Quickfire Q&A: Alien vs. Predator

Aliens, though – they’re tough customers. They can’t use guns, obviously, or we’d all be sucking a Facehugger’s proboscis by now, but they’re very, very fast, capable of scaling most surfaces (disorienting at first, but you soon acclimatise) and move on all fours rather than upright, which makes them unpleasantly hard to hit. I saw one player nail an angry Predator by swarming up a tree trunk near a stairwell, balancing on a thin branch while his pursuer ran past, then pouncing on him from behind.

Also, Aliens have extra-special Xenomorph vision which can detect cloaked Predators. By contrast, the Predator’s visors are species-specific. Thermal vision makes humans extremely obvious, for instance, but allows the toothy ones to fade even further into the background.

Guns are no match for six foot of coiled, razor-tipped phallic metaphor.

The high points?

Getting heavy-attacked by an Alien from the front, cue a brief QTE wrestling match which concluded with my shoving a spear right through his pop-out inner jaws. Shortly afterwards another Alien grabbed my shoulders and impaled me from behind with its tail. Fun fact: this looks extremely homoerotic when it happens to somebody else.

The low points?

The general lack of technical lustre and the fact that human players are little more than passing snacks for Aliens and Predators. I would have liked to try out the other two modes, which sidestep species balancing issues by turning the fact of humanity being rubbish into a core dynamic.

Sum the experience up with reference to other games.

Errr. Rebellion’s first Aliens vs Predator game meets Quake 3.

Call the score.

I have high hopes for the campaigns and remaining multiplayer modes, but on the strength of deathmatch alone it’s a six out of 10.

Alien vs. Predator is due out in early 2010.