Aliens Versus Predator

The Good
"If it bleeds acid, you can kill it!"

First, a little disclaimer: This game is not based on the horrible 2004 "Alien vs Predator" movie (if anything, it's the other way round, but the distant origin of the franchise is an otherwise unrelated comic book of the same name). Stylistically, the game rather draws inspiration from the original "Alien" and "Predator" movies, most notably James Cameron's excellent and more action-oriented "Aliens" sequel that introduced the "United States Colonial Marines" who play the third faction in this three-in-one game.

It is probably the intense, heart-attack-inducing marines campaign this game is most famous for. However, each faction introduces a whole new style of gameplay, often revolutionary for the first person shooter genre at its time (and sometimes, unprecedented since).

First, there is the Alien campaign. You control one of the nightmarish, survivalist creatures as it defends an ancient alien temple from human intruders. The most unique feature of the alien is its ability to climb every surface, including walls and ceilings, a freedom of movement that is as breathtaking as it is disorienting. Your speed and stealth are your biggest advantage, all attacks are powerful, close-range punches, bites and scratches. Especially gruesome is your ability to bite off an enemy's head when getting close enough and eat your enemies for health (the only HUD element is a white, glowing bar at the lower end of the screen, representing your health points). In normal vision, you can "smell" humans in the dark, represented by a blueish aura. The secondary vision mode is a kind of close-range night vision displaying everything in negative colors. Destroying lights around you (most light sources in the game are dynamic) can turn out to be a good tactic as it makes it easier for you to sneak up to your targets.

While humans are no match for you in close-range, there is a variety of especially annoying long-range weapons (flame throwers and Molotov cocktails set you on fire, for example). The most dangerous opponents, however are not humans but androids (who, by the way, are bleeding the famous "white" blood like in the movies). Androids do not have the "aura" that makes humans easy to spot. They also show no signs of fear and wield their weapons with deadly accuracy. If you bite of an android's right arm, for example, he might pull out a second pistol with his left hand and continue shooting you.

The second creature you get to play is the most powerful of them all: The predator. His motivation is not fear or survival, but honor and the joy of a good hunt. When a group of human scientists captures a fellow predator and his ship, you move out for a bloody trail of revenge. The predator has 3 (!) different vision modes, including the iconic thermal vision from the movies, a red "electrical" vision mode that makes it easy to spot alien creatures and a third, green night vision mode that highlights predator technology. You also have the ability to cloak yourself, which drowns your energy fast. The HUD uses the "predator digits" as seen on the predator's hand-console in the movies, which is a neat little touch. You start every mission packed with a large arsenal of weapons. A powerful wristblade, a speargun (the only weapon with limited ammo from start), the famous auto-targeting shoulder cannon, later a pistol and a homing throwing disk. You also carry medical equipment with you that lets you heal between battles. Basically, the only resource you have to care about is the recharging energy battery. Playing as the predator is probably the easiest mode in the game, but with all the toys you have at your disposal, it also has some of the most fun moments.

And last but not least: The Colonial Marines. I am not exaggerating when I say that the marine campaign features some of the scariest content I have ever encountered in a computer game. Forget mindless gore or Japanese ghost-house games... This game has its own brand of fear. An adrenaline-pumping, heart-attack inducing, in-your-face kind of scariness that goes beyond the mere frustration of games that are just "difficult" (although it is brutally difficult as well, especially in "director's cut" mode).

Your main enemy is the classic alien, attacking you in hordes of screeching, clawing monsters crawling out of every vent shaft and dark corner, in front, above and behind you. Aliens can smoothly climb around walls and ceilings in this game, so you never really know where to look. And they're fast. Like, really fast! Often you just hear one of their heart-piercing screams, see some pixels flickering a mile away, and before you know it an alien is dropping from the ceiling in front of you, jumping 50 meters in a second and landing right in your face. And lets not forget that shooting them doesn't immediately kill them. If you just shoot their arms or legs, they will continue crawling and attacking you. Only a headshot or half a pulse rifle clip will truly kill them, which makes them explode in a fountain of frickin' acid blood that is often more dangerous than the creatures themselves. The most terrifying enemy of them all, however, even more terrifying than the almost unbeatable predator creatures you meet as final bosses towards the end of the campaign, is the facehugger. Crawling on the floor to a distinct sound that will soon make your neck hair stand, those hard-to-spot creatures can kill you in a single blow by jumping right at your face. I have spend entire magazines of ammo, grenades and frantic flame thrower sprays, shooting every corner of a room preemptively, if I just heard the slightest glimpse of a "facehugger sound". It doesn't help that enemies spawn randomly, so you cannot rely on seeing the same enemy at the same spot every time you play. Having a facehugger jump on your screen is probably my #1 most terrifying moment in gaming history. It's absolutely brutal.

Besides the actual opponents, the biggest enemy you face as the marine is light. If you see things clearly, your powerful arsenal of pulse rifles (including the iconic "drhrhrhrhrhrh" sound), grenades, smartguns and flame throwers (later in the game rocket launchers and miniguns) is perfectly sufficient to defend yourself. But most of the time, you just can't see a damn thing! The dimly lit corridors of space stations, colonies and research labs are constantly flickering, going out in the worst possible times or get destroyed by your panicky grenade spams. Now you can either use flares to light up a room (they tend to make a similar hissing sound to facehuggers... which can turn out to be deadly since sound is an important tool to spot enemies) or you switch to night vision mode. Night vision mode is how you spend much of your time in the marines campaigns, but of course, there is a catch: The dimmest light source can blind you nearly completely, which is especially annoying for the many places that aren't lit equally. You also have a slight grain effect on the screen, which makes far away movement of the camouflage-colored aliens hard to spot. You also cannot use night vision and the motion tracker at the same time. Oh yes, the motion tracker... not only does it display everything that moves, so you can never be sure whether it's an alien or just the flare you threw a second ago, the slow, nerve-wracking pulse sound that accompanies the little white dots on the tracker display can drive you crazy and mostly just grant you a split second advantage before the alien comes storming right in front of you.

It's crazy. The marines campaign might use the most classic FPS gameplay out of the three campaigns and most of the actual goals consist of switch-throwing... but at the same time, it is probably the most intense FPS experience ever created. It's quite fantastic!

The campaigns are rather short for a late-90ies game (although probably longer than most of the blockbuster games released today). They are only loosely connected and the story mostly consists of a good reason to get the hell out of wherever you are. But let's not forget that the original Alien movie is nothing but a survival story aboard a big space ship, either. The game is "pure" and intense, capturing the atmosphere of the movies perfectly without trying to spin too much of an "epic" game story into it (I just recently did a review for Half-Life 2 where I criticized how the "epicness" of the story damaged the straight-forward atmosphere of the original game). I actually like the intentionally minimalistic approach, which shows in other aspects of the game as well, for example the text-only game menus.

Aesthetically, the game is a masterpiece for its time. Countless details from the Alien and Predator universes can be found in-game (such as the Predator's glow-in-the-dark blood and various locations from the original Alien movies). The settings are mostly inspired by H. R. Giger's original designs, ranging from derelict space stations to ancient alien temples. Some of the rocky outside levels from the predator levels are looking a little stale, but mostly, the sharp texturing and masterful lighting create an atmosphere that just sucks you in.

Music and sound design are exceptional with a theatrical score that exudes atmosphere and all the original alien and predator sounds perfectly recreated. From the constant "blip" of the motion tracker to the devilish hissing of the alien to the exotic gargle of the predator... it's all there and sounds just as good as in the movies.

I never really had the chance to test the (peer-to-peer hosted only) multiplayer much, but the short time I spent with it was fun. You can play as any of the species in a variety of game modes that let you, for example, have a team of marines fight against a single alien or predator. As I'm writing this, Rebellion is also re-releasing this game with several updates as a "Classic 2000" version, including the promise of proper multiplayer support.

The Bad
The game has no in-game saves originally, which is plain insane. You shouldn't play the game without the patch which introduces saving among a variety of other fixes. There are still occasional bugs, like you or your enemies getting stuck in rare places.

The cheesy briefing videos displayed on monitors in-game do little to improve the near non-existent plot (and are apparently replaced by properly acted ones for the "gold edition" and the "Classic 2000" release). While there are bonus missions from beating the game at higher difficulties, many of the campaigns are really short.

You might also say that some parts in the game are ridiculously difficult. Or plain unfair. Not finding a switch or object to destroy at the right part in a mission might leave you wandering around aimlessly for half an hour since some of the missions have a rather maze-like design. Sometimes, it's to easy to fall of a ledge, which can occasionally kill you in the last 10 meters of a game.

The Bottom Line
You can feel how much fun the developers had putting this game together. Or maybe it drove them nuts... I don't really know. All I do know is that AvP quietly revolutionized many aspects of FPS game design, introducing an array of smaller and bigger features that were unique for its time and, in many cases, unprecedented to this very day. Crawling around walls and ceilings as the alien is pretty amazing. As is cycling through the vision modes as the predator or feeling your heart stop beating for a full minute after a facehugger jumps at your screen during the marines campaign.

AvP is also one of the rare games that prove that movie licensed games do not have to suck. This game is in the same category as Goldeneye or The Cronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher's Bay. Like all games that can fill a movie license with creativity, it both perfectly captures the atmosphere of the movies while, at the same time, not falling for meaningless gimmicks. It also feels like a game developed in the tradition of Half-Life, Unreal and other late-90ies FPS games: A design process where programmers and directors could roam free, creating features that sound fun and exciting and then build a game on top of it. Very different from modern gamedesign where everything is built around a definite, perfectly balanced feature-list that does not leave any room for experimentation.

What an unfairly overlooked game. AvP, after all, might actually be one of the best FPS games out there, better than many more popular competitors. And while Monolith's sequel, AvP2 provides more of an actual story, the original sure beats it when it comes to atmosphere and presentation. I'm curious how Rebellion will do with its 2010 reboot of the franchise.

The recently released "Classic 2000" version of this game, available at a bargain price, is sure worth a look for any action or horror enthusiast. It truly is a classic.

The Good
Aliens Vs. Predator captures perfectly the feeling of the Aliens movies, especially when played from the perspective of the Colonial Marine.

I still recall the first few times I played this game, in the Marine demo version I downloaded from the net. It was intense. For the first time since my rookie days as an FPS player, I was really just trying to survive. As I entered the darkened corridors of a wrecked human colony, my pulse rifle at my side, I truly felt the complete lack of security the Marine would. I saw the intermittent blips on my motion sensor. I could hear them, the aliens. They were everywhere. In the half-dark, climbing over walls and ceilings, hunting me. I felt alone and weak.

By the same token, as an Alien, I was given the sense of the stealthy beast of prey infiltrating the human strongholds. And as the Predator, I was the ultimate combat force, cloaked from human vision and armed with lethal and precise weapons. I gave only passing interest to their gunfire, which concerned me little unless it was particularly fierce. Only their toughest weapons gave me pause.

And right there is reason enough to buy AvP. Even at full retail price, though you needn't pay that much now that it has aged some. You can easily get the Gold edition at around $10 or $20. This game's atmosphere, the experience of just being each race is done artfully well.

But other aspects of the game rock as well. As the Marine, your range of weapons is very nice indeed. You have access to the smartgun, flamethrower, grenade launcher, mini-gun, pistols (single or dual), and a couple of rocket-launching devices. But the highlight weapon, which you will use the most in the game, is your standard pulse rifle with built-in grenade launcher. This sweet and versatile weapon will get you through almost any scrape and ranks, in my opinion, as one of the coolest sci-fi weapons ever conceived.

The Predator's weapons are awesome, too. The wrist-blade will be your work-horse weapon, taking down most enemies with a single swipe. But other weapons such as the spear-gun and the lethal disc are well implemented, each with a real strategy to its use. And, of course, the med-comp for healing those nasty wounds is great and essential when combating aliens.

As The Alien, you are a weapon. Period. The implementation of this and the Alien's wall climbing abilities is near flawless.

Other cool aspects, like different vision modes for each race would take to long to get into. But, suffice it to say, there's still more to this game, and it's good. I leave it to the reader to find out for themselves.

The Bad
There are minor problems. Mainly, the plot, such as it is, can be rather thin. That didn't bug me much, though.

I know some people will complain about the limited saves (and, if I recall, it originally had no in-mission saves, which was fixed for the Gold Edition apparently). I understand where that can be frustrating. But I personally found that it aided the desperate atmosphere when playing as the Marine.

The Bottom Line
An experience for any fan of sci-fi. This game is one of my favorite FPS's and I recommend it without qualification.

The Good
- Fun, chaotic multiplayer. Offers multiple game modes. - Controlling the Alien feels crazy and is entertaining enough just running around the walls and ceiling. - Predator's vision modes is a really cool feature to play with, and is something we don't see enough of in modern games. - Nostalgic for some.

The Bad
- Confusing, dark, bland environment that runs together and makes navigation difficult at times. - Non-existent storyline and narrative. - Amateurish voice-acting. - With multiplayer being the primary source of value, there are very few available games online. Most often, none to be found. - Bare-bones, ugly UI.

The Bottom Line
A 2020 Review - Aliens Versus Predator (PC, 1999)

Score: 3/10 Mediocrity Score: Makes Mediocrity Look Good.

After twenty-one years, this once great action shooter fails to entertain. If only Aliens Versus Predator were as thrilling, exciting, and tight-playing as it was back in 1999 when it was released. Today it's dim, dark, and bland; being more of a mess than it's worth.

Tags: A few words or tags that come to mind are: dark, disorienting, multiplayer, unpolished.

Avg. Time to beat: 6.5 hours Quickest Speedrun: 1.2 hours

Retail Price: $5 Lowest Historical Price on Steam: $1.24

Quick Take: I'm not going to sugar-coat it; the years between now and 1999, when Alien Versus Predator was released, have not been kind. Graphics, textures, lighting, sounds, UI, AI, and everything else unmentioned have all vastly improved during that time. All of this will become incredibly apparent as soon as you launch the game. AVP became a LAN party cult classic of the early 2000s through its chaotic multiplayer deathmatch. Players could compete between Aliens, Predators, and Colonial Marines (a fancy-pants name for Humans). Unique for its time, each race is completely different. Rather it be weapon selection, visual-modes, tools, or movement speed, each playable-race requires a different strategy and approach. It makes for a crazed deathmatch experience. Each race also has its own campaign to play through along with several bonus levels. Today, the majority of what made Aliens Versus Predator such a standout game of 1999 has been washed away. The improvements in gameplay, technical design/engineering, story, and multiplayer experience have all long since improved offering more than what was possible at the time. The AVP franchise has also seen more releases since '99 which have each sought to improve upon the original title. In 2020, AVP is more interesting as a retro-museum of what once was rather than a competent game worth your time. It's interesting on a component level, but not as a whole.

Pros: - Fun, chaotic multiplayer. Offers multiple game modes. - Controlling the Alien feels crazy and is entertaining enough just running around the walls and ceiling. - Predator's vision modes is a really cool feature to play with, and is something we don't see enough of in modern games. - Nostalgic for some.

Cons: - Confusing, dark, bland environment that runs together and makes navigation difficult at times. - Non-existent storyline and narrative. - Amateurish voice-acting. - With multiplayer being the primary source of value, there are very few available games online. Most often, none to be found. - Bare-bones, ugly UI.

Concept: Leaving humans out of the name, Aliens Versus Predator pits the two Hollywood beasts against each other as well as the Colonial Marines in a triple-sided deathmatch. Each race gets its own multiple-mission, multiple-map singleplayer campaign.

Graphics: Unfortunately, not all components of a game age as well as one another. In many regards, It was behind the times even for 1999. With repetitive texture and object re-use, variety in colors being very low, and the brightness-bar being either strongly too low or too high - it results in a disorientating. Part of this is to permit for a bigger "woah!"-factor when using the different vision-modes that either of the alien-races have. Both modes require a dark setting for ideal wow-ing. 

Sound: There's a key mapping for releasing a loud taunt for players who choose to join as either an Alien or Predator. It makes for a really thematic screech or hiss, depending on which alien species you select. Each race has a distinctive set of noises it emanates. From weapons, to tools, grunts and even footsteps all have different sounds than their other opponents - be it Marines, Predators, or Aliens. Adequate if not good across the board.

Gameplay: Mixed. Often a negative and frustrating experience. Too frequent did I feel disoriented and lost as to what to do or where to go next. Sometimes for an hour of hunting high and low for a button to press or lever to pull which would allow me to progress further. Until, of course, I find myself trapped in another exercise along with a very similar problem.

Entertainment: Campaign provides little more than a proving grounds in which you can practice against AI. The most enjoyable and exciting part of AVP is its online multiplayer deathmatch. While still flawed, it provides for fast-paced rounds that are a chaotic and fun experience worth having. 

Replayability: Only in its online multiplayer. Its singleplayer campaign is painful enough to finish just once. I'd pass on reinstalling this, really.

---Full Review Below---

In 1999, the gaming industry as a whole was perceived as being incapable of creating a successful movie-to-game adaptation. Fox Interactive took a roll of the dice with Rebellion Developments in creating the original Alien Vs. Predator (Atari Jaguar, 1994). This risk paid off to much acclaim. Expanding on this success, Fox chose Rebellion again when creating a version for PC. Planned releases for Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation fell through before launch.

AVP became a LAN party cult classic of the early 2000s through its chaotic multiplayer deathmatch. Players could compete between Aliens, Predators, and Colonial Marines (a fancy-pants name for Humans). Unique for its time, each race is completely different. Rather it be weapon selection, visual-modes, tools, or movement speed, each playable-race requires a different strategy and approach. Aliens have a wider vision and can speed across walls and ceilings. Predators can switch between three vision-modes: thermal infrared, night-vision, and Alien-vision. They can cloak themselves with invisibility and can self-heal, both at a cost of energy. Colonial Marines' primary perk is having a lot of guns and explosives to hurl at their foes. They also have a motion sensor, but it is mostly just there for cool 90's vibes. All combined, it makes for a crazed deathmatch experience. Unfortunately, online matches or servers are becoming rarer and rarer. Often going long stretches with none available. One way to get matches (outside of your personal friends) is to subscribe to the discussion forum in Steam. Announcing it as a scheduled event would provide others an opportunity to plan on playing in advance. Otherwise, it's a game of chance rather you find anyone playing or not.

The bulk of the content is in its singleplayer campaigns. Having three of them, each is designed with a specific playable-race in mind. The Colonial Marine missions are the most comfortable to start with due to likely having the most familiar feeling gameplay. A style similar to the original Doom (PC, 1993). Marines are all about their expansive assortment of weaponry. The Marine campaign begins at a research station studying where the first Alien eggs were encountered. The main goal is to wipe out the Aliens before they make their way to Earth. The Predator campaign feels the most powerful and is the easiest to complete. It is by far the strongest physically and stays truest to the films. Bringing us to three different planets, the main goal in this campaign is to hunt and kill both marines and Aliens. The Alien path by far the most abstract as well as most frustrating. It includes one of the coolest movement mechanics being able to run on the walls and ceilings. It's fast and can drop its opponents with speed. Playing as the Alien is a disorienting experience. When navigating, the walls, floor, and ceiling can look too similar. Add fast movements and tight corridors and it becomes a bit difficult to navigate the map. It can be nauseating. The Aliens are meant to induce confusion and panic, not experience it when you play as one. It's unfortunate that in practice it turned out this way. Your main goal as an Alien is to go from the xenomorph hive and infiltrate Earth by making your way onto an Earth-bound ship as a stowaway.

Rebellion was going for a particular aesthetic. By going with a dark, ominous setting would best show off certain components of the game. Things like Predator's vision-modes or the Alien-vision. Low light sources and limited flares - amping up the thrill and suspense. Logical on paper, in execution it muddied the visuals and made for a very dim experience. Some doors only open from switches or buttons. Many of which are not easy to distinguish from other decorations on the wall. Textures are too overused. It results in a particularly bland and repetitive appearance. It's disorientating as it all begins to look the same. With no guidance or direction provided, it's led me to watching map guides out of frustration. Play as the Alien, and it only becomes worse as the ceilings and walls further blend. Is this hallway a left or a right? Is this where I just came from or was I walking on that wall when I came through?

Providing for a quality audio experience for most of the game. The voice acting was the exception to this. It's atrocious. They could have done much better. It came off as campy and did not match the tone of the game. The ability to screech or taunt your foes at the click of a button is cool. It can either lure or scare them away, although I never quite got this to work how I expected.

Overlooked in its day, Aliens Versus Predator was left in the shadow of bigger, more notable games like Unreal, Half-Life, Quake 3 Arena, and Deus Ex. It's not that AVP was bad, it just wasn't as good. I went ahead and reinstalled each of those games, as well as a few other titles from the era (Thief II, Hexen II, Systems Shock II, and Delta Force II). I wanted to see first hand how they compared at a quick glance. Plain and simple - the vast majority of the games from that time had more to offer. AVP was a fascinating concept game for its time. It had great multiplayer deathmatches. New and differing gameplay features for each playable race as well as the best thrill value at the time. But it had little else to offer. It brought some innovative touches to a genre that was still new and burgeoning. But longevity and future-proofing? AVP falls short.

Today, the majority of what made Aliens Versus Predator such a standout game in 1999 has been washed away. It fails to pack enough to punch through the advances in game development and hardware since its release 21 years ago. The multiplayer is its only saving grace, and only rarely can you find anyone online playing. LAN party throwback at best. AVP is more interesting as a retro-museum of what once was rather than a game experience worth your time.

Overall - in 2020, this is not a good game. It doesn't do its legacy any justice. It used to be a LAN party hit, with everyone being excited to play. Now it rarely gets brought up and it never gets picked. The multiplayer is still fun, but I'm not sure it's "$4.99-fun". If it goes on sale, and you have a group of friends interested in doing deathmatch - I'd say it would be a worthwhile laugh. A throwback to how multiplayer games once were.

Thanks for reading!

The Good
Rather than recreating scenes from the movies this game inspires, this game recreates the feelings from the movies. As the Marine, the feeling is fear. Walking slowly through an abandoned space station, relying on the motion detector to give you enough warning, wondering how close those Aliens really are. As the Predator, the feeling is power. Knowing you can't be seen because you are cloaked, seeing the heat signatures of the Marines against a blue background, zooming in on your prey's face before your shoulder cannon removes it. And the Alien, there is no feeling. No joy at watching brave Marines run from you, no fear as you go head to head against a Predator. Just a cold, relentless push to protect the Hive.

The Bad
For me, a game has always been a vehicle to tell a story. This game has no story to tell. Missions seem loosely linked together and ingame objectives are often unclear. A vital patch allows players to save ingame, although only three times (varies according to difficulty level). Most missions involve going from Point A to distant Point Z with much button pushing and airduct crawling.

This game fails in that has too many genre cliches. Weapons and power-ups are found in random, meaningless locations. Health meters, with some exceptions, take away from the "realism". While this game has good graphics, the inability to interact with surroundings detracts from the setting. Also, enemy bodies disappear seconds after they die, which is due to the limitations of the engine, but makes one feel that they just took on a pack of Jedi.

Finally, AND POSSIBLE SPOILER, while the Predator and Marine get to go against the Alien Queen at the end of their sequences, the Alien gets jack, and only five levels to the Marine and Predator's six.

The Bottom Line
Good first person shooter that just can't escape the fps cliches. A stronger plot and varied gameplay would have made this a classic. Would not recommend except at a discount price and make sure you download the patch!!!

The Good
"They're all over us...get that transport here now! There's to.....any of them! They're swarming..... What the?! Why are they....treating!? Shi........" The above static-filled radio message illustrates two things. First, the dramatic, sweat-drenched tension that defines both the movies (Alien, Aliens and Predator) and the game. Second, of course, a chance encounter of the game's three sides; the xenomorphs (aliens), marines, and the predators. Although the game's title may sound like a never-ending message board debate (or gamespy grudge), these two famous sci-fi universes blend together almost seamlessly. Main changes are that now the Corporation’s genetic experiments now include the vicious predator, creating the somewhat slow but unbelievably durable PredAlien. Besides that is the addition of the minigun the marine's arsenal, and a few logical modifications. Now, on to gameplay. The game is divided into three campaigns, one for each race. Each is about five or six missions long (doubled in the gold edition, which includes a save feature and added missions for each race based on missions from one of the other races campaigns). The missions are fairly large and the game is long enough overall to be quite satisfying. They are also well constructed, properly re-creating the claustrophobic, almost maze-like environments of the movies. They are, naturally, quite dark (light wise), but, thankfully, each race has an appropriate solution. Speaking of the races, each is authentically recreated from the movies with a few logical additions to allow for fps play, but all are designed to be appropriate for the race. This quality also applies to the HUD/interface for each race. The alien interface is extremely simple (just a blue-white health bar at the bottom of the screen), helping with the natural killer feel. The marine's is more conventional, sporting health, armor, and ammo meters in the usual spots. Finally, the predator has a sort of tribal feel to it, but still sci-fi. But how do the races play? Very well, thank you. All of the weapons are here (from alien head bite to predator shoulder cannon), plus a few extras. They are both well modeled and well balanced. The races themselves are fairly well balanced, but the predator is naturally the easiest, followed by the marine, and finally the alien, with their (relatively) delicate nature, can challenge even the most experienced fps player. Gameplay style varies appropriately for each race, along with mission styles, which are strung together in a loose but still interesting campaign. Finally, the graphics. They are excellent for the era, and still look good today. All of the special effects are quite good, especially the different visual modes. The colours and textures are pretty drab, but I suppose they fit in with the environment.

The Bad
Without in-mission saves (you have to download a patch or buy the gold edition), it can be extremely tough to beat. Also, the FMV mission briefings are indecently bad, particularly the marines ones, which give the distinct impression the Lister from the sitcom Red Dwarf is your CO. The enemy AI is tolerable, but the predator tends to just stand there and attack intermittently. Aside from that, there really isn't much to complain about.

The Bottom Line
Bottomline: A good game for anyone, but a great game for any serious fan of the two movie series.

The Good
Possibly the coolest "new" monsters to have sprung out of hollywood in the 80's and 90's, both aliens and the predator managed to get themselves into lots of movie-licensed crap that tried to cash in on their popularity, yet in the world of videogames, it wasn't until this game came out that a true emulation of each movie's feel and ambience was reached. Not on the original AVP, not on Alien Trilogy, and certainly not on the old NES Predator game.

The game is filled with visual and aureal hallmarks from each movie, with trademark sounds like the familiar hiss of an alien, the whirrrr-like sound of the colonial marine's pulse rifle, the predator's weird jaw-clenching sound and a graphics engine that delivers really good graphics with great lightning effects (a must since the game puts a heavy emphasis on dark locales and the use of alternate viewing modes).

The game offers three well-defined playing styles for each species, making for a nice premise in which to develop a game. The Marine is the most average character and plays like a standard fps character, with standard weapons health/armor indicators, etc. However playing with the marine will be anything but a soothing experience even to experienced players thanks to the game's disposition to put you in completely nerve-wrecking situations. You'll fight through dark corridors swarming with never-ending hordes of super-fast aliens that pop up from anywhere (like that nice little vent above you) with a perfect re-creation of the movie's motion detector to add to the tension and rather ineffective night vision aids to help spook you out. It's Doom 3 baby!!

The alien plays like an assassin-like character, with a simple interface and low health, but with a lightning-fast speed and agility, and the ability to climb on ceilings and walls to remain undetected. Certainly offering the game's most original and entertaining gaming experience, while the Predator plays like a souped-up version of the standard fps character, with additions like vision modes for every situation, cloaking capabilities, auto-targeting weapons, etc. etc. Clearly the most cheater (though satisfying in it's superiority) character to play with.

Furthermore, the game gives you multiplayer options, a skirmish (aka survival) game mode, and the chance to play the other species levels as a bonus when you finish with each character as well as an option to unlock secret cheats that change gameplay by say, putting all your enemies on fire, put disco music, give every character a giant head, etc. etc.

The Bad
As good as the gameplay premise and the capture of the licensed material's spirit is. The game feels like an empty shell to me. First of all there is no story whatsoever to the game, there is some garbage about getting out alive for the marine, avenging a fallen comrade for the predator and protecting your hive as the alien, but it's merely a sketchy excuse to tie the levels together.

Fine by me, right? At least the gameplay's good! Sorry but no.

The gameplay may be intense, but save for the case of the alien, it grows boring pretty fast. Both the marine and the predator are nerve-wrecking corridor-crawling, and sniping-sneaking experiences sure, but there's no npcs to interact with, no Half Life-like set-pieces, no clever level progression, no-nothing, gameplay boils down to just go flick the switch/get the key, exit the level, and try to survive in the middle. And the additional gameplay modes only dwell in the same concepts.

Such a throwback to the ancient ways of fps gaming led me to believe that the designers focussed on creating a near-perfect emulation of the movies, but when it came down to put that "spirit" on a game they just run out of ideas! That is why I feel this game is like a soul without a body, a diamond that has yet to be cutted, an idea without a game. Guess they just didn't have time and saved the "game" for the sequel.

Also, on a minor note for those that are really picky, there are some still not-perfect things when it comes down to the rendition of the movies, like the predator's view-mode change, or the lack of some of his weapons (spear, netgun, etc.) plus while I understand that the level design focuses on the Alien trilogy of movies due to the more identifiable landmarks (Nostromo, Sulaco, Fury41, etc.) I don't see why they didn't try to capture any of the jungle-hunting that made Predator so good. There's no jungle to speak of in the game, and they failed to emulate the predator's hopping and jumping around like in the movie.

Regarding the lack of an in-game saving option I am just going to say that the developers have some nerve to release a game like this (where it can all be over in a couple of seconds just because you didn't see that cloaked predator or an alien got the drop on you) without one, and NO, I'm not happy with the patch, stop trying to tell me when or how I should save my games, you stupid a-holes!!!!!!

The Bottom Line
When you focus so much on a certain aspect of a game sometimes you tend to leave things out, and that's just what happened to this game. They concentrated on the graphics and sounds and whatnot and they left out... well, the game!! Don't get me wrong, the game offers solid entertainment, but lacks that cohesiveness that makes a game a unique experience.

However there is a solution for this: Aliens Vs Predator 2, which does remember to include a unique gaming experience to ensure it's worth.