ShareThis"Aliens vs. Predator"
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Genre: Action
Publisher: Sega
ESRB Rating: M, for Mature
Grade: 2 stars (out of 5)
I'm going to go ahead and act like the movie "Aliens vs. Predator" never happened. We all agree on that? Good, because it's just not worth acknowledging. Instead, what we can focus on is the newly released video game of the same name that, thankfully, has no connection to the film. Sadly, this doesn't help make it a better game.
For many fans of both franchises, this game will seem like nirvana: the opportunity to play as a Marine, an alien and a Predator at given times. Obviously, all three use different styles of combat, and being able to experience the advanced weaponry of a Predator or the nimbleness and equal brutality of a xenomorph will be welcome sights for those who grew up watching the movies in the 1980s and '90s.
The biggest problem is that none of the factions you play as are particularly well formed. As the Marine you get your guns and all that standard jazz. The alien gets wall-walking ability and that nasty tail and head-crushing unpleasantness. The Predator gets all sorts of neat-o gizmos and the ability to fight while cloaked. Sadly, all these aspects only scratch the surface and nothing feels finished.
The environments are nicely designed and give you a sense of creepiness throughout, but more is needed. For those looking for gore, have no fear: You can rip out spinal columns and eviscerate people constantly, and if you don't tire of it I guess you'll find plenty to enjoy, but even after awhile I found it a bit macabre.
The best parts are the multiplayer modes, where you can fight against teams of all three groups at once, making for some interesting strategic battles.
To this day I can't watch Bill Paxton in anything without flashing back to probably his most memorable character -- the wisecracking grunt Hudson in "Aliens." And perhaps his most famous line from that movie best sums up the experience of playing this game, "Game over, man. Game over!"
"Star Trek Online"
Platform: PC
Genre: Role-playing
Publisher: Atari
ESRB Rating: T, for Teen
Grade: 2 stars
Sorry to sound trite, but "Star Trek Online" goes, well, pretty much everywhere we've gone before.
This is not to say that Trekkies can't find a good time here or that even casual gamers won't enjoy the space combat and taking the helm of their own Enterprise-class starship. But overall, you end up feeling let down and unfulfilled by a game whose franchise is more valuable and rich than this game allows.
The game begins at the basics, where you choose a race of people to represent, join the Federation and get your first, basic starship. Not getting to choose a side other than the Federation is a big strike against the game from a fan's perspective, and once you do get to become, say, a Klingon, the rewards are a total letdown.
Upon getting your crew of officers together, missions are there for the taking, but playing them will quickly shine a light on the game's lack of depth. There are ground-based missions where you and the crew have to point your phasers at enemies and accomplish mundane fetch quests. Those are poorly designed and your player movements are goofy to say the least.
Traversing the galaxy and getting into battles among other starships provide rare glimpses of enjoyment, as long as the battles are massive and involve large numbers of ships. When they are small skirmishes, the battles are almost comically easy to win and have no sense of flow or purpose.
You can earn lots of upgrade to improve your officers and, eventually, upgrade to bigger and better starships. Outside of perhaps this goal of getting the best ships possible, there is little to keep anyone -- even the most die-hard Trekkies -- from warping far away from this game.
(E-mail Chris Campbell at game_on_games(at)mac.com)
Game On
I have seen that movie Aliens
I have seen that movie Aliens vs. Predator and from that time I have become a fan of those characters. I am really glad to get this post and launching some game related with this.
How quickly people seem to forget how bad WoW was.
Hmmmm. People seem to be expecting MMORPG's to be fully functional out of the box. If this was a linear game where you simply played through, sure. That is a reasonable expectation. But it isn't.
For those of use who were participating in WoW's open beta we remember just how painful that game was when it launched. And then there is the inevitable comparison to Eve Online. Again. STO is less then 1 month old and its being compared to games that have been around for years.
Well, yes. Its valid to review it in its current state, because that is what people are going to be playing NOW. It should always be noted that a month from now, 6 months from now, a year from now. Things will change in a major way. One thing that should be noted is that Cryptic is listening to its users on the forums (Whether that is a good thing is debatable.) and is implementing some specific changes that users are screeching for. (Death Penalty, difficulty slider, etc.) All of which will probably be out in its first major update before the end of March.