Aliens Versus Predator 2

aka: Aliens Versus Predador 2, AvP 2
Moby ID: 5493
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

On planet LV1201, ancient alien ruins have been discovered. The Weyland-Yutani corporation sets up a research facility in the area, to study and unlock the secrets of the excavation. When xenomorphic (alien) eggs are found, Dr. Eisenberg is assigned command of the scientific progress. Weyland-Yutani also hires a band of mercenaries, under the command of discharged General Rykov to act as security of the facility. As time passes, observation pods are set up to observe an artificial xenomorphic hive. The xenomorphs however manage to escape containment and the resulting chaos sends out a distress call, which attracts the attention of the "Predator" alien species, as well as dispatching a colonial marine vessel, the USS Verloc, to render aid. Three intertwined campaigns tell the story: that of human marine Lt. Harrison, a newly hatched xenomorph and a Predator clan leader.

Aliens Versus Predator 2 is a first person shooter. Players can choose to begin a campaign as Alien, Predator, or a Colonial Marine, each with their own unique abilities and weapons.

The Marine plays as a standard FPS, with the player needing to pick up weapons, ammunition and health items. The screen shows the player's health percentage as well as armor. Some of the weapons include flamethrowers, miniguns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers and smart guns. The marine also carries a motion tracker which displays movement around the player. To see in the darkness the marine uses a shoulder-mounted flashlight or night vision, both of which drain battery power (which recharges on its own after a time). The marine can also toss flares which burn for a short time. In the single player mode, Harrison is a technician and handles a wielding torch and a ComTech Hacking Device which can be used to "hack" certain circuit boards.

The Alien plays much more stealthily, requiring the player to hide in the darkness and choose its moments of killing carefully. The alien has various stages of its life cycle, all of which tend to leave it with no weapons beyond its own claws and teeth, although some alien forms also feature a tail which can temporarily stun enemies. Depending on the alien's stage of development it can jump 6 feet, switch between normal and night vision modes, climb up most surfaces, pounce forward at targets in a fury of claws and bite the head off defeated foes to regain health.

The Predator on the other hand features superior weaponry and abilities but also uses its stealth to properly hunt opponents. It can jump several feet, use a cloak generator, regain health by using the medi-comp in the wrist, recharge energy quickly using the Energy Sift, and switch between several visual tracking and zoom modes built into the hunting mask. Many of the Predator's abilities use energy, which is displayed on the screen along with health. The Predator's weapons are designed for hunting and include: wrist blades, the combstick tribal spear, a spear gun, a plasma pistol, a shoulder cannon which fires balls of plasma, a bladed disc, remote bombs and a net gun to entangle the enemy. In single-player, the Predator is also able to hack certain circuit boards using the Charge Emitter.

Aliens Versus Predator 2's multiplayer mode lets the player select any of these three species in various "classes". Game types include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch Species and Hunt.

Spellings

  • Alien Vs Predator 2 - Alternate spelling
  • 异形对铁血战士2 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

176 People (125 developers, 51 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 62 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 94 ratings with 6 reviews)

Overrated mediocre gameplay with some nice components.

The Good
The first AvP was great as long as you only played the demo. The whole game was too dark, difficult and repetitive and the plot... well... what plot? This is greatly improved in the sequel. The plot is sometimes illogical and ill told, and is nothing special in itself, but it has an interesting disposition in that it is told from three different angles. After having finished the excellent marine campaign you only know a little part of the whole story. In order to know get the whole picture you need to play the other parts as well. This encourages you to play on, just to find out how things go together, and what led to certain events in the previous campaigns. Very good. The graphics, although a bit aged, are quite good, and the sounds are downright excellent. The weaponry is nice and is exactly what you would want from a game like this. Cool weapons directly from the movies. I also really like the different vision modes that the predator has. They are both useful and quite cool. The marine campaign is what makes this game worth playing, though. It is unnerving and creepy to sneak around the base, knowing you'll be attacked any minute by slimy aliens. Your feel really vulnerable and every sound makes you jump. The atmosphere in this campaign is really scary and creepy.

The Bad
Well then. What didn't I like about this game? Ah, well, where to start? For starters, the game has only one good campaign, the marine campaign. The only reason for playing the other two (the alien and predator campaigns) are to find out more about the plot. The plot itself is alright, but nothing special, and the scripted sequences are badly acted and not very nicely done at all. Sometimes the story is so ill told that it is hard to understand what is going on. The only really positive thing about it is that it somehow makes you want to play on, just to find out how it all hangs together. Although the marine campaign is creepy and good, the other campaigns are boring and they aren't involving at all. The predator has some nice technology and weaponry to play with, but the missions and the predator's agenda is very hard to care about or get involved with. I don't particularly care whether the marines shoot my head off or not. I rather think I deserve it when I play as an ugly predator lobster-head whose only goal is to run around collecting skulls. Quite boring and not in any way unnerving or scary. The alien campaign is even worse. To play one of thousands of slimy, mindless aliens is just as boring as it sounds. You just run around mindlessly, get seasick from all the wall-climbing and bite peoples heads off all through the tedious missions. I cared even less than in the predator campaign and even died deliberately a few times because I was so tired of the slimy mindless monster I was playing. If the game had let you play a marine all the way through, it could have been really good. As it is, just a really small portion of the game, about a third (not even all the marine missions are good), is any fun to play. Overrated mediocre gameplay with some nice components.

The Bottom Line
Mediocre mix of two great things: Alien and Predator. Too bad that the game does not live up to the legacy of the movies. Not even close.

Windows · by Joakim Kihlman (231) · 2004

An excellent action thriller!

The Good
This game is very scary. You often get trapped with aliens in total darkness with only your trusty shoulder lamp and a weapon. This game is also full of great scripted sequences. In the first level, you're walking through a base, when you suddenly see some guy in front of you die. Then you see the Predator's laser sight on the ground in front of you, moving rapidly, although you can't see the Predator. This was a really rewarding gameplay moment for me. The game has 3 species which are all very different, offering a lot of variety. Objectives are very varied, as well. The multiplayer is excellent, considering the different classes. The graphics are great, too.

The Bad
The sound is not surround sound, which would have been a great idea. The environments are repetative. The game sometimes gets frustrating and very hard. It's also very linear, but it's still easy to get lost. I noticed lots of clipping. Also, the game is too dark...it gets annoying to use your lamp all the time. And the environments are small...if you're claustrophobic, stay away from this game.

The Bottom Line
A very scary FPS that, despite some problems, is still very fun!

Windows · by Archagon (108) · 2002

If you love the FPS genre, or Aliens the film for that matter, pick this up now!

The Good
Do you remember the first time you watched Aliens? Remember when the colonial marines are just entering the colony complex, and they're splitting off into squads to scour the complex for survivors? Remember how tense you were as you tried, vainly, to spot movement in the hallways and abandoned rooms? Remember the constant beat of the motion trackers? The first human mission of Aliens Versus Predator 2 eerily recreates those moments of the film right down to the smallest detail. I couldn't believe that I was exactly getting tense playing a computer game, something that had never, ever happened to me before. When I finally spotted movement in the game, I was so charged up I fired wildly at it with my pulse rifle, decimating what turned out to be a large beetle.

To be fair, I was playing the game on the hardest difficulty setting, which doesn't allow you to save during a mission. This, combined with the game's naturally dark, humid tunnels and confined spaces, creates a truly frightening atmosphere that dares you to poke your head through that open doorway. I counted half a dozen deaths that literally made me jump in my seat. Impressive, to say the least.

AVP2 features three distinct races, each with its own weaponry, tactics and so on. This is a very nice option, and I wish more developers would exploit the potential inherent in this game design. Unlike Starcraft or Warcraft III, which feature a linear storyline that develops as you play each race, AVP2 tells the same story from the distinct perspectives of each race. Thus, each time you play the game through, you get further insights into the dark dealings of the game's doomed research complex.

The weapons are just as cool as you would expect them to be (provided you're a die-hard Aliens fan like myself). The colonial marines are the most traditional, featuring everything from small arms to heavy automatic weapons. The predator must be played more stealthily, sniping at enemies from the cover of its cloaking. The alien is a blast to play, whether you're scuttling along the floor as the facehugger or pouncing on your next meal as a full-grown xenomorph.

Everything else, from graphics to sound design, is top-notch and rivals anything being done with the Quake III engine.

The Bad
I only have one nitpicky gripe against an otherwise excellent game. You'll occasionally come across design gaffes which force you to know what the programmers were thinking in order to win. The most glaring of these comes at the end of the marine campaign, in which you are attacked by a pair of praetorian aliens while standing on a precipice with a dropship behind you. I died at least four or five times trying vainly to kill the onrushing praetorians before I learned that they were invulnerable, and that the only way to win is to jump into the dropship (which I hadn't really paid attention to since it was behind me). I hate that kind of game design, and wish that developers would design endgame segments more logically.

The Bottom Line
It's your standard FPS done right. Plus it's set in the Aliens universe, so you can't go wrong.

Windows · by Lucas Schippers (57) · 2002

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Shot enhanced Geamandura (2326) Feb 16, 2010
What's in the box? Judicator Sep 17, 2009

Trivia

German version

In Germany, the game was released both as original English and censored German version. Most differences are removed blood and splatter effects; including level decor and cutscenes. Also changed are the animations of the scientists the player encounters. A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

Inaccuracies

When the Alien-episode is selected, an intro movie will play and show us some nasty happenings in a Weyland Yutani-base somewhere. However, we see Eisenberg lying and shaking in fear on the floor in some nasty looking room. Note that he has red blood around his mouth. But in outro movie when his arms and legs are ripped off, we see that he is an synthetic judging by the the white blood-looking liquid that is stained on his clothes and the wires from where the limbs should be. Did Monolith forget how they created the Eisenberg-character?

Multiplayer servers

The official multiplayer servers (which were hosted on GameSpy) were shut down on 1 November 2008, but a community master server has been online since late 2008. (Available here)

Save feature

The original Aliens vs. Predator was universally criticized for having extremely long and difficult levels and no in-mission save feature (eventually, Fox and Rebellion released a corrective patch). The back cover ad-blurb on AvP2 includes a statement that would seem silly on any other game:

Save your progress at any point during the mission

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2002 (Issue #213) - Best Action Game of the Year
    • April 2002 (Issue #213) - Best Multiplayer Game of the Year
    • April 2002 (Issue #213) - Best Gaming Moment of the Year (being a fledgling alien)
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/2008 - Named as having one of the "10 Coolest Levels" (for "Unwelcome Guests" because it manages to scare the player without confronting him with enemies for a long time.

Additional information contributed by ClydeFrog, Ghostbreed and Sciere

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Related Sites +

  • Alien vs. Predator Central
    Lists and lore explanations about the AvP series, including information about Aliens vs. Predator 2.
  • Aliens vs. Predator 2
    Official Community Discord for Aliens vs. Predator 2 - Skins - Mods - Maps Discussions Tech support.
  • An Intergalactic Battle Royale
    An Apple Games article, archive on the author's website, about the Macintosh version of Aliens Versus Predator 2. The article provides a descriptive overview of the game, with comments from MacPlay President Mark Cottam, as well as a guide to the background of the Aliens vs. Predator universe, an introduction to the game's races, and a collection of cheats (September, 2002).
  • AvP Unknown
    fansite about the game with various resources including servers, skins and maps
  • NZMac Review
    A (largely) unscored review of the Macintosh version of the game by NZMac, a New Zealand Apple site. The review is ultimately positive, though with some qualifiers (Sep. 01, 2003).

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  • MobyGames ID: 5493
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by aaron minjares.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Entorphane, JPaterson, Shoddyan, Mata-Cavalo, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, Plok, Janno Varja, AVPUNKNOWN ..

Game added December 17, 2001. Last modified March 3, 2024.