” which almost completely ruins the whole experience by being harder to kill than Aliens with pinpoint accuracy even without a head. It’s interesting that these guys have more personality than the marines although they are still as brain dead.
The Marine missions start getting quite repetitive during the later stages, and become a chore to get through. The end boss battle brings into perspective the lacklustre effort to engage with the player on any intelligent level. There are no interesting puzzles, no setting up defensive turrets and only some movie like sections featuring glimpses of an ominous Predator. Although there are some scenes thinly analogous to the movies there is so much potential wasted. Fortunately Tequila, a Marine Corporal directing you, isn’t a horrible character. Even excluding the potential, the basic gameplay design just falls flat throughout. Good use of music helps keep the tension high but everything is just so unappealing. Next up I was begging for something solid in the Alien campaign.
To my dismay the Alien campaign wasn’t really that much better. If you manage to get into the rather messy control scheme, transitioning up walls and through vents, then you’ll probably enjoy it slightly more than playing as the Marine. With auto transition on you can scale walls without pressing buttons but in cramped areas this means you’ll ascend walls you never intended to and get caught around yourself. I was switching this feature on and off just to suit the nature of the level design. As a Xenomorph you are very vulnerable from Marine weapons and frontal attacks are not terribly effective. So you’ll be playing a stealth role, relying on a bit of patience to execute some simple plans.
They mostly come out at night, mostly
The most effective way to take down a group of dumb Marines was to pick off solitary characters slowly by pouncing at them then performing an instant kill move. These moves are quite visceral but leave you completely vulnerable for a few painful seconds. Doing this in the open will just get you killed mid combat. Although the Alien hiss is meant to lure Marines it never functioned as advertised and I just exploited the broken AI system. At one stage instead of finishing off a group I just used my Alien speed to bypass them all and exit the area. “Don’t let your guard down” I heard as I left through vent. Something is wrong with the combat if provides no satisfaction on its own. The Alien campaign is quite short, it won’t last you more than 2 hours and thankfully not any longer. It does use the exact same levels you saw in the Marine campaign but you’ll be completing them in reverse or with a slightly different layout.
Although the graphics start to shine when playing as the menacing Alien, more bad qualities come to the surface. One very short sequence featured a vent with a huge fan sucking air upwards in a wind tunnel. Rebellion carefully demonstrated this was a deadly obstacle, but then simply sealed the door behind me. Fervently I searched for a vent to destroy a power node; next I tried to find a switch to give me alternative access. No luck with either so I tried to cling to the sides of the wind tunnel with my razor sharp talons only to be sucked upwards with impressive force. Peering across I noticed a vent was visible in focus mode; all I had to do was simply highlight the vent and click the transition button to leap (float?) across the still high flowing wind tunnel to safety, ridiculous. There are more examples of overlooked gameplay segments mixed in between a very short series of stealth focused areas. Perhaps the Predator campaign can salvage something from this mess.
Clever girl
Stuck in the middle in terms of game length the Predator campaign does prevent the entire single player game from being a train wreck. Again you will be using stealth which means you’ll want to keep the cloak on and use your highly restricted shoulder cannon to send a message to the ground hugging Marines. Strangely shaped trees will aid you in leaping between the canopy and you can also throw your voice to flawlessly distract idiot Marines. Marines will jump enthusiastically to attention and head straight to where you direct them to making separating them and executing the instant kills extremely easy. You can just walk up behind them and rip their silly skulls from their puny little backs and watch as their tongues twitch in front of you. “Don’t let your guard down,” a Marine calls out as I charge up my shoulder cannon.
The combat for the Predator is actually a fairly good hybrid of weaponry and melee. The shoulder cannon can actually be awesome although sadly limited on ammo. Locking on in stealth and watching Xenomorphs or Marines explode brings satisfaction. Another great weapon of the Predator is the instant kill spear that makes light work of the frustrating combat androids from the Marine campaign. Using the disc weapon is certainly hit or miss, dangerous if it hits but hard to control when you are being chased by a handful of Aliens. Once again you’ll jump your way across some of the same levels you saw in the previous two campaigns. At the end of the Predator campaign there were definitely less negatives to add to my growing list but it was time to try some multiplayer.
Distract or vaporize with shoulder cannon? Tough choice
The good news is that after playing multiplayer the single player felt like a tutorial instead of a complete single player game. Most of the same gameplay from the single player is retained without any of the dumb AI, poor pacing or repetition of the campaign. Certainly gratification rises when you score successful kills as any of the species against real human opponents. The balance between the three species feels quite natural in this multiplayer environment. There are some quite large and good looking multiplayer levels that work well with the game modes and yes many levels are taken from the campaign.
Predator hunt becomes, even with low player counts, the ultimate hunting experience. Patience and tactics develop slowly as you make your moves bringing great reward. Species Deathmatch lets each of the species thrive more than any of the other modes. Grouping together as Aliens or Marines works naturally and in some cases the experience becomes quite surreal. Sadly mixed species deteriorates into a real mess with no consistency. Survivor is a horde game mode against AI Aliens, although only two maps are available for most players. Infestation ultimately proves to be an exercise in futility with only a handful of players.
Nowhere to run Mr Predator sir.
Infestation with many players starts slowly with the selected Alien struggling to make an impact on the Marines and then it builds, the last handful of kills are over quickly. It doesn’t really seem to come into its own aside from the stage when there are a few Aliens attacking the group from all sides. There isn’t much strategy involved as a Marine and the mode loses its lustre after only a few rounds. Infestation is probably a good example of what the game does poorly throughout the multiplayer experience – good ideas that don’t quite live up to expectations.
The idiosyncrasies of each class will become very clear when you play a few multiplayer games from each perspective. Predators rely on stealth and sometimes lack of movement to surprise their enemies, utilising both heat and Alien vision to observe their prey. You’ll need to acquire weapons before you attack by leaping across the level for pickups. Use them wisely as your laser will give away your position when in attack mode.
Marines are full on assault units who can deal out massive damage but are very vulnerable to melee attacks. Their motion sensor plays a large part of the tactics used for and against them. Running away as a Marine is a bad idea when Aliens are super quick. As Predator you can simply lie in wait and attack Marines when their back is turned. You can even disorientate the marines by running around above them as they watch their motion sensor go crazy. Marines will stick close together in species Deathmatch because their chance of survival increases dramatically.
Aliens are very fast and can do hit and run attacks as well as lying in wait for a jump attacks on walls. Multiple Xenomorphs are effective for high speed massacres by coordinating a simultaneous assault on a group of enemies. Because Alien health recharges, they can dash away and fight again shortly thereafter without needing to find a power node or use a health pack. Navigating as an alien can be tricky, but nothing more difficult than you already saw in the single player.
Instant killing a Predator from behind
Instant kills do play a big part of the game, any attack from behind by the Predator or Alien will instantly kill any opponent. These do get slightly cheap when players line up one after another. The reason is because it does leave you very vulnerable for a few seconds so you might have another player come up behind for an additional easy kill on small or populated maps. These instant kills encourage players to approach from the rear but at times they become overbearing to the gameplay and cheapen the experience.
Unfortunately at the time of writing the current multiplayer setup on the PC is depressing given the fun nature of some of the modes. Two weeks after launch there are barely working “beta” dedicated servers through a patch but only for non ranked games. Player counts across all the servers is fairly low and there are bugs like only one team existing in a two team match or disconnections during loading. Connection issues during matches reduce player numbers and pings can be erratic. Had the game shipped with a good dedicated server setup it may have held onto more players. Dedicated servers do help bring more players into games by finding games faster and allowing you to see what people are playing. If you suffer a connection problem you’ll be asked to start the server search again.
Ranked servers let you level up and unlock skins; these are purely cosmetic so there is no chance for imbalances for high ranked players. Matchmaking for ranked games can take a few minutes to find a server, if it does at all. Luckily the connection screen tells you the progress of the search, so you can give up early if there is no change and go play some player matches. The new patch also thankfully does not dump you back to the search menu again and lets you keep playing. There really is no reason to use the inferior matchmaking despite the ranking system.
Damnit how do I cancel this self destruct sequence!
The single player campaign in Aliens vs Predator isn’t good; it’s repetitive, dull and ignores many recent success stories in the first person shooter genre. The multiplayer is the only reason I’d recommend this game, and I would not without the inclusion of dedicated servers through a recent patch. Unfortunately as of right now the multiplayer side is unfinished, the dedicated servers are barely functional and in some cases the increased player numbers impact negatively on the online experience. There really isn’t enough quality in the huge meld of modes and maps to make it worth your while.
The game does impress visually, Rebellion have done a good job with the animation and design of each of the species. The levels are large and load very quickly with good detail. If you are a big Alien or Predator fan then you will get some enjoyment out of the best looking depiction yet. Shooter fans will more than likely be disappointed with the whole package. Franchise fans will continue to dream of something that doesn’t feel like it was released months before it should have been.