Aliens vs Predator 2

Reviewed by Falcon

Each species has 7 main missions, further subdivided in smaller sections within each. While there is not much originality in the setting, the plots within the story are well created. Unlike the original AvP, where it was essentially 3 separate games, the designers of AvP2 have managed to intertwine the stories of all 3 species with each other. When you initially choose a species to play, a FMV sequence will let you know exactly how you got to where you are and you start off taking the role of one of the characters in the exact point in time that the movie sequence ended.

As an alien returning to the hive you free some Xenomorphs along the way who wreak havoc on the facility, also freeing a captured predator. Playing as a predator you see how this happened and how he got there, while coincidentally as a marine you walk past the very same predator in the cell while traversing through the room. There are also more crossovers in the storylines that you will see once you play further through each species but I won't give them away :)

AvP2 uses scripted events, as well as cutscenes during the missions, plus FMV sequences between each mission. The scripted events may be seen as either positive or negative, whereby it does let the player know that they are on the right track since something is happening as you progress through stages of the mission, and you are not walking in circles running into new aliens being randomly generated. The downside to this is that in harder difficulty levels, or for replaying the game you will already know what and when to expect the enemy to appear.

Different difficulty settings will only adjust the strength and numbers of enemy forces in each attack, while keeping item resupplies the same. This means ammunition and life conservation as well as accuracy become key points to survival for harder difficulty settings. Fortunately the option to save the game at any time is available – one of the most notable changes from the original whereby you could be forced to replay an entire scene after dying from a surprise attack.

The cutscenes occur while the player is in the middle of a mission and are triggered by certain events. These add cohesion to the plot as well as letting the player know what exactly is happening with the storyline. For example you may see that you have successfully cracked a security console and your teammates are now entering the building. Additionally, to keep you up to date with the storyline, there will be an objectives update and updated viewable log of one of the characters every so often.

The three races are unique to each other, leading to a great variety of playability. The only problem is that the missions are fairly short. For example I finished the Predator missions in about 1 ½ days, with a significant portion of this time walking around in circles and hoping that I hadn’t gotten lost. The Graphical User Interface (GUI), weapons, and controls of each character are also unique, and will really put you into the persona of the character you are playing. The developers paid excellent attention to detail on each species, and have included certain unique abilities that must be used in order to complete the game. It feels right at home in the alien perspective with the ability to shred limbs in seconds and to hang upside down on the ceiling until your unsuspecting prey appears right below you, or to be cloaked and use your special zoom lens and spear gun to decapitate your unsuspecting prey from high above.
It’s also good to see that they haven’t attempted to create a good/bad stereotype to the game, whereby the predators can be seen as sadistic kids hunting insects, or the humans as being nosy, backstabbing and disrespectful. And the aliens, well they were there first and nobody invited the others.