Predator: Concrete Jungle

The Good
Well, for starters it's a Predator game, where you can play as just the Predator and stalk humans, unlike the many Predator v. Alien games in the past and don't get me started on the so called Predator game for the NES. The Predator is actually very detailed and the sounds from the movies are also there as well, the clicking noises he makes along with the famous thermal vision along with all the biological sounds along with it.

Along with that you get the great weapons, such as the spear staff, the shoulder cannon and who can forget that fun Frisbee from hell that sliced Gary Busey up in Predator 2. The cinemas are also very well detailed, very smooth and sharp.

Unfortunately, this is all that is good about the game, which brings me to...

The Bad
Oh my, where do I start. First, the story...supposedly, back in 1930, a Predator tried to kill a Irish mob boss, things get messed up, next thing you know, he is hurt and sets up his ship to self destruct, a huge nuclear blast rips through Chicago, leveling it and killing everything....except, that's right, somehow the Predator survived...I guess since Schwarzenegger can do it, I guess they figure it can to. He is then banished, but sent back 100 years later after the technology that he left behind has been found and being used by humans against the Predators and now he has to destroy all the weapons and bring the balance of power back to the Predator clans. If this was a movie, I have a bad feeling it wouldn't do that well. Hell, it barely did anything for me from the game.

Even though the Predator is very well detailed, the numerous enemies he faces are actually a mess, some actually almost look square and blocky at times, almost back in the days of the polygons. I guess they figured that if people didn't pay too much attention to details, know one would care. Plus some of the enemies you fight are kinda lame, drug dead heads, the mafia (which is kinda fun, but you only get one level), the corporation that has the Predator technology, a army of gun-carrying hookers and a group that kinda reminds you of Altair from Assassin's Creed which ironically has a leader named King Willy, yes a tie in from the second movie, even tried to reproduce the voice to no avail.

The camera angles and the control are absolutely horrendous. This is almost like a 3-D platforming game, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, problem is it's almost like a guessing game, since you have to hold down the jump button to get power to jump, to little and you miss the roof completely, too much and you can actually overshoot it and hit the street.

One more annoying feature is that the cloaking device is almost useless, sometimes even when you are cloaked sitting on a rooftop scanning for enemies, they can still spot you, plus if you sneak up on them and they turn, for some odd reason that can still sense your presence. It's almost like the cloaking device shouldn't even been in the game if they can still see if you are invisible or not. Plus, you have to have power to run all of these weapons, you can start out with a 100 points of energy, but once you use it up, it will refill by itself, but it only goes up to 20 points, problem is most of your favorite weapons require a lot more energy to be used.

There are upgrades scattered throughout the levels, but you spend so much time avoiding enemies and trying to complete the objectives you never have time to look. You can tap into power boxes and refill that way, but they are few and far between, and if you are battling a bunch of heavily-armed enemies and you have little power and no power stations nearby, you are basically dead.

The Bottom Line
Don't touch this game, but if you are huge fan of the Predator (like me) and you come across this game at a garage sale, don't go over $5.00, don't do a stupid mistake like me and fall for the rarity of this game and pay $30.00...that's right $30.00, just for a disc, no instruction booklet and a generic case and this is from a national videogame chain. If this game was a car, it would be a 1980 Trans-Am, it looks great, you love it from Smokey and The Bandit and it costs a lot, but before long you realize how much crap you have to put up with and before you know it, it's collecting dust and you're too proud or stubborn to realize you screwed up.