Aliens vs. Predators - Claws, blades and smoking barrels. Read The Review!

This epic saga of bloodlust has been around for a while: the first iteration dedicated to the confrontation between Aliens and the Predator was released in 1994. From that flamboyant and captivating, beat-'em-up arcade you could learn that the Predator could easily replenish his HP by eating a cheeseburger (collected from a dead alien). However, since then all other AvP titles (except the one from 1999) have been booed off stage for being a generic fan-service. The 2010 release was a desperate attempt to fix things for the game series...

Graphics: 3.5

The visuals are where the game gets scalded the worst. You see it's divided into three campaigns, logically tied together, and the quality of the graphics dramatically changes from one campaign to another. The marine campaign is pretty tolerable but only because it doesn't have too many decorations. And the locations where you have to do most of the action are always poorly lit.

Visual suckishness becomes more obvious when you switch to the other two campaigns. For instance, Predator has to do his eerie hunting outside not to break the granny's set of China to collect as many trophies as he can. The lack of detail, bleak and insipid color palette and also crippled fps leave you brokenhearted.

So much the authors could've squeezed out of the setting. So many interactive elements could've been added to the surroundings... At least the sound design saves this mournful situation a bit. Sometimes it brazenly smacks you in the face with the machine-gun/rifle skull-drilling sounds. Sometimes it gives you the chills with the little extraterrestrial noises of an alien, lurking somewhere around the corner. Just put your headphones on and enjoy the audio-magic, with authentic effects taken from the original movies. 

Gameplay: 4.5

You have three campaigns:

• Colonial Marines - kill everything non-human with FIRE.
• Aliens - extraterrestrial CQC.
• Predators - stalk the nasty lil trophy with thermal vision.

All three campaigns are logically interconnected, and each one has a unique catch.
1) Marines - a solid but average FPS. The two things I liked about it were the variety of weapons (flame-throwers forever!) and also charming Corporal Tequila. I hope her name isn't that racist.

2) Predators - possibly the strongest campaign. You get to explore their unearthly technologies, enigmatic history and of course the legendary predator vision! Moreover, it includes lurking on the tree-tops, stalking and using melee/long range fighting techniques.

3) Aliens - the weakest campaign. You can imitate cockroaches, climbing up walls, do long kangaroo-jumps and use virtually every part of your body for self-defense. Darkness is you 1 ally.

Possibly the best part of the game is multiplayer. Up to 18 militants can fight on the same arena, but only 2 of the maps can host such a large number of players. The co-op includes Survival, Alien Infestation, Preying on Humans and other modes. 

Controls: 3.5

Since it's almost an FPS, AvP has pretty smooth controls. But you can't say the same about the movement mechanics. Predator is well-balanced (more or less), meanwhile Alien is sometimes too quick - you fail to manipulate it properly. And Rookie (your human avatar) displays a certain clumsiness at times. 3.5/5

Replay Value: 1

The game is outdated in terms of visuals and its gameplay leaves a bloody ton of things to be desired. Let’s not return to this title and let it sink into oblivion.

Conclusion

Aliens vs. Predators could be a legend, a myth. A Holy Grail of the game industry. But overall poor production and half-baked details make it even worse than an average game. Co-op is fun though.