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With such an incredibly addictive multiplayer DEMO, I just had to buy the full game. And the $50 were well spent.
Many other single-player modes of FPS games are fustrating. You run around looking for the missing piece, the vent, the hidden door, the key, the button, that will unstick you and let you continue. And that can sometimes take a long time. Unfortunately, the single-player modes of AvP 2 are no different. In fact, they reminded me a lot of Half-Life. The slightly boxy graphics, the man being slaughtered by a Predator hiding in the ceiling as you walk into the room, the gameplay are all similar. Actually, the alien missions are more Half-Lifey than the marines missions, since they involve a lot of crawling down dark ventilation shafts. And all 3 are the same as Half-Life in one respect. Having killed all the aliens, humans, or predators, depending on which you're playing, getting to the next level is fustrating as hell. I've already given up on the Marines, I don't know what next as Predator, and as Alien, I'm very close to giving up too.
Still, the game is incredibly immersive. You feel like you are actually the marine being chased by a screaming pack of aliens, the alien fighting its way back to the hive, the predator crouching in the trees aiming a speargun at a marine boasting that he's got enough firepower to level a village.
The marines are the most scary of the three, especially if you've seen the "Aliens" movies. The motion tracker uses the exact same sounds as in the movie. Imagine seeing a blip on the tracker. Hey where did it go? Bleep. There it is again. Oh shit. You spin around, looking for whatever is setting the tracker off. Oh. It's just a stupid moth.
And when aliens really start to pour out of the vents, you hear your comrades over the radio screaming things like "Oh my God!!", "Look out! The ceiling!", "They're everywhere!!!" and your motion tracker starts going off like an alarm clock on steriods. Helpful huh?
Playing as Predator is even more fun. The bunch of Marines gathered near the tree you're in are screaming "I've got motion!" "I think it's in the trees!" "Stay alert everyone." And they don't know where you are. The bad thing is that here is where the AI gets stupid. The marines stand still waiting for you to shoot them with the speargun.
The Aliens really feel alien. The HUD is very different. Be warned though, after crawling around on the walls, pouncing on marines and jumping around everywhere, you can't help but feel a bit queasy.
As with most FPSs, the farce that the single-player is is made up for in the multiplayer department. Because my first multiplayer FPS was Counter-Strike, I prefer team deathmatch to the everyone-for-themselves deathmatch, but of course you're welcome to like either one. Besides the usual, AvP2 also offers a Hunt mode where only the hunter species can score kills and points, but when a prey kills the hunter, they trade places. It's not as fun as the deathmatch modes though. There is also a Overrun mode where the attacker race rushes the defender race, having to kill all the defenders to win, a Evac mode where one member of the escaping team has to get to the Evac zone and stay there for 10 secs, a blend of the assasination and escape modes in CS and just as boring.
The last one is really fun to play, at least so far. Survivor mode starts out with all the players, except one, as survivors. The other one is a mutant. The mutants try to kill all of the survivors. Every kill a mutant gets is 10 points, every second a survivor is still a survivor, they get 1 point. Did I mention that when a survivor dies, he respawns as a mutant?
Overall, AvP 2 is incredibly fun to play and extremely immersive. Never mind the boxy graphics. This game is great.
GOOD Immersive single player mode, extremely fun and addictive multiplayer modes.
BAD Single player mode is still fustrating, like most other FPS games. You want to be
killing things, not searching for a vent.
Score 89% (GREAT)
Price $49.90 from Challenger or B.IT ALL in Sim Lim 5th floor is the lowest I've seen so far for original.
From a pasar malam it's $6-$8 but you might have problems playing multiplayer, for my cousin multiplayer doesn't work at all.
Minimum Requirements
Pentium 3/AMD 450MHz or better
128MB RAM
750MB HD space (That's compact install. Typical install, which I used, is 1 gig)
4x or better CD-ROM drive
16 bit DirectX sound card
16MB DirectX graphics card