Alien vs Predator - Review

This is my first videogame review. Please go easy on me.

Being a fan of the movies, I had expectations for this game. The previous game in the series, AvP 2, was actually great and seeing Alien Colonial Marines got delayed, I wanted nothing else but "amazing" on this game. Rebellion has a weird history with their games starting with the original AvP which was good, and their latest project Rogue Warrior which I believe was the worse game in the series. So is AvP a killer entry in the FPS/survivor genre or a helpless marine prone to die.

What intrigued me most about the game is the three 4-5 hour campaigns, for each species. I started with the Marine campaign which I found to be surprisingly great. I've had some issues with it though. The story was weak, despite some intense moments like getting thrown down a hill by a Predator after he sneaks up on you, or even seeing a facehugger for the first time in a dark hallway. It really reminds you Rebellion tried to focus more on a survivor style for this specific campaign. The story basically starts with your spacecraft crashing and having to regroup with your team. There are no big twists or surprises; it certainly gets the job done but the predictability of it just makes it quite dull. The design of the game is decent. The indoor sections are very well done, with a good amount of polish and immerses you enough for you to think that you truly are a lonely marine with no help. On the other hand, there are the outdoor sections, which look half finished most of the time and recalling my back to my playthrough, the jungle is the only outdoor section that slightly impressed me. The character models are impressive and so are the animations and no major glitches except that sometimes Aliens get stuck on walls and fly all over the place making it impossible to shoot at. I had to ignore them and just move on with the mission.
Marines have the same gameplay like every other shooter and you gather stims to heal yourself when damaged. 6 weapons really aren't enough but because it's just 1/3 of the whole campaign, it doesn't bother me much. The guns sound very similar to the ones in the movies, but not all of the are as effective as their sound. The flamethrower is by far the most incompetent weapon in the game. It barely does any damage to the enemies and wastes one spot of your inventory where you can use the superior shotgun. The voice acting is nothing to write home about, but I like how Weyland is voiced by the same person like in the movies.

I then chose to play through the Predator Campaign and is by far the best campaign in the game. The variety of gameplay elements in this campaign really never made the campaign dull, even though it has a pretty dull story. You start out as a Youngblood and infiltrate the Marines' base after a short tutorial. From there you quest to search for legendary artifacts. That's all I got from the story since the lack of dialogue (which I know couldn't be added) limit my comprehension of what's going on. But for a 4 hour campaign all I cared about is the Predator stealth killing and combi sticking. As a Predator you can cloak yourself and jump yourself on abnormal heights so as to reach your objective. This also includes ranged weapons, and two different visions; you also heal yourself like the Marine by gathering life shards. Objectives might consist of slaughtering a scientist and gathering his head to unlock doors with a retinal lock or objectives might be the usual open 4-5 switches. Aliens are a cakewalk to kill after finding out an unbeatable combo. The melee combat is decent to good, but what really saves it, are the execution/stealth kills which are by far the goriest I've seen on the console. Only Wolverine gave me this bloody satisfaction and that game was also quite great. At the end of the campaign you fight a disappointing final boss fight, but I can't blame it, since the other 2 campaigns also have disappointing boss encounters. The visuals in the Predator campaign are similar to the Marines, since all 3 campaigns take place in the same environment, which is really another gripe about the game. If you're going to make short campaigns, maybe some environmental creativity wouldn't be bad. It really does add on the predictability.

The Alien campaign is the most disappointing of all 3. The intro in this campaign is probably my favorite moment in the whole 5 mere missions. You start out as a test subject in a lab which morphs into an Alien. Subject 6 to be exact. Scientists in the lab then get excited about the prospect of using you as a weapon and command you in a unique tutorial. After a futile attempt to escape, they capture you once again. But too dogged to give up the Alien manages to escape the lab and free its Queen. The visuals in the eyes of an Alien are quite different. The outlines of your enemies can be seen and has a much more darker sense in the game since its main focus is on stealth. It really did remind me of an inferior version of Riddick since the controls as an Alien are horrible until you get ued to them. With auto transition off, you still get stuck on walls and the camera might fiddle around sometimes making it impossible alot of the times to see where you are hiding and when where the enemies are coming from. Aliens are in a way forced to use stealth since they have less health than the other 2 species, and they only focus on melee combat if you decide to ignore the stealth mechanics. You can complete this campaign in 3 hours and you'll probably not want to come back since the story and boss fights are, like the other campaigns, mediocre.

After analyzing each campaign, I will now enter the multiplayer section of the game. There are 6 modes, with my favorite one being Predator Hunt. It reminds me of the Pitch Black mode in Riddick. Your Predator cloaks and executes Marines silently until he gets killed. The time limit of being a Predator extends after your every assassination. The maps in the game are pretty decent. There's only one map I dislike, which is the maze-like one. Waiting for a wall to come up or down for you to pass (especially as a slow Marine) gets annoying after a few matches. My biggest flaw about the multiplayer is probably the rank system. Ranks usually show the skill and reward you after a specific amount of ranks and time you invested in the game. This game only rewards you with skins- skins that you barely pay attention in the game, and you can't even see so you can feel good about yourself. I'd like a more diverse combo system or maybe even different weapons or perks you can pick from? I guess I got too used to the variety Call of Duty includes. Therefore, I can see multiplayer living on for a few months as a casual player but probably hardcore AvP fans will keep playing it until AvP 4 or Alien Colonial Marines comes out.

One more thing I should add, is the Survivor mode. Most of you might think Rebellion just added this for a cheap attempt to extend replayability, but 4 player co-op and even though just 2 maps can provide alot of fun if played in short bursts. I really enjoyed it for the few rounds I played.

Conclusion: AvP is a mustbuy for the hardcore fans. I rented it, and I'm glad I rented it. The three campaigns provided me 15 hours of fun and even though the multiplayer is barely memorable, I can see myself not getting bored of it until a few more weeks.
So if you want a survivor/stealth/gory action game, AvP will not disappoint. Just make sure you go easy on its minor flaws.

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