Happy 20th Birthday AvP!

[Corporal Hicks]

Time is just flying by!

[Huggs]

You had me thinking it was the movie.

For five seconds, I was like 5 years older.   

[Corporal Hicks]

Ha. I still remember playing this game as a kid. Being too scared to leave the APC at the start of the 3rd marine mission. 

[Kimarhi]

You know I didn't ever beat the complete DC levels until right after I got back from deployment.  The Marine levels always had me f**ked up.



I loved the feel of the Alien in the original AvP, the speed was unlike anything else I had played in a FPS.  I used to knock out all the lights in temple and lure the marines into the containment area and just shred them over and over again.

I really wish they'd bring back the feel of the original Alien with the ungodly speed advantage (and the ability to seamlessly transition into vents that the third game randomly stopped doing). 

That formula was the best: speed=Alien, strength and toughness=pred, technology and repeating weapons=Marine. 

[426Buddy]

My heart belonged to AvP PC, I was obsessed with it as a kid.

20 years... crazy

[Kimarhi]

I loved both AvP and AvP2.  I wish AvPs balancing was used in AvP2, and I wish some semblance of a story like AvP2 had was used in AvP. 

[Corporal Hicks]

I really wish they'd bring back the feel of the original Alien with the ungodly speed advantage (and the ability to seamlessly transition into vents that the third game randomly stopped doing). 

I remember getting so poorly playing Alien for the first time. The insane speed and wall-walking did me in.

[PsyKore]

The Alien was awesome in that game. It made you feel like a proper stalker and killing machine, powerful and merciless. It was the perfect mix of stealth and swift brutality. Such a shame that gameplay was ruined in AvP2. I loved breaking all the lights, clinging to the dark while Marines walked by completely unaware, picking them off one at a time. And then sometimes you'd get Marines panicking as they discovered their friends bodies or were alerted to your presence. Man, the game was so good at making you feel like an actual Alien from the movie.

[Corporal Hicks]

To be fair some of that returned in 2010 too. I love the light destruction too. Hated it as a marine in MP though. 

[quijju]

The Alien was awesome in that game. It made you feel like a proper stalker and killing machine, powerful and merciless. It was the perfect mix of stealth and swift brutality. Such a shame that gameplay was ruined in AvP2. I loved breaking all the lights, clinging to the dark while Marines walked by completely unaware, picking them off one at a time. And then sometimes you'd get Marines panicking as they discovered their friends bodies or were alerted to your presence. Man, the game was so good at making you feel like an actual Alien from the movie.

This, this, and this. They nailed the gameplay in this game I have no idea why the sequel gets so much praise it has nothing on Classic. Swift brutal alien gameplay, fast paced glass cannon marine gameplay, and high tech Pred hunting gameplay.

[Kimarhi]

I've always preferred the sequel.


The balancing of the first game is way superior but it is not immersive at all. 

Reminds me of the first unreal in sp, your just kind of there, doing shit, with no overarching story or plot. 

[426Buddy]

I was pretty disappointed with AvP2. The graphics really bothered me. Using that engine, having very linear level structure, and the scripted-ness of it all just didn't work for me. Alien wall walking wasn't half as fluid as the original and the environments didn't feel as faithful to the universe either.

In the end I did enjoy a lot of the game but I much preferred the atmosphere and game play delivered in the original. I walked away very much feeling that Monolith really wasn't a good match for the material.

However in the many years since the release of AvP2 it has really become one of the most beloved entries in the entire franchise and my opinion of the game is certainly in the minority.

[Kimarhi]

There is validity to all of your statement and everyone can have their own opinions.

I certainly remember the complaints of the cartoony graphics, as well as the presentation of those graphics (having the WY security in big orange jumpsuits or big purple/blue jumpsuits) taking people out of the experience.  And I remember the scripted events also taking people out of the game after the first playthrough because there was no chance for new scares with something else happening at random like there was in the first AvP.  You knew everything that was coming. 

The graphics were cartoony.  I always got a heavy Jurassic Park (movie) vibe from the presentation of AvP2.  Not sure why.  But they didn't gamebreak it for me.  I always preferred the scripted sequences over AvPs random spawns because they were more immersive to the story.  The story is not lighting anything on fire, but it just worked better than the absolutely bare bones campaign we got in the first one. 

Lithtech has always seemed to suffer from proportion to me.  Everything was too blocky in AvP2, everything was too tall and angular in FEAR (every character looks about 6'6") and in FEAR2 things got closer to being the right proportions but still not exactly right.  The geometry of the enviroments look better but certain designs on the characters look wtf.  Dudes running around with size 18 shoes. 

I wasted lots of time with both, but AvP2 is my winner.  I loved everything about the original AvP2 campaign and mp (I was one of the best Prae players to ever do it) and I loved the fact that almost a decade after it was released I was still playing new SP campaigns made by the fans.  Infinitely boosting its life. 

I don't agree that the game was any more linear than the original.  And AvP2 had huge maps with tons of shit to explore that added to the lore of the game.  So even if you could only progress the level a certain way, for years afterwards I would find Pred supply points and human notes WAY off the beaten bath of where I was supposed to go. 

To each their own though.   

[426Buddy]

Yeah like I said, I realize my opinion is definitely the minority when it comes to AvP2.

[Kradan]

For myself i find original AvP ridiculously difficult so i had to uninstall it unable to progress while i could  finish AvP 2 and had a lot of fun with it.