Ive been anxiously awaiting the release of AVP. I love the Alien/Predator series, and played the AVP game on the Atari Jaguar back in the day at my friend’s house in middle school. The game is right up on my Gamefly queue, so I will definitely be snagging it when it releases in two weeks. However, the demo released yesterday on the PSN, and I was excited to get my hands on it and try out the three races (Alien, Predator, and Colonial Marine) in the deathmatch demo. Unfortunately, the demo is plagued with failure, and I have been unable to enjoy it.
Apparently, the game servers were not prepared for the amount of people who downloaded the demo yesterday. As a result, it has been impossible to find a game to join. I tried at four different intervals to get a game going yesterday, and succeeded in getting two matches total going. After each match was over, the initial host left, so I was booted out and then unable to find another game. This inability to find a game to play is very annoying and frustrating. I hope it gets fixed so I can start checking out the game more.
My other complaint is with choosing a race. Both times I was unable to choose a race, and was stuck playing as the Marine. This is upsetting because the Marine is the least original. Playing as the Marine is just like playing any other FPS. While the Aliens crawl around and go in for melee kills and the Predator stays invisible and hunts, the Marine plays as you would in any other FPS.
But enough of my complaints. From what I did see and experience, it was a blast. It is a very intense FPS, and very fast paced. The Alien players are able to move extremely quickly, and can climb walls and hang from ceilings. Their main attack is melee based, and playing as the Marine I suffered several tails through the torso and eating of my face. The speed of the Aliens is what allows them to get up close for these devastating attacks. Oh, and in case I didnt make it clear, these are one-hit kills. So yeah, the Aliens are nasty.
I didnt see much of the Predator, and from what I did, he was just invisible. Well, not totally invisible, as you can faintly make out his outline. However, I killed quite a few Predators, and I didnt meet death from any, so I dont know how their attacks are. What I do know is that many of the Predators stronger weapons are scattered throughout the map, and you have to track them down to use them.
The Marine, as I already mentioned, seemed to be normal. His default weapon is a machine gun, and you run around and shoot enemies. Like the Predator, the stronger weapons (like a shotgun) are scattered throughout the map and you have to pick them up. The other thing the Marine has is a motion sensing device (a la Aliens) which can be used to find enemies. While this may be an advantage, from chatting with the Alien players I found out that they can hear the motion tracker (if you remember from the movie, its loud, and gets louder as enemies get closer), so its not an entirely awesome advantage for the Marines.
Overall, the game was a blast. The demo map is a space ship interior that is covered with Alien hive matter. As I frantically ran about looking for other players to kill, the creepy environment, the uncomfortable silence (there was no background music), and the motion sensing beeps all gave me the feeling of being in an Aliens movie. I actually did pretty good too, as in my first game I came in first in kills, and my other came I came in third. However, I think that is because the game had just came out, and normal controls of the Marine are definitely less complex than learning how to control an Alien or Predator. Once in game there was absolutely no lag, the only technical problem being actually finding a game to join. I really enjoyed playing it, and I cant wait for the finished product with the three single player campaigns and multitude of online modes (including death match, co-op survival, and some other more interesting competitive modes.)
I only hope this demo is fixed soon so I can get a crack at playing as an Alien or Marine.
