14 DAY TRIAL // First, I should mention that my opinion may be a little bit biased, since I absolutely love the AvP universe (the movies don't count, don't even bring them up). This could result in either hating the game or absolutely loving it, but whichever the case may be, like in any legend, its roots will still be planted in solid truth. With that disclaimer out of the way, the first look I took at Rebellion's new Aliens vs Predator made me scream at the monitor, take five, and pace around the room. In a good way.
The first campaign is the one with the marine, and my experience with the single-player part of the game does not extend at this point beyond it, or, to be more exact, beyond the first two missions of it. Even so, I loved pretty much every minute of it, hated how the Bishop sounded, but didn't look at all like Lance Henriksen and managed to remain objective to only a few things. Since these are by far the fewest in number, I'll start with them and leave the best for last.
For some reason, the game, or more precisely the NPCs that hand you your mission objectives, insists on getting on your nerves, always pestering you with the most ridiculous things. Tequila, which is pretty much the clone of Vasquez, from the Aliens movie, must truly believe that you're brain dead. She can't stop reminding you every ten seconds that you need to head towards the flashing arrow on your Motion Tracker, over and over again. We may be a rookie, but we're marines nonetheless. We know what a waypoint is.
The game is littered with audio diaries that are meant to offer a bit of background information on what's going on. The audio datapads are rarely on the route towards the main objective, and you'll find most of them by exploring alternate paths. Something that Tequila doesn't like at all and just can't shut up about.
The next NPC that hands out orders is also a woman, and it looks like the game almost tries to make some sort of subliminal message out of this. However, if Tequila treated you like a mentally challenged teen, the doctor expects you to do a hundred things at once. Collect the battery, power the station, open the door, fight the Xenomorph horde, kill the Predator, save Tequila, stop the Bishop, and, if possible, pick something nice for her to wear when this is all over. Annoying, true, but she also gives a ton of useful pieces of information, so you just have to shut up and grin. Can't live with them, can't live without them.
One thing that left me a bit disappointed was how quickly you got to fight a Xenomorph queen. In less than two hours with the marine, playing on the hard difficulty, I woke up face to face with an egg-laying queen. At first, I hoped it was a taste of things to come, and an actual confrontation would be avoided via a cinematic event of some kind. But you do fight it, and you do kill it. As for the fight itself, that's part of the good points, so it will have to wait.
As for the good parts, well, this is going to be a long list. The atmosphere is brilliant, and you really feel like you're fighting impossible odds at every corner, despite the fact that you keep surviving. It never gets old, and you never lose that feeling of mortality. The sound effects and soundtracks are phenomenal, and they only amplify the atmosphere greatly. Every clamping door, every sheet of metal that buckles as an alien pushes through, every "beeping" sound made by the Motion Tracker whenever something moves is enough to drive you insane. It's not really fear, it's just the overwhelming feeling that you're there, fighting for your life.
One thing that I was truly impressed by was the Xenomorphs' AI. They're not the mindless, berserk horde that they were in previous AvP games, and they don't just charge at you in a straight line. Seeing an alien on the floor is a rarity, as it will always try to attack you from the ceiling or the side walls. The best thing about them, however, is that they know how the Motion Tracker works. They'll often stay still when they're in the dark, completely disappearing from your sight, as well as from the Motion Tracker.
They try to stalk you quietly, never coming straight at you, and quickly changing tactics if you show hints that you've spotted them. Facehuggers will also use this tactic, and, if you thought the noise of the Motion Tracker was terrifying, you should wait to see how scary it is when it suddenly goes quiet.
The queen fight is also amazing, and, while you don't actually fight her, but her minions, it's still absolutely epic. The room is filled with hatching facehugger eggs and, pretty soon, it will swarm with drones as well. You can die in a split second, and there's no way you can win this fight if you don't stay calm and plan you moves three, four steps ahead.
There are plenty of other great things that, in the heat of the moment, I forgot about, aside from actual health packs, a not-infinite regeneration, or dying, even if you were at full health, after blowing an alien apart at point-blank range, but even so, after just two missions, AvP is everything that I could have wanted it to be. Further impressions will come later, much later, as I've decided to take the next week off and enjoy the game in peace. That's how much I like it.