Still a great game!

User Rating: 9.2 | Aliens Versus Predator 2 PC
By mlfolkman | Review Date:
I've had this game for a couple of years now, and I still come back to it. In fact, I never got too far, because even on easy level, it is fairly challenging, regardless of which race you play. In terms of a 1st person shooter type game, I don't know if even now there is a game that beats it, in terms of combining action, variety, replayability, and scariness (at least when you're the humans, because those little lights don't do much for ya, ya can't see a thing!). Most 1st person shooters are a 1 trick pony, maybe having cool weapons and a cool multiplayer feature. But that's where it usually ends for shooters, you go through level after level of blowing stuff up. The thing that makes this game so much fun is the variety more than anything, each race having a completely different set of missions. Even tho I like the aliens the least (mostly because they always owned me in multiplayer), they have probably the most interesting story line of all 3. You start out as the facehugger, lay an embryo in a guy, and burst out of them, getting bigger and stronger as you kill more things. I thought that was an interesting twist, when I first got the game, I assumed I would just be one of the regular, biting and clawing aliens, so that was kind of neat. It is also pretty interesting playing as a predator, and using their different vision types and weapons.

Overall, it's a pretty engrossing experience. It has a good mix of action, challenge, and will jangle your nerves a bit with the suspense, music, and surprises. There are also some environmental challenges, like stuff falling through the ceiling at you(human), or making some tough jumps (predator). What truly sets this game apart, other than the replayability with the 3 different races, is that it keeps you guessing as to what is next. The multiplayer is also pretty fun, very entertaining having aliens, marines, and predators running amok and blasting each other. Furthermore, there is variety within those races. For example, 1 type of alien runs faster, but the other type takes a bigger beating. 1 type of marine has different equipment than the other, same with the predator. So in multiplayer, there are actually different choices within the 3 species, which I think adds great depth to it.

That said, it is not a perfect game, of course. While I like the idea AVP2 has behind making the game a little frightful for the marines, the utter darkness does get to be a bit too much. I understand they did that for the scare element, but a lot of times, you flat out cant see what you are doing or where you are going...and the aliens are tough enough with how fast they are and being able to run around on ceilings and walls. By the time you see 'em, its already too late...you basically just have to hope you have a lot of health and armor to last through a couple swipes of their claws. It's also a little on the difficult side. Granted I am not an expert first person shooter player (mostly an RPG/adventure game type), but I had it on easy, and the aliens were really sticking it to me on only the 2nd or 3rd mission (can't remember which).

Other than those 2 minor things, pretty much a perfect game, really. I don't think you can ask more, and by now, you can probably get this game pretty cheap. It won't have the graphics of Far Cry or other recent FPS games, but the replayability and uniqueness of the game make it worth buying even now, a couple of years or so after it was released.

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