Aliens vs. Predator

Compared to Colonial Marines: this looks like goddamn Bioshock. It's got problems in terms of visuals (at times they look okay, other times they're hideous), the focus on melee combat takes much of the suspense out of the game as you can simply push yourself up against a wall and hold the "block" button, and the story leaves a bit to be desired. But this truly captures the aesthetic of the universe: no other game makes you truly feel like you're playing as the Predator or the Xenomorph like this one does. It's so much fun to play as the alien terrorizing colonist and helpless marines: only wish the campaign was a bit longer. The survival mode is also a fun time waster. Overall: give this one a try if you're a fan of the franchise. It's available on the Xbox store and is backwards capatible, it's worth it if you love these movies like I do.

Predator - The game developers were clearly inspired by the settings and ideas AVP (2004) helped established, which is why much of it's design in this game resembles those from the actual film, which in IMO was a bad route take. Now it's not all bad, as a matter of a fact, some of the concepts are actually quite interesting, like for example the ability to jump across long distance, from platform to platform, and the fact that the disc actually requires skill to eliminate your opponent unlike it's predecessor which featured a lock-on tracker system allowing killing Humans and Aliens to be far to easy. The sound bites were arguably the biggest disappointment about playing as the Predator, because literally all the sounds the Pred makes have been re-recorded, leaving the player with no famous roar, or screech but instead a mutated horse which doesn't in the slightest sound anything like a Predator should. The single-claw approach along with the updated sound effects almost makes for a different creature, and therefore doesn't leave you feeling like your controlling a Predator, which overall is rather disappointing. The campaign was rather flat story-wise, but I did enjoy the expansion of the Predator culture, and slashing Aliens never gets old especially since there's many trophy kills and normal strikes to choose from. The lack of the combi-stick and/or net gun was also disappointing..

game-play - 8/10 story - 6/10

Alien - One thing I must say that they improved on with the Alien game-play in terms of realism, was that they finally fixed the heat bite feature. In all 6 of the Alien films, it's clearly established that the 'little mouth' pokes a hole right through the center of the human forehead, which is exactly what the Alien does here. In lets say, AVP2; the Alien completely bites the head off, which whist looks cool doesn't fit in with the logic of the Alien's capabilities -- so I was glad to see this fixed up. The controls look and fell accurate to how the Alien moves and behaves, but having said that the pounce is no longer in tact which I found disappointing considering stunning enemies and then attacking them when there most vulnerable in terms of movement, was one of the funnest things to do in AVP2. The sounds have once again been modified, and apart from a death scream, all the original sounds have been replaced, but in this case, I actually don't mind 'em as much as the awful re-made roars the Predators make. I'm about half-way through the single player campaign and while I heard a lot of positive reviews about it, I was quite underwhelmed; mainly due to the fact that you don't start as a face hugger and work yourself up through the life cycle which I really enjoyed in the AVP2 Alien campaign.

game-play - 7.5/10 story - 4/10 (so-far)

Marine - Quite possibility the most underrated single-player campaign out there. I really enjoyed the dark and creepy atmosphere of the Marine, and IMO, it really captured the fear of the Aliens again, since there really wasn't much light and you had to use your motion tracker and flares to get an idea of where they were located. The weapon selection was a bit of a let down considering there was no rocket launcher or mini-gun to choose from, and the sniper whist understandably toned down from its 'overpowered' approach in AVP2, doesn't do near enough damage as it should. Overall I found the Marine to be quite entertaining; and it was easily the best single-player experience in the game.

game-play - 8/10 story - 9/10

It's good, it's pretty good. I am glad that somewhat in 2010... we put back some things on the right path. After AVP (2004) and AVP Requiem (2007), which I didn't like at all... I thought that all that alien & predator thing is going down the drain. But, thanks to this new video game, and film "Predators", we got some interesting stuff here. Now, let's get back to the game. Graphics - incredible, gameplay - amazing, what can I say, atmosphere and music were great too. And still it kept good impression when you are playing with Alien, or predator, or the marine. Again you feel cool when you are playing with each of them, and their stories are connected, just like in AVP 2 (2001) video game. Though, I don't think that the action scenes, or some moments in the game were not that much tense and not very high voltage. It's kinda slow. This game rules because of good graphics and gameplay, but the plot is weak. Never, during gaming, I have never felt anything exciting in the plot, it's pretty simple, and I feel sorry for that. The intros for all three campaigns were good, but as the plot moves on... something was missing. Maybe it was about these changes that occurred within Alien and Predator canon/universe. You can see that in the game, and there are pretty cool moments with those changes. Like, for example, giving predators much more deeper hunter culture. But, I like things simple. That's just me. When I heard so much about this game, and I expected to be something big, yet simple, and it wasn't ... It was really good, but without the plot... 60% of it is good. But, still highly enjoyable.

I heard about this game before it went into production. But it seemed like no time passed at all from Pre-Production to release. When I heard Rebellion was making this one as they did the original (still my all time favourite game) I was very excited. The trailers for it made me all the more optimistic. When it was released, it was very close to what I imagined, though it was clear that the time-frame and/or budget they had for this game was lacking what they needed. The graphics were decent, but seemed unpolished and other than the execution kills, they seemed rather cartoonish. especially during the cutscenes. As for the multiplayer, that's where it got really frustrating. if you try joining a quick match sometimes you'd be waiting 10 minutes before it found a game. Also, if you tried to join a specific game type (say Predator Hunt) it would often join a death match or Infest game. On the rare occasion you could join a Predator Hunt game, you'd only get a maximum of 4 people playing which got very boring. When it's supposed to be up to 18 people in a match, I don't think I once played with more than 10 people. Also the campaigns were wayyyyy too short. I think you got like 8 hours of game play from all 3 campaigns? I'm not sure but I beat all of them ridiculously fast.

I heard rumours that Sega pushed Rebellion to develop the game quicker than they wanted to and practically forced it out before it was finished. I also heard a rumour that Sega was pulling their support for the game (meaning no game servers) if this is the case, I don't blame Rebellion, I blame Sega. I hope that Rebellion is given another chance to make a sequel to this game and are given the proper respect and tools to do their job properly.

I still gave this game a 10 because I was completely disappointed in the Sierra-Developed AvP 2 that pretty much removed everything I loved about the original 1999 AvP game. So this game, was definitely trying to go back to its roots and properly capture the atmosphere of the original films and for the most part I think it was a success and I look forward to the sequel...as long as Rebellion makes it.

I miss the good old days where developers put effort into their games and were just FUN.

Not only does this game have 3 individual campaigns with completely different gameplay mechanics from each other, it also has a fairly fun and chaotic if not pretty janky multiplayer. Even then it's charming as hell. Multiplayer shooters with Xenos in them have always been fun, even ACM.

The Marine campaign is probably the best of the three and drips atmosphere as you explore a ruined colony.

It isn't a masterpiece in storytelling by any stretch but AVP3 is the most 7/10 game of all time in my opinion, but my bias means id rate it higher. Very fun to play, not to mention Mortal Kombat levels of gory kills.