Post by Dan @ 04:08pm 05/03/10 | 17 Comments
Does it hit the mark? Regrettably, we feel that it falls short for a number of reasons - find out what they are in our in-depth review of the game's Windows PC version.
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Posted 05:44pm 05/3/10
Posted 07:10pm 05/3/10
Console vs PC arguments aside (I am happy to play either, and both have their merits IMO), I also agree with the multiplayer aspect. In fact although I played a the demo for a bit online (which I thought was very average), I couldn't even get onto a game online and reverted back to single player. I thought maybe if the SP was good I would buy this, as I am a bit of an Alien/Predator fan (although AVP franchise was rubbish) but after playing the SP for a couple of nights I decided the game was just plain boring.
The gamplay was best when playing as the Predator, but ultimately after a few (very short) episodes the whole thing becomes repetitive and linear. I first played as the Marine, which was sub-par when compared to games like MW2 or similr recent FPS, and the Alien was cool...for about 5 minutes before becoming tedious.
To succeed this game needed to look amazing, and to be honest on my 50 inch plasma in full HD, it lacked substance or atmosphere. At no point was the game remotely scary or even tense, and at times it was downright tedious. Activate this, deactivate that. The parts that were kind of cool e.g. collect the Security Chief's head for retinal scan were far too easy. He puts up no fight and is guarded by one soldier. However the spacing of checkpoints and saves meant that I found myself repeating tedious tasks over and over.
The game save system was a little confusing too. AVP has Autosave, which saves at each Checkpoint. You can also manually save, which as far as I could see also just saves the game at the last checkpoint. There is a continue function as well as a load game function where you can choose which save point you which to start from; I guess with 3 different classes you could potentially have 3 or more games going at once. Not sure why they didn't just have a Save option for each class than allowed you to save progress from anywhere in the game and be done with it. Oh maybe because by making you save at set checkpoints you have to end up doing things over and over again and this is how they "extend the gameplay".
All in all I found the levels very short and the goals repetitive. I took the game back without being inspired to re-hire or finish any one of the three storylines.
Disappointing, as I was looking forward to this game as both a fun MP and potentially engaging FPS SP with replay value.
5/10
last edited by IncrEdible_vEgetable at 19:10:31 05/Mar/10
Posted 07:25pm 05/3/10
Agreed with the average sentiment, nothing really stood out.. maybe the pred kills as mentioned, but yeah they got tiresome and when i got the spear later on i just used it despite it feeling "cheap".
Also the movement of the aliens, you could tell it was made with a console in mind, they run about then stop dead giving you a chance to line them up, before they move again (I was kind of thankful for that as the mouse control just did not feel smooth at all, i could put that down to my p.o.s p.c. though)
Posted 01:50am 06/3/10
Rebellion would have been aware of the issues listed here but someone at Rebellion obviously decided they were all acceptable trade offs and pushed the game out the door. I wonder if despite these problems that it works out better for Rebellion financially. May be in the short term, but I bet everyone that felt ripped off by this rendition will be twice as wary reinvesting in the next franchise reincarnation.
Posted 02:46am 06/3/10
I remember playing the first avp and it was an amazing game and somehow they have missed the atmosphere of the first one. I remember playing infestion for weeks and not being bored...i got bored after 1 hour of it..
I feel the game was rushed out MP is STILL in beta, The class's are not balanced because the pred still gets owned before it can get close to anyone. The SP wasnt bad but it wasnt worth $80-90
Posted 03:57am 06/3/10
Posted 09:36am 06/3/10
Do you mean the Aliens? If so then that's what I thought as well. The Aliens only having melee attacks against range weapons was a bit mismatched. In the demo the few games I actually got into, I thought the Predator was over gunned. The Marine seemed underpowered and the Alien attack modes were quite limited.
However I couldn't tell what the MP was like in the final game as I couldn't even get a game going as mentioned earlier.
Posted 10:47am 06/3/10
Posted 10:54am 06/3/10
Posted 11:29am 06/3/10
Posted 11:55am 06/3/10
There are a lot of complaints about balance issues, but as far as I can tell these are generally just individuals complaining about which ever species they are the worst at play as as being underpowered. I have seen a lot of complaints regarding all three species, each one being called both under or over-powered by different players.
I'm hoping Rebellion comes through with patches to improve the quality of the game further and that the problems with the dedicated server situation will be ironed out once the beta ends. I think some of these things - such as having to own a copy of the game to host a server, etc, might be BECAUSE it's in beta. Rebellion have always referred to it as a CLOSED beta, anyway.
I guess the point of my rantings is that I think the game has been getting a lot of unfair reviews. Ausgamers, as per usual, is pretty good, but I see the game getting relentlessly slammed by a lot of people. As it stands, it's really quite an enjoyable game, and it's only some relatively minor adjustments and fixes away from being a fantastic product overall. It's just a shame that a bad launch has probably significantly reduced its lifespan.
Posted 01:05pm 06/3/10
Posted 05:55pm 06/3/10
Sound familiar ladies?
Posted 12:04pm 07/3/10
Posted 03:14pm 07/3/10
Posted 10:10am 08/3/10
Posted 04:19pm 08/3/10