Aliens Vs Predator: First Impressions

Now that I have the (PS/3 version of the) game in hand, I spent about an hour this morning playing a bit of the Marine single player campaign. As I expected after trying out the multiplayer demo, it's an uneven experience that still offered some thrills.

The graphics are OK, but not really up to the standards of the current generation of console games. This game would've looked amazing six or seven years ago, but unfortunately has a somewhat dated feel to it coming out today. It's not so bad as to make the game un-enjoyable, however, and I imagine I'll just get used to it as I play it more. Then I'll switch back to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for an evening and remember what really good graphics look like.

I have to admit that I miss the so-called "iron sight" (the ability to aim down your sight with the press of a button) more than I thought I would. In fact, on more than one occasion already, I've pressed the secondary fire button (which is the iron sight in MW2) and inadvertantly launched a grenade when all I really wanted to do was line up an alien a little better before pumping some pulse rifle ammo into him. This, again, is something that I'll adjust to after spending more time with the game, I'm sure. After all those hours of MW2, though, it almost requires a leap of faith to begin firing "from the hip" as you have to in this game, especially when the Aliens are still several yards away and you know that letting them get any closer is a very, very bad idea. (While Newt may have claimed that "they mostly come out at night... mostly", I haven't personally noticed any hesitancy on their part to come out to play pretty much 24/7!)

The game play is very linear, as you'd have expected from almost any first person shooter ten years ago. What saves it, though, at least in the Marine campaign, is the ever-present tension created by the dark environments and potential of Alien attacks that you operate within. I can honesty say that I felt stress at times, moving through those tight corridors and sewer ducts with my motion sensor pinging like crazy at me. Strangely, the developers chose to completely ruin the mood once already by blaring loud music during one siege level. Call me crazy, but that part of the game would've been way better if the only sounds I could hear were coming from my motion tracker and the claws of my attackers skittering against the walls and ceiling. For the most part, though, the suspense is pretty impressive. I challenge anyone to play this campaign and not have their pulse speed up at least a little.

One noteworthy attribute of the previous Aliens vs Predator (PC) game was the random placement of enemies, which meant that replaying a section was never quite the same experience twice. Although I'm not very far into the game yet, it doesn't seem like the development team at Rebellion kept that aspect. If that's the case, it's a really unfortunate choice on their part as it was one of the best things about the old game. You couldn't simply die, re-spawn and then breeze through that part a second time, as you can with so many games, because the Aliens and Predators just wouldn't tend to be where you expected them to be. [Update Feb 20: I played another hour of the Marine single player campaign last night and did, in fact, spot one place where it looked like some randomness was built in. After dying and having to replay a particularly tense section, I was braced for an Alien at one specific spot because he had scared the crap out of me the first time through, only to find myself tip-toeing around with no xenomorph to be found. So that's encouraging.]

Overall, the game so far is about what I expected once I saw the demo: a good treat for fans of the previous version, but nothing that's going to steal people away from Modern Warfare 2 or any of the other big games coming out soon. I expect that I'll play through all 3 single player campaigns at least once and probably even spend some time online with it. It could have been an amazing game, though, if Rebellion had paid attention to what recent fare like Dead Space and the F.E.A.R. games have added to the genre. Instead, I'll just have to dream about the ultimate AvP game, as it still doesn't exist yet.