Review: Alien Vs. Predator

20^th Century Fox’s Alien and Predator franchises are seemingly the peanut butter and chocolate of the sci-fi genre.  Combining the two over the past several decades has served as both an example and as a disappointment for franchise crossovers, only inspiring a select few such as Robocop Vs. The Terminator to succeed where many have failed.  Their crossover comics have been going strong for 20 years but their attempted entries into film have been nothing short of substandard failures.

One medium of entertainment that has managed almost as well as the comic series has been that of video games.  Rebellion, a developer out of Oxford, started the crossover with their first title in 1991 for the Atari Jaguar and gained critical acclaim as the single best title on that doomed system.  Rebellion followed up that title with a remake in 1999 for the PC and Mac.  Again, Rebellion achieved critical acclaim but did not return to the franchise after that, instead opting to have Monolith studios create the next sequel.   When SEGA announced that they had purchased the rights to the Aliens franchise back in late 2008 many were skeptical as to what the three-game-deal would yield.  With Obsidian’s Aliens RPG cancelled and Gearbox’s gorgeous looking Aliens Colonial Marines pushed back in favor of Rebellion’s newest remake, this new title has a lot to live up to.  Does the newest Aliens Vs. Predator succeed in the same way that its predecessors did or does Rebellion’s streak come to a grinding halt?

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I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed

The game’s singleplayer component is broken up into three distinct campaigns: human, alien, and predator.  Each of them are considerably short and take no more than a couple hours to complete which is sorely disappointing, especially since each campaign reuses the same maps.  The game begins for all three games the same way: Karl “Bishop” Weyland and scientists under the Weyland-Yutani banner (the overarching evil corporation present throughout the Alien and Predator franchises) discover an ancient Predator pyramid hidden beneath the surface of the human colony of Freya’s Prospect sometime after the destruction of LV426 in the original Aliens film.  Weyland and staff proceed to process and research the residing Xenomorphs (Aliens) contained with but upon breaching the pyramid itself a burst of energy launches into orbit from the pyramid and summons a Predator ship.  Shortly thereafter all hell breaks loose and contact with the colony is lost.  In response, a detachment of Colonial Marines is sent to Freya’s Prospect to eliminate a “possible” xenomorph infestation.  The Predator ship arrives shortly thereafter and only a small handful of Marines actually reach the surface before the Predator ship destroys the human cruiser.

Players are advised to start with the human campaign as a tutorial for learning how to use the other two campaigns.  As a Colonial Marine, the player’s dropship crash-lands on Freya’s Prospect and, after stumbling through unconsciousness quickly finds himself alone with only Tequila, your squadmate and Michelle Rodriguez sound-alike, guiding you out of the facility to reunite with the other Marines.  This part of the game is definitely where the horror aspect of Aliens Vs. Predator shines as you venture down dark corridors with your motion detector going off just in time to make you stop and panic.  You trek through the remains of the human colony and eventually make your way toward an escape vehicle all the while exploring the alien jungle, Predator hunting grounds, and even the pyramid itself.

The Predator campaign is a good bridging point between the human and Alien campaigns as it blends the focus of projectile combat with the melee combat of the Alien campaign.  Players begin as a newly promoted Predator.  In the eyes of their species the humans have desecrated their sacred hunting ground and have been tampering with their ultimate prey, the xenomorphs which their race calls serpents.  The entire focus of this campaign is to reach the pyramid and wipeout the serpent infestation as well as recover their sacred lost technology.  Players only start with a singular projectile weapon (the beam cannon seen in the Predator films) but the arsenal expands to include new weapons as well as a vision mode that highlights serpents in the environment.  While players will be utilizing the projectile weapons available to them, especially the cabani spear, the majority of your combat will be relegated to melee attacks.

The Alien campaign is chronologically the first in order of play but should be approached last if you are mainly a shooter fan.  You start out as specimen #6, being experimented on and studied by Weyland-Yutani scientists.  After reaching maturity you escape from your cell and free your cellmates and begin your search for your queen.  You venture through the same levels present in the two other campaigns but stop short of going to the pyramid itself.  The feeling of being one among a horde of xenomorphs is both very enjoyable and something that you do not get from the other two campaigns.  It’s a necessary feeling however; your character is just as weak as the other xenomorphs and without the element of stealth you’ll quickly find yourself at the game over screen without backup.

The biggest problem with the singleplayer campaigns on delivering a satisfying experience is not the length or the endings but rather the climactic fights present in all three.  During the human campaign you face both a xenomorph queen and a Predator but neither fight is as epic as could be.  The Predator’s campaign has a battle against waves of Aliens culminating with a special one highlighted earlier in the story but this fight ends up neither exciting  or memorable.  The worst fight of the three however is fighting against a trio of Predators as an Alien.  This fight, simply put, is one of the most annoying sequences to date, with players having to whittle away at their health while they jump all around an arena all the while fearing getting too close due to the Predator’s ability to deal massive amounts of damage.  This fight takes entirely too long and should have been altered for the final product.  May I never have to do that sequence ever again.

 I Like to Keep This for Close Encounters

The problem with all three campaigns is that each story does not end in any sort of a satisfying manner.  The ending for the human campaign is lackluster and leaves the player disappointed.  The Alien campaign ends far sooner than the human and Predator ones shortly after an event that occurs early on in the human campaign, leaving out entire levels to explore as the xenomorph.  The Predator campaign opens itself up to a sequel in a bad way, though it is probably the most satisfying of the three.  The real problem is that the game feels like it is building up itself toward a sequel, something that Rebellion is strongly hinting at just days after the release of the game.  Fellas, if you want to make a sequel to a game, make sure you at least get the singleplayer right in the first place; don’t talk about making another one hours after you’ve released the game to the public.

Balancing the three species in Aliens Vs. Predator’s singleplayer couldn’t have been an easy job, though it appears that Rebellion has succeeded in this department.  Each species has unique characteristics that do well to make each one feel very different from the others.  As previously stated, the humans and xenomorphs exclusively use projectile and melee attacks respectively while the Predators utilize a balance between the two.  Humans have the ability to utilize a motion sensor and flares to lighten up an area but can do little else.  The Aliens and Predators have the ability to enter a focus mode that gives them slightly enhanced abilities with humans trading off that ability for secondary fire options on all their weapons.  While in focus mode Predators can make strong leaps between platforms giving a sizeable advantage over the xenomorphs.  Against Marines the Predator can distract them to any location they so wish with just a few presses of a button, giving you the opportunity to separate a group and make it easier as such to take them down.  The Aliens have the ability to regenerate health however, something neither of the other species can attest to, as well as the ability to climb on almost any surface and hide in crevices and vents present throughout most of the levels.

Balancing out the three species across the same maps makes for an interesting experience as each species will obviously have different goals to achieve but also have different ways to interact with the environment.  Taking one of the first jungle environments into question, as a human you must gain access to certain buildings by sharing power nodes between them.  As a Predator you must first wipe out the human presence before proceeding inside the building to decapitate a human officer in order to use his head as a way to get past a gate with a biometric lock.  As an Alien you must do the same thing but you must knock out the power and harvest as many humans as possible in order to access the Predator ruins further on in the jungle.  The various ways that the game offers to go by your goals play to the strengths of each of the species.

Both the Predator and Alien species do have access to one thing the humans cannot claim to: trophy kills.  Making a nod at the original Predator films, players can sneak behind their opponent or when they are low on health, grab their victims, and proceed to commit one of the most brutal killing sequences seen since Epic Games showed off how to properly utilize a chainsaw in Gears of War.  The spectacle of these kills are both some of the most amazing and disturbing things this writer has seen in years with people literally being decapitated on screen, ripped out by their eye sockets among other things.  The gruesomeness of these kills cannot be understated; those who are squeamish should definitely be prepared before taking a hold of the controller.

The only problem present with the Alien and Predator is also where a lot of shooter fans are going to run into trouble: their general combat prowess.  Both species are almost completely focused on melee combat with the notable exception of the Predator’s secondary projectile weapons.  Even then however almost all the combat you find yourself in will be melee centric.  For the most part the game does a good job of making the combat succeed where only a handful of titles such as Namco’s Breakdown on the first Xbox have done so.  The basic melee combat is entirely focused on light, heavy, and counterattacks with the much needed emphasis on blocking at just the right time.  Light attacks are fast and do a small amount of damage and of course heavy attacks deal massive damage but require time to charge, leaving you vulnerable to quick light attacks.  When going up against a group of Marines however you’ll find yourself quickly being mowed down if you attempt anything but a stealthy approach; frontal assaults are near suicide as either species.

What the Hell are You?

Aliens Vs. Predator isn’t a franchise known for its singleplayer however; the multiplayer is where it has found its mark on history.  This newest entry into the franchise does unfortunately disappoint, at least in the adversarial multiplayer department.  The game has the usual assortment of competitive modes such as deathmatch and territories, none of which are anything special in an age where Modern Warfare 2, Halo, or Uncharted 2 continues to dominate the online play charts.  The affair is almost entirely deathmatch focused giving the player the ability to choose between the three species on the outset of the match.  The end result however is that humans, given their motion detector and large assortment of weapons are heavily favored and, in this writer’s experience, are most likely to be the victors in most deathmatch games.  For the most part the adversarial modes will have you switching back to your copy of Modern Warfare 2 in just a handful of days if you are a strong shooter fan.

There are however three notable exceptions to this ruling: Survivor, Infestation, and Predator Hunt.  Each of these are cooperative-based and lead to a tremendously fun time to be had.  Survivor mode is essentially the game’s horde mode and has a team of four Marines facing off against progressively harder waves of Aliens.  This is certainly a fun time to be had and is a great alternative to those who have been playing Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty World at War.  Infestation mode is essentially the game’s zombie mode and has a squad of Marines facing off against respawning Aliens.  If a Marine falls that player then becomes an Alien and must hunt down his former squadmates.  Predator Hunt is to Aliens Vs. Predator what Juggernaut mode is to Halo; a team of Marines facing off against a singular player who is the Predator.  If you kill the target you become the Predator which balances both the cooperative and adversarial aspects of the mode.  Unfortunately only two cooperative maps for Infestation and Survivor modes so players are going to have to live with the same two environments until the inevitable DLC.

All of this is a mute point however if you can’t actually enjoy a smooth matchmaking sequence.  The lobby system in the game takes quite a long time to get a match going in comparison to most online shooters these days and even if you get into a match there is no guarantee that you’ll stay in there thanks to the game’s lack host migration.  The game features a ranking system like many others these days as well but the experience points are based almost solely on kills you won’t find yourself enjoying the rewards as fast as you’d like to.

That’s a Real Nasty Habit You Got There

Four and a half years on into this console cycle we’ve experienced some of the most beautiful games ever conceived of, with games like Crysis still setting the high bar despite being released back in 2007.  At this point in the cycle however you should begin to see games reaching their visual limit based on the console’s abilities.  Sadly it seems that Aliens Vs. Predator has not reached this stage at all.  Glaring issues are present throughout the game that will make the player cringe at times.

The largest offender in question has to be the texture work.  While some areas do justice to the visual style present in the previous games and films alike more often than not you find yourself looking at levels that neither offer the claustrophobic feel of a xenomorph infestation nor the feeling of awe at an alien jungle.  The biggest problem present most certainly has to be the environments of an Alien hive.  While the areas do credit to the lighting, feeling, and approach of the Alien’s realm the walls themselves use lacking attempts at normal mapping with far less detain than desired and the areas are so open that you don’t feel at all threatened within the confines of the locale.  Even one of the most famous sequences from the Aliens franchise, the moment in which a xenomorph is sleeping within an indention in the wall and comes out to attack the player, is disappointing as the Alien sticks out amongst the background and gives a strong amount of forewarning.

The other largely annoying part of the game’s design is the use of human dialogue.  For some reason the game likes to reuse only a handful of idle dialogue no matter what species you choose to play as.  Rebellion, I can understand having to limit resources where they can be limited but I swear if I hear someone say “don’t relax just yet Marines” one more time I’m going to hurt somebody.  Seriously, if I want to approach someone in a stealthy manner I should be able to plan stuff out while the Marines have a conversation, not the same line said over and over again for five minutes straight.

That’s not to say that other aspects of the game’s design aren’t satisfying; far from it.  Aliens Vs. Predator’s sound design is quite close to fantastic; treading carefully down a dark corridor hearing your motion detector go off as a pipe pings to the ground somewhere ahead of you instills a feeling of dread only usually seen in horror titles such as Dead Space.  Lance Henriksen reprises his role from the original Aliens films as Mr. Weyland in a satisfying delivery.  Beyond the sound design, the animators deserve particular praise for their work on the trophy kills.  Many of the trophy kills are beautiful in their lethality and make you afraid to ask where the designers came up with the idea for them.  The design of the Alien character deserves considerable note as turning quickly enough allows the player to see their tale and looking down you can see your feet move in a very natural manner.

When all is said and done though Aliens Vs. Predator you may have many great points to look at but many glaring and inexcusable issues abound. 

Game Over Man, Game Over!

Rebellion is a company that has a lot going for it but for a third-time remake the end results are not what they should be.  In an age where every shooter on the market involves everyone shooting guns Aliens Vs. Predator does make a good effort to introduce melee combat but it is all for naught if the entire multiplayer experience doesn’t entertain the player.  A lackluster singleplayer experience doesn’t help either.  Now that the groundwork has been laid out for a sequel maybe the next effort will fix many of these issues.  Until then we’re stuck with a game that just makes this author want to play Aliens Colonial Marines even more than ever before.  Gearbox, if you’re reading this, I live in Austin; I’m not that far a drive away from a friendly visit…