REVIEW: Alien Vs Predator Xbox 360

In space no one can hear you scream WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Just to start a little disclaimer.

I am going to be reviewing the Xbox 360 version of Aliens Vs Predator which I paid for myself.

Story

As you may know if you have been following the game at all there are three, yes three campaigns in AVP. They are Human (Marines), Alien and Predator so I will try my best to break all three down as best as possible:

Alien: Being the Alien is kind of quiet on the narrative front as they don’t speak, being aliens and all but the basic story is to survive the Marine and Predator factions.

Marine: You play as Rookie who is as you guessed it, a Rookie and you are fighting your way through waves of aliens while trying to find out what the Weyland-Yutani have been up to.

Predator: I will confess I have not played through a lot of the predator campaign but I think its you just killing tons of Marines and aliens.

The game is not heavy on story. It involves Weyland-Yutani doing what Weyland-Yutani does best and that is unleashing the Alien hoard through Xenomorph experiments that go wrong.

Just watch the first AVP movie for the rest as the game is pretty much a carbon copy.

Story gets a 5/10 just for being average.

Gameplay

Playing as the Marine – This is your very basic First Person Shooter (FPS) that tries to rely on the horror survival expect of the Aliens to scare you witless and the predator who is a tank.

But the other two campaigns are more of a First Person Brawler with the Alien using its claws and tail to kill it’s prey, not to forget it’s tongue, and the predator at first only having his fist and claws as weapons until later in the game when he gets his shoulder canon and spear.

One of the big things about this game is how all the species feel different but this is where it all goes wrong when you play as the Marine. It feels very heavy. I know this is meant to keep you feeling under pressure when fighting but it just ends up feeling clumpy. If you have seen the movies you would know that the Aliens are very fast and can climb walls. Running around the floor and jumping on your prey is really fun but when you have to climb up walls, you always seem to lose your sense of direction running round in circles which isn’t fun. The Predator is a TANK  which jumps around like a loon hissing – nothing to see here.

Gameplay is very basic, nothing that says “look at me” so 4/10

Multiplayer

This is where this game stands a little bit out of the crowd so I will break down all the game modes one by one with a little comment.

Death match: It’s death match – nothing to see here.

Species Death Match: Is Three sided Death Match which can be fun.

Mixed Species Death Match: Same as above but with mixed teams and only 2 teams.

Domination: King of the hill with aliens.

This is where it starts to get better:

Infestation: It starts with just one player as an Alien and as he kills one of the Marines they join the Alien side.

Predator Hunt: One player starts as a Predator while others start as Marines. Only the Predator can score in this mode so when one of the Marines kills the Predator, they become him (Predator).

Survivor CO-OP: 4 players fight off waves of Aliens AKA Gears of war hoard mode.

Multiplayer can be fun on the latter modes and seems to be pretty stable with not much lag but does not have the replay ability that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has. 6/10

Sound and Graphics

This is going to be a short one. Graphics are pretty – all the guns and menus look how they should according to the movies and the game looks great running on PC with Windows 7 and Direct X 11 as well as other great PC traits.

The console version looks okay but the game is very dark to try and build suspense and as the Marine you have the worst flashlight in the history of gaming.

Sound is great – sounds just like the movies. The pulse rifle sounds like it should, as well as everything else.

Sound is great but nothing new and is just ripped from the movies. Graphics wise, the lighting lets the game down – 6/10 for both.

Overall

The game is average at best and could be a good rent. The campaigns are very short with Marine being the longest being 6 hours and the others around 3 or 4 on the medium difficulty setting and multiplayer having not much to keep you playing other than some player skins to unlock.

I will give Alien Vs predator 5/10