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Publishers: Fox Interactive Developers: Rebellion Software Game Type: First-Person-Shooter Introduction Almost any self-respecting movie-lover has seen the Alien and Predator movies, and know fantastic movies they are; hey, Aliens is on my Phat List o' Phat Movies™ - the greatest honor of all. However, it was Predator II that started all the Alien vs. Predator games and comics; in one of the ending scenes, there's a "trophy room" on the Predator ship, and we can clearly see an Alien skull in there. Dear God, the Predators have been hunting Aliens for centuries! Anyway, all Alien vs. Predator games were console-based... until now. Fox Interactive has collaborated with Rebellion Software (a British company) to create Aliens vs. Predator (notice the "s" in "Aliens"), and they've done magnificent job of it. Story Advertisement United States Colonial Marine Pandora Base - a Weyland-Yutani installation protected by the USCMC (United States Colonial Marine Corps) under contract. The installation was created for Alien biological experiments. During one of these experiments, the Aliens escape, so now everybody is trying to flee from the Aliens by leaving the planet. However, you, a United States Colonial Marine, have been left behind by your friends(?) because of your bad sleeping habits (not joking), and must now find a way out of the installation in one piece. Fight through countless Aliens and Predators to try reach a spacecraft that will take you home. However, Big Momma - the Queen - isn't exactly happy with your plans... Predator You and your comrades were trekking the galaxy for a good place to hunt, but tragically, your ship malfunctions and plummets to a nearby planet, which just happens to have Pandora Base on it. To make matters worse, the base found out about the crash, so they sent a platoon of Colonial Marines to check things out, and what they found wasn't what they expected: a crash site, with many dead or unconscious Predators lying around (though I wouldn't be surprised if the public statement say it was just another weather balloon!). So, they take your comrades as prisoners, and subject them to cruel experiments, like gene-tampering. Mysteriously, however, they forgot about you while you were unconscious. You finally gain consciousness, and find out all of your buddies are gone. It is now your duty to go to Pandora Base to try to set free your captive comrades and avenge your fallen comrades. However, as explained in the Colonial Marine part of the story, the experimented Aliens in the base broke free in a previous accident, and are now running rampant - eating and capturing anybody in its path - you must fight them, as well, then hurry to save your comrades - or what's left of them - then flee to your spacecraft, which is located somewhere in Pandora Base. However, Big Momma isn't going to let you leave without a good-bye kiss... Alien Your Alien buddies in Aliens vs. Predator are prisoners of Pandora Base. But since they are not humans, they were subject to cruel and unusual experiments. Finally, the Aliens devised a plan to escape, and was successful! You are now free! You have fought back against your human oppressors, and won. Sweet, sweet liberty. Now that you have the Queen back to order you around, the first order of business is to kill or impregnate as many Humans - or any other useful organisms - as possible. Once this is done, you're job is to board a spacecraft, which should take you to your destiny - Earth, where you will reproduce (yummy). Species One thing that is very different in Aliens vs. Predator compared to other FPS games, is that there is three, very different races you can play. Aliens vs. Predator is basically three games in one. So, describing gameplay must be done three ways - the Colonial Marine way, the Predator way, and the Alien way.   United States Colonial Marine The Colonial Marine will be the most familiar of the three races; it is very similar to characters we all play in other FPS games, like Half-Life, or Unreal, so you'll be right at home with this guy. As the Colonial Marine, you are awarded the most powerful arsenal in the game, which include the Pulse Rifle, Smartgun, Flamethrower, and many more. However, the Colonial Marine lacks in durability, which is what the Predator excels in, and lacks in speed, which is what the Alien excels in. You'll just have to rely on your bad-ass weapons and equipment. Speaking of equipment, the Colonial Marine has an Image Intensifier (night vision, basically) and Flares - you'll be using a lot of these in Aliens vs. Predator; it's literally a dark game.   Predator The Predator is the strongest character in the game, and it has the ability to become invisible, has some pretty cool - though very surgical - weapons, and it can run pretty fast; ever see the scene where the Predator is running after Dutch? In this game, you'll be running after Colonial Marines with heavy body armor, equipment and weapons; Aliens, the Predator has problems with, though.   Alien The Alien is the most stealthy and speedy character in Aliens vs. Predator; it runs faster than a freakin' Cheetah on crack! As an analogy, the Alien is the Quake character, the Predator is the Rainbow Six character, and the Colonial Marine is the... turtle with a ball and chain, to say the least. Along with being the fastest character in the game, the Alien also has the ability to scale walls and ceilings just like SpiderMan (though I wish I the Alien had a Web-shooter so I can go swing-around like an idiot) - this will prove to be a very useful in sneaking up to the Alien's opponent(s). Though the Alien lacks in durability - the worst of the three characters, in fact - the Alien's weapons - Claws, Tail, Secondary Jaws - can kill anything is seconds, though the problem is they are all melee weapons. So, you'll have to use your speed and stealth to get close to your opponent. Corners are an an Alien's best friend. Single-Player Single-player for Aliens vs. Predator is one of the best in the business. Not only is does it constantly keep you excited and on your toes, it's freakin' scary! You wouldn't believe how loud I've screamed (and how many pieces of expensive and kinky underwear I've destroyed) when an Alien suddenly jumped from a hole in the ceiling. It scared the crap out of me (literally). The bad area of the single-player aspect is the bot AI. Rebellion did a terrible job in this area. I wish they worked harder on it. Hey, it is funny to meet a squad of Colonial Marines - ready to get your ass shot-off - and suddenly the Colonial Marine in the back of the squad mistakenly killing his all his teammates, but I don't think they meant it to be funny. One great feature Rebellion put in is something called, "debug mode" - this is basically a cheat mode, that (obviously) only works in single-player. In this mode, you can go in God mode (invincibility), put in friendly or enemy bots near you, and other great stuff. I had gobs of fun having God mode on, and have ten Aliens attack me. I'd slowly shoot arms, legs, and even their fingers off! Fun. Even though there are no scripted events as seen in Half-Life, Aliens vs. Predator's single-player missions are a blast to play. It goes right up there with Half-life as having one of the best single-player experience ever. Multi-Player Multi-Player for Aliens vs. Predator suffers from the lack of a dedicated server, skins, maps and especially mods. I sure feel sorry for mod sites that sprung up before the game came out expecting the source released. MPlayer is Aliens Versus Predator's default multi-player program, and it stinks more than me after I don't shower in a month. If only they've chosen a dedicated server system instead of a peer-to-peer system, and we wouldn't have to put-up with MPlayer; we'd be using GameSpy, obvisously ten times better. However, this game is perfect for LAN play! On my LAN, I've had tons of fun playing this game with people. It just shows how great this game can be in multi-player if they had a client/server system. I probably would've switched to another game if I didn't have a LAN set up. Anyway, there are six different types of gameplay - Cooperative, Standard Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, Species Deathmatch, Predator Tag and Alien Tag - are all very fun (I especially Last Man Standing). I guess this is Fox's replacement for not releasing the source code. Not nearly as good as having the source code out, but it's still tons of fun. Game Types This is the way most FPS games play today. Because you are not allied with anybody, you will fight against people of your own race as well as the other races. The basic strategy for this mode of play is to get a good area-affect weapon, and kill everybody. Standard Deathmatch is for people who generally don't enjoy using any strategy and simply want to bust some heads. Just a quick game, you know? Species Deathmatch In this mode of play you are allied with people of the same species. Remember, never to kill anybody of your own race; you lose points if you do so. The host can, however, turn on an option which makes it impossible to kill someone of your own species, which is good for you trigger-happy people. Flamethrowers, however, seem to be not affected by this option, so don't any of you use Flamethrowers! In a Species Deathmatch, your chances of survival and kill rate will go up if you try to stick together and become a team (especially for the Colonial Marines); the combined firepower of a squad will easily destroy any opposition. Last Man Standing In this mode of play all players play as the Colonial Marine except for the host, who plays as an Alien. If you play as the Colonial Marine, your primary job is to not get yourself killed, and with the same priority, try to help your friends from being killed; aside from not wanting to die already, if you or any of your friends die, you/they will be transformed as an Alien, and now play on the host's team. You are now hunting your friends, as it is the only way you/they can score points now. If you're playing the Alien (which means you're the host) in the game, your primary job is to kill Colonial Marines at all costs; if you kill one of them, he will restart as an Alien on your side! Now, keep doing this to gain more allies. This way of playing keeps going on until the last Colonial Marine dies, where he will be rewarded "Last Man Standing", as the title suggests. The game is now restarted. To win as the Colonial Marines, it is imperative that you and your allies stick together; if you are alone, you can be easily killed by the Alien(s). If you are in groups, however, the Alien will have a smaller chance of killing you and your teammates, since there is a lot more firepower now. As an addition to the strategy, try not to use Flamethrowers; it can kill your squad-members easily, and even if the option for friendly-fire is disabled. To win as the Aliens, you primary objective is to separate the Colonial Marines so you can kill them one-by-one. If this is impossible, try to attack from behind (even against the entire squad); if you're lucky, you will at least kill one of the Colonial Marines before you die. Unlike playing as the Colonial Marines, when you die, you restart back as an Alien - not a Colonial Marine. Predator Tag In this mode of play, the host plays as the Predator, and the rest play as the Colonial Marine or Alien. The person who kills the Predator becomes the Predator, and only the player that plays the Predator can score points - this makes a huge incentive to kill the Predator - ingenious, right? Alien Tag In this mode of play, the host plays as the Alien, and the rest play as the Colonial Marine or Predator. The person who kills the Alien becomes the Alien, and only the player that plays the Alien can score points - this makes a huge incentive to kill the Alien - ingenious, right? Cooperative In this mode of play you are restricted to two new maps. All players are restricted to use the Colonial Marine or Predator, and are allied. You and your allies will fight unlimited amounts of Aliens, Praetorians and Predaliens, which are all controlled by the computer. When I say "unlimited" - I mean unlimited! The Aliens, Praetorians and Predaliens are endless! Because of this, you cannot win; your objective is to merely kill as many Aliens before you die. It really gets tedious after a while. While playing the Colonial Marine, the Smartgun or Mini-Gun is the best choice against the Alien horde in this map. Yes, even though the Mini-Gun is stronger, you are rendered immobile while using it, so you can't run backwards while shooting, which is a very useful tactic. With the Smartgun, however, you can move in any way you want, but the weapon isn't as powerful as the Mini-Gun - take your pick. I personally would choose the Pulse Rifle; the secondary fire option is very useful in taking out large numbers of Aliens, and the primary fire option is a good all-around weapon, though not as effective as the Mini-Gun or Smartgun. While playing the Predator, you should definitely use the Plasma Pistol; its blast-effect is perfect for killing many Aliens at once, which is what you want to do. However, Predaliens/Praetorians won't be defeated in such a way, so switch to the Disc when you see 'em. Graphics Aliens vs. Predator is one of the most beautiful games I've seen. Not the best, but certainly very good. And not to mention the game's graphics engine was created from scratch by Rebellion. One thing I really enjoy in the game is the explosions; when it happens, it causes little quakes that shake your view, and you look in awe at the explosion. I tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than getting a direct SADAR hit on a Predator at medium range. What a sight. Aliens vs. Predator has really good character models. The Rebellion guys worked hard on it. I mean, everything is just there. From the net-clothing of the Predator, to the changing expressions on a Colonial Marine's face, it's there. One time when I was playing the Predator, I was on this ridge, looking down on the Colonial Marines below. Since I was cloaked, they didn't see me. So, I just watched them with the Predator's zoom-in feature. It's tons of fun doing this. Then, I shot one of them once to see their reaction (the shot didn't kill any of them), and suddenly you see an angry expression. As soon as I moved, they shot me; if a Predator is moving while cloaked, they're easily seen. One good thing about this game is that it runs very smoothly, and you'll hardly experience any slowdowns. Though this is mainly due to the small areas you're usually in, but in the larger areas - along with rain - I received some slowdowns Sound FX The sound FX is very, very good. Probably one of the best I've ever heard. At first, I thought the sound FX were directly extracted from the films, but they were actually re-created, and they do a very good job at it; from the sound of the M-41 A Pulse Rifle to the "clicking" sound of the Predator in the background, the sound FX makes you really feel like you're in a movie. Music Also not extracted from the movies, the music is very similar and very good. It just adds to the already great atmosphere of the game. As a side note, the only way to hear music is to insert the second CD you get in your CD-ROM. Conclusion Overall, Aliens vs. Predator is a great game, but suffers from bad multilplayer, which will hopefully be fixed. So, interested? Then buy the game at CheckOut.com! Minimum PC Recommended PC Windows 95/98/2000 Windows 95/98/2000 Intel Pentium 200 Mhz MMX Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz 32 MBs of free system RAM 128 MBs free system RAM 200 MBs of hard drive space 400 MBs hard drive space 4X CD-ROM drive 24X CD-ROM drive 4 MBs Direct3D Supported Video Card 3DFX Voodoo II graphic accelerator   SoundBlaster Live! soundcard - David Shipley