Remember dismemberment? Oh, how we used to adore dismemberment. What we all really wanted from gaming, we thought, was horrifically visible mortal wounding. Ooh, he's got an arm off, and so forth. We're beyond that kind of stuff now.
Which is a shame, as dismemberment rocks. Specifically, it rocks when it's got an actual in-game purpose beyond sadistic fun-time. Rebellion's 1999 sleeper hit FPS Aliens versus Predator is still the best Aliens game ever made, and a lot of that's because of its limb-removing credentials.
Shoot an Alien directly in the head and, with a suitably melon-squelching noise, it'll drop dead. Shoot it in the arm, and you have yourself an amputee Alien. A very angry amputee Alien, spraying deadly acid from its chitinous stump, which eats through your armour and flesh.
Shoot its legs instead and it'll slump to the ground. Then it'll start dragging itself towards you by its front claws, like a cat run over by a milk float, hissing and spitting, and spurting more of that damnable acid from its mangled torso. It's wounded and close to death, but it's somehow more deadly than a healthy xenomorph. It's down on the floor, where you're not used to aiming, able to get right up against your feet and circle-scuttle around you at distressing speed, causing panic to set in.
It only takes one shot to kill it, but then it only takes one shot to kill a piranha, and it'd be pretty tricky to get a bead on that if it was busy nibbling at your toes.
So, dismemberment used as a device for horror and tension, not merely gratuitously. Eight years on, and no-one's picked up on that. AvP might well have Predators in it (and well-realised Predators at that) but playing as one of those hulking interstellar hunters lacks the primal appeal of Man versus Xenomorph.
Even playing as the Alien, still a disorientatingly impressive experience of fish-eye vision, wall-crawling and brain-munching, doesn't feel quite right. If you get into the Alien's head, you understand it. If you're fighting it, you don't understand it, and that's what keeps it creepy, even with AvP's cuboid old graphics engine.
Rebellion's last great game was Aliens' last great moment. No new film could ever capture the thrill of Alien and Aliens, because we've seen exactly what these monsters can do, time and again. As Ridley Scott once observed when talking about prospective Aliens sequels, "You've got to change the beast." But it's a different matter entirely when you're facing the beast.
Scuttling along walls and ceilings, blessed with perfect vision in perfect dark (while you're stuck with the all-green blur of night goggles), running at speeds you can't even turn at, indefatigable even when half its body is destroyed, AvP's Aliens are inescapably alien. Other games' extraterrestrials and mutants lean towards the conventional - they're either humanoids with funny faces or they're fliers, sitting ducks of the sky. They don't pervert physics as AvP's do.
These aliens are also palpably animal, which is why they have that terrifying persistence. The vast majority of FPS monsters are either some form of intelligent life, or behave in a human-like fashion even if they are supposed to be mindless brutes. The original Half-Life's Houndeyes and Far Cry's ape-like jumpy-guys are two exceptions, but they hardly had that sense of a ravenous, ungodly thing trying to literally get in your face in the dark.
That's why playing as the Marine, which on paper seems to be defaulting to a stereotypical FPS experience, is the smart thing to do in AvP. The blip of the motion tracker, the trustiness of the Pulse Rifle, it's like genetic memory, an experience utterly familiar and all the more effective for it.
Eight years on, AvP is still scary; while so many FPS games use the power of dark, of enclosed spaces and sinister sound effects as corner-cutting, this one makes them a virtue, not a crutch. And yet it stands alone.
Two things are to blame for that. One, developers Rebellion didn't revisit the franchise, and instead went on to the spectacular ball-dropping exercise that was Dredd vs Death. Two, Monolith's 2001 sequel didn't do Aliens right. Most of them couldn't walk on the ceiling or pounce. They weren't coming out of the goddamned walls. What we got instead was just another FPS foe that ran down corridors at you.
Since then, the Alien has slumbered. Now Gearbox are planning their own take on Aliens for the not-too-distant future, there's finally an opportunity to realise the beast better than a game from 1999 did on Voodoo 2 graphics cards. Can't see it happening myself.
I loved using dev cheats as the Marine where id spawn loads of NPC Marines to cover me and walk slowly through the atmosphere processing level with them waiting for the imminent alien attack, felt so much like the movie, they even start to panic when they see their buddies on the floor decapitated by an alien swipe and run away or start shooting in circles killing all around them. Simple but Epic!!.
AvP is responsible for the single greatest FPS kill ever made. Forget your somersaulting cross-map railgun headshot, we've all done those. No, instead consider the visceral joy of spiralling along the walls, floor and ceiling of a long corridor, then leaping onto a marine and making off with his head.
Seeing his reaction to my approach changing from worried controlled bursts to panicked full auto as I slide through his bullets unmarked was a moment of pure gaming perfection.
More is good but quality is better. Get it done but get it done right, please.
I only managed to play the first 2 areas of AVP 1 & I frigging loved it. Unfortunately it kept crashing every time I try loading it after that so couldnt progress.
I re-installed, dl all Patches etc. but it just wouldnt work
AVP2 works no problem though & I absolutely loved that too.
Fantastic game, nothing played like it since, not even avp 2.
One of my favorite things about it is that the rifle's were more than powerful enough to drop an alien or two, great fun, but you could have hoards of them coming towards you, and you'd no idea where from in the darkness. You'd hear screetches and tapping, and the beeps from your motion sensor. Somthing would dart through a patch of light from one of your flares. Scared the crap outa me, and nothing else really has to this day.
I think I might be the odd one out here, because I remember enjoying being the Predator the most. Whapping on the cloak, flipping through the various vision modes, and charging up the shoulder cannon, all the while a brown-stained panted marine firing wildly in front of you, and facing completely the wrong way.
Also, I think this was the last game in which I really enjoyed the co-op mode. Tooling up with miniguns and heading out into an endless last-man-standing struggle against hordes of aliens. Simple but brilliant.
i'm sorry but this wasn't as good as the avp on the Atari Jaguar in my opnion.
And here I thought I was the only one who played it on the Jaguar. Some of the levels were poorly designed but that game scared the crap out of me when I first encountered an Alien. Walking down a corridor and hearing the Pred say "turn around" didn't help either
God that was a great game probably the most intense shooter ever, if just for the use of lighting. Multiplayer was great too fondly remember stalking my mates from the ceiling only to bite their face off whilst hanging upside down classic.
i'm sorry but this wasn't as good as the avp on the Atari Jaguar in my opnion.
Is it so wrong that I agree with you on this.I spent hours and hours on it, mapped it all out by hand and everything, I dunno it just floated my boat
WOW me too. the map disappeared after you went through a vent (probably lack of memory) but the atmosphere the game had with the engine noise in the background and chink of chains was amazing.
I'm a big boy. Well into my 20s when I played it. But I don't mind admitting to never having completed AvP2 single. After that part in the beginning where that overhead pipe fell down (looking curiously like the head of one of those alien bastards) and I emptied a full clip into it and almost started crying.. I just put the game down. Scared me s**tless. Nothing's ever done that since.
Here's hoping the next one will be fully epic. It takes just the right formula to make it monstrously wonderful - and almost nothing to screw it up beyond repair.
This is one of the few games I never finished, and the only one I didn't finish because I was too scared. I jumed a mile everytime I ended up with a facehugger on my chops
Just a little bit of info if you still have AVP (like me ) but can't get it to work. If you have an Nvidia graphics card - revert your drivers back to version 6*.**
Also, rename the executable file from the Gold Edition version of the game to anything else other than what it is.
Personally I prefered playing as the alien, I always prefered the aliens especially in the films because the Aliens never asked to be in that situation it was the predators that breed them for hunting practice.
Also you must be getting things mixed up 'cos I'm sure "Ooh, he's got an arm off" is from Sean of the dead, but then again its ok to 'borrow' good lines from great films!
i'm sorry but this wasn't as good as the avp on the Atari Jaguar in my opnion.
Is it so wrong that I agree with you on this.I spent hours and hours on it, mapped it all out by hand and everything, I dunno it just floated my boat
WOW me too. the map disappeared after you went through a vent (probably lack of memory) but the atmosphere the game had with the engine noise in the background and chink of chains was amazing.
I loved AVP on the Jaguar.. It was the only game worth having the machine for, and it was muich better than the PC version.
Funny how PC Gamer always do this. When AvP 2 was released they loved it. Now they're saying it was a bit s**t. I hate it how they do that. It's so f**king annoying. A game is either good, or it ain't.
But yeah AvP was awesome. There was something wrong with the graphics in the second one. Seemed too cartoony or something. Never did like the Lithtech engine.
i'm sorry but this wasn't as good as the avp on the Atari Jaguar in my opnion.
Is it so wrong that I agree with you on this.I spent hours and hours on it, mapped it all out by hand and everything, I dunno it just floated my boat
WOW me too. the map disappeared after you went through a vent (probably lack of memory) but the atmosphere the game had with the engine noise in the background and chink of chains was amazing.
I loved AVP on the Jaguar.. It was the only game worth having the machine for, and it was muich better than the PC version.
Your joking.... right?
I can 100% assure you the PC version is better in every single way.
Just a little bit of info if you still have AVP (like me ) but can't get it to work. If you have an Nvidia graphics card - revert your drivers back to version 6*.**
Also, rename the executable file from the Gold Edition version of the game to anything else other than what it is.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I'd give you a great big kiss if I could.
Ah AvP, such memories - the only game to force to me leave my PC while i collected my nerves.
For it's day it was stunning, dripping with atmosphere, with sound effects straight from the movies. On a LAN multiplayer was like no other - i've seen grown men scream, killing team-mates in the crossfire as an alien skitters by.
I believe the game engine was designed specifically for this title and had such features as volumetric explosions and destructible lights (a necessity if playing as an alien, forcing marines to switch to nightvision and be unable to use motion detectors). It also conveyed "darkness" very well, not an easy thing to do even now.
Nostalgia aside, i'm still looking forward to Gearbox's offering and while graphically it should be stunning it'll be atmosphere an content that will mark it's success.
I fondly remember skermish mode. The level where you had to get in to that lil bass in the forest, and jus wait for ur iminent death as more and more aliens start forcing their way in to the bass. OH MY G*D that truly scared me as a kid.
I'm just sad that you can not buy this on a budget title now. xplosive rereleased it a few years back but the xplosive site now claims its never heard of the title
On a LAN multiplayer was like no other - i've seen grown men scream, killing team-mates in the crossfire as an alien skitters by.
You hit the nail right on the head Goatboy.
One of my fondest LAN memories was the Bunker map, 7 of us as Marines and 2 playing Preds. I got nailed first as a marine. When I respawned down the corridor, I turned the corridor to get to where my mates were in a room, and all I heard was them yelling, large amounts of gunfire and swearing, and all I could see in the dark was the doorframe and opposite wall lit up by muzzle flash........ then it all went very silent, and I then just made out the outline of 2 preds cloaked. Then promptly had to respawn again!!!!
AvP was the first FPS to have me truely scared, a phenomenon i've not since experienced (cept a couple of jumpy moments in avp2 maybe....but that sucked)
I'd pay anything for an upto-date version of the original AvP as long as it kept the same feel! I have so many happy memories of playing the first level as the alien (strangely enough if you play 'Walk like an Egypyian' by the Bangles it fits pretty well (dont ask))
Also, some of the best unlockable cheats ever. Sniper munch anyone?!
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who remembers this fantastic game, and I agree also that the sequel felt very generic and dull in comparison.
I think one thing that helped to make this game truly scary was the lack of saving (even a patch only gave you 2 or 3 saves per level) which meant when you died that was it- back to the start of the level. The Aliens were very quick to kill you too, you couldn't survive more than one or two attacks IIRC. The difficulty might make the game sound unforgiving, but the levels were manageable in length, so if you did die, you didn't have to spend long getting back to where you were. So the tension of rushing through the corridors and hearing the dreaded motion tracker start to beep was incredible.
Also, I hated the facehuggers in this one, you would go into a room and hear them scuttling around but you had no idea where they were! Suddenly one would pounce on your face and that was it- insta-death! The facehuggers really helped to induce panic as you frantically hunted around trying to find them before they found you!
Playing as the Alien and sneaking up on people to literally eat their brains for health was hilarious fun too. I really hope Gearbox's game manages to live up to this one!
Played both to death and the first one is definately a superior single player experience and might well be the most atmospheric game ever made, it's like they made an Aliens vs Predator simulator, whereas the second had a lot more traditional structuring and pace to be more like any other FPS. Multiplayer though the second one was a great laugh and felt more polished.
Funnily enough, I've been replaying this lately and reminding myself just how enjoyable and challenging it was. The gameplay and atmosphere were great, but what spoiled it were (a) the lack of a coherent story to make you feel you were achieving more than just killing a succession of bugs (AvP2 scored highly in this respect, I thought), and (b) the twonk in the beret barking orders/advice at you from the monitor screens. Worst in-game acting ever. Oh, and the way the queen in the last marine level would peg crates at you from the other side of the hangar was pretty amusing; now, that's what I call a ranged attack! I have very high hopes of Aliens: CM. If Gearbox's Half Life expansions were anything to go by, this could be the game AvP fans have waited for.
This article inspired me to install and play both AVP and AVP2 again. I have to say that I don't rate AvP1 over 2 at all - 2 is far and away the better game. The plotline is great and enjoyable (absent in 1 of course ), the levels are far more varied and well thought out, it's more atmospheric (better sound and use of darkness/shadows), the voice acting is 200% better, it makes far better use of both licenses and it's miles better in terms of multiplayer options.
I think there's a serious case of rose tinted glasses going around here. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy AvP, but it's bland to say the least these days whereas AvP2 has weathered the storms of time far better (imho).
Funnily enough I was talking about the original AvP just last night with some mates. Has anyone else noticed that occassionally you get a game that comes out and the first thing you notice is that the engine feels like an american car? Ungainly, rusty but with huge amount of grunt in areas you never expected. The original quake and source engines spring to mind. The engine for this was such. You could do all sorts that has since been lost. Destructable scenery, great lighting, amazing animation, rarely bettered sound, and convoluted, imposing levels. There really was nothing quite like trying to take down a couple of aliens on opposite walls of a corridor as it strobed. They were always just that little bit closer towards you than you thought. Then at the last minute your controled burst fire turns to terrified 'spray everything in the vicinity with hot lead' then you died. Good times! AvP2 was a great game. But not as good, it didn't make you feel like starting the game up was a mistake the moment that you did it. The original used that music and a simple star background to make you feel small and alone before you even got into the shoes of the marine. If anyone has managed to play their way through this inebriated (particularly on something paranoia inducing), they deserve the VC!
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) but can't get it to work. If you have an Nvidia graphics card - revert your drivers back to version 6*.**
), the levels are far more varied and well thought out, it's more atmospheric (better sound and use of darkness/shadows), the voice acting is 200% better, it makes far better use of both licenses and it's miles better in terms of multiplayer options.
