The demo is out and the verdict is in! Having stayed up way later than I should, I downloaded and played the Aliens vs. Predator multiplayer demo that snuck onto Steam in late evening. Having spent some time with the Marine, the Alien and the Predator, I can tell you that, in my opinion, Nick Chester was wrong to say that AvP would suck. This particular Xenomorph fanboy was pleased with what he played.
The game is a lot of fun. It's not the most refined of shooters, but it's a great modern revamp of the incredibly dated AvP 2000. All three species are fun to play as, especially the Marine, for whom the deathmatch is a terrifying affair full of brutal deaths. The Alien is a difficult-to-master stealth lord, and the Predator is an honest killing machine. Each class is pretty rad to play with.
Deathmatch is but one of seven online modes. This brand new trailer (above) is for Infestation mode. In this mode, one player is an Alien while the rest are Marines. Each player the Alien kills will respawn as a Xenomorph until one Marine is left standing. Sounds promising, looks pretty cool.
So yes, I firmly believe that the full Aliens vs. Predator package will be a good one. I'm not expecting it to win any awards, but it's fun, fast paced and deliciously violent. That's all I want out of AvP, and it would appear that Rebellion is going to deliver.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
7:00 AM on 02.04.2010
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Thank god there will be dedicated servers in the full-game.
...
FFA?
WRITE THAT MAN A CHECK!
and sold.
Also, Why Aliens are Blatantly Better the Predators article better be up soon:D
For a stealth lover like me, this game must be right up my alley :)
aaannnd... downloading!
Completely misses the point of the game. The closest thing to AvP these days is playing a hunter in L4D.
Apart from the horrible matchmaking, solved quickly by making my friends download the game, I was more than impressed. The difficult and varied controls and instant-kills are going to put a lot of people off, but they are what make me love the game.
You get better with controlling each class with every game, you just have to deal with being a noob for a while. I don't even care about dying because it looks fucking cool being skewered through the chest by a Xenomorphs tail, and nothing beats the symphony of a blaring pulse rifle accompanied with the sounds of a screaming, snarling Xenomorph.
I tried it on the PS3 and it had none of the shitty matchmaking problems.
It's not got MW2's brilliant shooting. But it's really fucking fun. And that's all that matters.
Before you condemn the game to a firey death for sucking, try it on a console first.
See image below for visual reference.
I was able to join after roughly 10 minutes. First try was the predator. Be Warned that there is ZERO tutorial. Look in the options for the controls and you start with one weapon only, you have to find the spear / throwing blade as you explore.
Marine was weird, it felt clunky and not responsive at all. I kept getting 1-shot-executed.
The game is slow paced, even at maximum mouse sensibility. I was disapointed.
There is news flying around about how the demo has no dedicated servers, but the full game will, which is pretty damn stupid.
Also, CtMythic: I just versed a 2 Marine team as a Xenomorph and I managed to take them down pretty easily. You can't make judgments on the controls or the balancing of classes until you can actually use them well, and that just wont happen until you play a bunch of matches to learn how; while seeing some -awesome- death sequences.
Don't be put off by dying. Death is part of the fun in this game.
they dont have one hit kills but if you play attention to your radar they can pretty much decimate anything that comes close enough to see. even other marines (the shotgun vs other marines is way unfair).
just my opinion i guess but it seemed there were some balance issues. at least the marines were playable.
I completely see where you're coming from, I don't mind dying, but when a player can sit at the end of a corridor and utterly decimate anything coming towards him, be it Predator, Alien, or other Marine, it's stupid. This happened in 5-7 games out of 16, so it's clearly not just someone getting lucky. Also, it wasn't that I didn't like the controls, it's that they completely didn't work. I've had the same on 360, the Predator can't change weapons or use the distract ability, and after the cloak drops once (which I know it should do), it won't come back until I die, no matter how much I spam Y.
I already managed to enter a game the first time I tried, but it was so laggy I didn't enjoyed it one bit.
And besides, for a game with such emphasis on team play and all that, deathmach seems to be the least fun mode. It should be team deathmatch, or horde mode (whatever its name is)
As for the camping thing, the Predator has a Plasmacaster that auto-tracks and fires charges of plasma that kill in one hit, he has long range discs that can rebound off walls, and a devastating javelin like weapon that he can throw. This is PLENTY to make those campers wish they weren't standing still. They wont even see you coming if you walk slowly while cloaked.
The Alien is fast. VERY fast. And when you combine that speed with spiraling around a hallway, the Marines wont be able to touch you until you've dropped off the roof and charged your tail for a nice big stab. The trick is using the Aliens jump-to ability to pounce around the marines, on to walls and swipe and stab them; never just run at them on the floor. Dodging fire is easy when you know how the alien moves and jumps and what patterns people usually fire in. I don't know if that movement speed would be easy on a 360 controller as the camera movement gets pretty frantic when you are thrashing about.
Canceled my Hunter edition pre-order this morning. I'll pick it up in a month or two when it hits the bargain bin.
BUT WHY GIVE US ONLY DEATHMATCH IN THE DEMO! Seriously you will NEVER have to kill other marines in any other mode. Give us infestation or at least team deathmatch. Such fun playing with my brother when he has a flamethrower and Im blasting a predator sprinting at us. Then we get shot my a shot-gunner..... worst demo ever.
it's a 7.0 for sure. Movement is clunky, aiming is not precise, no crouch?.
it is fun tho and has good gfx, which will only get better when you can see them in Dx10 or 11.
Indeed. I hope the devs are working round the clock because this game is broken mess right now. Looks like some people had good experiences, but seems most (like mine) were pretty bad, IF they got to play at all.
It's a no-deal for me if the issues with the demo don't get sorted out before the release date.
Seems unlikely to me, but not impossible.
Games have dried up on PS3 now btw.
I say reserved guess, since what they gave us in the demo is the worst bloody part of the game, without DX11. Still fun, but a bit of a bleh demo, to be honest, I was expecting to be scared shitless and that I did not get.