Fan Reviews

[Atrox]

I second your complanits though overall, I am happy with the game. Still though, on PS3 it is a nightmare to get a ranked game  and all of the other issues you brought up really take away from what could be one of the coolest things on teh market. I'm sure rebellion hates this question but, um, have any of your staff ever played MW2? Trust me, I hate that game (well love hate really) but tehy have the match making down to a pretty solid science.

Nubi,

Its encourageing that you can achive a match so quickly on the PC version. I know it was even worse then it is for us on the consels, pre patch. Hopefully they get to us next.

Also, I concure with you guys. Pred is OP but if they would simply give Alien a faster heavy attack I could live with the rest. I dont really see the marines having the same issues with preds as Aliens do because they can actualy do somthing at range but since Alien is all about speed and melee, its nonsense that it is almost impossible to win aginst a pred with even moderate skill in a melee fight. God forbid you have one of those level 43 persecuting bastards on your tail LOL

[PLEXI]

Am I the only one who is not happy with the game ?

Nope, look into any thread.

QFT. AVP has been hit or miss with everyone, so you are in no way alone berserker91.  The PS3 version was screwed over, and now with the PSN bug going on it'll stay that way for a while.

the game is a vast improvment

Graphic wise, there is no doubt.

[Tequila]

It's known that the ps3 matchmaking is a bit broken for some people.  Rebellion have done some patches, so let's hope they keep going with that.   They seem to have been pretty responsive so far.

[AJL]

I never expected this game to be *great* as it is (I never expected weapons,
characters, balancing, ... to fit my own vision... and they don't) I just hoped
this would be new, a little more up to date platform for modding... But still...

It is turning out to be even worse than I expected... As even the most basic
functionality is failing... (Like server listing, joining, hosting, settings, ...)

And the modding may not even be possible...

The only REAL Improvements are the graphics... and the Melee fighting...
(While the melee fighting is far from perfect, it is far superior over the
old style "jousting" in the previous games...)

[nubi]

Pred is OP but if they would simply give Alien a faster heavy attack I could live with the rest.

attack speed is not really the problem, the problem is pred makes a mockery of the melee system in place, he is immune to knockdown making him effectively uncounterable, whare if the alien is counterd its dead. secondly if the pred wants to he can just use a ranged weapon in melee since it comes out instantly and is unblockable theres nothing you can do about it

[-mimic-]

"all in all i think the game is a vast improvment over the previous 2"

I want what you have been smoking! 

First 2 AvP games, classics.

This one, a mediocre broken game.

[nubi]

"all in all i think the game is a vast improvment over the previous 2"

I want what you have been smoking! 

First 2 AvP games, classics.

This one, a mediocre broken game.

stop looking at the other games through nostalgia goggles, AvP2 in particular was horribly broken on release and is still full of game breaking glitches in multiplayer on top of that it was just a quake clone

[ScardyFox]

One of my friends who works at Game told me this is one of the heaviest traded in games he has seen ever. I'm not overly surprised but slightly saddened to hear that.

The MM on PS3 is abysmal, few maps (and the ones that are here aren't very well thought out), no information that means much is passed out, etc. They've done little to nothing on damage control for the game - only hardcore fans are going to stick around (it seems) before they clear this mess up.

[spinksy]

It really annoys me to see people moaning that they are not happy with the game becasue they have to wait ages to get onto a game and when they do theres not many poeple in the game.

Have you people ever thought that it might be the console your playing it on, your internet connection etc....

I'm playing it on 360 and NEVER find it hard to find games, I have had many 18 player games (although they're alittle laggy compared to the lesser player games) they're still awesome. I do get games where those only 4-5 people on each team but I find these game are usually better.

Have some of you people tryed configuring your routers etc to get a better connection - you can't always blame the game lol

[ScardyFox]

It really annoys me to see people moaning that they are not happy with the game becasue they have to wait ages to get onto a game and when they do theres not many poeple in the game.

Have you people ever thought that it might be the console your playing it on, your internet connection etc....

I'm playing it on 360 and NEVER find it hard to find games, I have had many 18 player games (although they're alittle laggy compared to the lesser player games) they're still awesome. I do get games where those only 4-5 people on each team but I find these game are usually better.

Have some of you people tryed configuring your routers etc to get a better connection - you can't always blame the game lol

This post is full of phail.

[Brother]

100 people having trouble but you don't - clearly they are doing something wrong. Just like with the demo when people were waiting for hours to get into a game, all of their connections were broken.

[-mimic-]

"stop looking at the other games through nostalgia goggles"

Im not. I replayed both avp games last year, single player, had a ton of fun, and that wasnt from only nostalgic.

Even AvP 1s single player had UNLOCKS! Extras. Where is that in AvP 3?

AvP 2s single player was extremely well put together and is still very well done. You even started as a facehugger in the avp2 alien campaign. Added a lot of fun. Why isnt there an alien lifecycle in avp 3?

Where are all the weapons in avp3 that were present in previous games?

Now to multi. I spent countless hours on the avp2 survivor multi mode. Had a lot of fun there. Now when I try avp3s multi, Im bored and frustrated before I even start the game. Then when you start it, you can get quick killed(slow killed) from 10 meters away!

Anyone putting avp3 up against the first 2 classics needs to have their head examined

[Vertigo]

"stop looking at the other games through nostalgia goggles"

Im not. I replayed both avp games last year, single player, had a ton of fun, and that wasnt from only nostalgic.

Even AvP 1s single player had UNLOCKS! Extras. Where is that in AvP 3?

AvP 2s single player was extremely well put together and is still very well done. You even started as a facehugger in the avp2 alien campaign. Added a lot of fun. Why isnt there an alien lifecycle in avp 3?

Where are all the weapons in avp3 that were present in previous games?

Now to multi. I spent countless hours on the avp2 survivor multi mode. Had a lot of fun there. Now when I try avp3s multi, Im bored and frustrated before I even start the game. Then when you start it, you can get quick killed(slow killed) from 10 meters away!

Anyone putting avp3 up against the first 2 classics needs to have their head examined

Why was the melee system in the previous games totally lacking in depth, given that it's the only form of attack for one of the species? Why does their Alien movement dynamic have absolutely zero resemblance to what we see in the movies? Why are their Preds' cloaking devices so easy to spot? Why no fish-eye lens for the Alien in AvP2? Why do their PredAliens look goddamn ridiculous? Why are AvP2's character graphics so cartoony? Why no destructable lights in AvP2? Why no mutilation in AvP2? Why are the AI Aliens in AvP2 so stupid? Why was AvP2's weapon balance completely and totally f**ked?



None of the games are perfect, all have their strengths and weaknesses, and I think AvP3 very strongly deserves a place alongside the other two.

AvP1 had the originality, replay value with the innovative randomly-spawning enemies, and peerless terror with its outrageously high difficulty level - but it also had no story, the aforementioned problems, and hasn't aged too well.

AvP2 added a great story, and made some attempt at fleshing out the existing gameplay dynamic with the Alien lifecycle and some new weapons - but it also lacked a lot of great touches from the original game (most of which I went into in the first paragraph), was nowhere near as terrifying, and had a seriously screwed up multiplayer with a raft of horrendous technical and gameplay issues.

AvP3 has taken a major risk by radically changing the gameplay dynamic - this has ensured that it doesn't feel remotely stale, despite being the latest iteration of an eleven-year-old series (sixteen if you count AvP Jaguar). Check out the latest Unreal Tournament for the proof that this was a very real danger. Despite the lowered feature count (weapons, classes, lifecycle) compared with the previous games, it actually has a much deeper and more fun basic gameplay mechanic.
Furthermore, it represents the Alien and Predator movies far more closely than we've had in the previous games, which is of course the main purpose of this series. It also brings back some of AvP1's features which were sorely missing in AvP2, with the active use of darkness with the destructable lights, realistic character graphics, fish-eye lens, epic gore and free-roaming (to some degree) Aliens.
Another thing I really like is the episodic structure, which harks back to the first game - every level feels right for a stand-alone gameplay session, and the pressure builds up throughout each one from a light, easy start to a big, frenetic battle at the end.

I can honestly say I've enjoyed AvP3 more than both of the previous games, but I don't think it'll keep me entertained for as long because despite all the positive aspects, right now it has more problems than its predecessors ever had.

While there's more randomness to the spawning and movement of AI characters (well, Aliens) than there was in AvP2, it's still heavily reliant on scripted sequences, and attacks rarely take you by surprise like they do with the first game.
There's a very strong sense that it's been built to a budget, with the small variety of stealth/trophy kills and audio responses ("Don't let your guard down!" "Don't relax just yet Marines!"), a lacking of seriously basic functionality such as a screenshot feature, host migration and dedicated servers - which have been commonplace since the inception of modern gaming, and the absence of some of the additions with which AvP2 advanced the series.
To me it comes off as the "that'll do" attitude which all too often can be an unpleasant hallmark of British industry (I'm English, so I get to say that ). A very visible example of this is when you compare the NPC interaction in the Marine campaign with the Alyx/Vortigaunt bits in the Half-Life 2 episodes - it's a direct comparison in which AvP comes off very badly.
On the subject of NPC interaction, the story isn't good, but this is something which could have been rectified by well-crafted interaction with strongly characterised allies.
There are also a few dodgy design features, such as the way you can't play ranked games in dedicated servers, and while I think the lengthy and gruesome stealth and trophy kills are perfect for online play, where every kill is something to savour, they're too slow and repetitive when you're slaughtering your way through masses of kill-and-forget AIs.
Then there're the technical issues, but those are the things we can expect to be patched. Remember when AvP2 first launched, and occasionally when a player left a multiplayer game they'd leave an invisible, stationary entity which would shoot and kill you?

For me, the perfect AvP game would use AvP1's randomly spawning and free-roaming enemies, AvP2's storytelling and feature list, AvP3's gameplay and graphics (which I haven't mentioned but I think are near perfect), and Half-Life 2 Ep 2's NPC interaction.

[genozide]

This is a long review so i'm sorry for the wall of text. This is my first post but i have been reading up on the forums for a long long time. This review is my point of view so i recent commenting on it much if it differs much from others. Everyone is entitled to their own perspective.

An Aliens versus Predator review by |XF|genozide a.k.a. bugga

Introduction:

I remember watching Alien the eight passenger by ridley scott in the early 80s. Since then i have been fascinated with the H.R. Giger monster. "I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." Several aliens and avp games later both console, coin-up and PC, a few Giger art books, comics and watching every movie several times like a madman, i wish to make a little review.
Then, who am I? Is the game based on the AvP movies? No. Is the predator cloak a cheat? No. Is rebellion making the first AvP game since the movie Predator 2? No. Why are we so angry? Because we have nightmares about bad game reviews by people who can't devote a couple minutes to actually find out what the game is about and do some research, while we are locked up in a lab (i actually work at one). 
I didn't have the pleasure to play Rebellions first AvP game for the Jaguar, but i did play the AvP game for the PC in -99. Also the monolith game that came after that called AvP2 but lets focus on Rebellion again as not to go too off-topic in alien game history 101. Rebellion and SEGA got the opportunity to create a new AvP game of their own, based on their first game in -99 on a experience basis and have told in interviews they focused mainly on the movies Alien, Aliens and Predator for the game environment since the timeline in the game is set to 30 years ahead of Alien 3. Aliens versus Predator is a game by fans for the fans. Fair enough.. Sounds great.
This game is innovative in several ways and still faced with so many more demands and expectations than many other games due to the cult status of the franchise. Let's not forget that in 2002, Alien was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the National Film Preservation Board of the United States, for example. It's not an easy task for Rebellion to live up to expectations or to make a triple flavoured candy that will taste as good no matter which flavour you prefer.

Rebellion - Building better worlds

I base this review on a year of research following the development of a game i have waited for 8 years, the demo release, a brief multiplayer experience in this game and playing through the three single player campaigns on a high end computer system. I try my best to be straightforward and criticising from a neutral perspective, even though it is hard.

Graphics

Compared to.. to what? Is there a similar game environment? Lets see.. too old.. too different.. naah.. almost.. maybe.. No. In my opinion the planet BG-386 is a different planet to LV planets. As a mining planet, not terraforming planet, this environment is hard to compare to the movie environments in many ways but some reassemblances can be found. And that's a good thing. Not too "family resort" kindly environment and not too stone cold either. Lighting is great in this game. It will feel dark and desolate for the marine player but staying together and keeping to the light will benefit them. After all, aliens cut the power, smashed the lights and stole the batteries. Shadows in the game made me think of the largely exaggerated shadow in FEAR 1, but fixed as it should work. Sunlight, artificial light, flames and explosions all look decent. It is actually possible to hide in the shadows for aliens as the roof is pretty high, mostly and there's boxes and vents and and they come out at night mostly. Textures and models have a feel of halo/gears of war/AvP2 (what the hell ?!) but it's just temporary. Once you get the hang of the brand new Asura engine devloped in the british Hive of Rebellion it has it's own look and feel. Details? Directx 11 support. It's a lot already considering the date of release. You can almost see the blood running in the veins of the tattooed marine who is catching his breath after trying to outrun a predator and alien monster. Graphics are beautiful but alas almost a bit too beautiful. What i frequently miss in new games is the feel of dirt, filth and atmospheric effects. Wildlife, realistic physics and being able to put coins in a soda vendor and drink a cola. Gain health by eating. But would i buy a game after 6 years in development that costs me ten times more than others and includes 10 dvds for install on a machine i couldn't afford? Nah. So, considering what the tools Rebellion had at hand and reflecting on the outcome. Graphics are very nice. Not perfect but nonetheless adequate by far. A few animations could look different, stairs are a bit steep, marine boots are very small but hell.. It's still coffee even if there's no sugar. It might even taste better without it. Graphics i give 9/10.

Sound

Alien claws clatter behind me as i recover from hearing a pulse rifle grenade knock down another with a boom and turn around swiftly to engage but too late to avoid close combat with the hissing monster. Get an acid facelift, hear a predator decloak and my own screams of death. Epic? Typical for an AvP game really. Enjoyable? Oh yeah... Volume, darkness and horror just makes that experience better. All in all the sounds are there and all work well in a surround environment so you can hear from which direction they come and what the sounds are, definately. Again i come to think of the lack of wind sounds and rain but forget it's not a terraforming planet. Background music is ok but the repetitive taunts of the marines get a bit annoying. You get the message of their despair while patroling areas in a futile way, but it just don't sound natural enough. A time delay between similar taunts would help a little. Also more voice acting differences, maybe. Hard to do right in games but they do add a lot to the experience. Thank god for bishop.. Lance Henriksen. Weyland Yutani corporation at it again and what would it be without this magnificent actors voice? Hate to say it but even if there's a lot of voices of him in the game there are other sounds and voices too and their impact wasn't as huge. So i hiss a sound of 7.5/10.

Story

The greed of man dooms a planet by introducing the dormant alien to it for infestation. The colonial marines dropship lands to save what can be salvaged and asses the situation. The old hunter race of the predator arrives to an almost forgotten sacred place alarmed by the intervention of man to fight their greatest prey, the alien. The alien strives to survive in it's alien way, the marine wants to know what's going on and fights both aliens. The predator follows his legacy as a hunter to achieve it's own goals during the story. Pretty straightforward, true to the first movies and nothing too surprising it seems, but there are good bits along the way. An opinion i've seen in earlier reviews is that the environments are repetitive and that it's a bad thing. To get the plots entangled into each other and not leave one odd out as to giving unique environments for one of the three, the same environment for each species is like a tutorial for balance. You will face every species "homeground" but they will also come knocking on your door. A planet with specific installations and environments it seems natural they do visit them at some time. It's where the shit hits the fan, they all meet, so why take a detour, i might ask? Personally i enjoy the conservative aspect and respecting the history of the alien and predator universe. If there's enough of material to work with already, why add something that might not belong there at all? A delicate terrain to step on but the story of each three aspects remain very true to it's origins. New games, lately, have had very short campaigns. Getting, with calm and non-rushing gameplay, a day and a half of campaign play and that times three is good. Hence, multiplayer takes the priority in games, but it will usually be based on the single player experience. The plot is true to the expectations, short and takes place on the same "arena". I wouldn't mind an expansion to the campaign, while i wait for a steam update or something else. AI of the game is at best toyingly realistic, at worst slow and confused. Storywise it's 8/10.

Gameplay

The predator has these trees that have grown just right for it to jump on. They made me think of the tree effort in AvP2 Jungle map. And i'm sure i'm not the only one. Still, that didn't bother me too much. The trees don't look so natural but for gameplay they are well designed. The alien hive environment looked decent enough if not spot on. Also using the environment as an alien wallwalking the walls and roofs didn't glitch or interfere with its movement much except the transitions to vents and releasing the wallwalk, wallhopping and using the movement properly takes time to get used to for oldschool players of the previous games. The Marine running around in a colony and searching for means to survive felt almost natural to a fanatic. The sprint is more realistic and you won't be able to crouch like in so many other games. The missing crouch ability is a small concern for the marine who needs to be on the move a lot to stand a chance against the speed of the other species. How about attacks? All species will need their own tactics. The predator will stand out with a one on one strategy, taking out single targets from a distance or up close. Melee is a strength for the alien species, both pred and bug. The game has added close combat to it's arsenal and it adds to the otherwise scarse weapon arsenal available. In games you will notice every weapon has it's own use and as alien the gameplay, with no weapons, is a challenge that makes the acidblooded alien feel like the monster it is from the movies. Trophykills and stealthkills with light and heavy attacks mould the game into a tactical horror shooter that feels right for the game. Once you have played with all species they all feel a bit overpowered at first but learning what makes each tick will make the balance surface and aid the gamer in fighting adversaries. Being a triple platform, triple species game as a PC gamer i was worried about how it would feel on the PC. Console port? I tried playing the game with my gamepad controller and was pleased to notice it was much easier, albeit a bit challenging at first, with a mouse and keyboard. Light attack, heavy attack, block, sprint, reload, movement, wallwalk, jump, focus, stealthkill.. Where do they all fit? It takes a while but once one gets the hang of them and find the best personal solution for controls setup they start making sense. Gameplay is one of the things that are very different from previous avp games in its functions and actions. There are games like rogue warrior that are similar but add two more species and it gets nastier. As an oldschool player i'd hope for a manual wallwalk option for the bug. Gameplay clicks at 8.5/10.

Singleplayer

In the story rant i kind of discussed the singleplayer aspect already from a point of view. But is there more to it? Singleplayer as mentioned comes with three species, surprise surprise. Added to this is a singleplayer survivor. Achievements in singleplayer are amongst other things audiodiaries, royal jelly canisters and trophybelt collectibles. They are a great addition to players who want to look around every corner and go treasurehunting as an adventurer in the sp. That and breaking lights and some objects in the game is about all interactivity you get next to following the objectives of the game story. No vehicles to drive, cola to buy or asking tequila for a date. The meleekills make up for it. So who needs interactivity? It's not there but would have been fun to drive away in a APC, burp after a cola or get stood out by tequila. The point with it is it gives a bit more freedom for the player. Cooperative singleplayer survivor was mentioned by rebellion with 3 AI teamm8s but i still have to find that option in the game. Probably coming in an update soon if not human error. Singleplayer is slightly different from multiplayer. Acidspitting aliens aside you see them coming crawling at you with lower torso broken, marines discussing situations and predator glory at its history.  Alien and predator singleplayer seems fine but the marine campaign could have done with a bit more cooperative aspects. There are some but just one or two more would have felt right for this fussy reviewer. Single would have got same as story but since it has survivor i give it 8/10.

Multiplayer

Seven different gamemodes, 18 player max, good netcode is adequate to what a fan has wished for. What do they really mean? The gamemodes one by one. Deathmatch i feel is outdated, but something that has to be included in just about every game. No teamwork required, just play and kill everything that moves. hmm.. Mixed species deathmatch. Probably even less appealing to me than DM, but it does present something new. Two teams against eachother in mixed species for each team. So you got bugs, preds, rines against bugs, preds and rines. What a mess, but interesting idea to see how big a mess it could get. I believe making the three species cooperate against the other three kinda kills the whole idea of species against species, but that's me. Species Deathmatch a.k.a. TDM. Woohoo.. Nice one. Next.  Infestation mode. Like last man standing, with every dead rine come great bugs. Adding the last man standing achievement is rewarding for the last survivor. Marines stand a chance together but.. resistance is futile. Hunt mode. Pred stalks marines. A.k.a. juggernaut for some reason... (yeah yeah i know.. ).. Marines learn to get paranoid quickly and sounds like a very nice gamemode but i remember hunt mode in the monolith avp2 wasn't so popular so i feel a bit reluctant towards it. How many so far? *counts* Schwiftyfive.. Domination mode. Two species try dominate certain strategic points in the map. Surprisingly balanced. Like CTF kinda but gotta catchemall pointS. Last but not least the only coop for the game which is 4 player coop survivor. All in all only 8 + 4 maps for the game atm but it's good for starters. 2 + 2 survivor maps. I especially liked C-block since i still haven't figured out which door will open next and almost hoping there isn't one as much as that there would be. Confused? Good. Multiplayer needs spawnprotection badly. Also some limit to how many discs a pred can throw in a row. There are some issues in multiplayer but since the game is fresh it's too early to go utterly critical on this. The balance is just about right but some small fixes and there's a lot of fun for a long time from this game. The netcode is very light and works well even if you have a worst case scenario of a wireless international connection to the other player through a matchmaking P2P service it actually works. Thanks to that and the balance efforts i give MP 8.5/10.

Feel of the game

The feel is something that combines all previous aspects because even if the majority of all previous are high lacking that "certain something" might just be enough to make the game fade out after a while. The feel is confident, promising and exciting. Confident the game will get support in the future, promising what is seen so far of this fresh game and exciting that there is finally new aliens and predator games coming. Adding special editions and alternatives to the game like the survivor and hunter (which i had to get obviously) smells of marketing but also an understanding of the fans and their relentless demands for everything short of a DIY Hive 1:1 scale, Predator cloaking device and USCM issue motiondetector. Rebellion should get paid for a good job. No harm in that. If i didn't want the game or be utterly pessimistic about it i wouldn't have bought it. High expectations were satisfied with a new AvP aspect by rebellion this february. Game requirements were surprisingly low considering the average reqs of games at this time. It also felt a bit light but if friends can play the game without having to use their last money on a new computer i can live with that. It's good to see so many friends from old times get back into the game and most just love the game. More than 9/10 have been loving it. To avoid over-hypeness i'll give the feel of the game a careful 8/10.

Final verdict

Dedicated server open beta was just released yesterday for this game so the time i write this review is a bit early, hence a lower score to what it might get later. A friend with no experience from AvP games earlier played this and was positively surprised. The game will need a few fixes and some SDK and DLC wouldn't hurt. Clan support for dedicated servers would be great. So Clans can prioritise their own members joining the server they pay for. A good server control panel would also be great.

I want to thank Corporal Hicks of AvPgalaxy.net for the best avp site in the world. Cudos to great work there. I still remember the days of AvPworld. Also thanks for the great staff at AvPgalaxy.

Also Rebellion and SEGA deserve thanks for making what i like to see as more than a game. Not all will like the game but if you give it a chance and are a fan of the franchise you will know what you're playing this year and perhaps next.

Final Score: (9 + 7.5 + 8 + 8.5 + 8 + 8.5 + 8 / 7 scores = 57.5 / 7 0 = 82/100)

Graphics: 9
Sound: 7.5
Story: 8
Gameplay: 8.5
Singleplayer: 8
Multiplayer: 8.5
Feel: 8

Total: 8.2/10

[chrisr232007]

Genozide I could not said it better myself which your review was spot on for how I fill about the game.