After throwing my often unasked for opinion at several would-be reviewers on this site, I figured perhaps I should give them the chance to return fire, and since all the cool kids in the back of the bus are reviewing games so old that Washington was playing them while he was waiting to cross the Delaware, I figure I'll start with one of my old favorites, which is Aliens vs. Predator 2.
Actually that's a lie. The game I was going to review was Crackdown, but that's already been done and done better than I would've done, so you get AvP.
AvP2's basic premise is as such: You play as a given race (human, predator, or alien) and work your way through a set of missions all surrounding the greater story of an incident that resulted in the failure of a deep-space research facility. The game kind of reminds me of the Orange Box in that it's not so much buying one big game as it is buying three, slightly smaller games all built from the same engine. One thing I like is that each race the character plays will indirectly interact with the others at some point. Holes you open as an alien you will use as a human later on. When the player is captured at one point, he is unintentionally set free by the other characters he plays. Each race is very unique and the playstyles should be spread around enough that everyone will be able to find something they enjoy. They all have various pros and cons, and overall I think they're fairly well balanced. Here's the breakdown:
The marine plays like most older shooters. His is the most complex UI to manage, but it's fairly intuitive. Health, Armor, Ammo, Weapons, Flashlight battery, motion tracker, etc. The marine's "pluses" mostly center around his weapons, which are generally heavy hitters with lots of splash to them. Marines also have the aforementioned motion tracker, which beeps like a radar and gives a rough idea of what's ahead of you, though other moving things (doors, things swaying in the wind) will set it off as well. The marines do have night vision, but it seemed more like a punishment than a benefit to me since it shuts off the motion tracker and my muzzle flares tended to wash out the screen. Happily, they have a shoulder lamp as well (think the Doom 3 duct-tape mod) which pretty much does the job for the whole game.
The Predator has fewer things to monitor. Health, Energy, and a very small pool of ammo. Most of the predator's abilities will use his energy. This includes weapons and the famous predator cloaking device. Energy is recharged by using a beacon which makes you visible and makes a lot of noise, so generally your job is to kill off all enemies in an area without running out of energy, then use the beacon before moving on. The predators have a huge amount of health and a healing kit which they can use at any time, and their weapons hit extremely hard, but are mostly designed for single shot playstyles. Sniper and spy types will *love* the predator. Another pro that is also a slight con is the vision modes. Predators can see in three different spectrums beyond the normal view (which no self-respecting predator would ever use), each of which allows for easy targeting of one enemy type. For example, humans are easy to spot in infrared view, but aliens hardly show up at all. Predtech makes navigation and finding your gear easy, but enemies appear as faint outlines. If it weren't for the stealth, it would be crippling, but as is it plays fairly well.
The Alien only has a health bar. It's the best UI ever. Aliens are insanely fast, can run on walls and ceilings, and do extreme damage up close. Their downside is a general lack of survivability (they shred easy), and the obvious melee requirement. One thing I liked about aliens is that they heal themselves via eating their prey, so instead of giving you health packs, the game gives you scientists cowering in the corner to eat. Once I realized I was viewing humans in the game as "health packs" I knew this was a game I would love for many years to come. Also, aliens start off as facehuggers and go from there, which is pretty much a guaranteed win.
Well, I spent way longer on the races than I wanted to so let's move on to story. The story is certainly passable, it's no Shakespeare but then lots of people think Halo had a good story, so we'll say that this does too. Voice acting is good. No one sounded really off or out of place. Most of the story actually happens to the human, with the other races being much lighter on plot. They mostly fill in extra details about the incident, though there is a small story to each "monster" race. Speaking of Halo, fans will be interested to hear Jen Taylor (Cortana) and David Scully (Johnson) appearing in the game. Halo was in-part inspired by the Alien series, and to perpetuate the similarity, Bungie hired the two actors to essentially reprise their roles for Halo (Jen as the voice of guidance, David as the tough Sarge). The atmosphere for the game is good, and playing the human can be genuinely creepy at times, especially when you're down in the hive and the battery for your lamp runs out and while you wait for recharge your motion tracker starts beeping.... but enough on that.
A note on the music. I liked the music and thought that it really added to the horror atmosphere, but at the same time, the music often gave away what was coming. Imagine if a character in a horror movie could hear the soundtrack and take cues for what to do next from it. I'm not sure if there would be a way to fix that issue, but it is there.
The graphics are okay. Certainly not up to the standards of today, but they work. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be "square". Everything is square-ish. Faces, plants, the ground. Everything cuts at sharp angles and this is especially noteworthy on the people, who remind me of Batman from the original animated series and who talk like a Monty Python animation. The walking in cutscenes is also very jerky, though it's fine in-game. Since most of the game takes place inside installations, the scenery generally looks fine, but when you're outside it can get a bit iffy.
I could address the multiplayer but I'm not really going to. Suffice it to say that there is multiplayer and it's basically a deathmatch. Fun, but kinda pointless in the long term.
My overall recommendation would be to run out and get the game if you haven't played it, it's certainly worth the (now very small, no doubt) price tag and remains to this day my favorite shooter of all time. It has it's flaws, certainly, but the positives far, far outweigh the negatives. As a brief and mostly spoiler free list:
- There is a level (as the alien) which begins with you looking at the inside of a ribcage, which you then burst through.
- The human gets to drive a combat exosuit at one point, and it rules.
- Whenever the Predator gets a headshot with the speargun, he does the most satisfying laugh ever.
A game like this simply cannot be passed up. Enjoy.
- J
Actually that's a lie. The game I was going to review was Crackdown, but that's already been done and done better than I would've done, so you get AvP.
AvP2's basic premise is as such: You play as a given race (human, predator, or alien) and work your way through a set of missions all surrounding the greater story of an incident that resulted in the failure of a deep-space research facility. The game kind of reminds me of the Orange Box in that it's not so much buying one big game as it is buying three, slightly smaller games all built from the same engine. One thing I like is that each race the character plays will indirectly interact with the others at some point. Holes you open as an alien you will use as a human later on. When the player is captured at one point, he is unintentionally set free by the other characters he plays. Each race is very unique and the playstyles should be spread around enough that everyone will be able to find something they enjoy. They all have various pros and cons, and overall I think they're fairly well balanced. Here's the breakdown:
The marine plays like most older shooters. His is the most complex UI to manage, but it's fairly intuitive. Health, Armor, Ammo, Weapons, Flashlight battery, motion tracker, etc. The marine's "pluses" mostly center around his weapons, which are generally heavy hitters with lots of splash to them. Marines also have the aforementioned motion tracker, which beeps like a radar and gives a rough idea of what's ahead of you, though other moving things (doors, things swaying in the wind) will set it off as well. The marines do have night vision, but it seemed more like a punishment than a benefit to me since it shuts off the motion tracker and my muzzle flares tended to wash out the screen. Happily, they have a shoulder lamp as well (think the Doom 3 duct-tape mod) which pretty much does the job for the whole game.
The Predator has fewer things to monitor. Health, Energy, and a very small pool of ammo. Most of the predator's abilities will use his energy. This includes weapons and the famous predator cloaking device. Energy is recharged by using a beacon which makes you visible and makes a lot of noise, so generally your job is to kill off all enemies in an area without running out of energy, then use the beacon before moving on. The predators have a huge amount of health and a healing kit which they can use at any time, and their weapons hit extremely hard, but are mostly designed for single shot playstyles. Sniper and spy types will *love* the predator. Another pro that is also a slight con is the vision modes. Predators can see in three different spectrums beyond the normal view (which no self-respecting predator would ever use), each of which allows for easy targeting of one enemy type. For example, humans are easy to spot in infrared view, but aliens hardly show up at all. Predtech makes navigation and finding your gear easy, but enemies appear as faint outlines. If it weren't for the stealth, it would be crippling, but as is it plays fairly well.
The Alien only has a health bar. It's the best UI ever. Aliens are insanely fast, can run on walls and ceilings, and do extreme damage up close. Their downside is a general lack of survivability (they shred easy), and the obvious melee requirement. One thing I liked about aliens is that they heal themselves via eating their prey, so instead of giving you health packs, the game gives you scientists cowering in the corner to eat. Once I realized I was viewing humans in the game as "health packs" I knew this was a game I would love for many years to come. Also, aliens start off as facehuggers and go from there, which is pretty much a guaranteed win.
Well, I spent way longer on the races than I wanted to so let's move on to story. The story is certainly passable, it's no Shakespeare but then lots of people think Halo had a good story, so we'll say that this does too. Voice acting is good. No one sounded really off or out of place. Most of the story actually happens to the human, with the other races being much lighter on plot. They mostly fill in extra details about the incident, though there is a small story to each "monster" race. Speaking of Halo, fans will be interested to hear Jen Taylor (Cortana) and David Scully (Johnson) appearing in the game. Halo was in-part inspired by the Alien series, and to perpetuate the similarity, Bungie hired the two actors to essentially reprise their roles for Halo (Jen as the voice of guidance, David as the tough Sarge). The atmosphere for the game is good, and playing the human can be genuinely creepy at times, especially when you're down in the hive and the battery for your lamp runs out and while you wait for recharge your motion tracker starts beeping.... but enough on that.
A note on the music. I liked the music and thought that it really added to the horror atmosphere, but at the same time, the music often gave away what was coming. Imagine if a character in a horror movie could hear the soundtrack and take cues for what to do next from it. I'm not sure if there would be a way to fix that issue, but it is there.
The graphics are okay. Certainly not up to the standards of today, but they work. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be "square". Everything is square-ish. Faces, plants, the ground. Everything cuts at sharp angles and this is especially noteworthy on the people, who remind me of Batman from the original animated series and who talk like a Monty Python animation. The walking in cutscenes is also very jerky, though it's fine in-game. Since most of the game takes place inside installations, the scenery generally looks fine, but when you're outside it can get a bit iffy.
I could address the multiplayer but I'm not really going to. Suffice it to say that there is multiplayer and it's basically a deathmatch. Fun, but kinda pointless in the long term.
My overall recommendation would be to run out and get the game if you haven't played it, it's certainly worth the (now very small, no doubt) price tag and remains to this day my favorite shooter of all time. It has it's flaws, certainly, but the positives far, far outweigh the negatives. As a brief and mostly spoiler free list:
- There is a level (as the alien) which begins with you looking at the inside of a ribcage, which you then burst through.
- The human gets to drive a combat exosuit at one point, and it rules.
- Whenever the Predator gets a headshot with the speargun, he does the most satisfying laugh ever.
A game like this simply cannot be passed up. Enjoy.
- J
