Boy, I am just tearassin' through all these games.
Aliens vs. Predator 2. Despite being on the same bullshit Lithtech engine as NOLF and despite still having the same problems with the mouse and spotty melee attacks it's... mostly fun. I played everything in it completely out of order (Alien, Marine, Predator) because I do that sort of thing.
Alien was fairly neat, except that the whole "spotty melee targeting" thing made the killin's a little rough. Also, despite being a jet-black killing machine everyone and their dog can see you in the shadows, so you're not really stealthy so much as taking alternate routes through vents most of the time, and oh, are there vents. Vents vents vents. Vents with lights, vents with ladders, vents with mesh screens, vents that connect to other, larger vents. A xenomorph's life is spent primarily in vents, you know. If there's no vents, they make it out of that weird crap you see all over the place. Still, the entire thing sums up their existence of "fast scurrying followed by killing people as quickly as possible" pretty well.
The Spess Mahreen's chapter was all about being in the dark, alone, while aliens come after you from all sides and chase you down roads and hallways oh God they're still coming after me I've shot like fifty of them I have never run backwards while firing this much before in my life and you want me to go
how deep into there and turn the computers back on have you
seen some of the shit that's trying to kill me? With a quick detour into "escape this complex full of humans armed only with a pistol" territory, of course. The final boss was okay (it's mostly running punctuated by you picking up a weapon, firing it until it's dry, realizing that the thing is still alive and running again, repeat) but the final mission overall is significantly more impressive than one of its parts.
Predator has tons of neat crap to play around with and... that's basically the main draw. You've essentially got infinite health and weapon energy given enough prep time (
) and it's all about being sneaky and zapping stuff before it becomes a threat to you. Very authentic, but surprisingly not as fun as advertised! The vision modes open up a huge amount of fridge logic (human beings are warmer than the exhaust on a dropship's engines? Predators didn't think of installing a vision mode that worked in low light and let them see both humans and aliens at the same time?
Really?) and the last fight consists entirely of "charge up shoulder cannon, take shots at long range, duck behind wall and turn on stealth while he lumbers forward in your general direction before completely losing track of where you were, retreat, repeat." PROTIP: Collecting skulls as trophies does not unlock any achievements.
AvP2 also has the distinction of murdering my desire to play any more FPSes at the moment, so there is that.
