AVP3 - IGN First Look

[deezelboy]

IGN's had a chance to look at a level from the Predda portion of the game:

The basic concept remains the same. Aliens, a Predator and a number of Colonial Marines are mixing it up and you have the opportunity to play as each faction. This time around, there is a strict linear story which plays out Call of Duty style, switching between perspectives after each level. One of the Predator's holy temples has been defiled by the Marines, who in turn have accidentally awakened the ancient Alien Queen living in it bowels. The first batch of "junior" predators storm in and get slaughtered by the Aliens. And thus, one of the elite alien-hunting Predators is sent in to clean up the mess.

We were shown a level from the Predator portion of the campaign, with a promise of an unveiling of the Colonial Marines at E3. The Predator is a bad ass killing machine. He's also one ugly mofo. But despite being armed to the teeth and the greatest hunting species in the galaxy, he's not invincible. In fact, very quickly you'll learn that the Predator is a hunter, not a commando -- you can't run headlong into situations and expect to live. The Predator wins by dividing his enemy and using stealth to catch them unaware. That's not to say the Predator can't survive a direct tussle, but he's best served when played to his strengths.

Though we haven't seen how the Aliens or Colonial Marines play, it's hard to imagine either will stack up to the Predator in terms of pure enjoyment. After all, the Predator has a ton of cool toys to play with and some gnarly dreads to boot.

The Predator has several visual modes including infrared and alien vision (which highlights Aliens trying to hide in the jungle), but the most useful is his Focus Mode. In this visual mode, the Predator gets all of his necessary information about his surroundings and his prey. Objectives and important items are highlighted in red and landing points are also shown. If a jump is going to make a loud noise, the landing point icon pulses. You can make the leap if you wish, but the noise could attract attention. And as we stated earlier, you're not going to survive if you're careless.

Focus Mode also allows you to size up your targets. Pick an individual and you can analyze their close and long range threat levels and see the weapon their carrying. While the demo made picking off marines look fairly easy, it's likely that in later levels a more strategic approach is needed to deal with certain weapon loadouts. Because a pack of marines can prove a challenge, you may want to split them up. One way to do this is to mimic a human voice to lure a marine from his squad and into a trap.

Being stealthy is made a tad easier thanks to the Predator's cloaking ability. As in the movies, with the touch of a button, the Predator can go invisible. That doesn't mean he becomes silent or that he can't be spotted in certain situations (Marine turrets, for example, can detect an invisible Predator), but it does make things a bit easier.

There is a cost, however, in energy. Most every tool at the Predator's command eats up energy and before long you need to find sources to renew this energy. There are a plentiful number of generators that can be siphoned and you get some energy from every trophy kill.

Ah, the trophy kill. It's about time we talked about the Predator's weapons. The one constant are his blades, a pair of which extends from each hand. These are for close-quarter kills. And, more importantly, trophy kills. Get in close, pop the blades and you can shove them up through the chin and out the skull of a Marine. The coup de grace is giving a little tug to pull both head and spine right out of the human's body. It's not just for show (despite being a trophy); you can then use the severed head at retinal scanners to get into otherwise inaccessible areas in military bases.

Along with the blades, the Predator has a limitless supply of mines. Though you never have to restock, you can only have two mines out at any time. Mines are perhaps the best way to take care of Marines, because it's easy to lure them into an explosive situation and a mine doesn't give away your location.

One thing that will give your location is your powerful plasma caster. When an enemy sees those three red lights pinpoint their chest, they're dead. Usually. The minute those lights lock onto a target, the enemy becomes aware of the impending attack (just like in the movies). You have a split second to fire before they leap out of the way. There's also an empty slot on the HUD for a fourth weapon, which is likely to be filled by a blade boomerang. Rebellion's still working on getting that right, but expect it to make the final cut.

But enough about killing Marines, what about taking down Aliens? That's where the challenge really kicks in. The jungle is full of these creatures. The Predator may be the perfect hunter, but the Alien is the perfect killing machine. Aliens drop down from trees, pop out of "bolt holes" and swarm from every corner of the jungle. If you spot one from a distance, taking it down is not problem at all. One solid blast from the plasma caster and that Alien is in pieces. But get too close and it gets a lot harder, primarily because Aliens bleed acid. Sure, you can cut one in half with your blades, but your body will be bathed in acid. You can get away with this once, but if you have two or three Aliens swarming? Your best bet is to get some distance.

It's too bad the acid is so deadly, because some of the coolest moments we witnessed were when a Predator went toe-to-toe with an Alien. Their limbs and tail can be severed, their heads lopped off too. These are persistent creatures though. Take a leg off and the Alien crawls after you. It's not a big deal if it's just you and him, but if his friends are keeping you distracted, you may not notice him crawling towards you until it's too late. And once he has a hold of you, your only viable option is to blow its head off -- but that just spews acid in your face.

And as if Marines and Aliens weren't enough to keep you busy, there are bigger and badder enemies waiting. Our demo ended with the reveal of the Predalien, a Predator/Alien hybrid possessing the best of both creatures. Consider it the perfect hunter and killer. And, of course, somewhere out there is the Alien Queen waiting for a tussle.

AVP has the makings of a great shooter. Visually it's a knockout (and there's still many more months of polish to come) and the concept is a proven winner. Each section of the campaign is said to have its own feel to it, which falls in line with the original game. Playing as a Marine was a downright frightening experience in Rebellion's first crack at the franchise. We're told to expect that same sort of division, with the Predator being about stealth, Aliens being about speed and constant assault and the Marines feeling more like survival horror. Multiplayer is also going to be a factor, but don't expect to learn much about that for a while. For now we'll just have to be satisfied with a brief look at what playing the Predator entails.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/986/986263p2.html

Sounding quite excellent!

[Sebastian]

Indeed! I don't like the fact that you can't choose which species to play as and then go through the whole campaign as one. Hopefully they'll make this up story-wise however.

edit: Hm, never noticed the alien head statue in this picture before!
I wonder if they'll be re-using the concept designs for the alien temple that was going to be in Alien, like they did in their first AvP!

[Hunter]

Can't say this is looking anything other than awesome!

Indeed! I don't like the fact that you can't choose which species to play as and then go through the whole campaign as one. Hopefully they'll make this up story-wise however.

Yeah... It's gonna be weird being immersed in the Alien campaign then entering a completely differant scenario. Also, I'm getting a vibe that playing as either the Alien or Marine there won't be much Predator killing. Which would suck.

[Sebastian]

There never was previously either. Maybe two or three preddas or so as an Alien!

[Hunter]

True! 

[Dutch90]

Yeah, the 2001 AvP2 PC game was about 90 % Aliens/Marines.

I don't like the idea of constantly switching species either, but other than that this looks like an awesome game. As for the Call of Duty comparison, I hope it won't be endless shooting. One thing I love about AvP2 is its slow pace and the stealth aspect big portions of the game were you sneaking around air vents, eavesdropping on conversations and evading detection (especially as the Alien).

[Hudson]

As long as you have the option to select levels after completing them, switching species doesn't bother me as long as it follows a good story.

I didn't read that thing after the comment about how they didn't think playing as the Alien or Marine could stack up to being the Predator. I've always disliked playing as a Predator honestly. It's too complicated to HAVE TO switch to another vision mode in the middle of combat to see what you're fighting against and then having barely any energy to shoot whatever it is so you have to try and kill it with a spear and by then you're dead. The point that Predators are hunters, yet have to face innumerable numbers of Aliens which they cannot hide from has always made that element of both previous FPS games frustrating to me, though I found it easier to deal with in AvP 1.

Just a little side comment off topic, but when I was back home in December I actually played through and beat all three campaigns for the first time ever without using cheats. Has anyone noticed that all you have to do to win the first AvP is just run around like a chicken with its head cut off flipping switches and killing things until you reach the end? Not that it isn't fun.

[Drago-Morph]

We're told to expect that same sort of division, with the Predator being about stealth, Aliens being about speed and constant assault and the Marines feeling more like survival horror.

Aliens being about speed and constant assault? That doesn't sound very promising. I love to play as an alien, but I've always preferred to play the quiet, stealthy god of death they are instead of the cannon-fodder stereotype. Hopefully this was just a mistake or bad phrasing, but I still have a bad feeling . . .

[Mike Aspinwall]

Sounds good!  I'm not thrilled about having to switch characters(probably will be fun though) but this sounds really promising.

[deezelboy]

IGN on the Marine section:

... Instead, next year's game takes as its inspiration only the most iconic of the Aliens and Predator games, with our recent eyes-on revealing a litany of moments drawn from Cameron's Aliens and McTiernan's Predator.

They're evident in the walkthrough with the Predator, from Alan Silvestri's familiar percussive soundtrack to dialogue snatched straight from the mouths of Dutch and co. Not only will the Predator's toolset strike a chord with fans of the movie, but so too will periphery details such as the skin-stripped corpses hanging from the trees.

While the references in the Predator section are merely implicit, for the Marines walkthrough they're much more brazen; indeed, the demo we saw resembled nothing less than a playable version of Aliens, a dream for sci-fi fans ever since the film's 1986 release. The steel-lined shafts and vents of the game's colonial setting provide a tantalising analogue of the LV-426 of Cameron's vision, with the lighting and shadow work lifted almost wholesale from the film – and there's even a discarded power loader

This level of dedication to the source material stretches out to the areas you'd expect; naturally, the Marine's weapon of choice is the Pulse Rifle, and it makes all the right noises as it fires in bursts of that iconic ripple. James Horner's original score for the film seems to have been appropriated, and, of course, the motion detector emits a faithful sweep and bleep as well as proving a useful tool as xenomorphs attack from every angle.

The scenario we're witness to comes from the latter half of the game, with the Marines barricaded in one of the colonies and recuperating from a vicious alien assault. Sentry guns protect the perimeter, with the player activating them remotely from various laptops. It's a scene that's strongly reminiscent of one late on in the Aliens film, pulled from the original theatrical release but restored for the Special Editions, in which the Marines use sentries against hordes of aliens.

Flares illuminate the corridors, the dim light amplifying in the terror as the motion sensor warns of movement in the darkness. With the motion sensors bleeps getting ever more frantic, the player works their way towards one of the makeshift barricades, where stricken marine calls for help. In classic Aliens style, a xenomorph pulls him through a thin gap in the barricade, heralding the start of an all out attack as the monsters come through the walls.

Our look at Aliens Vs Predator comes to an end, but not before our Marine has dealt out some close quarters damage with his trusty shotgun. It's a spectacular end to the demo, with the Marine looking just as impressive as his Predator counterpart. Thankfully, it seems that this is the Rebellion that made solid fare such as Rogue Troopers rather than the one that peddled the woeful Shellshock 2, and this should be a return to form for the Oxford studio.

There is of course one part still missing from the equation, though SEGA and Rebellion won't be showing the Alien sections until a time nearer the game's release. If it's as expertly implemented as everything we've seen to date, there's every reason to believe that this game will live up to the legacy of its cinematic forebears.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/989/989288p1.html

[Sebastian]

That's one dull preview! But thanks for posting anyway.

[severen76]

Might as we have said: "It's a like the film".

Thanks for the info though! I'm looking forward to playing this over Live with my friends.