Alien versus Predator, then and now

Since nobody is following this blog right now, in all fairness it's empty, I wouldn't discourage potential readers with long exposition why I didn't bother with it for 2 years. I guess now I finally have a reason.


So, Alien versus Predator franchise is it? Ok, the first Alien versus Predator game (barring the arcade games, gameboy, playstation and Nintendo ones; they are more than 2 dozens and come out as late as 1982... wow) was developed by Rebellion and published by Fox in 1999 both for the PC and Mac. The decade and a half it took to bring the special kind of sci-fi dread from the books and the big screen to the video game format paid off.
The game was well received for the alternate campaigns and play styles (that became the hallmark of the series) it provided to the player. I've played the game and although very graphically outdated today, you can still feel the pressure of being the only marine survivor in a ship with moving signatures. Or being the only one of your planet, assailed from all sides by lithe aliens and marines with those damn rifles...
Bottom line the gameplay styles reinforced a kind of story, which melded seamlessly together. You play the hunter the survivor and the beast, something there for everyone.

The buggers looked like this in 2001

Aliens in the first game.

Aliens versus Predator 2 was published by Sierra and released through Fox in 2001. It perfected numerous things it's predecessor did wrong. It had a save feature, which in a horror game is very tricky to make. As you can probably guess in some games which rely heavily on jump scares and deadly sudden encounters, the save point pretty much ruins the atmosphere. In Doom 3 there was limited to no actual Horror in my opinion because the levels were repetitive, and the fear relied on carefully hidden enemies which sprang with menacing voices, to test your reflexes. Alien versus Predator always had strong roots in the unexpectedly horrible, jumping right around the corner( see the movies for yourself). And to avoid the easy way out a player can take - play recklessly and pressing F5 and F9 like in the 2005 Doom 3, the first game lacked the save option and forced players to become invested in the character's survival.

Aliens in 2010

So why was AvsP 2 scary, even though it had saves, and the F5, F9 combo. I think because it had dibs on the creepy sci-fi atmosphere I talked about earlier. You can feel the pressure and dread, the unique visions of every player reinforce the feeling of how alien this is, and can frequently creep you out rather than help. The gameplay and tone of the game makes every battle a desperate struggle of which the player is subconsciously aware.

Another thing which is more developed is the story. I should issue a SPOILER warning, because I can't realistically talk about the advantages of the story without spoiling.

The frantic pace saves the new installment it's monotony

I dare say his particular game premise does not require much when it comes to storyline. Sure, we expect as much, but more often than not in movies and games the AvP story is an excuse for the aesthetics we have grown to associate with AvP (alien hisses, predator growls, rifle fire cut short, half-lit corridors with acidic ooze and blood smeared on them). In this game however the story turns out deep and involving. The alien first mission notwithstanding (the premise require the alien twist to be in the beginning), the other two campaigns have a unique and unexpected twist. The predator gets ambushed and captured and the marine gets betrayed. And the campaigns overlap in a curious way in which you see the progress of your otherwordly counterpart, which was the first I'd ever seen in a game. It fashioned the jumbled mesh of playstyles into a single story, reinforced by data pads you could read in-game, and logs on the loading screen for each mission. Arguably the best campaign is that of the marine. Being human, the developers made his the most involving story, because corporal "Frosty", not only interacts with the world around, but with his peers. He has friends and enemies, amongst his own race, he lives through betrayal and regret. His last mission brings more depth to history of the planet LV- 1201 than any other and by his actions he seals the fate of the expedition, when his ally sacrifices herself in a nuclear explosion to destroy the alien threat.

Sadly, the games only go downhill from there. The expansion is inferior in both story and narrative. There are no remarkable changes in the gameplay and style, it's a lot shorter and thoroughly fails to impress.  

Grab your trusty Rifle and shotgun and, uhm... not much else really

Which brings us to the last game I would like to talk about - Alien versus Predator developed by Rebellion and published by Sega for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2010. It wanted to revolutionize the gameplay styles with a block, and heavy attack feature. Which as any gamer worth his salt will tell you is a clear indication that they are mainly after the multiplayer experience. And it takes just a few moments for that to become blatantly obvious. For all it's polish and stealth kills, it lacks the depth of the previous installment. The version I played was 15 Gb in size. But the lag in the outdoor zones, coupled with the short missions led me to believe that it was optimized remarkable badly. Again there are the signature 3 campaigns. But here the the premise isn't all that good (in my opinion, it is influenced too much from the sub-par movies, which wanted to cash in on the initial success of the the AvP games and atmosphere but making it human-centric and on earth, robbing it of much of it's sci-fi feel). Characters revisit the same places with different enemies, as in AvP 2 but it didn't come off as clever, just cheap. Knowing all too well that some of these levels would be "borrowed" for multiplayer matches. The alien campaign is short and is as anti-climactic as "your alien falls down into a coma after your queen was killed, game over" ....... uh? The predator campaign was even shorter, though the best in my opinion,. because it atleast tried to bring something new to the culture and technology of the race. The similar was promised for the alien race and in the end we had squat little buggers, which looked the same but were spewing acid. Not even close to what we were hoping for.

For me the short Predator campaign still steals the show

The most attention being placed on, again, the marine campaign. His campaign was longest and most similar in atmosphere to it's previous installment. But not as engaging: your character can't speak, is coupled half the time with a mexican stereotype named Tequila (!?), he doesn't have a personality ("Frosty" was called that for a reason, and in the end he told the player his real name was Andrew) and most of the audio logs you collect are a cheesy way to scare you. Everything you'd expect from a clinical view to the horror of Xenos, to a scared half-wit mumbling to himself. All of the story seems to be directed at the the realization that Wayland has the coordinates of the Alien homeworld. None of the campaigns portray such a grandeur in it's schemes and that's why even that realization comes off as unremarkable.

Helping out a friend....

In the multiplayer aspect of the game, there is one thing that tries to distinguish AvP from all the other multiplayer titles - the melee system. With it a player can block any melee attack except the longer, heavy attack. And seeing as though Aliens and Predators are refitted mostly for melee combat, and marines for ranged, now it's all about how sneaky and quick the former can approach the latter without turning it into a boxing match. Bottom line it looks awkward and clumsy - somehow the marine can block the claws and metals of the extraterrestrials, and he must look out for the clumsy looking heavy attack, or fast alien pounce, which spells death most of the times. The pacing is the one thing that destroys the monotonous sounding combat, but that is because it's easy to die, not because the game gives you many options and limited time to choose from them. As of the writing of this article there are two map packs published by the developer, but in the beginning I think there were as few as 8 maps, and a few multiplayer types, which were to some extent present in AvP2.

How it should have ended

In the end there are many games, proving that single player is an integral part of this medium, more than capable to bring a profit and start a franchise. I don't think the latest polished version of the AvP franchise can build around a clunky dueling mechanic, with a weak premise, short and unimaginative storylines and a heavy handed anticlimactic cinematic ending.