Rebellion Development’s highly anticipated FPS Aliens vs Predator is almost upon us. And I, like many FPS fans, can’t wait for the release. Ever since I watched that ultra-gory “kill-moves” trailer, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the moment where I get to strap on a pair of Predator wrist blades, and stick them deep into the eye sockets of an unsuspecting US marine. Yes, Classification Board, you heard me: eye sockets.

But to do this, I still need to wait two weeks. Two whole weeks. And in this season of summer television, that’s a tediously epic wait. So what can an Alien and/or Predator tragic do to pass the time? Well, one possible solution is to go and hire the original AvP movies, but, as anyone who has ever watched these sci-fi stinkers knows, this is a pretty atrocious idea. The only other option is to track down the original Aliens vs Predator game, released in 1999, and see if it still features enough face huggers and flamethrowers to satisfy those growing AvP urges.

Clearly, I wasn’t the only with this idea, because Steam recently re-released the original game for the bargain basement price of US$4.99. I almost bought this edition too, before I realised that, as a writer for “retro roadtest”, I should probably dust off my old AvP “windows 98 compatible” disc, and see if I could get the game working the old-fashioned way.


The good news is that a group of uber AvP nerds have literally spent the past few years getting the classic game to function on most modern systems. With their handy patch, I got the game working almost flawlessly. I say almost because the save feature didn’t work. However, since all I really wanted to do was mount a Predator shoulder cannon and blow marines into a mess of tiny giblets, the save feature was of secondary importance anyway.

Playing AvP today isn’t exactly a pretty experience. I’m not sure how well the game’s graphics were received in 1999, but by today’s standards, the visuals are downright ugly. True, the AvP world is supposed to be bleak and foreboding – even depressing – but Rebellion went a little overboard in this regard. Every texture in the game is a mixture of grey-brown, or, on rare occasions, brown-grey, and, every level - whether it’s a “research lab” or a “space ship” or an “alien base” – looks almost identical.

That said, there are still some standout visual features. The lighting effects are impressive, and create an eerie, uncomfortable vibe. The animations of the character models – particularly the rapid movements of the aliens – are also highly believable. Indeed, while the graphics have aged considerably, the game still retains the original, spine-chilling atmosphere that made it so popular a decade ago.

Indeed, I’m slightly embarrassed to say AvP made me jump off my seat on more than one occasion. Normally this occurred when I was trudging down a pitch black corridor, night vision activated, and a nasty alien dropped from an air vent above me. I like to think of myself as quite a hardened gamer, impervious to cheap scares, so the fact that AvP, more than a decade after its release, made me squeal like a girl, and then forced me to check under my bed before I went to sleep – well, that’s quite an achievement.


As with all AvP games, the standout feature of the title remains the fact that you get to control a number of wildly diverse and brutal creatures. As an alien, you get to crawl on roofs and sense human beings through walls; as a predator, you have access to three, count ‘em, three different types of vision (heat-seek, infra-red, and night vision); and as a marine, well, you get to run away a lot. Such variety leads one to believe that AvP would still be a blast in multiplayer, so let’s hope Steam patches its re-release soon (Ed – this feature was patched recently after the review was written. Let us know in the comments if it actually works)

As it stands right now, as a single-player only affair, the game probably doesn’t provide much more than a trip down memory-lane for hardened FPS buffs. The plot is laughable (complete with Z-grade actors who perform with even more macho bravado than Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original Predator) and the AI, graphics, and puzzles can be disappointing. Still, for a game that costs less than a sandwich – and as a stop gap until the real deal gets released next month – it should provide enough alien-exploding action to keep AvP fans happy.