Predator

The Good
Predator: Soon The Hunt Will Begin is a 2D platform game in which you play Major Dutch Schaefer, a commando who is searching for the creature responsible for killing his fellow teammates. The game is a lot different to the Predator games on other platforms, mainly because the game is divided into thirty stages, all of which you must complete before you actually destroy the Predator. You exit a stage by entering one of the caves. There are often two caves in a stage, and going to either one may take you to a much later stage.

Furthermore, the game is story-based, with cut-scenes, which explores further into the story. What I like about this game is the fact that you can actually use weapons to shoot guerrillas and creatures that obstruct your path. Rather than just punching (which is not good with creatures), you can use the machine gun, laser rifle, or just throw grenades at them. I found that the most effective one is the laser rifle, since not only you can destroy guerrillas with it, but rocks with it. The screen scrolls left as well as right, which I like because you are not restricted to the one direction all the time. Scrolling both ways is useful if you need a better weapon which can only be found in the one direction.

The game is divided into two mode: “jungle mode” and “big mode”. The “jungle” mode is what I described above. There are about six “big modes”, where you destroy blue and purple spheres that come toward you, some of them have weapons that will help you defeat the Predator if you manage to get a long distance. You have to defeat this Predator six times, but with each encounter, he uses a different attack. It is also this mode that Dutch looks bigger than he is in the jungle stages.

The graphics depict what environment you are in. In the first few stages, the game has you fighting in the jungle, and from then on, it's hot and icy areas. The hot areas mainly consist of crushed skulls everywhere you look. It makes the stage look gruesome.

The Bad
The clothes that Dutch wears is inconsistent with the movie. Sure, he wears the same green uniform in the movie and in the game's “big mode”. However, in “jungle mode”, his uniform is not green, but bright red. The stages are out of order. Instead of completing the stages sequentially (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), they are random no matter which of the caves that you enter.

The Bottom Line
Predator for the NES is very different to its other counterparts, as it consists of two modes, one in which you basically have to find a cave while you shoot enemies down using up to three weapons. Every couple or so stages, you have to find and destroy the Predator. You also destroy different colored spheres in an attempt to find any weapons that will help you destroy him quickly. Destroy the Predator six times to complete the game. The only difference is with the Predator encounters, the Predator uses a different attack pattern to the one that he uses previously. There are cut-scenes in the NES version, a feature not available for the game for different platforms.