Game Over Man!

Here I'm supposed to talk about the bad things in AvP2. Well let's see.

One thing that I noticed was that when I played AvP2, I needed to take a break after every 30 minutes or so of play, or just about once after every one or two engagements to kinda' let all the stress and tension go away before I sat back down again. I really don't see this as a flaw, if anything I see it as a design perk maybe? Its almost like watching a scary movie, just knowing that something's gonna' happen to the protagonist, and you want to close your eyes and cover your ears, but you cant! Well how are you gonna' do that and play the game when you need to hold the keyboard and mouse? I see it as a good thing in the sense that the designers did a really good job in making the game intense and very. Riveting, as some crickets say.

I'm assuming this because I've seen all the movies and you just get a sense of what's going to happen, and it's that added paranoia and imagination that helps. Other people I know that haven't seen the movies don't share the same sense of intensity in the game. While some others who haven't seen the movies were even more flipped then me.

[Editor's Note - Award: I'm one of those people Mike mentioned who didn't see any of the movies. Typically, I'm terrified of horror movies, and the beginning of Half-Life and the first level of Unreal nearly sent me to the psychiatric ward. Oddly, though, I didn't find any part of AvP2 the least bit frightening, though I could tell it was designed to be. One part of the marine mission caught me a bit off-guard, and it was certainly suspenseful throughout, but there was nothing truly scary or utterly surprising. Perhaps it appeals more to a certain type of fear?]

One thing that I found inconvenient was the weapon balance. For one the marine's Pulse rifle is dead accurate. It has no spread or firing-cone whatsoever. Anything you point at is dead of course, but when you've got a fast moving alien or four running around you in near-darkness, it would be a little more convenient if the gun had a spread effect for some "lucky" shots. Not to mention, I think, that if it had a spread effect, it would add a lot to the game when you can see yourself literally shredding an alien to pieces (arms, legs, head, etc.) rather then just scoring a few hits to one area and watching it fall dead. I mean face it, the only good bug is a dead bug, and what better way to kill it than with a fire cracker...I mean pulse rifle.

The other problem that I noticed was that there might be a small amount of flaws in the scaling of the game. Again, mostly visible in the marine campaign. The drones that you face seem rather small. Usually the drones were as tall, if not slightly taller then a person, while about as wide the marine in the movies. In the game they seem to be unproportionately thin, and the height is a little off. You can really see the truth of the comparison when you play the Alien campaign and you will see that you stand as tall, if not slightly taller then the marines in game.

[Editor's Note - Award: One other thing to add here is that I had some minor stability problems with the game. On several occasions it crashed to the desktop randomly, on one occasion it locked the system, and on several occasions it decided to dislike the SB Live! Drivers and begin crackling until I re-launched the game. Also, the load times are quite a bit longer than would be expected for the game. I haven't seen load times like that since I used my PII-233 as the primary test system.]

Well that's really all I can complain about. If you want to call them that. So have some more screenshots�

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