AVP
When my buddy Troy sent me a text message asking if anyone had got the new AVP. I immediately called him. No text back, with “um… well.”, no non-response as to pretend like I didn’t have time to talk games with him. Nope. I called that mother fucker right back after his text. I called, and he was at work. Work, come on, but that’s Troy. I screamed “Don’t do it man! It’s not not worth it.” And what do you think the douche’s answer back to me was? How about a “Thanks man, I almost made the worst mistake of my life”; or “Wow, man, you’re really passionate about this, you just saved me 60 bucks”; nope he says “Well, I already bought it.” I told him he should take it back and get his money, because he just got robbed.
After all the ads for the new AVP I have to admit I was super stoked to get it. I am almost ashamed to say just about everything that harbors the Aliens or the Predator name sake has or will be consumed by yours truly. I had made it a habit out of getting some face time the beta. I really enjoyed the beta, but its to bad I should have just stuck with that. Ultimately AVP just not worth the price tag associated with it.
The Space Marine campaign could have been a major selling point for me. It plays like that of any standard FPS. The story was a little convenient by placing an incapacitated marine into what is otherwise a shit storm. This campaign quickly becomes a survival shooter where your marine faces a host of challenges from basic spray and pray to dart and dash to duck and cover creating what would have been a decent survival shooter, but quickly became unplayable due to frame rate issues. The fight for life scenarios were broken up by pause.. shoot shoot shoot pause… killing off any level of suspense. Anytime you find more that 2 characters sharing the screen the game’s frames either slow to about nill or bottom out entirely. These large gaps in the action become frustrating making what could have been a decent survival shooter un-playable. Hoping that the frame rate issue would either resolve themselves or maybe I would see a patch with a day of release, nope; so I gave it no more that 45 mins in.
I moved into the Predator campaign, but grew tired of that in about the same amount of time. This campaign surfers from a stagnant repetition that grows old quickly. The formula is stalk some Marines, fight some Marines, fight some Xeonos, rinse repeat. The Stealth elements of the game could be interesting, but are really over done. The most powerful weapons like a, cough..cough, shoulder cannon blast happen to give away your position. Once compromised, the AI goes into over dive and starts spotting at ridicules distances. Stop me if I’m wrong, but last time I saw Predator he was one bad ass mama-jamma. He took out The Body, and damn near took down Arnold. Cough.. mud cheater, cough… But again this campaign has promise, the stealth element’s were cool and I like how you use the hub navigate and guide from point to point. But a whole lot of the same from one instance to the next, just left a bland taste in my mouth.
The Xeonomorph campaign seemed to be the best of the 3, in my opinion, but I could see how this species can put people off. This species does best by being fast and take enemies from vantage points, such as the ceiling or dark corners. I really like this part of the game, and 9 times of out 10 I play the Alien in multi-player. It just seems to be the best way to practice, being the multi-player. That said, the fast paced dart and twirl could easily jarring and cause dizziness. Most shooters, or most FPS games have 2 plains to play from X and Y. Some times it will branch into the Z. But this games take all 3 plains and will constantly scramble them. You could be on the floor and quickly dart up the wall and with in seconds be on the ceiling. This complete flips you around and leaves jarred. Up is down and down is up. “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria! ” But through all the all that, I found this to be the most enjoyable part of the game, and from as much of it has I had played saw little not technical issues, i.e frame rate issues or sterile game play. I like the ability to stalk my victims and even have them impregnated via face huggers.
The Multi-player is actually not too bad. The match making works just like that of any other. The action of the pretty fast paced, like that of an Unreal Tournament or Quake, and the species are balance rather well. Were if falls short it lacks a good progression type system like COD: Modern Warfare. You do earn XP but this only helps unlock skins rather than abilities or classes. On top of that, when a new skin is unlock you will only find what it looks like by jumping back into a new match making. Its seemed that the match making could use some work since it seemed to take you back to the main setup screen after ever match, this seems to add time to the match making process that could be better spent on playing the game.
What AVP does right is not enough to support the price tag. The Graphics are great, but a host of Technical issues really puts a damper on the game experience for me. PC version only does DX9 at a limited set of customization or DX11 with full customization, and I would not say this game would justify the purchase of a DX11 card. Bad frame and in-inventive game play seems to leave you with sub par experience.
My suggests to try fix a game like this would be to switch out the Predator for a 3 person kind of combat. Similar to a splinter cell type of feel. Each species would have their limited set of abilities and views, but keeping a good balance they currently have a hold on Maybe also mix in a little Unreal Championship 2 3rd person stylized combat to add flare. Leave the Marine as the FPS character, and give the Xenomorph the ability to switch between 3rd and 1st person. Build in a leveling system for the multi-player that helps unlock more than skins, make the skins classes and give them increased abilities. Barrow a page out of COD: Modern Ware, its a formula that works and works so well it seems to be a standard. Lets not forget you are making a game that first appeals to gamers and second to fan-boys, like me.
