Aliens vs. Predator Review

With all of that in play, I started thinking there's no chance in hell this could be a bad game. Boy, was I wrong. Going through each of the three campaigns made me feel as if I was trying out some sort of a tech demo for each race. Seriously, while the unique abilities and weapons of each race have some charm, there's very little substance to it all. You'll be done with the Marine campaign in the blink of an eye. The frenetic ways of the alien are usually more frustrating than fun. Last but not least, the Predator - it just seems like a good gameplay recipe gone to waste. Tactics can be fun for a while, but the whole thing gets extremely repetitive very quickly. In all fairness, this is true of all three modes, mostly due to relatively uninteresting level design and generally short and pointless story modes.

Can anything else happen?

You might want to look up, from time to time.

All things considered, it's probably best you stick with the multiplayer. The cool blend of three capable and unique races, makes for some awesome combat and intense online matches. The classic Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch give you all the multiplayer goodness a FPS game needs, along with a nifty Survivor mode where you fend off swarms of oncoming Aliens. Some seriously exciting co-op shootouts can happen here. The Alien and Predator modes are also worth your time. The commendable thing is that the developers patiently worked on the multiplayer modes, successfully bringing out the most out of each race that's available to players.

As soon as you dig deeper into all three campaigns (Alien, Marine and Predator), the painful truth hits you. Completing every area essentially boils down to performing the bloodiest kill possible. It's never easy, I'll admit as much. The AI gives you a decent challenge in each of the story modes. Although carrying out a variety of gory finishing moves can be a lot of fun, the game fails to show any real depth and it's like you perform all of those aggressive moves with no purpose. The partial reason for that is a relatively weak story. The most you can expect from the narrative are scarce audio diaries from colonists and researches (oh god, not again). They're really crumbs adding up to a poorly written storyline (one we've seen in movies too many times before - be it Aliens, Predator or Alien vs. Predator).

Hardcore FPS gamers may find many hours of pure fun with the Aliens vs. Predator multiplayer mode. Should you decide to stick with solo play, I'm afraid you'll find little of real value. Perhaps toying around with the different abilities of all three characters can keep you occupied for a bit, but that's about all you get. It's a shame such an ambitious amalgamation of three different gameplay types doesn't amount into a coherent package with at least a bit more substance. Be warned; if you're out for an engrossing single-player experience, AvP falls short in almost every way. It also doesn't manage to recapture the addictive gameplay of its successful predecessors. So, expect an average shooter, at best.