Aliens vs Predator Demo.

[DarkBlade325]

It's bad.

Discuss.

[Jake]

Well, the developers of it also made Rogue Warrior, which sucked monkey balls, so I'm not surprised in the least.

[Pat]

You're kidding right? It's my favourite game so far!

[DarkBlade325]

You're kidding right? It's my favourite game so far!

I hope you're talking about the older ones because this one is hilariously bad. I'll give it a fair play, it IS just a demo, but Ive been hearing bad things about it from the beginning. And now, I know why. If you want to hear reasons, let me know. For now I'm not going to bother.

[Pat]

Go on then, I'll hear what you have to say.

[tehrozzy]

You're kidding right? It's my favourite game so far!

at first i thought you were being sarcastic o.O

[Pat]

No I am serious, its a nice change from the usual fast paced fps games.

[DarkBlade325]

I'll try my best not to make this go on too long like some of my other reviews, so ima leave out trivial stuff such as DEMO problems, and focus more on the gameplay and interface. Keep in mind I mostly have played Alien, but I have played a bit of Marine and a bit of Predator as well, so don't be surprised if you hear the word "Alien" alot. One other thing, keep in mind that this is a VIDEO GAME. I'm not going to be soft on it just because "Oh well this was just like the movie" or "Oh but this was in the movie so it should be in the game right?" So I'm going into this without trying to pin it close to the movie.

First off, why would you buy this game? When you see the name Aliens vs Predator as a game, you think: "Oh man ima spit acid and tail spike some !@#$ers" or "This claw is going to go so far up Alien ass he'll be coughing up enough acid to make a hole through the entire map!"

Are you going to sit there and tell me you're going to play as a Marine!? Why are Marines in this game? Okay sure they're the special long-ranged gun users, but this game is called ALIENS VS PREDATOR, not Aliens vs Predator vs Marines. And besides as much as I hate to admit it, Aliens dominate both Predators AND Marines, simply because Aliens can see through Predator cloak. Only time Ive lost to a Predator is when I get instant kill grabbed, or I accidentally hop onto a wall and get disoriented long enough to get a final blow shoved up my ass.

Speaking of which, who's hot idea was it to say "Duh, okay. Let's put in instant kill grabs where all you have to do is get behind an enemy and press the 'E' key?" Okay, so this game is going to be based around circle strafing enemies smashing the 'E' key till you get him? Thats...Just stupid. And that's coming from a TF2 Spy player who SPECIALIZES on instant-kill back attacks. Oh sure the grab kills look nice, but man they're complete bullshit. I'll admit I was kicking ass in this game, but it doesn't mean it's good. All I was doing was pressing the 'E' key every so often while occasionally mashing MOUSE1&2.

While this isn't much of a gameplay flaw, at first I thought you couldn't choose what you wanted to be. Yeah I'd join a quick game lobby, and it'd say "You are _____" with the blank either being Marine, Predator, or Alien. I was going to make this the PRIME game killer, but luckly you can change who you want to be. But the option to change is so !@#$ing hidden, and yet it's ironically right infront of you. I couldn't find it till like my 5-6th game. Here, I'll post a picture of a game lobby. Ive taken the time to point out the use of some of the buttons in the game lobby incase you think "Oh, this once changes who you want to be."

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1192/lobby.png

This is the same picture, but with the 'class' selection put in a red rectangle.

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1850/lobbye.png

Did you get that? Those tiny little emblems up there? Yeah, clicking those change who you want to be... Couldn't there have been a button like "Change to Alien" and another like "Change to Predator" or something? Not 3 tiny emblems in the corner of the Marine photo. There's not even anything telling you that they did something to begin with! I personally though they were just emblems showing who is who, like in the lobby to the right people have those emblems next to their name. But nope, it's the 'class' selector.

The only refining thing I can find about this game are the grab execution VISUALS, and the CQC mouse button mashing. Simply because I don't know what I'm doing, the camera shakes alot, and I either die from an attack I can't see, I get grabbed because I got circle strafe'd, or my enemy dies...Which is !@#$ing awesome. I'll give the game this the VISUALS are nice, but nothing more. With all the camera shakes when fighting close to an enemy as an Alien, you get !@#$ed over but it does look nice. But at the same time, it's confusing. I had a time where I was fighting a dude and I wanted to do some aerial attacks to keep him confused and hopefully dodge some attacks. But the Alien clings to walls by pressing Jump when he's close enough to one. I had my cross-hair JUST to the side of my enemy. It was on a wall, I try to jump to tail spike the dude and my Alien jumps and clings to the wall like a tard, and while I'm trying to figure out what had happened, I get a claw in the back. You can say it's my fault for trying to be fancy, but I wasn't. I was trying to dodge and hit, that's all. Granted the Marine uses guns and thus probably has less camera shake and is less confusing, but as I said before, NO ONE wants to play Marine unless you want to be hunted for some odd reason.

Ive got ALOT more to say, but as I said I don't want this going on too long, as it already has. Point out any errors I made about the game, because I gave up on it quite a while ago and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something about it. But to me, first impressions are everything. They MAY have gotten my money if it was a single player demo, you know so I could get a feel for the controls and take out some AI? But they did the exact opposite oddly enough by making me want to stay as far away from it as possible. And trust me while I'm bashing on this game, I WANTED it to be good. If you can somehow find a way to convince me otherwise, let me know because this has potential to be a great game, but it's very poorly executed.

Also I still want to know where Sega hid their little blue hedgehog easter egg in the game.

[Lingus]

Nice review.

So this is based on the movie that came out a few years ago? Or what? And if so... why?

[DarkBlade325]

Well there have been Alien vs Predator games in the past. For what reason- I don't know. People just seem to want to make it into a game. This is like the err...10th? Not counting all the canceled games?

But yeah this is a movie based game.

[Chaos]

I don't particularly see your point of there being Marines in the game.  So what?  Does having more options make the game worse?

Additionally, I guessed where the 'class' selection was before looking at your second screenshot.  Still a retardedly small, inconspicuous place to put it.

[DarkBlade325]

Not really, but it means that the game could have been less complex or have had room for more ideas. They probably put Marines in the game so the average FPS player could get a hold of the game, but it's actually more like playing hard mode than easy mode.

See, the game isn't even rock paper scissors from what I can see, it's more like a prey-chain. Marines can't see cloaked Predators without the aid of some red sensor thing, thus they are subject to being stealthly stabbed in the back. However, Aliens on the other hand can see though Predator cloak, making predators more or less Marines without guns that can run fast.

To put it simple: Marines > Predators > Aliens.

I remember reading that Predators "have certain weapons to help with their handicap towards the Aliens", so maybe there's some sort of skill Predators have that can even the playing field in the full game. Or maybe the people I see in the demo just havn't had time to adjust to it. Or hell maybe it's not in the demo.

But for now, it looks like Aliens have the upper hand.

[Chaos]

How do Marines fair against Aliens, though?

[DarkBlade325]

How do Marines fair against Aliens, though?

Aliens have no long ranged attack, so Marines can pick them off should they see them.

HOWEVER, Aliens can see enemies through walls. This means they can stay out of sight of enemies for most of the time, and then come up behind them and kill them when they're not looking. Think of it like L4D aura though walls, but it appears on enemies. That's what it's like.

A BAD Alien will get shot dead, but sometimes an Alien can bum rush a Marine and kill them. I was playing Marine once and I saw an Alien coming towards me. I unloaded my whole clip into the dude, yet he somehow manages to get close to me and kill me. I don't know if I was missing, or if it was hitscan lag or what. All I know is that ALOT of bullets went into that guy, and he just refused to go down. But who knows maybe I was using the wrong assault rifle or something.

[Chaos]

Hrm.  Sounds like severe balance issues.