In reviving a gaming franchise they created 15 years ago, developers Rebellion risk the same fate as that of the infamous Corporation in the films’ original story mythos: retrieving that deadly xenomorph from a deep space strewn with the debris of science fiction FPS wannabes is an invitation to get bitten on the backside. Happily, for the most part, the only biting done in this revival is by you – or rather you as said xenomorph, hurtling after hapless human fodder in rampaging Alien mode.
This is very much a case of buy-one-get-two-three, whether you choose to play as the Alien, employ the cruel, gadget-packed cunning of the ultimate galactic Predator, or just go all nostalgic by taking your life and pulse rifle in your hands as a good ol’ grunt of a Colonial Marine. Rebellion have given you the ongoing option of switching between perspectives, level by level, while the cutaways piece together the story from three different perspectives. As for perspectives, there are several explicit variations on what you can do with someone’s head, be it tearing it off their shoulders with your bare Predator hands or taking an eye out with the flailing tail of an Alien. All served up in close-up with geysers of blood.
The Predator campaign provides the most variety, with its cloaking device, thermal imaging and that famous shoulder-mounted laser at your disposal – not to mention a rather obtrusive spear for good measure. Playing in Predator mode is an invitation to use as much stealth as barbarity and adds tension to the excursion, employing camouflage and distraction tactics. I never did get the hang of the Alien when I played the original and for me nothing has changed. The simulation of spiralling around tunnels and running up walls still isn’t my idea of a good time, especially after a curry and a pint. Give me the pure vanilla of a pulse rifle in my hands any day. It rattles off that trademark staccato discharge, aliens scream, acid blood and limbs splatter. Level design, while not out of this world – there are only so many ventilation tunnels and jungles a gamer can tread – is suitably atmospheric. There is more than enough inventive interplay between flickering light and shade to make you reluctant to stick your nose into pokey holes and give pause for thought while that motion sensor oscillates; and more than enough jungle vegetation in which to pick off hapless Colonial Marine AI in stealth mode, all heightened by vivid sound.
The multiplayer options provide plenty of mileage for extended play, with cross species Deathmatch (the trio of combatants contain strengths and weaknesses); Co-op Survivor (lasting out as long as possible against Alien hordes) and Infiltration modes (playing an Alien dispatching a dozen or more Colonial Marines) among them. The Wayland-Yutani Corporation might term it ‘value added’, as is the bonus of Lance Henrikson’s voice-over as Wayland. In space no one can hear you scream? This revival of Aliens vs. Predator still delivers an audible screech or two.
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