Game over man, game over! (Aliens Versus Predator (PC))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Aliens Versus Predator (PC)
Date:	28/11/00 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Aliens, predators, marines!

Disadvantages: very difficult

I got this game free (OEM edition - complete game, no manual) with my Soundblaster 1024 player when I bought it at the start of 2000. As I've said elsewhere, I'm a big fan of first person shooters, and with the Alien series of movies being up there with my all time favourite movies, surely a FPS (first person shooter) based on them (with the Predator) would be an absolute stonker?

Well, installation was a breeze - the usual options about where, and what, to install. No problems with any hardware that I had installed.

So, with the installation over, I eagerly started the game. I was not disappointed! You can play as any of the three main species - human, alien or predator, and rather than other FPS's where the action runs seamlessly from one mission to another, in Aliens vs Predator (AvP), the action takes place in episodes. Some maps are used more than once (i.e. you may play one map as the marines, but later, return to the same map as the predator, or an alien), but because of the differences in the species, the gameplay is totally different e.g. the human must use lifts, ladders etc to get around, but the alien can crawl on the ceiling and walls, and the predator can fall (or drop) far greater distances.
There is one overall story for each species, and this unfolds with each episode completed.
Once you have completed all the episodes ofr a particular species, then you can access "secret" episodes for further enjoyment.

As well as this, AvP uses it's own 3D graphics engine which is very fast indeed. It maybe does not look as good as other engines out there e.g. Unreal/UT or Quake2/3, but it is does the job it was meant to do.

There are multiplayer options available, but I found it hard to find any way of conncting to the internet, and at the end of the day, I had to go through Wireplay where one person hosted the game him(her)self. This seriously restricted the number of people who could pl
ay, and if more than say six people joined the game, it would become unplayable.

Playing with about four people all playing as marines against an alien horde has to be played to be believed. I was scared senseless - walking down a corridor with your motion tracker beeping away, only for the pitch to get higher and louder as aliens approach, then for you and your three friends to start shooting randomly because the bloody things are coming from all angles!

Although, I have to say that getting people online to play multiplayer Avp is going to be quite hard because of the way the multiplayer has been implemented. There are no central servers, like you would get with Quake, Half-Life or Unreal, and instead relies on one person hosting the game tthemselves. This means that you are limited to playing with only about 4 people (assuming internet play...) but even so, this can still be enjoyable.

The sound is excellent - with the backing of Fox Interactive (and therefore 20th Century Fox) it seems that all the original sound effects have been used, for the motion tracker, to the pulse rifles to the Predator roar (?). They're all authentic, and add more to the atmosphere of the game - just like being there, or watching the films for the first time.

I must warn people who don't play FPS's very much - this game is incredibly tough, but for those prepared to battle through, it's very, very rewarding. The original un-patched version didn't even have any saved game facilities, but this has been rectified since the games release making it even better (no more frustration at getting killed just before completing a level, and having to restart from scratch!).

I believe that a new Gold edition has been released with some new weapons and maps. It doesn't matter which version you buy, if you like the films, or FPS's in general then you're in for a treat!

Summary: