LOCK AND LOAD!
The game is based on the Alien movie trilogy and is set sometime in the future, after the events detailed in Aliens. The story is split into three separate tales. One is from the perspective of the humans, another from the perspective on an alien drone and the other is from the perspective of the vicious alien hunters, the Predators.
Yes, that is right, the very same species of alien that Arnie ran into in the hot steamy jungles of ... where ever he was. It seems that the predators, not content with flaying humans, enjoy visiting planets that are infested with aliens and hunting them.
The entire story takes place on a planet in another solar system where the Corporation is trying to learn what they can about the alien hordes. Of course, everyone knows that this is a really stupid idea because the aliens are vicious, cunning, ruthless killers and tend to take a controlled environment and rip it to pieces. If you have seen Alien: Resurrection then you will know what I am talking about. Needless to say, things go tits up for the Corporation in a spectacular way and it isn't long before all contact with the outpost is lost and a, yep, you guessed it, a platoon of bad ass marines are sent out to investigate. After you have finished the marine missions (I think there are 13 in total) you can start the Alien missions.
The Alien missions are quite unique in the FPS genre as you are not restricted to just running around on the ground; you can run along walls and make massive jumps to avoid enemy fire. You have no weapons to speak of and a couple of bullets will end your life pretty damn quick. One of the most novel aspects of the alien missions is that you start off as a face hugger and you need to run around and do your best to avoid being spotted by anyone because they will raise the alarm and you will be riddled full of holes very quickly.
Once you have found a potential host you can impregnate him and then the next mission will start once you have chewed your way out of his chest. A great way to start a mission if you ask me! Once you have matured into a fully grown alien you are driven by a primal instinct to locate your hive and queen and kill as many people as you can on the way. You can rip people to bits with your rather large claws or you can stab them with your tail and if you are feeling a bit peckish you can bite their heads off which is also a rather handy way of replenishing your health.
People are instinctively scared shitless of aliens and when you are spotted the majority of people will run away screaming. The marines and Corporation guards are not so easily rattled and if you come across them they will quickly waste you. An alien's best friend is the dark so whenever you see a light bulb you should smash it a.s.a.p. Aliens have a unique vision mode which allows them to see pheromone trails which is especially handy when you have just plunged your surroundings into total darkness. Humans appear with a blue glow surrounding their outline, predators have a green outline and fellow aliens appear red.
Once you have completed the alien missions it is time to start the predator missions. You start off on a friendly hunting mission. You, your buddies and a keg of beer out to enjoy the wonders of nature and then blow the shit out of it, when the meddlesome humans turn up and start taking your friends prisoner to experiment on them. Naturally, you grab your spear and go after your drinking buddies. The predator is armed with a lot of high tech alien equipment, ranging from a very big, very sharp spear (well, maybe not THAT high tech) a cloaking device, that cool plasma cannon that does the three red dot thing (you know the one), the very sharp wrist blades (ideal of chopping off peoples' heads) and a variety of other nasty weapons. You also possess a mask which allows you to see in four different vision modes; one mode is normal vision, one mode is thermal vision which allows you to see human body heat (as seen in the films), one mode is electrical vision which shows up aliens and finally, pred-tech vision which shows up any predators or predator equipment nearby.
The game is a couple of years old now but I still think that it kicks ass. It is one of the only games that I think is truly scary. Playing the marine missions is incredibly eerie as you stumble around in the dark with only a tiny shoulder lamp to provide any light and the constant blip blip of your motion detector to tell you that you aren't alone. The motion detector only shows movement in a 180 arc and you need to constantly swing around to make sure that nothing is sneaking up behind you.
The trouble with aliens is that they move so damn fast that by the time you have registered their movement on the motion detector they are almost on you. It makes for very tense and suspenseful game play and when one of those bastards jumps out of an air duct right in front of you I guarantee you will jump out of your chair...right into your bed and under the covers.
The alien missions are not so tense but they are great fun to play, especially when you chase down screaming humans and splatter them all over the place. It requires a great deal of thought to succeed as you cannot take much damage. The predator missions are more brute force missions than anything as you will plunge deep into the alien hives and lay waste to all the critters living inside. When you are hunting the humans it is better to rely on stealth as the marines are packing lots of firepower and will easily rip you to shreds in a matter of seconds. The aliens on the other hand can see right through your cloak so it will not help you out at all. All you can do is charge right through them waving your spear and firing your cool three red dot plasma cannon and hope that you kill them before they kill you. They don't take much effort to kill but there is a hell of a lot of them.
The graphics are powered by the lithtech engine and are still very nice to look at. They probably can't compete with the latest FPS games that are being released at the moment but I still believe that great game play is more important than pretty pictures. There is an expansion set out which gives the game an added lifespan but I have not tried it yet. The sound quality is great and extremely spooky which all adds to the atmosphere of the game. There is a multiplayer aspect to the game where you can play other people as alien, predator or marine. I tried it a couple of times and found it a lot of fun but I kept getting eaten by aliens or nuked by predators. Damn them. If you are a human then I suggest you run in a pack.
All in all this game rocks. I would recommend it to anyone without hesitation. Even after you have played it a couple of times you can still come back and scare yourself stupid by playing the marine missions again. If you are the brave or sadomasochist type then you can try playing the game in the dark or just run around pretending you are Hudson and scream abuse at the aliens as you fill them full of lead.
"You want some of this, mother f**ker? You want some too? Oh you want some of this as well? Mother f**kers!! Mother f**kers!!"
...not that I do that. Ahem. :D
James Coghlan
