Aliens vs. Predator : XBox 360
Well, here it is, the first XBox 360 game review and literally, after years of owning one, the first XBox 360 game I’ve completed. I just prefer the PS3, ah well.
I have AvP for the XBox because my lovely friend Laura was on the graphics team (her name comes up in the credits and everything) and she said the XBox version was slightly better and who am I to argue?
It was with some trepidation that I sat down to play AvP. The guy in the shop was disdainful when I bought it, saying that he hated the Alien sections and to be honest, I was only getting it because it was Laura’s game, so it’s incredibly pleasing knowing how positive I get to be in this review less than a week later.
As the man in the shop had hated the Alien bit (and I wanted him to be wrong) and because of the three options (Marine, Alien and Predator) the Alien is by far my favourite, it was with the Alien that I started. I was immediately impressed with the graphics and feel and it didn’t take long before I was running around walls and ceiling as the deadly creature and grinning from ear to ear. While I’m not the biggest fan of FPS games, I do like being all stealthy and the Alien was right up my alley. Shopman had disliked the fact that he never really understood which way was up when running around the walls, but I didn’t encounter the same problem at all, far from it. I loved the fact that I was a master of the environment and could jump and climb with such speed and I took great pride in attempting to assassinate each of the marines in a cold and calculated silent manner. Melee combat not for me really, but sneaking in the darkness, snaking off the wall and stabbing my tail through their stomach - yeah, I got into that! Playing as the Alien is a dark and thoughtful affair and as each section gets a little harder (I did die a good few times) it also becomes more satisfying when you get those good kills.
It’s not all good news for the Alien section though, because unfortunately for me, just before the end of this section (which is a little short, to be honest) you meet the Predators and it goes from being stealthy ninja-like affair to a very very boring run around like crazy FPS that felt like playing Call of Duty multiplayer. And I hate Call of Duty multiplayer. It was such a huge shame, because I LOVED creeping around and being the silent killer and I just hated it as soon as the Predator turned up. I finished the Alien missions a little while after that and came away with the solid impression that the game would have been twice as good if it had just been ‘Aliens’ with no mention of the Predator at all. Sure, the Predator environments were atmospheric and cool, but they could have been replaced with something else and all references to the Predator taken away and the game would have been near flawless. Near flawless because the other issue I had with it was that as part of a hive-mind creature with loads of other Aliens about, I never saw my brothers-in-arms. Well, there were a couple ‘helping’ me kill the Predators, but seriously, it felt like I was the sole Alien and while I enjoyed that, the logic of it drove me a little nutty, especially when I moved on to being the Marine and saw just how many Aliens were around…
Ah yes, the Marine. Well, I suited up with a real sense of ‘I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?’. After all, my big problem with the superb Alien section was when it went all Call of Duty on me, and I felt the Marine section was going to start that way. I was so wrong. I can’t really emphasise how much I loved the Marine section. I was seriously impressed. You see, I’m of the age where Aliens (the film) was the coolest thing ever. My teenage years were filled with a nearly weekly need to watch the film to the extent that the script is in my blood. Guess what? Playing as the Marine (especially in the early levels) is like entering Aliens and being there. It’s probably the most terrifying experience I have ever had while playing a computer game. I was frightened to my bones and the very first time I saw the Alien coming towards me and all I had was this little pistol I was surprised I didn’t lose my bowels on the sofa. This is scary, and it got better when I picked up the pulse rifle and the sounds, as well as the sights, became Aliens all over. The sample of the gunfire from the pulse rifle remains, for me, the highlight of the entire game. I was literally fifteen again, scared shitless and imagining an Alien in every shadow - only this time, it wasn’t just my imagination. The Marine campaign took me three nights to complete and each time I sat down I picked up the controller with a real and tangible sense of terror and had to convince myself I wanted to go through with it. Each night when I finished I had to watch some mundane comedy programme before I would fall asleep and even then my dreams were filled with Aliens. It was an intense and superb experience, but then, like the Alien section, it became flawed.
It was the Predator. Again. Once more, towards the end of the campaign, you have to face off against this ridiculous foe and the game devolves from the fear fest of the previous hours into a boring shoot-em-up I could have done without. The Predator doesn’t scare you in the same spine-chilling way as an Alien, it’s too systematic and predicable. Sure, I got to do some awesome sniper rifle work (I loves me a good sniper rifle and I have no issue with the one supplied to the Marine) but coming from the abject terror of the Alien sections and running around sniping out a Predator was a different game and not one that was as good. My conclusion by this point was the same as the one I’d had at the end of the Alien campaign: take out all the Predator references and call this game ‘Aliens’. If I had been a percentage type reviewer and they had done that, ‘Aliens’ would have been scoring in the mid-nineties.
So… the Marine section done (and it was bloody hard, I have to add, I think I died more than a hundred times, fifty or so of which were at the same checkpoint…) I moved on to the Predator.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I do love the Predator. I loved the films, I love the design, I think he’s a bloody cool beastie, he just didn’t fit the previous two campaigns in this game. However, the chance to be a Predator, well, I was up for that and I needed to feel powerful after the run of being scared of everything that moves I had done as the Marine. I dropped right into the Predator missions and these desires were fulfilled. The Predator is ridiculously strong and even though they have done well to temper his abilities (with a serious limitation on power to fire your weapon and the better weapons not coming until much later) he’s still insanely hard compared to either of the other protagonists. I waded through Aliens like they were made of toffee and punished Marines for just, well, being. It was easy after three days of teeth-clenched horror to wade through five or six missions as the hardest creature in the game. I enjoyed it a lot, but it was like doing warm down exercises after running ten miles cross country in the snow. Predator - easy. Fun, but easy. I only died when I did something on purpose to push the boundaries a bit, almost a polar opposite to being a Marine. With his Combi Stick, the Predator becomes a long range sniper and this was very enjoyable, even if it did make killing anything easier still.
So last night, I finished it all and sat back and took a moment to collect myself. I only played it on normal (there are hard and nightmare modes too) and I know without a doubt that I am not good enough to even attempt Marine on nightmare, but I might give it a go on hard in a year or two just to feel that terror once more (why is it that we like to scare ourselves?). Aliens vs. Predator is a good game, a great game, but Aliens would have been a far superior game and a must own for anyone who loved the films. For myself though, I’ve completed my first XBox 360 game and had a damned good time doing so. Laura’s graphics were pretty good too!
