MCP: Aliens Versus Predator Returns! - Page 6

Colonial Marines is being made by another studio, Gearbox, so they haven't stuck the Colonial Marines campaign into the marine campaign.

Oh oh, my bad. I thought both were GEAR BOX games

BTW: BIA:HH was awful. They ruined everything cool about the series. ... so my faith in GB is strained

Oh god, I'm going to regret this

Well Gearbox made ALL the Brothers in Arms games, so they're responsible for the games you liked as well as the one that ruined everything cool in the series and I think BORDERLANDS was a big step up for them too in terms of the scope, size, and functionality of that game. It's probably one of the most technically solid online games I've played on the 360 so I've got hopes that COLONIAL MARINES will be great.

I know.... Not sure why you'd regret pointing it out. I am just saying it saddens me they spent so much time and money on HH and removed most of what I liked about the series in the process. It's like they didn't get what made BIA fun, and thought everyone wanted to play a COD clone.

So that hurts my confidence. It doesn't mean that they didn't do great work on BIA:TRTH30 though

You fight ONE predator in the marine campaign. ONE.

Can I have your copy, Alex? I'm not even sure I want to rent this.

Gearbox have improved massively over the years so i'm not as worried about CM being too bad. There's some of the actual movie talent behind the artistic designs and stuff too which sounds promising.

Honestly I'm not sure if it's even worth a rent. Haven't dived into the Alien or Predator campaigns yet but since the Marines is supposed to be the meat of the experience I'm not sure what to expect. There's so much they could have done with these characters and all they've managed to do is make the most bland FPS in years.

I love me some Gearbox, so really can't wait to see what they do.

Havent played them in years, but the Marine was the red-headed stepchild campaign in the PC AvP games too, wasn't it?

Not for me personally. They were usually scary as fuck.

Sucks to hear this is terrible. I was so looking forward to it.

The Marine campaign in AVP2 was memorable for its restraint. There are long, moody stretches - especially near the beginning of the game - where you're wandering through abandoned LV-426-ish facilities that make that one the best campaign in the game. I remember the Predator campaign blowing.

Anyway. No big surprise, I guess.

I don't even think an alien shows up for at least an hour in the Marine campaign in 2. The whole first level is the Predator destroying things around you while you're trying to figure out what's going on.

Come to think of it you didn't fight many Predators in that game either. Regardless, I'd say calling the Marines the meat of the experience for that one is true.

The marine campaign in the original AvP was decent. Atmosphere was great and it played beautifully.

Problem was the fact that they hadn't engineered the game to the point that Monolith had where it could accomodate having you end up convincingly alone for the duration. The original campaign feel like you occupied an empty world. Monolith made it feel inhabited in AvP2 and then isolated you from them, making it far more tense.

The Predator campaign seems like one they've never really managed to figure out. In the original title you end up stumbling around boring facilities killing aliens at point blank, barely ever stepping outside - let alone in a jungle. The ultimate hunter needed to be given freedom to move, making the use of his weapons a bit more cerebral so you couldn't just destroy everything.

As Trevor says though, this is no big surprise. It's just a little disappointing for a fan of the series.

I've started playing the Alien campaign (which is meant to be 3 hours long) and so far it ain't that bad. The finishing moves are glorious.
In reality the warning signs were all over the place that this wasn't going to be as brilliant as everyone hoped. Rebellion haven't made a good game in years.

Don't despair, folks. There's still a great recently released FPS out there for everyone to play. It's called Bioshock 2.

The Alien campaign has you doing all the same things as the marine campaign- hitting switches and being told what to do and where to go- the only different is that this time the Alien Queen is the one telling you where to go and tasks to perform, like disrupt their radio tower to kill their communications (seriously). And while there are a bunch of finishing moves they go for way too long, and area repeated way too often.

Well that's a shame. I'm not defending the game, so far what I've played of the Alien campaign was fun yet hardly inspired, but the game play itself isn't broken from what I can see. I expected a gigantic fuck-up based on rebellions last few releases, so getting a playable game is a good thing. Lowered expectations I think its called.

To be perfectly honest, I played about an hour of this today and then moved back to Bioshock 2. I don't see myself playing this again until I reunite the big daddy with his little sister.

Sounds if this was done with casual gamers in mind first and only. Good-looking in promotional videos, easy, no passion for gameplay or story. It'll sell like hell.

I hate those games.

Fuck! I wanted this to be good! Oh well i'll go back to Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Shit this could have been heavenly had they executed it right... I can only imagine the multiplayer possibilities now...

Pre-order canceled, game will be purchased as a bargain bin or used much later in the year.
Damn, I had some high hopes here.

Developer told me that the three campaigns wouldn't have crisscrossing storylines, but I guess they had no qualms about recycling environments. Most of the Predator's campaign takes place in areas you've seen before.

What a mess.

In all seriousness, this is baffling.

How the hell do you fuck that up?!?!?

Damn shame, the alien campaign sounds laughable. How does the queen relay her messages to you, Alex? If it's in a spoken human voice that would be pretty awesome. Sounds like Enter the Matrix, except for the easy part.

Can't wait for your review, Alex. At least something good to come out..

Playing through AVP 2000 right now and it's just awesome. The level design is botched at times, but mostly it's pretty damn good. I don't care about the lower graphics, the sound design still kills. Love all the locations from the movies. Only weak point is the predator campaign which is just too easy. Also, I'd love to see a jungle location for once.

Multiplayer rocks, even though too many fuckers use the way too strong disc.

@Nexus
If AVP is Enter the Matrix, Colonial Marines better be Path of Neo. With better gfx.

Path of Neo was shit though.

A picture of the queen pops up on screen with a screech, with subtitles issuing her commands. The Predator gets his commands from his leaders in the Predator voice, which is subtitled in English after appearing briefly in their language.

Basically no matter which species you pick you have someone telling you what to do, even though every single objective is clearly mapped on your screen. There's nothing more fun than seeing a switch highlighted way across the level and being told by your superior that you have to push it. Shit, you think?

My review's going to hit by tomorrow night at the latest, because the multiplayer servers aren't up yet and I want to give it a fair chance, but if I had rented this the single player campaign would have gone back unfinished.

By that comparison Colonial Marines should be fucking God of War or something.

Wow that sounds terrible. They could have REALLY mixed it up with the aliens and done some cool shit.

Jesus Christ, this is depressing...

Alex, 360 right? (I'm fucking grasping at straws here...)

Yeah, 360.

Multiplayer has some fun modes (Infestation is awesome) but there's no lobbies. Have to wait a long time for a new match between every round. Argggh.

It's too bad the singleplayer is so lackluster because the demo didn't leave me thrilled. I think I managed to connect to three games in an hour of trying. If there's one thing that rubs me the wrong way this generation it's automatic matchmaking systems in multiplayer games. Never works well for me.

Metacritic seems to be going pretty easy on it so far. It's around 78% IIRC.

That demo was the deathknell.

I pre-ordered for under twenty quid, so...

[repeats ad-nauseum] "I remember the original game had shit reviews...I remember the original game had shit reviews...I remember the original game had shit reviews...I remember the original game had shit reviews......" (babbles into the distance)...

It got a solid 8 in Gamesradar

I dont trust that review much (waiting for Alex's full review), but dammit, Graham, you make a good argument there.

Played multiplayer for about 6 hours tonight. Infestation is so much fun. Just wrapped up a game with 18 people. Beautiful chaos. Had a blast with Predator Hunt, Survival, and 3-way deathmatch as well. I was worried when I first put the game in, as I kind of had that "uh oh" feeling. Once I got the hang of everything, though, those feelings went away.

It's great hearing all of the movie sounds (I've never played any other AvP game). Pretty fun game so far. Can't wait to explore some more tomorrow.

Developers call success, say the 3 negative american reviews are bullshit.

The reviews have been mostly good," Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley told Develop Magazine. "We've had three totally sh— reviews by some Americans, which is a bit odd. Some of them were inexcusably bad. If you discount those poor reviews AvP is averaging high for us."

Currently on Metacritic, Aliens vs. Predator is averaging 73, 67 and 65 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, respectively. Gamespot, of course, savaged it with a 55 (PC), but if you throw out the low and the high it still comes back to a 75 for the PC.

Whatever, it's enough for Kingsley to start talk of a sequel. "We're also in discussions with Sega about ongoing support for AvP, and also about a sequel to the game," Kingsley told develop "I won't say what stage those negotiations are in, but we would love to revisit the franchise. Fox are excited about what we're doing, and we feel we've added value to the franchise."

Guess Alex will make 4, right?

How did it sell?

I ended up canceling my Pre-Order but rented it tonight. It's pretty broken, and the lag and frame-rate drops when playing online are absolutely atrocious. It's a shame, there's a lot of good stuff here, it's just outweighed by a whole ton of crap.

This game is fucking terrible.

It's the worst single player FPS I've played in years, provided you consider being shuffled along linear tunnel paths and flipping switches "playing."

This game makes me pine for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Stalker had the decency to be amibitious inbetween those moments of broken.

This has nothing.

Stalker had great atmosphere. Alex, did I miss your review? I've just finished this and your warning was so right. This is seriously one of the worst fps of the last years.

The marine campaign lacks any tension (all is way too bright), the weapons, AI and levels suck and most of the situations (xenomorphs in a disco) are outright horrible. Lance Henriksen shouldn't have taken that paycheck, as the story is nothing. And the one Predator encounter is a fucking joke.

Now playing the massive 1-hour Alien campaign (there are demos out there longer than this) is even more of an insult. Who came up with the ass punch/block system? The fuck? What is this, Tekken?

The Predator campaign may even be the shortest and just sucks. The controls are amazingly stupid. I hate this "zero interactivity/hold or push a button to initate x" system. As a xeno, you can't just walk up to the vent and go inside, no, you need to target it and then push a button. Same for the Predator jumping. Really uncomfortable. What does "Harvest a Human" do? Nothing. You can't jump over a crate as a human but you can initiate a jump maneuver. And it's linear like crap. It feels like one of those interactive movies from the early nineties. Yes, it looks amazing, but so does everything else nowadays. Probably the worst AVP franchise game ever made.

This has been patched to hell and back. Multiplayer any good now? I hear the servers are as barren as my last girlfriend.