Alien vs Predator.

First Impressions

AvP 2010 on PC.

My first impression upon starting it up.

Pretty. Very Pretty.

The Alien storyline can take a little to get used to, not because it is too difficult but because the control scheme is strange and awkward to get used to if you have AvP2 and AvP1. In fact some of the default controls seemed determined to piss you off, this however is likely a direct result of it being ported from Console Versions.

The Middle Mouse button is your control for moving quietly from one surface to another, which is a pain unless you have a mouse with a big assed middle mouse button. The R key controls a "Hiss" you can issue that attracts the attention of the Marines on patrol which is a nice touch. But like all scifi enemies it seems that the AI seems to think it is a perfectly good idea to walk into a dark room without even telling anybody you were going there. And groups of enemies are apparently happy to up and walk away in different directions to look for you, despite them knowing damn well you're just waiting for you to do that so you can pick them off one at a time. Most of the other controls are in normal or sensible places however.

The storyline is extremely predictable, as I'm sure it has no difference in any of the AvP games. UNUSUALLY you start as a Drone instead of at the Facehugger stage. However it is the same old story, you escape confinement, get back to hive, kill some humans on the way, humans kill queen you become queen. Except that you only ever get to play as the Drone stage.

This does not however hurt the Alien storyline as really what else can you do with it? The Xenomorphs don't really have enough depth to give players a deep meaningful storyline. Oh, but you can break canisters with "Royal Jelly" in it and one of the storyline objective details is basically 'the queen has been defiled by the humans, go kill a few dozen'. What benefit it provides I have yet to discover personally though i'm sure a quick google would answer that.

The Graphics are brilliant and the sounds incredible. I could find no fault with them at all.

My only problem so far with the game itself is that, if the Alien story is telling then they're all too short. While I wouldn't expect a ten hour epic for each I would have appreciated the story to be more along AvP2's length.

However the game does seem to be plagued by a few bugs from what i've seen and heard though I have only experienced one of them personally which involved a "Verify Installation" from the properties menu of the game in Steam.

But these are just my first impressions of a single storyline so far. So if I had to rate them.

Graphics: 10

Sound: 10

Gameplay: 8

Storyline: 4

Length: 5

Overall: 9

Summary: Good game if a bit short so far.