So how do you make the truest-to-form AVP title? Give it everything. With three campaigns (one for the Colonial Marines, the Aliens, and the Predator), there's enough gun-slinging acid-spitting face-hugging techno-babble for everyone.
What do we know about AVP? Not so much, other than the demo we saw looked pretty damn cool. You could ask why, and I'd have to retort why the hell not. AVP is giving players the chance to live up to the movies, to fight off the Aliens from killing off the small human population aboard whatever ship or planet players might be on. When you're done with that, you get to play as an Alien, with all its maneuverability, acid spitting and abilities we don't even know about yet. Then, of course, you play as the Predator.
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| Three campaigns, three species...three times the fun! |
As humans, any confined space will leave you vulnerable. Actually, so will open spaces. |
Here's what we do know for sure: the Colonial Marines are going to be your standard videogame marines, this time in a horror no-win situation. They'll be bloody, jumpy, trigger happy and scared witless. Comedy and facepalms all in one. Of course, you play as the badass marine who's never lost a fight, starting with punching his way out of his mother's womb, so that's nothing new. What is new is that the enemy aren't human, and they don't act human.
To explain, we'll talk about how the Aliens move around. Besides being fast buggers who'd rather jump out from the shadows than walk in the middle of a walkway, they like the dark. And there are plenty of dark areas to fight in. Think dark like Doom 3, but with better lighting. Aliens will pop out of nowhere and attack your team as they tear and scream for dear life, and there's a good chance you won't see it coming from a mile away. The only way to combat this is to light up the area by any means necessary, either by dinky flashlight or flares. Thankfully, flares are unlimited to help even the odds.
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| We seriously hope playing as the Alien will let us perform moves like this. |
The Predator gameplay is still a tightly guarded secret. We can't wait to see what he can do. |
And what we were told, without being given an actual confirmation, is that playing as the Aliens is almost identical to playing against them in the campaign. They can see you in the dark, and you can't see them. They can climb walls, spit and bleed acid, and provide a general nuisance to any and everyone.
We didn't get to see anything on the Predator, and our playtest was fairly short, so details were sparse. But we do know that the developers are very happy with what they've got, which we can only assume means that thanks to today's tech, the Aliens and Predators movies are finally coming to life.
Aliens Vs. Predator is set for release in early 2010 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
