Alien vs Predator: Extinction is a real time strategy game that faces you off against the deadly alien and the cunning predator. Will you mine the planet LV-742 like you planned? Or will you become prey?
Overview
Alien vs Predator: Extinction Overview
Alien vs Predator: Extinction is a real time strategy game developed by Zono and Electronic Arts. Will you be able to mine the mineral rich planet LV-742 like you intended? or will you become prey to the deadly alien and the cunning hunter, the predator? The gameplay is simple and easy to pick up and provides hours of entertainment. Although the graphic are now out dated and there is no story to speak of this game still offers a good time for old and new players alike.
Alien vs Predator: Extinction Screenshots
Alien vs Predator: Extinction Featured Video
Full Review
Alien vs Predator: Extinction Review
The Alien and Predator franchises seemed to be destined to have an RTS game eventually. They’ve already got tons of other games, and with three distinct species, an RTS only seemed natural. That brings us toAlien vs. Predator: Extinction, an RTS game for the XBox and PS2. So, does the formula work? Read on.
The planet LV-742 is rich with minerals, and human miners flock to that planet in search of wealth. An outpost is attacked, and the Colonial Marines are dispatched to check out the situation. To the surprise of the Marines, they find the planet infested with ferocious Aliens. Hot on the trail of the Aliens is a clan of brave Predator Hunters. As the three species collide, all out war breaks out and a fight for survival begins.
The game didn’t do a particularly good job with the story. The backstory to the whole event can be read in the booklet that comes with the game, and aside from that, bits and pieces of the story are relayed through text before each mission. This certainly wasn’t the most interesting way to do it, but it was effective nonetheless. Although, it does begin to grow irritating that even after defeating the entire game, you still don’t get any sort of cinematic (aside from the opening). Not to say that cinematics are required, but a cinematic with some story explanations to wrap things up and some cool fight scenes would’ve been awesome to see and could’ve helped to make up for what the rest of the game lacked. Even worse than the lack of cinematics is the fact that you don’t get any sort of explanation after defeating a campaign. How did it end? How did your actions affect the other two species? You’ll never know. I can understand the fact that no cinemas were added to wrap things up, but not even having any text to explain what’s going on is inexcusable.
Although the game doesn’t excel with story, it does do a pretty good job at diversifying the gameplay. Each species plays so differently that it almost feels like three games in one.
There are no real bases in Alien vs. Predator: Extinction. Instead, you simply control a party of characters and run around slaughtering pretty much everything in your path. The closest to a base is wherever you place your sentry guns or where the Alien’s Queen is located. The ability to create full bases, or at least more options for makeshift bases, would’ve made things more interesting. It’s a little bit different than usual, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, Extinctionfocuses almost entirely on unit management and has less emphasis on base and resource management.
Each species has some advantages and disadvantages. While competing on the battlefield, each species gain experience points of sorts, which can be used to upgrade weapons and to purchase new units.
The Predators have pure strength. With their high tech weaponry and hunting skills, the predators are the strongest overall. The number of predators you can control is less than the Aliens, but it varies as you progress through the game. Predators are followed by a small Shrine, which can be used to purchase upgrades and call in reinforcements. Predators gain experience through slaying their prey, and additional experience from retrieving the skull.
The Aliens are fast, and they can destroy their foes with overwhelming numbers. While playing as Aliens you can have around 40 units, which is more than enough to overpower the enemy. The Aliens have an interesting lifecycle, and although it takes a while, it’s the most interesting of the three. The Queen lays eggs, which face huggers hatch out of. Your Aliens will need to run around gathering marines, predators and animals for your face huggers to infest. Once the face huggers have infected a victim, they’ll pop out and shortly after you’ll have an alien. The type of Alien produced depends on the host. Other Alien types, known as pure breeds, evolve directly from lesser aliens. Aliens gain points by killing foes, and the creation of more aliens uses up these points.
Last are the marines. The Marines have the advantage of range and can blow away the opposition from a distance. Playing as the marines requires a lot of balance and you’ll have to have a variety of soldiers in your party or you’re pretty much screwed. The Comm Tech is required to call in reinforcements from a drop ship, the medic is the only way your party can heal, Synthetics can see further than other units and are the only ones who can carry along sentry guns. You’ll need all of those units if you want to survive, and that’s not even mentioning the infantry units you’ll need if you want to stand a chance in a fight. Making matters more difficult is that you’re limited to 25 troops. The Marine campaign is easily the most difficult as balance is very important. Marines gain points by defeating enemies, and by repairing Atmos that they find on the battlefield.
As you get further into the game you’ll realize that it doesn’t have very good balancing. Although you start off by only being able to have around 13 Predators, you end up being able to have 40, which I found to be far too many. The Predators can lay waste to anything they come across without any trouble whatsoever. Not only do they have too many units, but since Predator reinforcements arrive right on the battlefield immediately, it makes losing a battle pretty much impossible. On the other hand, the Marine units are significantly weaker than the Predators, and not only do reinforcement take around 20 seconds to arrive, but they ship in at a landing bay, so it may take several minutes for them to join the battle. The Aliens are easier than the Marines, but not as overwhelmingly powerful as the Predators. The Marine’s only real advantage is their range, but the truth is that many of the Predator units have good range too (and are more powerful), and the Aliens can move fast enough to pounce on a marine before the range advantage makes any difference.
The missions are pretty straightforward tasks, such as ‘kill all marines’ or ‘ retrieve the skull of the Alien Queen.’ A small debriefing is given at the start of the mission, and from there on you’re off to start killing stuff. The maps are a bit too large for the game’s own good, and as a result, missions that should take 15 minutes end up taking an hour because you have to wander around forever (particularly for the marines, who move very slow in groups).
Regardless of the unbalanced gameplay, oversized maps, and other problems, Extinction does have some good stuff to offer. The game does an excellent job of capturing the feel of the Alien and Predator movies. Although playing as the Marines is frustrating, and at times dull, cautiously patrolling through the jungle with the beeps of approaching Aliens sounding on your radar can be pretty tense. Wandering into an old battleground to see tortured Marines hanging skinned alive from trees sent a chill up my spine, and gave me all sorts of flashbacks of the Predator movies. On top of that, the whole Alien campaign is lots of fun.
It’s well known that RTS games are just better on PC, right? Well, Extinction actually did a great job with the controls scheme. There’s a straightforward tutorial that will help you get the hang of the controls easily, and from there on you’re all set. You can set hot keys to select groups of characters, jump to specific locations with the simple press of a button, and use character abilities with ease. The controls work pretty well, and were a pleasant surprise.
If only the AI were as much of a surprise as the controls. Instead, the AI was just plain bad. I can’t believe how many units I lost because they were stupid and they just wandered off into the jungle on their own only to be butchered by aliens. Whenever a unit would run into an obstacle they would constantly turn around and run the opposite way. They’d also get stuck on walls and just continue running into the wall until you help them out. After a while, I just gave up on trying to keep track of my troops. If they were dumb enough to fall behind, I wanted them to die.
Graphically, Extinction is a mixed bag. Some of the worlds feature nice details that capture of essence of the game very well. Caves filled with Alien eggs and jungles complete with skinned Predator victims. Although the environments aren’t exactly amazing, they’re large and expansive and do a great job of bringing the player into the Alien vs. Predator world. The character models are greatly detailed when you look at the bestiary (which is a cool addition to the game), but once you get onto the battlefield, the units are often tough to tell apart. This makes managing your units extremely difficult when you get in a large battle. There’s a really cool opening cinema that left me greatly saddened that it was the only one. It looked really nice and featured some awesome events. Aside from that, each mission debriefing is joined by some nicely detailed artwork.
Sadly, Extinction doesn’t have too much to offer as far as replay goes. There’s no custom mode should you decide you just feel like having a quick battle with some Aliens, and even more disappointing, there’s no multiplayer. Online multiplayer would’ve been really cool, and could’ve added a lot of replay for fans of the game. Although, after playing through the game and seeing how poorly balanced it is, it’s probably better off that there was no multiplayer. You can always go through the game again on a different difficulty level, though, and each mission features optional objectives you can try for.
There isn’t a lot of music, but that’s probably a good thing. When each mission can last over an hour, you can get tired of listening to the same music over and over. The sound effects aren’t too bad, and the roar of a Predator as it removes a victim’s skull, or the blazing of gunfire as a party of Marines is ambushed by Aliens, is enough to get anyone’s attention.
Alien vs. Predator: Extinction is a game with a lot of problems, but it’s not often that you find a decent RTS on the consoles. Hard-core RTS fans might find something worthwhile, and fans of the Alien and Predator franchises might find it worth their attention. The Alien campaign is pretty fun, each species plays greatly different, and the controls work pretty well for a console RTS. I’d advise anyone thinking about buying this game to give it a rental first, though, because it’s not for everyone.
