Aliens vs. Predator – PS3 Review

Reviewed by James Hamblin on March 1, 2010

Aliens vs. Predator - PS3 Review  | read this item

“I’m guessing you’ll need to find an emergency generator – sound familiar!” Corporal Tequila (United States Colonial Marine Corp)

It’s only just under half way in to Aliens vs. Predator’s Marine campaign when the above words come crackling in to your ear piece. Not much time at all you might think to come to any final conclusions over the totality of a package that boasts such a variety of content for a first-person-shooter. But although you’re not that far removed from your first acquaintances with the game, it’s likely you will have already seen enough to know that this comment, and the character making it, sum up about as succinctly as possible what you can expect from your time with AvP.

Rebellion have diced the game’s single player story into three, relatively equally sized, chunks, which allow you, in turn, to play as a marine, an Alien and a Predator. Working through them in the order they appear on the menu screen and the human campaign provides you with a pretty inauspicious start where familiarity is definitely the defining word.

Tequila is the Private Vasquez knock-off, hard-as-nails female marine who guides you through much of the early action. Your character, completely unsurprisingly, is a rookie, separated from his squad and destined to wander the dimly lit rooms and corridors of fallen colony Freya’s Prospect alone; past the customary computer terminals, space packing crates and explosive canisters that seem to populate almost every sci-fi shooter these days. Along the way you’ll equip yourself with the standard-issue arsenal of weapons – a shotgun, flamethrower, sniper rifle. There is a smart-gun you acquire later on that delivers a bit more of a wow-factor, but even the assault rifle, despite being of the iconic, Aliens design, with the digital round counter that clicks down on its’ side, is still just an assault rifle. For the most part, your objectives are equally predictable, usually requiring you to locate a junction box or generator to turn the power back on, a communications tower to re-establish downed links, or hold of waves of enemies while a locked door is hacked. Health is restored using Stim Packs that are administered via the often-seen syringe-in-to-your-skin animation; and the linearity of many areas is broken up only by short side avenues that seem to have been created purely for those willing to wander a few steps away from the main path to retrieve the campaigns main collectables which, of course, are audio dairies that, irritatingly, you have to pause the action to listing to.

It’s all very generic and uninspiring, something that would be even more obvious if it weren’t for the presence of two of the most revered extra terrestrial adversaries in film history. While a scene in a nightclub early on in the Marine campaign and the attempts to weave the individual tales of each of the species into a single, overarching narrative hint at the kind of creative talents Rebellion may have been able to showcase had the shackles had been completed removed, this isn’t what we’re here for.

The game sets out to give you everything you would expect from an Aliens vs. Predator title. Its’ environments range from dark, metallic interiors and the oozing heart of an Alien hive, through the humidity of swamps and jungle and on to the sanctum of an ancient, Predator temple. The story strains to deeply entrench itself in the cannon of both the Alien and Alien vs. Predator movie franchises, with the dark secrets behind the glossy brochures of the megalomaniac Weyland Yutani Corporation’s deep-space relocation project seeing them cast as a kind of evil, intergalactic Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer – “Yes, we know the previous owners were hideously butchered by Xenomorphs, but on the plus side the fact that everyone’s dead does mean it feels very roomy.” And while you can say what you like about Rebellion’s apparent lack of ambition, they certainly manage to get under the skin of each creature, and in the process, yours as well.

AvP features some genuinely heart-quickening moments. Whether it be standing face to face with an Alien as you grapple to prevent it from prising open a safety door, backing down a corridor desperately firing at the Xenomorphs swarming towards you out of the ceiling and walls, or realising that you’re standing only feet away from a cloaked Predator, just the possibility of the presence of either monster quickly becomes enough to keep you constantly on edge; aided in no small part by the musical score and infamous motion sensor, whose combination of beeps and heartbeat-style noises make any approaching organism sound like it’s going to be accompanied by a cardiac arrest.

AvP’s main novelty factor, and its’ trump card, comes, of course, from the fact that it answers the wish of almost every fan and allows you to play as both  a Predator and an Alien, with an entire campaign dedicated to each. The Alien story beings the more entertainingly, with you getting use to your enhanced speed and new gravity-defying movements while, at the same time, practicing your different attacks on a series of unwitting Weyland Yutani employees. Your offensive choices include your special kills which come in a variety of guises that often involve you driving your tail through the eye-socket or stomach of an enemy, or finish them off with your famous mouth-in-mouth love bite that leaves the recipient looking like the worst kind of space slapper. The Predator’s special kills are equally as visceral, often popping heads off complete with spinal chords still partially intact.  He’s also the most complex of all of the species you control, with his different modes of vision and a range of weapons, including proximity mines, switch blades and an incredibly powerful spear, to compliment his claws. The Predator’s signature abilities to cloak and jump around environments are also present, and playing as either him or the Alien their natural talents for brutality and stealth gives you a great sense of power, one that makes you feel much more hunter than prey.

Things would be even better, but for a handful of mechanical issues. Most annoying amongst these is the way that, when playing as the Alien, the game frequently requires you to hit the R2 button at a very precise moment to transition from one surface to another. Missing it, which isn’t very difficult at all, not only breaks the flow to your movement, but can also leave you extremely vulnerable; and there’s a similar problem with the Predator’s jumps, which are often fiddly to co-ordinate and severely curtailed thanks to a limited number of landing spots. The A.I. is standard, but occasionally prone to getting itself surprisingly confused, while the occasional boss fights play out much as expected with little in the way of imagination. Each of the campaigns is decidedly short and the run-of-the-mill visuals don’t help that fact that they all use exactly the same environments, albeit viewed from slightly different perspectives.

Like the single player portion of AvP, the game’s multiplayer options are also a mixed bag. Standard Deathmatches take a serious hit in the fun stakes because the animations that accompany the Alien and Predator special kills take so long that by choosing to perform them you’re basically surrendering to being picked off yourself. Team Deathmatch rectifies this somewhat thanks to the presence of those watching you back, but there’s better fare to be had in the Infestation and Predator Hunt modes, which capture much more accurately the things that made the source material so special. Infestation sees one player cast as a solitary Alien and the rest as Marines, but the odds can be radically altered by the fact that ever human picked off by the Alien turns into one themselves until you get down to last-man-standing decider. Predator Hunt operates along similar lines, but here, instead of human victims becoming Predators as well, anyone who manages to pick the Pred off gets to take over the role. Finally, there’s Survivor, which is basically AvP’s horde mode. Up to four Marines attempting to fend of increasingly large waves of A.I. Aliens – it’s as tense as it sounds and spoilt only by a lack of maps.

Rather appropriately, your natural instincts will almost certainly tell you whether Aliens vs. Predator is the right purchase for you. If you’re a huge fan of anything AvP then it’s sure to be a definite “Yes”, as the game pays the kind of homage to the franchise you might expect it would. If, on the other hand, you’re a devotee of one or more of its’ many components – Aliens, Predators, sci-fi or first-person-shooters – then you’ll need to give the decision much more serious consideration. There certainly are things to enjoy about AvP, but its lack of imagination beyond its solid recreation of the Ali vs. Tyson of sci-fi fantasy fights means that it’s a title that’s more generically enhanced than genetically advanced; and because of this it will probably remain a tantalizing blip on many people’s radars that they don’t investigate further.

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Tags: Alien, Aliens, Aliens vs Predator, PlayStation 3, predator, PS3, PS3 Review, Rebellion, Rebellion Developments, Review, Sega