‘Overcome them, then take their bodies to serve as hosts for the children…’

No, wait, that’s not right.

‘Humans are weak, pathetic, screaming beings. But they run well, and are fun to hunt.’

No, no, no – there has to be another take on this.

‘Just give me a chance sir, and I’ll blast all those beasties back to the hell that spawned them.’

Ah, there you go, a human perspective on a universe filled with deadly creatures bent indiscriminately on the destruction of each other, and humans. It’s Aliens Versus Predator 2, a first-person shooter game developed by Monolith and published by Sierra.

This game is rated for Mature game players for a reason – there is a lot of blood and gore, and violence. There is also some strong language.

The set-up of the game is rather simple. You pick a race to be – alien, predator or Marine – and then exterminate everything you encounter. Oh, sure, there are missions that need to be accomplished. Each storyline is intertwined, and all 21 missions take place on LV-1201, a deadly jungle world where death comes in many forms.

The alien’s saga begins in a cargo hold on a human vessel. The pod hatches the alien (control of which goes to the game player in first-person perspective), who scuttles about. You need to escape the confines. Avoiding detection isn’t a tactic you need to follow. You have horror on your side. The first mission for the predator is a simple hunt. You have landed on the planet, left your ship and are moving effortlessly through the treetops, hunting for that trophy human, or whatever else pops up.

For the Marine, mission one concerns itself with a crash landing, fellow soldiers dying all around and an alien presence trying to abort your recovery efforts. You are tasked with some puzzle-solving adventures, coupled with the music and screams that let you know you are about to die. This scenario will probably ask the most out of you and your playing abilities.

The really wonderful thing that this game does is to incorporate the movie characteristics of the alien species into the game. The alien can go for the headbite, in which the second set of teeth protract in a chomping fashion into the face of the target, or do a facehugger – wherein the alien implants the host (a.k.a. the target) with a baby alien. The predator has that awesome arsenal of weapons, plus the ability to leap great distances and to become invisible with its cloaking field generator. The helmet the predator wears can produce a variety of views, including one which allows you to track your prey by watching their body heat. Against these creatures, the Marine might seem a little outclassed, but not so. Sure, it is a tougher battle, but the arsenal available is very good, which includes a sniper rifle, minigun, grenade and rocket launchers, smartgun, flamethrower and pulse rifle.

Controls of the game take a little getting used to. There are shared components, as well as hotkeys that are specialized for the different races. For example, for the predator and Marine, the left-shift is a crouch, but for the alien, it is wall-walk. The controls are all keyboard-mouse based.

Graphically this game is stunning. The three-dimensional environmental graphics are incredible, and the character animation is superb. It is nice to have cutscenes, featuring characters whose mouths actually move almost in concert with the words being spoken. And the sound of this game is exceptional. Not only does it feature the trademark sound effects associated with alien species, but it has taut dialogue, and enough screams and roars to give this game the same, edge-of-your-seat feeling as the original Alien and Predator movies.

This game does feature multiplayer action, though they are not mission driven. You can play the standard deathmatch, a team deathmatch, hunt (in which you try to tally the most kills and avoid being killed), survivor (last one alive wins) and overrun (a timed team game where one team tries to overrun the other in the fastest time).

The game supposedly comes with a custom level editor, so players can create their own levels. However, those tools aren’t currently available in the retail release of the game. Sierra does promise that they will be available online in the future. That Web site is avp2.sierra.com.

Aliens Versus Predator 2 is an intense, action-packed game that captures the spirit of the first-person shooter genre in heart-pounding fashion. It is a visual delight – if the blood and gore doesn’t bother you – and a real treat for the ears.

Install: Medium
At the low end of the scale, this game consumes 750 megs of hard-drive space. If you want the entire game on your computer, you’ll have to relinquish 1.3 gigs of space.

Gameplay: 8.5
The map boards are a good size, the game flow is incredibly fast. The only delays are during load times.

Graphics: 9
This program has great effects, well-rendered characters and environments, and excellent animation.

Sound: 9
From the terrified screams of victims about to be released from the burden of living to the sounds peculiar to the alien and predator species, this game has a wonderful sound track.

Difficulty: 9
This game has four levels, easy, normal, hard and hardcore. The manual states that the last level is “not for the impatient or the faint of heart.”

Concept: 7.5
This is the second in the series

Multiplayer: 7.5
This isn’t mission-based, more ‘king of the hill’ mentality, but the games are fast-paced.

Overall: 9
If you are a fan of FPS games, this is right up your alley. It features enough of a storyline to propel the game along, three great perspectives to play from, as well as great graphics and sound. Be forewarned this game requires a PIII 450 MHz and 128 megs of RAM as the minimum system requirements. If you have a system capable of playing this game, you are in for an incredible, action-packed time.