Alien vs. Predator

In Alien vs. Predator you play the role of a space marine who wakes up from solitary confinement to learn that his station has been overrun by not just one, but two species of alien. Apparently, the Predators have decided that the station would be a good hunting ground for the Xemomorph aliens and thus the battle begins.

AvP is by far one of the best games for the Jaguar. It's much more than a mindless shooter like Doom. Your ultimate goal is to set the self-destruct and evacuate the station. Naturally, your adventure will take you to every part of the station where you'll need to traverse the many areas including the infirmary, the (annoying) training maze, offices, the alien ships, and (what else) the air ducts. While jumping into air ducts seems commonplace today, it was quite cool back in 1994.

One of the most indispensable tools of the game is your heads-up-display. From it you will view your on-screen map, your motion tracker, your weapons and your health. The map is one of the most useful components of the game.

When it was originally released, I was blown away by the graphics. I had never seen Doom before and felt that this was the pinnacle of video gaming. The textures are well done and look just like the do from the movies. The aliens could use a few more frames of animation for added realism, but this is a forgivable problem.

I always liked the close-up graphic (on your face) of the facehugger! My favorite graphic is of the Queen. She's a bad mama jamma!

This game has some really great sound effects. I love the alien screeching and the Predator's roar! I also get a laugh every time I pick up a new weapon! I can't wait to hear what Lance will say! "Bug Soup!" Heh heh heh... The motion tracker sound is dead on as are the weapons. One common complaint to Jaguar games is the lack of music. This really isn't an issue and adds to the already horrific atmosphere.

The whole arsenal is here. My only wish is that the pulse rifle had that "pump action grenade launcher" from the movies. But just get your hands on the smart gun and all is forgiven. That thing is an absolute monster! It can drop an alien in about a second!

This is, without a doubt, one of the scariest games I've ever played. Maybe it's the lack of music, or the fact that those buggers pop up behind you and scare you to death. This game is intense. Try making it to the escape pod in the time allotted to see what I mean.

Now, it's true that you can play as the marine, predator, or the alien. The marine mission is certainly the most developed, but the the other two are fun as well.

The predator's mission is to claim the skull of the alien queen. To do this, you must use your invisibility cloak sparingly. Killing while invisible will lower your honor points which you need to gain better weapons. There are several invisibility modes, but none of them are very useful. The weapons are very nice especially the shoulder mount cannon.

The alien's goal is to find the queen. You can move especially fast as the alien and you must use your jaws, claws, and tail to attack your enemies. Of course, there are no ranged attacks which can make this mission especially hard. In order to keep the game going when you are injured, you must cocoon enemy marines. It takes time for these new aliens to gestate and you'll be forced to backtrack to that cocoon when you die.

Truly, this is one of the best games for the Jaguar. It even spawned two PC sequels and a theatrical movie! If you own a Jaguar, but don't own a copy of AvP, shame on you! Stop complaining about the crap games and get this one now!