Alien vs Predator - Max Out Forum Review

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Released: January 19th 2010

With three options of campaigns, Alien, Predator and Marine, you would have thought that Alien vs Predator would have offered the player hours and hours of game play interesting scenery and in depth character plots and story lines. This however is not the case. The characters are hardly developed at all, and the game play is almost too structured, with instructions such as go here, open this door, kill the aliens, etc.

Storyline: 7/10

One thing which the game does do very well on the other hand is building atmosphere. The game will constantly keep you on edge while playing as the marine, not knowing when the next alien is going to jump out at you or the next predator is going to try and remove your head. The graphics of the actual game are pretty good considering that a lot of the game is based in dark corridors and rooms, the developers and artists got the lighting just right for this sort of location.

Talking of the graphics, the finishing moves or stealth kills are exactly like you’ve seen in the numerous Alien and Predator films, including the predator move of ripping a few spines out a marine’s body. These kills albeit give you some mild sort of sadistic satisfaction, they seem to me to be just a little bit over the top and they kind of take away from the online play. How to explain, when you’re playing online and you sneak up behind a marine and pull his head off, in the middle of pulling his head off, when your sure he’s definitely dead because his head is in your hand, you see an alien in front of you, but because you’re still finishing the move you can’t stop to move or defend yourself, therefore the alien comes and kills you while you’re still marvelling at you glorious kill.

Graphics: 8/10

The multiplayer, don’t get me started on the multiplayer! I think this is the worst lobby system a game has ever produced, making it impossible to get into a lobby until you have a full lobby of 8 members. This means sometimes you can be sat staring at a screen with 7 players.... awaiting 1 more... for 10 minutes going come on... one more user. It is the most frustrating system yet!

When you have finally finished waiting for enough players to create a lobby, you jump into the lobby and have to select the character you want to be Marine, Alien or Predator. As soon as you start all the Predator’s go straight away, so if you’re looking to be one of them you’ll need quick reaction times! The next ones to go are the Aliens so make sure if you don’t get a Predator you get an Alien, because if you’re stuck with a Marine, expect every kill to be hard fought.

One of the best features of the multiplayer game is the Infestation mode, in which the game starts with everyone as a Marine, except one who is an Alien, and it is that Aliens mission to kill off as many of the Marine’s as it can, and with each kill the player who was the Marine becomes an Alien, making it that little bit more interesting. This is a unique style of game play which I think makes up for the other flaws within the multiplayer system, mainly the lobbying system (just can’t get over how awful it is).

Multiplayer: 7/10

The controls of the game are pretty simple to use for the Marine and the Alien, with each only having two different types of attacks, (not including melee for Marines) but when you get into control of a Predator the controls get much more complex with different weaponry choices, different attack styles, stealth mode, long distance jumping, aiming for the cannons etc, and can leave new users very confused about what is actually going on, and will make them die quiet easily to start with, but once you’re used to the controls you’ll become a lean mean killing machine!

Controls: 9/10

If you haven’t bought this game yet but are considering whether or not it’s worth it, I would say that it is worth buying it, simply to try out Infestation mode and the other different multiplayer options, and the campaigns can be interesting at some parts, but I wouldn’t say this is a game you’re going to want to hold onto for years just to play the multiplayer, it may be worth buying it, completing the campaigns and getting a few achievements/trophies off of it and then trading it in for something else.

Rating: 8/10