I’ve been playing the new AvP on and off for a couple weeks now. I’ve generally enjoyed myself… But I’ve come to the conclusion that Rebellion screwed up.
The Demo
The first problem, from my standpoint, was the demo. Obviously this came pretty late in their development process… The game was just about ready to go out the door… But it’s the first thing that prospective players saw. And it did not make a good enough impression.
The demo was based on pre-release code and had a disclaimer at the beginning. That’s never a good way to start off. Sure, it’s probably true… But you don’t want to actually tell people “the finished version is way cooler.“ They’re playing the demo to get a feel for the game. Either the demo is a good representation of the game, or it shouldn’t have been released.
The fact that it was pre-release code was somewhat apparent. I had that weird hitching thing with the marine’s movement.
The demo itself only supported DirectX 9. This meant that folks with fancy DX11 video cards were unimpressed with the visuals. It also meant that the problems running the game on DX10 cards were hidden until the full release.
The demo only included a single map that really wasn’t very impressive. There weren’t enough tight corridors to make the alien shine… There weren’t enough open spaces to make the predator shine… And there weren’t enough defensible positions to make the marines shine…
The demo only had one game type – free for all deathmatch. This meant that you had marines shooting at marines, predators killing predators, aliens stalking aliens… It just wasn’t right. You didn’t get to enjoy the species vs. species gameplay that makes the franchise so much fun.
There was no single-player at all. Which meant that you were stuck trying to find multi-player games. If nobody else was on-line and willing to play, you didn’t get to try out the demo.
There was no tutorial at all. The marines are rather self-explanatory… But the predators and aliens are not. It took me several matches to figure out how to simply switch the predator’s weapons. I didn’t figure out about stealth kills and trophy kills until the full version came out. I had no idea how to block melee attacks. This all made the multi-player experience confusing and frustrating.
There were buttons and options that didn’t seem to work. I could bind a key for the marine to throw a flare, but it didn’t work. I now know that flares don’t work in multi-player… It’s a single-player only thing… But I didn’t know that at the time. So I kept wondering if the game was buggy or if my keyboard wasn’t working right. Similarly, the predator’s distract button didn’t work.
The end result is that the demo just did not present a very pretty picture. The gameplay was very limited, confusing, and frustrating. I’m sure there are plenty of people who tried out the demo and decided not to buy the game based on that experience.
The Message
The next problem came as the reviews started rolling in.
Reviewers kept comparing it to games like Modern Warfare 2. Modern Warfare 2 is a fairly typical, predictable first-person shooter. You run around with a gun and shoot at people. You don’t have aliens or predators… You don’t have acid blood… There’s no climbing on walls and ceilings… There’s virtually no stealth or melee involved… In short, it isn’t a very good game to compare AvP to.
Reviewers should have been making more comparisons to previous AvP games. They should have compared it to stealth titles like Splinter Cell and action/horror titles like Dead Space. They should have talked more about the unique gameplay mechanics like melee combat, stealth kills, and walking on the walls.
Rebellion and/or Sega should have made more of an effort to steer reviews in the right direction.
No, I’m not suggesting that they should have bribed reviewers to get a good review. I’m suggesting that they could have included promotional materials that specifically mentioned and emphasized these key features of AvP. They could have specifically mentioned these features in their advertising. They could have asked the various websites and magazines to have their stealth or action/horror guys review the game instead of their FPS guys.
But they didn’t.
And the end result was a lot of reviews that were unduly negative – not based on any real failing of the new AvP game, but based on the fact that it wasn’t a typical FPS title.
The Game
The game itself has some issues. It will not run correctly on my DirectX 10 video card. I have to run it under DX9 mode.
The game was obviously built with consoles in mind, and PCs an afterthought. The menu system simply screams “console.” The save system is annoying. There aren’t any options for mouse sensitivity. The gameplay mechanics assume you’ve got an awful lot of buttons right at your fingertips.
Single Player
The single-player storyline in AvP is not cohesive. You can kind of figure out how the three storylines come together… But it doesn’t feel like a whole. It feels like three separate games were kind of shoe-horned together at the last minute.
This feeling continues beyond the storyline itself and into some gameplay elements. The predator gets a genuine tutorial and is briefed on new weapons throughout the game. The alien gets a tutorial of sorts and is then left to figure out everything else. The marine gets some instruction during the first few minutes of gameplay, but there’s never really anything I would call a tutorial.
The three campaigns are all too short. You’ve only got about 3 hours or so in any one campaign.
The marine’s campaign is the only one that’s really well thought-out.
The predator’s campaign doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. There’s very little understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish or why. It isn’t clear if you’re a youngblood out on your first hunt… Or an elite who’s trying to clean up after the youngbloods… It isn’t clear if you’re just hunting, or trying to stop the humans, or getting revenge… It’s very vague and confusing.
The alien’s campaign is simply bad. It’s shorter than the other two – only 5 missions to their 6. And it doesn’t make much sense at all. They’ve got you breaking canisters of royal jelly and figuring out switch puzzles.
There’s some replay value in collecting all the achievements… But the overall impression is that the single-player storyline is simply short and hurried.
Multi-Player
Multi-player is probably the best thing AvP has going for it, but Rebellion did not exploit this fact.
There are no dedicated servers. This means that every time you try to start up a multi-player game you’ve got to wait for the matchmaking system to find some people for you to play with. It also means that if the host of the game quits, you all get kicked out and lose whatever XP you should have earned.
There are a good number of maps provided… But there isn’t that much variety. They all seem fairly similar. It would have been nice to see greater variety.
The End Result
Actually, I’m enjoying AvP a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed the single-player storyline (flaws and all) and I’m having a good time with the multi-player. I certainly feel the game was worth $50.
But there are a lot of people who never purchased the game because of a bad demo and bad reviews.
And there are lots of people who purchased the game, but are furiously unhappy with what they got. And they’re creating more negative publicity for the title.
The end result of which is that I’d be surprised if we see another AvP title anytime soon…
DLC-licous
