February 4th, 2010

Aliens Vs. Predator MP Demo Hands On Impressions

This article was written by: Andrew Hunt (Boss Kamikaze)

The demo is multiplayer only so no singleplayer missions here. It only has one game mode but in the full game there are several game modes. The mode you get too play is Deathmatch where you are against everyone and vice versa. It took awhile to find a lobby but I guess that was just because when I was playing not many people had downloaded the demo. You don’t have the option to choose which character you want it’s just a random process whenever you find a lobby. Every character has different outfits or as they are called in the game Skins, all the Skins are locked and can only be unlocked in the full game. There is only one map in the demo called Refinery, which is like an underground bunker, full of hiding places and very dark. Below is my impressions on the characters.

Alien: When playing as the Alien its pretty much simple to use the controls, just find an enemy and use RB & LB to attack. You can also press X to grab onto an enemy and unlesh a devastating attack on your enemy. I only encountered one problem, which is when I had to transisition from crawling on the ground to climbing on the wall, the process is disorientating and the screen flips this process can if your not careful get you killed. I also had to press RT to actually climb or Tansistion onto the wall but hidden away in the control options you can toggle to have auto-transistion which eliminates the need for you to press RT which I strongly recommend doing. After awhile when I got used to using the controls for the Alien I was finding it more easy to navigate and kill people and heck I even won a game.

Marine: When I was playing as the Marine it felt natural enough because of playing other similar FPS like Modern Wafare 2. In your HUD you have a scanner in the bottom left corner of the screen. The scanner is very much like the Heartbeat Sensor in Modern Warfare 2 but more detailed. You can switch between weapons by pressing the D-Pad. However I found just one major flaw when using guns as the Marine in the AvP Multiplayer Demo is not being able to ADS (Aim Down the Sight), if I see someone a fair distance away I can’t zoom in with my gun but instead I have to go chase him and get close enough to kill him this is just annoying because I have an assault rifle but its limited to close to medium combat. Overall the Marine character was good and had great weapons at its disposal but it was just lacking the ability to Aim Down the Sight.

Predator: Playing as the Predator can as much fun as it is frustrating, the controls are pretty much the same as the Alien you use LB & RB to attack also there are numerous boxes on the ground which you interact with X and get a weapon. You can press B to switch between different vision modes including Thermal which is brilliant for a dark map. You can zoom in with the Predator with the Right Directional Stick for your weapons which is an advantage over the Marines because they can’t as I mentioned above. Also with the Predator you can press Y to use an invisibilty Cloak or to get some Health. You use the D-Pad to switch between weapons but unlike the Marine you don’t spawn with weapon you have to find them. Overall the Predator was my favorite character to play as because I had the ability to go invisible, use Thermal vision & use weapons, which some might say is overpowering.

Andrew’s Say: The Aliens Vs Predator MP Demo was great fun to play I recommend downloading it and giving it a try, but it isn’t a game I will be buying on the release day. The online play is not going to match the likes Halo 3 & Modern Warfare 2. I will probably rent it out and play it because I am a fan of the AvP films but wont be buying it because there are a lot of better games coming out that I want too buy instead of AvP.  This is my first hands on impression with a demo so only constructive criticism please. Leave a comment on what you think of the demo below and you if you haven’t played the demo yet you can add it to you Xbox Live download queue here.

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