Aliens Vs Predator – Review (PS3)

 

I’d been looking forward to Aliens Vs Predator for quite a while and having had a (brief) hands on at Eurogamer last year I was pretty excited to finally pop the disc into my PS3.

Sadly what followed didn’t live up to my high expectations.

Let me begin by saying Aliens Vs Predator is not a bad game. It’s decently sized (around 9 hours) and well paced. The story is ok and you get to experience the campaign from 3 totally different perspectives.

So why the disappointment?

As insane as it sounds I think Rebellion gives the player too much control over the characters – and by that I mean in terms of what you can do and how, often, it’s damn awkward to actually pull off.

Playing as the Alien holding down R2 allowed you to traverse walls and ceilings, which of course in theory is awesome but the reality was basically me ending up completely confused as to where I was. Or more importantly where my prey was.

As the Predator it’s often hit and miss as to whether you can jump to a higher ledge and it felt like you had to be in a hidden ‘sweet spot’ before you could jump up to ledges. Very annoying when trying to escape oncoming attacks and when you can see the Predator would blatantly be able to jump such a paltry distance… but the game won’t let you.

The Marine campaign didn’t really suffer in this respect as it’s a standard ‘bug hunt’ so to speak. I enjoyed this the most as Rebellion have done a great job recreating the feel of the films.

The balancing of the species is handled really well, each feeling suitably powerful but having their vulnerabilities. The times when it worked with Alien or Predator it was very satisfying but more often than not the controls/mechanic let it down.

Playing a game like this you want to feel empowered but not invincible – Batman: Arkham Asylum did this almost to perfection last year, here half the time it’ll bodge what you are trying to do and you’ll end up just killing everyone in the fallout.

The multiplayer has severe connction issues but if you can get a game it’s quite good fun. Problem being 9 times out of 10 I couldn’t get a game and was stuck with a ‘searching for games’ screen for 10 minutes at a time.

All three campaigns have their moments of brilliance and Alien Vs Predator, while frustrating at times is a fun game to play through – especially if you are a fan of the films.

Rating: 6/10

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