About Aliens versus Predator

Lack of out-of-place music, impressive (at the time) ambient noises, slick darkness, the gritty and terrifying world and xenomorphs of the Alien franchise with the somewhat monstrous but oddly honorable cloaked hunters from Predator movies, AVP sets an experience that is action-packed and laden with horror. Stalk humans and predators alike as a lone xenomorph drone. Run in the darkness as a lone marine, hunted by both the swarming xenomorphs and the stealthy predators. Or stalk as a predator, nailing down humans one at a time and fighting the hordes of xenomorphs. Regardless of whom you play as, the feeling of anxiety, exhilaration and fear you felt with the original Alien movie and the sequel are pretty much there.

The game actually feels almost Lovecraftian, but instead of psychological horror, the game gives you a relentless horde of aliens with nary a sufficient arsenal to counter them. Besides the foreboding darkness and the lonesomeness each character makes you feel, each character's gameplay is different in their own way.

The xenomorph drone outmaneuvers and stalks individual targets from the dark while avoiding most direct confrontations as he is quite fragile but can rend almost anything they come in close enough to pieces in less than a second. Marine has it tough as the neverending swam of xenomorph drones forces them to progress onward, not giving him time for a breather, making even his impressively varied arsenal seem pitiful and even a single predator on his path can make things a lot more difficult. For predator, picking out humans while cloaked may seem simple, they rarely offer much of a challenge except in large numbers. The aliens however see through the predator's cloak and come swarming in on him like a nest of bees, making many of his more powerful weapons useless in close quarters. All three provide unique challenges and experience.

It's amazing how AVP didn't become more popular than it is, it's a solid package of great gameplay with decent story, however it was unfortunately released shortly after Half-Life which was hyped by the press and many others even though it offered less in a sense, contributing to AVP's lower popularity. AVP was perhaps too hectic and not everyone is fan of horror and dark places where you feel insignificant and can't see your enemy properly. Instead of making you feel like a hero like HL did, AVP makes you feel like you survived.

(Sorry for the ad-like speech at the start, but I couldn't think of anything better.)