"It'll never work." That's what I've been saying throughout the history of the Aliens versus Predator franchise. First I didn't think the book or comics would be any good, yet while not spectacular, they were still good reads. Then came Aliens versus Predator on the Atari Jaguar. "It'll suck," I said, yet unlike most games for the console it didn't. Then, just as I thought Rebellion had shut my complaining up forever with the excellent Aliens Versus Predator for PC, they announced that they were passing the reins over to Monolith for Aliens versus Predator 2. "It'll never work" I said.
But, having played it I can safely say it did work. Monolith's excellent work on No One Lives Forever should have eased my doubts about the whole thing, but I still couldn't help wondering if Monolith could improve on the original title. How foolish I was - they've done such a great job on so many levels. The game actually has a number of things in common with No One Lives Forever - overheard conversations, an excellent story and pitiful attempts at a cockney accent (oh well, two out of three ain't bad). The game centres on a science colony researching Aliens (and Predators too this time round) where things start to go wrong. Fancy that eh?
As the Marine, you've got to deal with the infestation, as the Alien you are part of the infestation and as the Predator you have to rescue your captured fellow hunters. Thankfully they've made the plot interesting by slowly revealing to you the none too friendly relationship that develops between the researchers, the Mercenaries there to protect them, the "Corporation" and the Marines. The story is also made more interesting by the crossovers between the stories of the three separate races. Remember how it felt in Half Life: Opposing Force when you, as Private Adrian Shepherd, saw Gordon Freeman jumping into the Xen portal or visited a place you'd seen before while controlling Gordon? Now imagine a game filled with such occasions. Yep, there are numerous such crossovers between the three stories in AvP2 and, well, excuse the lack of journalistic eloquence, but they're just plain cool.
Fans are going to wet themselves over some of the details in the game. When the Predator changes vision modes it looks exactly like it did in the films. He also gets the net gun and though you won't use it all that often it's a welcome addition for the sake of completeness. It's also pretty good for making Marines look ridiculous in Deathmatch if you can get close enough to net them (the fired net moves frustratingly slowly). Best of all when you play the Predator you feel like this seven foot tall alien hunter as you cloak and start to patiently stalk your prey.
Like the original, the Marine missions are filled with tension devices. The ultimate tension device, the motion tracker, is back and there are several scripted events that are plain unnerving. One in particular had me running from a Predator that was freaking me out by shining the red dot laser sight on me and leaping from building to building, slowly stalking its prey - me! Your reward for enduring all this tension is a Power Lifter picked up near the end of the game, and a combat modified one at that, with missiles, a chain gun, laser and flame thrower all built in. You won't believe the sense of sheer power you feel stomping around in it, killing Aliens left, right and centre. As the Alien you get a devastating new Pounce attack, but even better you start the game as a face hugger! Sneaking past guards in search of a victim to impregnate is a unique stealth challenge to say the least. From there you have to eat in order to grow, and I'm sure you know what that means...
