Aliens Versus Predator Gold Edition - Take your stand as a Marine, Predator, or Alien.
By MacPlay, Fox Interactive
- Developer: Rebellion Developments Ltd.
- Publisher: MacPlay, Fox Interactive
- Game Rating: M (Mature)
- Release Date:September 30, 2001
- Players: 1
- Online Players: up to 8
- Minimum Requirements: [Mac OS X: Any Version] 233MHz G3, Mac OS 8.6, 34MB RAM, 190MB hard disk space, GameSprockets 1.7.5, OpenGL 1.1.2, Rage 128 video card
- Network Feature: Yes
- 3D Support: Required
$30 / $25.00 May 17, 2003 - Apple Store Grand Opening at Arden Fair
Description
This 3D shooter gives you the opportunity to choose among 3 races in the struggle for your life control. You can pick deadly Aliens, that has very piercing claws and striking tail, beside the double mouths that can pierce the enemy skull. You can also be a Predator, also an anlien race that came here to hunt, and by that he uses chameleon transparent cover, many vision modes, easy to locate anything that breaths or moves, with one gun mounted on his shoulder, and add-on knife-alike pack on his arm fist. He also uses other weapons, and can easily zoom any enemy even to 8x. Last race is Humans, to be specific, a Marine. Without weapons he is fairly weak, but that is why his weapon arsenal is huge, flamethrowers, miniguns, machineguns, bazookas, etc. and beside that he can watch in night-vision mode, or use his flares to enter the dark. However, flares are limited to five at the time. So pick a race and demonstrate your abilities, either as a human, alien or predator.
This Gold Edition gives you more than 30 levels, including 5 bonus levels for each race. There are 16 multiplayer maps in this version, Millennium Add-on Pack, and Aliens Versus Predator: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.
- Three playable races
- Nine new levels
- Cool new weapons
- Includes an official strategy guide
- Multiplayer action via Internet
Introduction
Just about every game player over the age of 15 with testosterone flowing through their veins has seen at least one of the Predator movies (only one of them was any good), and one of the Alien films (there were TWO good ones!). So what better way to continue the carnage than by playing with your very own interstellar disemboweler?
Yes, folks. Here in the fall of 2001, MacPlay has finally released the long-awaited Mac port of Aliens Versus Predator. Granted the game’s released was delayed by so long that if it were a human baby, it would be celebrating it is 2nd birthday while still in momma’s womb. Which makes this review more challenging than most, as it has to answer two distinct questions. First, is the game any good? And if yes, well, is it good enough compared to today’s games?
Well the good news is that overall the game is amazing. The bad news is that a few extremely minor tweaks would have made it even better, especially in the multiplayer arena. Granted, none of these problems are related to the Mac port – they are all relics of the PC version. But since we did have to wait several Christmas shopping seasons longer than everyone else had to, you would expect these issues to be addressed. Right?
Levels
Review by Bill Stiteler
By Bill Stiteler: September 21, 2001
Ah, remember back when summer movies were good? The days of yore when the knowledge that a film had a big special effects budget actually made you anticipate it? When we wanted George Lucas to direct again? Were we ever that young?
The mid-to-late 80s blew in terms of politics, economy and music, but for high-end sci-fi films, times were good. Two of the great movie monsters, the Alien and the Predator, were riding high — so high, in fact, that someone came up with a great idea: pit them against each other. But like every other good idea that comes to Hollywood, it never went anywhere.
Fortunately, others carried out the idea. Dark Horse produced a series of comics, and Fox Interactive produced the PC game, Aliens vs. Predator, which has finally been ported to Mac in its Gold Edition. Despite the fact the original came out, what, years ago? Aliens vs. Predator manages fantastic play, due primarily to its attention to detail.
In addition to the title extraterrestrial characters, you can also play a Colonial Marine, and the designers have captured the feel of each fantastically. The Predator has all of the weapons from the film (with the exception of the collapsible spear), different vision modes (normal, infrared, UV, night vision), and of course, the cloaking device. The Alien can crawl on ceilings and walls (inducing some stomach-churning moments as your perspective spins around), and can attack with both claw and tail. Using the Marine over/under rifle, you find that it behaves exactly the way Hicks described it to Ripley in Aliens.
But beyond that, there are little touches that let you know the programmers were paying attention. The health and energy meters for the Predator appear in that strange LED alphabet we glimpsed briefly on its self-destruct device. Predators heal themselves with their medicomp, and can take skulls as trophies with a carefully aimed shot of the wristblade. If an Alien player can line up a human head dead center, they can launch their inner mouth, restoring their health (what, it is not in a crate?) Humans show up in an Alien's vision with a glowing aura, but androids do not. Remember Bishop crawling through the pipe? Going through as a Marine, you get that wonderful feeling that you are far away from any help, and the Company has screwed you over bad. You get the evac order, and your path leads right through the Alien artifact, where you find a 3D representation of H. R. Giger's The Pilot, one of the original concept pieces he did for the Alien film. And then there's the motion detector with it is unnerving heartbeat sound. Perfect.
The game expands on the source as well. The Predator starts out looking for a missing compatriot at a Marine science base. Not only must you go toe-to-toe with the wretched Predalien, but you also run into the humans' experiments with Aliens and cybernetics. Take cover.
In addition to the great player interface, the graphics capture the feel of the Aliens film as well, which is to say, dark. Fortunately, all the characters have low-light vision options, but you may find yourself switching them off so you can see the wonderful textures that have gone into the surroundings. The AI is good, too, or at least as good as they were in the movies. Humans will stand around obliviously until they get warning that something hostile is near. Then the Predator's cloak and the Alien's stealth become less effective. While playing the Marine, a wounded Predator will go down on one knee — peg it fast, because it is activating the self-destruct.
Because the game is a few years old, it plays great on older systems. The fact that the minimum video card needed is a Rage 128 should tell you that the G3 requirement is a bit, well, soft. It ran fine on my 9600/350, even with my standard set of extensions on. It also features three levels of play, from the easy Training level to the difficult Director's Cut. Certain levels of play can only be unlocked after finishing the regular missions in Director's Cut. Internet multiplayer is included, and though a PC/Mac multiplayer patch has been announced, right now Mac players can only go head-to-head with each other.
Aliens vs. Predator Gold Edition has been worth the wait. Any time you get a game that's an adaptation of another source, it is usually a rush job, a pastiche of the most popular elements with little of the original's flavor. AvP Gold, however, successfully captures the feel of not one, but two film franchises, and blends them together without sacrificing from either one. I would like to believe this might motivate the green-light guys to approve the film.
Single Player Game
The single player game is by far the strongest aspect of AVP. Unlike most FPS games that have a distinct beginning and ending, AVP has three separate story lines, each played via a different character: a human marine, a Predator, or an Alien. You can play them in any order and even switch between the storylines at will. So if you get bored playing one species, feel free to hop over to another one at any point.
For anyone who has seen the films, the gaming experience is fantastic. Sounds are taken straight from the films – that is, they sound identical. If they were re-recorded elsewhere, more power to them because they sound like the real deal. Music is also straight out of the movies. I think. (The instruction manual credits list the film composers in the Thank You section, but do not list exactly who scored the music for the game.)
Either way, the atmosphere in this game is superb. The sound of a marine pulse rifle, the Alien screams, the Predator’s rattle… these mix effortlessly with the spraying acidic blood and the infrared vision modes.
You want to know what it is like for an Alien to hang from the ceiling in a dark shadow, only to spot a human meal glowing bright blue in the darkness? Then play this game.
Curious what it feels like to be a technological warrior chasing after easy prey? What it is like to cloak your body as your heat vision pinpoints all your targets in a room? Play this game.
Wondering what it is to be a person as you are ripped apart limb from limb by a drooling, over-toothed space cockroach while your ineffective bullets tear holes in its carcass, only to allow it to drip its acidic blood directly onto your burning shins? Play this game.
Seriously, the game has it all. It nails the experience of being all three of the playable species, down to minute details like the Alien POV having a fish-eyed lens effect, and the Predator’s vision becoming distorted as it activates its cloaking field. Though my favorite part is playing as an Alien and being able to walk on any surface – up walls, upside down on a ceiling – as well as leap huge distances.
The weapons are varied. Marines have a massive arsenal as long as you can find where the weapons are scattered on a given map, aliens use their appendages, and Predators come equipped with everything from hi-tech spear guns to shoulder mounted cannons.
And while Marines are limited to human eyesight, they also carry nightvision goggles for the dark and creepy areas. Aliens can see in hunting mode (humans glow blue, predators glow green, fellow aliens glow red) and navigation mode for use in dark areas (can see in the dark, but only for a very short distance). Predators have the most visual choices: infrared for easy people watching, a mode to make aliens stand out, a third variation to find the Predator disc (a primo Predator weapon), and of course normal vision.
Graphically, the game is really good. that is a few notches below great. The engine is a few years old and it shows, but the good news is that the game plays really smoothly on slightly older machines. On my G4/400, it is as smooth as still waters. It has plenty of eye candy and it gets the job done. Just don’t expect amazing new tricks that will push your 3D card to the limit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’ve only found a few negative aspects in the single player game. First is the Alien bite attack. Normally the Alien character can use its claws or tail to attack. But line a victim’s head up in the center of the screen and you can then use its extendable mouth to tear the poor sod’s head off. In addition to being extremely cool to do, this is also the only way for an Alien to regain lost health.
The problem is, this is extremely difficult to do! Forget about doing it to a moving target, which just requires absurd amounts of luck. Even doing it to a motionless corpse is an exercise in patience. There are no crosshairs to guide you, and lining the corpse up in the EXACT center of the screen is a pain in the Alien tail. Minute adjustments of the mouse are required to get a hit, and I’ve had difficulty to the point of the corpse dissolving away because I took so long trying to bite its head off. This was by far my biggest pet peeve in any of the single player games.
The second biggest problem is that many of the levels look the same. The design is solid, it is just hard sometimes to tell where you are going from where you have been. Yes, I know these are mostly military installations in space that are meant to look alike, but it is an added challenge to the game that players should be aware of.
you are also expected to know certain military jargon as a Marine. As in, when the base commander comes over the intercom and tells you to go to a certain area in a certain building, he speaks as if you (the player) are a local. “Get to the medical center in the operations building.” that is fine and dandy if you know the way around, but be prepared to search through three separate buildings at times until you find out exactly where you need to be. Again, this is not necessarily bad, just be prepared to have some difficulty finding your way around.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer mode via the internet is what makes most games playable for a long time. it is always more fun to attack other humans and have to outsmart a living being than a programmed computer that does not care when you kill it. it is what I look forward to the most in a good FPS.
So why does it have to be so mediocre here? All the elements are there for a great online game – three species with fairly balanced abilities, a great variety of game modes not found in any other shooter, and lots of premade maps. But these elements are strung together with a mediocre interface – again, this dates back to the PC version. But hey, we are Mac users, and when we have to wait several years for a game, we want it to be better than the old version.
Most notably deficient is the multiplayer interface. There is no way to put a series of maps in a queue, tell it to play each one for 20 minutes, tally the score and move on to the next. Instead you have to manually stop a game to change maps, exit the game (which dumps everyone back into Gameranger), change the settings while everyone waits, and then everyone has to relaunch the game. In almost every other online game, this process has been automated and does not require anyone to leave the game.
Joining a game in progress and after awhile you realize that everyone else has left the room at some point. Instead of the game realizing that the host has disconnected (in order to change maps), it lets you play in an empty arena until you figure out that everyone is NOT hiding from you and your prowess with the claw attack. it is then up to you to quit, go back to Gameranger, rejoin the game, relaunch the program. Internet gaming has been around long enough now that this should not be necessary.
Lag also seems to be a major issue. Even when the games I join have good pings, everyone seems to lag all over the place. I don’t have the technical background to understand why this is, I just have the experience of playing other games where lag is much less of a problem.
Running AVP on Intel Macs
Download and expand the Aliens_vs_Predator_1.0.9.sit file.
Replace the AvP and AvP cheats in the original AvP folder with the new ones from the expanded file.
