The New Flesh

AvP was the most fun I had with any game on the show floor but I am slightly worried about longevity. I played one eight player deathmatch on the PS3 version and I had a ton of fun. I was playing an Alien because the Predator looked a lot more complicated (cloaking, health, multiple weapons etc) and I can’t shoot with a joypad for toffee so Colonial Marine would have been even more suicidal than normal. I also watched quite a lot of Predator play and a little bit of Colonial Marine play. Much of the game as Aliens or Predators boiled down to running about avoiding direct confrontation and pressing the Square button whenever you got behind anyone to perform a set piece stealth kill and then finding that while the animation was playing someone else had run up behind you and pressed the Square button to stealth kill you (which is great when your the last person standing in such a chain, not so much the rest of the time). Play as Colonial Marines seemed to boil down to dying a lot although if you don’t get the jump on them their guns clearly make them the most dangerous opponents for an Alien since running away is always a good option against a Predator or at least against a n00b predator who hasn’t learnt how to shoot.

The best moment was taking out both the guys sitting on either side of me who were playing semi-cooperatively as marines in an attempt to survive. I got the first with a stealth kill and the second, who had just seen me kill his buddy, by making a semi-suicidal leap directly towards him and going mental with my attack buttons. He swore. I smiles and then got stealth killed by a predator. Good times. I think the problem is those stealth kills are rather too easy. In theory they’re just like a back stab in TF2 but they’re actually far far easier than that and you get a pop-up telling you when it’ll work that’s far easier to read than the knife changing position in TF2 so it often didn’t feel particularly skilful. Still that just console multiplayer deathmatch among a bunch of n00bs based on some early code. I should think the Marines would certainly get a healthy buff from mouse control and the sneaky bastard Predator looks like it’ll be formidable in the hands of someone who knows how to use it but for a n00b like me on this code it was Alien for the mid-table obscurity. I’m still more excited by the prospect of the single player campaigns which I didn’t an opportunity to look at but I think I’ll be spending a fare few hours with both halves of this game and there aren’t many games I’ve ever thought that about. Definitely looks like a must buy when it comes out in February. I’ll be getting it for the PC but it’s also coming out on 360 and PS3.