Aliens vs Predator (2010) - A Worthy Addition to Your Franchise-based Gaming Collection?

Sadly so far the movies for Aliens vs Predator have been close to horrible. The potential is all there but the writing is just terrible and so is the directing it would seem. Why do they do this? They don't even care about the fans or the intelligence of the average movie goer. They just want that box office ticket $$ but looking at the results it's such a low yield return on investment. Think of how much money AVATAR made... imagine that kind of effort put into an AvP film. Why not???

Having played the original AvP FPS games while in my early twenties in the army (one while I was in Afghanistan on tour) I really hoped this would be great...

In some ways it was a bit better than Aliens: Colonial Marines which would come a few years later, but really that's thanks to the AI of the aliens actually working properly and little more. I didn't mind the tone of it and quite appreciated the deserted feel of the colony at first - I thought the red hues and everything looked great and was thankful this wasn't an attempt to resurrect the exploded LV426 (which in A:CM was foolish and WAY TOO BIG), but this was allowed to be expansive because it was a different colony with a different situation.

I wasn't expecting the 'claustrophobic horror' experience that the ALIENS movie presented us with (and that A:CM SHOULD HAVE brought us) but this was still a horrible game, and the tonality wasn't what it SHOULD be - it sort of felt like a moving comic book/cartoon. It was clearly pumped out (or should I say "DUMPed out?", ya know, as in 'poop'?) for the XBOX 360 and PS3. It really didn't feel like they were trying hard. They just wanted the money. They wanted as many players on as many platforms to be able to play it as possible, so didn't build something amazing and gorgeous as it deserved - something sadly only PC players could enjoy - make something that can sell as many units as possible, which is the most greedy and foolish thing to do because in the end you aren't driving consumers to your game, your enticing the fanboys like me who will buy anything alien, and the low-hanging fruit of the gaming industry who are willing to try something else OR buy so many games they'll stumble upon this one. Little would have attracted anyone.

Why set the bar so low? Why not make something that is revolutionary like CRYSIS, but with this license, make it the most anticipated game of E3, and meet the hype.

You can tell there's some heart in here. I bet some of the devs were SO EXCITED to be involved in this project... only to have their hearts crushed again and again as expectations from the financiers were lowered repeatedly just as long as it got done and out.

One example is the predator and alien's melee/kill animations which were great and came out SIX YEARS before you'd see similar in DOOM (2016) (although maybe these guys were inspired by someone else). I liked the FPS for the predator (although playing Predator: Hunting Grounds right now I certainly appreciate the 3rd person decision).

I'm hoping with the release of the PS5 and XBOX series X and their capabilities that the bar will be THROUGH THE ROOF for games (namely so they stop kneecapping game titles to run on consoles while they could have been made to run beautifully on high end PCs)

There wasn't even a crouch or ADS mechanic in the game. Are they needed? No. But not feeling like a character from Minecraft or Roblox does help add some immersion. There was also so little variation with the predator's weapon selection. I can't believe the combi-stick couldn't shoot spears or darts. Didn't it shoot a long spear/dart in Predator 2? Or maybe I'm thinking of the "Cold War" Dark Horse Comic series. There was just SO MUCH they could have been doing with this game. I guess they were limited because they were trying to make three campaign stories from three perspectives in a single game with only a single game's staff. Bad decision. Put the money in, make three INCREDIBLE campaign stories, attract the normal fans PLUS weirdos who are only familiar with the Alien franchise by name, and just want to play as an alien, PLUS The people that see from the advertising that they can follow an amazing story of the predator. This is a REAL cash cow if they want, but instead they're looking for easy money quick.

This was probably one of the blandest First Person Shooters I have played in five years, and that's an incredible feat considering the story content they had to work with.

Gotta' say, I'm glad Lance Henriksen keeps getting paycheques for lending his voice. Otherwise how would he survive?

As far as multiplayer goes the servers are all D-E-A-D. BUT a Twitch-streamer named RantOrRave runs weekly games of AVP and ACM and I got in on that and AvP was... kind of fun. But kind of janky. I think a game of predator vs 4 marines MIGHT be fun like I've seen YouTubers do. But yeah, I'll probably play one more night with them and then uninstall it.

Also a totally unnecessary digitized holographic exotic dancing scene... although it's neat that it lends to the 'abandoned' factor. But if that's the case, have the image degraded, popping in and out.

I really wanted this game to be great... but it wasn't. But it WAS Aliens vs Predator AND the AI actually worked.

For that low accomplishment it still garners a 2/5 stars **

If you want to experience a little, albeit sad taste of the AvP universe here ya go: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002NINFHM/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_rXAtFbW5BX64P

And if you'd like to see the playthrough of this lackluster title here it is: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSZQX_rK8pMi15IAnds564IkSteaDDqPX



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