[Goosebumps theme playing] With Halloween right around the corner, now is a good time to talk about an âAliens vs Predatorâ game. There have been a few of these over the years, but I think most people know the FPS games now. And they should! Theyâre overall pretty great! And yeah, there were some mistakes here and there, but there was a lot of fun to be had, and the multiplayer was excellent (even if some barely had maps when they launched). Still, this may come as a surprise if you only know the IP outside of the games. What do I mean? Let me show you. You have the original âAliens vs Predatorâ. Itâs a fun concept inspired off an Easter egg in âPredator 2â. But then we have âAliens vs Green Lanternâ, âSuperman vs Predatorâ, âBatman vs Giant Crocodile Alienâ, âAliens vs Supermanâ, âPredator vs Batmanâ, âSuperman and Batman vs Aliens and Predatorâ, âAliens vs Predator vs The Terminatorâ⌠[a bunch more titles delivered over each other] âŚâPredator vs the Midnight Societyâ and of course, the most important of all, âAlien vs Predator vs Brown vs Board of Educationâ. Itâs a thrash metal track! ⪠A! V! P! ⪠⪠Sci-Fi bully! ⪠So you can safely ignore all that for the games. They take place in the future âAliensâ setting, and Predators are there. Thatâs it. However, âExtinctionâ is not a shooter â itâs an RTS game. A console-only RTS game. So, naturally, it doesnât get much attention. The only reason I was aware of it was because I rented it back in the day. The original plan was to go see the âAvPâ movie, but the theater was far away from where I lived, and there was a tornado in the area. I can only hope no one died on the way to see that movie... So, instead, I went to the local video store and saw it on pure chance. So, I bought a snack and rented it for the weekend. And wouldnât you know it, but itâs storming again tonight, so things will be just like they were then! [*smack*] Ehh, itâs close enough⌠Alright, letâs get started. Iâve gotta say, for a 2003 RTS game (especially one on console), these character models are impressively detailed. You might think the powers of emulation are skewing me on that, but no, I looked at it natively too. Textures have tiny details, and all around, the units are easily readable. So upping the render resolution does make it pop out more, but the good stuff was always there. Beyond that, thereâs solid animation work, including sync-kills, and âDawn of Warâ wonât be coming out for another year. Upgrading units also makes them change visually. Some are a lot more subtle than others, but itâs a great touch. I love when games do that, and they really do nail the art style. Captain America and his Oculus Rift would fit right into James Cameronâs âAliensâ. And you can give them a bigger firework launcher. But that fidelity isnât free (especially on the PS2). For one, you donât get that many units per faction. The most you can get are the xenomorphs with 45, but once you reach it, the game engine starts breaking down a bit. No surprise, this also happens on console. Secondly, outside of precious few exceptions, the levels are incredibly bland. Youâll actually be surprised to see plants or buildings or much of anything. And when you do, this stuff is ugly for the time period. They had to make sacrifices for the character models, and it really shows. Itâs not too hard to actually see the seams on the ground. Itâs not horrible enough to make it âAvP: Checkersâ, so, if you had a bad TV like mine, you might not have noticed it. That said, the level pallet is still awful. Every map is either grey or green. Sometimes, the game has mercy on you, and it will slightly tint it red, but thatâs about it. For reference, one of the big shakeups is playing inside of this laboratory. A Staples in âAvP: Extinctionâ is like Disney World. So, some neat models and animations, and horrible everything else. Which is remarkably similar to âMetal Fatigueâ. Which is actually not that remarkable, because itâs the same developer. This makes âExtinctionâ their second asymmetric RTS game. I wasnât kidding when I said it wouldnât be the last time I talked about them, but weâre not getting to âMr. Bonesâ just yet. Iâm really scraping the barrel here, but at least âMetal Fatigueâ had snow maps. The intro actually showed a decent amount of snowy areas, but none in the game unfortunately. Then again, if I start judging games on their cutscenes, I might as well bully myself. So then we have the sound design. A lot of it is movie-authentic, but also very compressed, so your mileage may vary. [compressed Alien hissing] [compressed Predator roar] [compressed pulse rifle fire and beeping of motion trackers] The thing is, the PC shooters did this too, but the sound effects were much cleaner. And weirdly enough, they share a lot of sounds between them, but for very different purposes. Some are pretty easy to place. MARINE "A-ah!" MARINE "A-ah!" Hmm⌠MARINE "A-ah!" A-ah! So was that scream from one of the movies? Okay, how about this one? [mechanical wizzing] SPACE COW: "Mo-o-o..." đ [*wizz*] Thereâs tons of weird examples like this. Iâll stop before I get sick. [sounds of being sick] As far as voice acting goes, the mission narration is very clean and well done, but the rest of it is the most⌠Well, you can tell they grabbed whoever was in the office to do some lines. STEVE FROM ACCOUNTING: âIâve spotted a Predator!â Thereâs barely any voice acting at all, so I do find it kinda charming. MARINE: âOH MY GAHD!â [Alien huffing] Whatâs not charming is how the audio is mixed. When battles get big, itâs an assault on your ears, too. Because it does seem fine AT FIRST. And then⌠[all the sounds of a battle overlap and form obnoxious cacophony] Iâve had people ask why I point out things like sound, and this is an example why. Someone can make a great sound effect, but properly layering and triggering them is a skill. This is why audio engineers are one of many unsung heroes for video games. A good sound effect is half the battle â how itâs implemented is the other. You donât have to alter the movie sounds too much for an FPS game. Thereâs a lot going on, but not that many. But for an RTS⌠[if you're reading these because you can't hear, know that you've dodged a bullet here] This is noise. Terrible, terrible noise. [terrible, terrible noise] The one real saving grace of the audio is the music. There is a good variety and blend of Alien- and Predator-inspired tracks, and each faction gets about a half an hour of music each. [tense strings with iconic tapping] MARINE: âCopy that!â
[tense strings with iconic tapping] [tense strings with iconic tapping] [tribal drums and chanting] [foreboding orchestral theme] You have the Predator horns, the Alien strings â a great mix. But there is one Alien track that sounds like a Captain Beefheart experiment. [*quawk*] [*quawk*] [*WRYYYYY*] [dramatic music sting] [tortured warbling] [another dramatic sting] Itâs like a seagull being murdered in a haunted house. My brain is screaming that my eyes should be seeing a claymation adventure game, and not this. Still, even with the music being good, I can barely stand how this game sounds. "It's quiet."
Still, even with the music being good, I can barely stand how this game sounds. Itâs just clawing my ears out in the same way âFire Warriorâ did. I already failed to recapture my youth by emulating the game, so I guess Iâll add another treat⌠[*slam*] Even with the cool units and music, the presentation feels like itâs actively attacking me. The lack of map variation and the sound balling together. Itâs like youâre staring in a mud puddle, and your apartment neighbors have kids that are just screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. So this is bad. BUT, grading on a curve of all RTS games Iâve played, this is actually pretty average. So letâs move on. Now, having heard all of that, you might think the controls are a vortex of pain too, but theyâre not. Theyâre actually very well done. The left stick moves the screen, the right stick moves around the mini-map and allows you to jump around easily. Yeah, itâs still stiff, and will never be as fluid as mouse and keyboard, but I didnât find myself fighting the controls all that often. You can make groups with the D-pad and snap to an event with a button. Itâs not a micro-intensive game, and thereâs no base-building, outside of the Alien â and even thatâs barely base-building. So it gets the job done in a simple and elegant way. Now I can finally go through all the factions. First up is the United States Colonial Marine Corps. As per usual, theyâre out to do company dirty work. Theyâre a mobile force, and each of their units has a specialized role. The regular Infantry is your trusted go-getter. With enough of them, theyâre good at murdering pretty much anything. There wasnât a single mission where I didnât upgrade them with better armor and grenade launchers. Upgrades affect all current and future units, so itâs a good deal. You have facehugger-immune Flamethrowers, which massacre things up close, and are weak to range. Deadly Snipers that are the opposite and can be upgraded to shoot through walls. The company Androids who carry the iconic motion tracker and also carry everything else. Thereâs more, but you get the idea. You wanna tailor your forces to the weakness of the enemy, and you have a lot of options in doing that. You donât get every unit from the first mission, but they do unlock periodically throughout the campaign. In the missions, their limit is money, and they do earn a small amount by killing enemies, but the main source is repairing and securing some atmosphere processors. These give money for a while, before expiring. Each map has a few, and a lot of the battles are centered around capturing or holding them. Theyâre never main objectives, but always a worthy target. You actually buy your troops and upgrades through a Commtech unit. Heâs responsible for keeping machinery maintained, and, on a larger level, all of your people. And the people-machinery too, I guess⌠Reinforcing is not an instant process. They get dropped in after a while in a designated landing zone. This can get really hairy. Hold on, exosuits are on the way! So you need to keep your troops alive and make sure your Commtech stays safe. Itâs always good to have a few. So, fights can have some tension, knowing that, if youâre not careful, you might lose your reinforcement supply. You could finish missions without them, but it will be tricky. Now, you could complete missions normally, but there are some bonuses. All missions have a time limit to beat, and usually optional objectives. Some of these wonât be revealed until partway through the mission. Trying to accomplish both can make missions challenging and genuinely fun. The relatively smaller scale and specialized units makes the gameplay feel very tactical. Do you wanna avoid Androids for more firepower? Better hope they donât have invisible bois. Are the xenomorphs sending your troops into a coma to drag them off into the hive? Well, the doctor is in. [marine getting his shots] Make no mistake, this is a difficult game, especially if you go for the optional time and mission objectives. Your main goals are the standard RTS affair, with nothing really unique or out there, which is disappointing for the setting. But, despite everything, I was having fun with it. Especially when I rediscovered my love for the exosuits. It wouldnât be until âE.Y.E: Divine Cybermancyâ that their fire rate was surpassed. [steadily rising rate of fire] [it reaches what you'd expect from a gatling gun] Oh, Iâm sorry about that â I meant the upgrade. [wailing squall of lead] So the lesson is: you can drown out obnoxious sound effects if you fill the air with âbrrtâ. Unlocking them is powerful for morale. That said, this is the same mission where you hit the difficulty cliff. Itâs the second to last mission, but, man, things get hard⌠You fight every other faction in the game, including humans, and theyâre all teamed up against you somehow. You crawl through a hell dungeon to get to the top of the big map, and there is no money up there, so itâs an endurance round. You have to keep taking down Predator anti-aircraft guns, which sounds easy, right? Well, not when you attack them and they reveal more and more turrets around them. And you have no money. Also, I didnât mention it yet, but the biggest problem the gameplay here has is pathfinding. Thatâs one of the chief elements you donât want going wrong in an RTS game. You click your army somewhere, and most will go, but some will just wander off. Or theyâll get bunched up in a tight area and start freaking out. You just want them to go up, and a bunch of guys just run off into the hallways. Where are they going? Do they know how dangerous it is out there alone? So, the more complex the map, the more likely this happens. Doing this in a time limit AND with a bonus objective is absolute hell. But, if I donât do that, then I donât get the special mission medal. What am I supposed to do? Just not get it? đ So, after several tries, I finally do it â three minutes to spare. You may be wondering why Iâm not talking about the story. Well, itâs told in these screens before the missions, and thatâs it. There are precious few in-game reveals, and nothing really noteworthy. I do like this artwork though. So, spoiler warning, hereâs the ending for the Marine campaign. [*KA-BOOM*] No cutscene, no screen, not even a âyou winâ â itâs just⌠itâs done. But what if you get all the medals? Sorry, but no, you just unlock cheats. Maybe something happens if I get them for every faction? Surely, right? So it was buggy and loud, but I had a surprisingly okay time with the Marine campaign. For some reason, I donât remember much of the Predator one, so I guess Iâll find out why. We start off next to lava water, straight from âOblivionâ. Iâm not sure what it means yet. The Predators are a smaller, but more elite force. For one, most of their units can cloak, which is governed by an energy meter. The cloaks have gotten better since the movies, since they now work in water. This meter can also be used to heal them at any time. And thanks to the movie âThe Predatorâ, we can now speculate on whether or not theyâre shooting up autism. The Shrine is their base unit. Unlike the Marine Commtech, they can only get one, and when itâs gone, itâs gone. It is tanky and has heat death ray, so that does make up for it. It also comes with near-instant reinforcement. Now pair that with vision upgrades. These let you see enemies inside the fog of war and still blast them. And if you do this while cloaked, the AI does not react to the attack at all. This will make them easy prey, and instead of money, you get honor points. You earn a few from kills, but much more from taking trophies. The deadlier the prey, the higher the payout. So you could go and mass-murder harmless space cows, but there wonât be much for it. Itâs all simple, and the roster looks powerful. The first mission is a breeze, so time for the second. âKill five units and take their trophies.â Easy enough. Wattafuk? Why are there so many? Itâs the second mission! Itâs- Itâs just the second mission! After several tries, I barely make it in time, 7 seconds to spare. Maybe itâs like Marine 6, and this one will be easier. You know, I got OVER the difficulty hump. [DOOM 2016 OST - BFG Division] Iâm⌠supposed to hunt animals in this mission. Whatâs happening? The challenge spike is HUGE for so soon. And Iâm only playing on Medium! I even knocked it down to Easy to check, and the swarm still came. Whatâs worse is, like the Marine campaign, you fight human and Predator enemies, but they donât fight each other. Actually, it sure looks like theyâre working together to screw me over. Thereâs no story reason for this. Iâve played missions where the enemies DO fight each other, so why did these ones have teamwork and absurd numbers of enemies? The mission right after this is a fairly easy sneaking mission. And after that, you unlock Military Predators, which are absurdly powerful. In a way, the Predator in the movie was just a redneck shooting some deer. So what do these guys bring? Apparently, artillery-range auto-targeting cluster missiles. Also, the sweeping heat beams of death. These are all upgradeable, too, so, after this point, the campaign is kind of a joke. [sounds of relentless annihilation] It is mindless, but itâs mindless FUN. To the point that the last mission has an optional objective thatâs just âdonât use themâ. Itâs like the progression balance is at random. After much suffering, I did unlock cheats, and I wanted to see what the deal with Mission 3 was. One lets you spy on the enemy, and thereâs not many here. Then someone walks far enough to trigger it. The mini-map starts exploding with new signatures. Iâve seen tons of RTS games cheat resources or build speed, but this is something else. This Marine horde is far past their population count. But thatâs still not enough, because theyâre still being spawned in the conventional way. Iâm starting to truly realize why I never got far into the Predator campaign. Was this to artificially make the game longer, to combat renting it? Wouldnât these fights horribly lag out a PS2? I feel like my soul wonât be at rest until I have answers⌠The progression is so busted and weird that itâs all I think about whenever I think back to the Predator missions. The roster is cool, but the experience is either braindead easy or madness hard. When I played without military guys, it did bring things back to sanity, but thereâs no salvaging the earlier stuff. Itâs not the worst âPredatorâ game⌠thing⌠Iâve played. There were fun unit combinations and tactics to pull off. The situations youâre put in though⌠Itâs just a mess. When it comes down to it, Iâd still rather play this than see âThe Predatorâ ever again. Is was just a strange experience overall, but the artwork is still good. Okay, one last faction⌠âNow is the time to breed and grow and dominate.â Our xenomorph friends play very differently than the rest. Theyâre melee-focused and have superior numbers. Without cheating. The Aliens gain currency by downing their enemies in combat, and thatâs it. The reason for that is that they donât use currency as much as the other speciesâ. They canât just buy more units to spawn in. Instead, the hive Queen needs to start laying eggs. Then your unconscious victims can be dragged in and impregnated. You go through the facehugger, the chestburster, the cocoon â itâs the whole process. The ideal scenario is having a constant drag parade. The more bodies you bring in, the more xenos you hatch. So thatâs already radically different, but there are more nuances to it. For one, the kind of Alien you get depends on the host body. Animals can make Drones or Runners, humans can make Warriors, Predators make Predaliens â you get the idea. However, you can take it even farter, through upgrades. How about the Drone? Well, theyâre given an acid that makes the host bodies more ideal for gestation. So, if you bring them along for your victim-hunting parties, youâll spawn more powerful variants of the Aliens. Of course, you could just hatch the eggs and send the facehuggers out, but thatâs not always a good idea. Theyâre incredibly vulnerable to every weapon, and some enemies are near impossible, or straight up impossible to facehug when theyâre alive. Plus, when theyâre outside of your hive infestation, their health is always going down. So you can make it work, but youâll likely lose a few. This makes having your Drones tidy up and build a nice home an advantage. Itâs a safe place for facehuggers to play, and it also heals all your units up. And I mean DRAMATICALLY heal them up. Check out Lt. Dan here. Looks to me like heâs ready to go back to the jungle. To make it even better, if anything even touches your infestation, youâll know where they are for a long, long time. In conclusion: xenomorph hive is prime real estate. Remember, you can always move if a new lot opens up. You also have the option of going for a pure strain of the parasite. These are the Praetorians, and morphing a regular egg into one of theirs does cost money. But no matter what host you have, you always get a Praetorian Alien. From here, it can morph into a Queen, if your hive is missing one, or two other strains. Thereâs the Ravager, which is just a brick shithouse of power. Itâs incredibly deadly, but, unlike other Aliens, it kills its enemies outright. No face means no facehugging. On the opposite end, you can make a hive-supporting Carrier. This one ferries facehuggers around like a horrible camel spider. If anyone gets too close, itâll chuck a facehugger at them. So, yeah, the Aliens have a lot going on. Their campaign definitely has some harder levels, but nothing like the Predator one. Itâs unique and genuinely like nothing else Iâve played in an RTS. While the majority of missions are still mainly your standard RTS affair, they do venture out a little bit. It challenges you to master the lifecycle and pick out the right hosts and Aliens for the job. Thereâs still not much going on in the story. It mainly revolves around you fighting, eh⌠premium currency Aliens that Weyland-Yutani is making. Iâm not kidding, they just have gold skins. âExtinctionâ is really a fever dream sometimes. Eagle-eyed RTS veterans may have noticed the problem already. Aliens are a melee-focused horde faction, with a complicated lifecycle. So letâs see how long a new unit takes in the best possible conditions where everything is already set up. [*shlurp*] [*hop*] FACEHUGGER: "Ach!" MARINE: "Ahh!" Still cooking⌠[*shlur-rp*] Okay, nearly half a minute. That seems like it would be a detriment, but you can upgrade eggs to have two or three or four facehuggers in them, and the facehuggers themselves can eventually put two embryos in certain hosts. So what if you lose a battle and just have nothing but the Queen? Well⌠sheâs THE QUEEN. If she sees a problem, she could just get right up and slap the shit out of it. Vengefully. She is a mother, but also a career woman. And her career is ubering anyone and anything into the next life. That could explain the cult⌠So, no, thatâs not an issue. The real issue is their actual combat gameplay. Youâre all about numbers and melee, and can only influence this through a controller, so your gameplay is gonna be very blobby. Sure, you can control-group them to separate them out or avoid AOE weapons, but thereâs not a whole lot to it. It is fun being a swarm, and there is enjoyment in managing the hive and hatching all these different Alien types, but the combat itself⌠You really canât go wrong just making a murder ball. It could get stuck, because the pathfinding is still terrible, but you knew that. I truly do think thereâs something to this lifecycle idea. Even outside of an RTS game, like an Alien hive management game or something. I think Iâd love playing that. Back on track, I got all the medals, and no, thereâs no secret ending or screen or anything. Itâs only the same cheats as always. I can accept that the campaigns had terrible, terrible moments. Entire stretches of them, stacked on top of each other. The thing is, with the asymmetrical gameplay, and all the different units, thereâs a lot of hope for skirmish! Maybe Military Predators are more expensive there or something. If there was system link, I could see this being a great time in multiplayer. Well, trick or treat, thereâs none of that⌠There is a lot of lore to read up on, but no more game. This was disappointing back then, but even more so now, because I know they made âMetal Fatigueâ. Sure, that did have a lot of issues, but it also had everything youâd expect in an RTS. I get the sense this game was rushed out far before the vision was completed. Elements like so much voice acting sounding like placeholder when I know theyâve done better. Missions just having a number, with no real ending. I just have this nagging feeling about it. Whatâs even stranger is youâd think this game might have been rushed out for the movie, but no, the movie wasnât even in production when the game came out. They crunched on that movie, trying to get âFreddy vs Jasonâ money. I canât really recommend it. Itâs not like some hidden console gem you need in your collection. There are monumentally better âAvPâ games and RTS games, but this is a fascinating little title. I would love to know more about it, because I could barely find a thing. Back when I did the âReturn of the Kingâ video, I actually had one of the animators reach out to me. I never thoroughly combed his brain or anything, but only talking to him for a bit gave me more insight on that game and the âThird Ageâ, and I felt a little bit⌠more at peace, I guess. But those were games I loved playing. This was one I liked playing, and sometimes hated playing. Even back then, I remember the feeling of it being like a weird dream I was having. This was a monkeyâs paw wish for me. I can only lament that the game wasnât made for PC. Beyond the obvious control issues, there could have been fan patches or mods or who knows⌠It is appropriate to start October with something that haunts me to this day. To its credit, âExtinctionâ never screamed âODST!â at me over and over, so, I guess thereâs that. More to come soon. Something scarier. MARINE: âIâll get some backup!â It might not have been the âAvPâ game people expected, but maybe some deserved it. I donât know what all of you get up to. RamblingRhetoric: âDo RTS games have a place on console, and which one do [you] think has the best controls?â They do have a place there. Some sell well. The controls in âExtinctionâ are solid, but Iâd have to say âPikminâ. But if we meant like a traditional RTS game, probably âHalo Warsâ. Pontus JĂśnsson: âDo you have media you come back to every Halloween?â For games, âDead Spaceâ, but for movies and TV I have too many. Might need to make a list somewhere. Doyes: âWhat are [your] expectations for âVampire Masquerade: Bloodlines 2â?â I was uncertain at the announcement, but with all the recent news, now theyâre pretty low. Iâll be glad if it turns out really good though. Tim farrons dog: âWhat are your expectations for âWarhammer: The Old Worldâ?â If they put things back, itâll be fine. If they do a prequel, that could be a disaster. Marksnus: âPulse rifle or smartgun?â I do think the pulse rifle is cooler, but if I was in a situation, Iâd want a smartgun. It basically auto-aims for me, and in reality, Iâd probably kill myself with the grenade launcher. Shrapnel is a fast little friend, and you never know when heâs visiting. Okay, more October stuff soon!
Mandalore's style of review is amazing. I love the way he seemingly picks games at random. Always excited to see a new post from him.
I used to adore this game. Never understood why a free play wasn't an option and only campaign was a choice. Always wanted just a random map with the race of my choosing. I loved the different things that made each race unique with the Alien queen and having to infect wild life to start your swarm, while the predators had this temple that could move around. The Marines were a bit more basic, but each race felt unique in their own way. I really did enjoy this game for just being so different and trying something new with the franchise.
Man, I loved this game when it came out. Such a cool concept and the controls were honestly pretty decent, which is significant considering it predates Battle for Middle Earth. It's a shame that it is so hard to find and play these days.
Madalore giving credit to sound engineers. Never thought of it before but he is right: they are important but never mentioned
3 5 13 7 ? What subliminal puzzle is that?
I remember playing this so much back in the day. I've literally never heard anyone else ever talk about. I was half thinking it never really existed and I just dreamt about it.
I hope this becomes backwards compatible on Xbox. I wouldn't mind playing it again since we're in a dry spell of of AvP games.
Thanks to quarantine i have found the TRIFECTA of games review and game critics on youtube: MandaloreGaming, Raycevik and the absolute madman Joseph Anderson. By far, for me, the best critics in the media right now. Huge videos, really well paced, extremely well written and presented. PERFECTION.
This was a great game, but incredibly difficult. Still convinced the third alien mission canât be beaten without cheats