Dmitri is laying on a bench, in full armor ­ including helmet ­ asleep with the general calls. Dunya is to report immediately to his office. Apparently Dmitri was waiting for a little tryst with his roommate because she is in the shower (covered by barriers in the appropriate places) and makes reference to having to make it another time.

Well, that seems a little off. Cowboys may wear boots and seldom take off their hats, but full body armor? And showering beforehand? Doesn’t seem like anyone was prepared. And that’s just the beginning.

Dunya is sent to a distant world to recover an alien artifact that could sport a tremendous advantage in the war against alien life forces if in the right hands. The problem is that it is five levels below the surface and the caves and tunnels she and her fire team must traverse are swarming with aliens. She enters with a shotgun, or handgun, ready to tangle with quick-moving, vicious creatures while her fire team has flamethrowers.

Aliens Vs. Predator 2 Primal Hunt, from Third Law Interactive, Sierra Entertainment and Fox Interactive, is an expansion pack for the original AVP2 game ( http://www.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r18600.htm ), and it requires that title to play. Yes, graphically the game is very well done, but whereas AVP2 took place in the jungles of LV1201, Primal Hunt goes to the underbelly of the planet and is more akin to a FPS dungeon crawl than a wide-open fight for dominance.

You can play from three perspectives (just like the first game): the Corporate human side (Marines ­ of Earth, not U.S.-specific), the Aliens and the Predators. Each race has three missions that will take you through peril and a steady onslaught of attackers that seem to pop up out of nowhere at times, hit, run, bounce around and attack again. The best thing to do is be ready to attack in any direction. One of the problems is Dunya enters the game without a med kit and she can sustain heavy damage quickly.

The Alien’s first mission is entitled new host. You can crawl around a complex rife with Predators and the object is to latch onto one of the enemy’s faces (if you have seen the original movie, you will understand what happens). Death can also come quickly and unless you are prepared, you can end up a bug stain on the metal gratings that serve as flooring.

The Predator scenario is actually the easiest to begin with. You start in a jungle, traversing a canyon and are attacked time and again by alien (not THE Alien, and the new breed in this game is known as a PredAlien) life forms. When you health starts running low, you simply employ the med kit. One usage, then it needs to be recharged ­ something you can do from the bodies of your prey.

The expansion pack does have a storyline that the various missions follow. Five hundred years in the past, a Predator, on a hunt on LV1201, discovered an artifact with the power to keep the Aliens at bay and control their minds. But he triggered a stasis field that quick-froze him. Dunya is out to recover the artifact, and she unwittingly frees him. While all this is transpiring, a PredAlien seeks to destroy the artifact to protect the Hive.

Other features of the game include new weaponry, which includes dual pistols, turret guns, deployable sentry guns and the Predator Energy Flechette. There are four new multiplayer maps and Predator ruins to explore and hunt/kill.

This game has very well down environmental graphics and the various visual aspects of each race are very well done. The animation of some of the enemies seems a little jerky, and the battles are intense. The audio is solid, but exactly what you would anticipate from a title like this.

The main problem with AVP2 Primal Hunt is that while it offers new missions, it really doesn’t advance the original title. The challenge is there, but unlike AVP2, where you had  to battle through to a save point, this expansion allows players to save at any moment. That sort of takes the terror out of the game, just as the wave-after-wave of attackers dulls the anticipation and nervous energy of knowing something is there, but you don’t know where it is or when it is going to attack. What it boils down to is that while this is a solid shooter, the terror has been ripped from it leaving behind a somewhat-ordinary game.

This program is rated for Mature players due to the blood, violence and gore.

Gameplay: 7
The game is a steady onslaught, rather than a well-crafted horror game in the guise of a FPS. It is linear in nature, and though the three mission viewpoints converge nicely, the game lacks a consistent, or fluid feel. AVP2 (the original) was more intense and intriguing. This expansion feels like a steady dungeon crawl.

Graphics: 8.8
Some of the animations seem a little jerky, but the game flow is still fast and the environments are very well done.

Sound: 8
Still solid but there seems to be a lot of repetitious sounds coursing through the game.

Difficulty: Medium
This game is a challenge because of the continual shooting aspects. Even at the easiest difficulty level, dying can happen quickly.

Concept: 7
New scenarios, weapons and maps are very nice, but the intensity of the original title has been diluted.

Multiplayer: 7
Four new maps, but this aspect of the game is typical of most games.

Overall: 7.3
Fans of AVP2 might want to retain the memory of that excellent title by bypassing this game ­ unless, of course, all you want is to create mayhem and delight in carnage. This title doesn’t advance the series; it’s really more like a watered-down version of AVP2. Graphically this game is very good, in spite of few animation discrepancies. Also, this game will devour a lot of hard-drive space, not only for the original game (which will eat between 750 megs and 1.3 gigs of hard-drive space), but another 600 megs for the expansion.