Aliens Versus Predator

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!!!