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Macguide Issue 11
 AvP2 is played from a first person perspective, and you can choose to play as the Predator, the Human Marine or the Alien, with each choice giving a unique gameplay experience (if you forget about the original Alien Vs Predator game).
I will start with the Humans. Now the Human is really the whipping boy of the whole game - appropriate, as that is the role the Marines played in the various AvP movies. Basically you will be walking around in very dimly lit environments, the constant beeping of your motion sensor driving you more and more paranoid as you start shooting at shadows until suddenly hisss-woooshh! "Game over, man - game over." It's great fun, if you enjoy being terrified. Some will doubt me that computer games can be scary, but just give this a go and you will see. The Predator is a totally different experience. You are The Man (metaphorically). You have the tools, and nothing can stand your way. It is almost too easy to win the game with the Predator thanks to his high powdered weapons and cloaking ability, but really that is how it should be - the Predator is the ultimate hunting machine, and the game portrays him as such. Embrace your Alien self
The last race you can play is the Alien and, personally, I find this the most fun. While you may be relatively weak, you are the fastest race in the game, and when you combine this with the ability to run up walls and walk on the ceiling, you will be making kills in no time. These same two advantages can make the Alien very disorienting to play as well, but if you are a true Alien fan that won't matter. The best thing about the Alien is the ability to bite people's heads off÷ Oh yes, you can watch those poor defenceless civilians scream, and then munch off their heads. Charming, huh? Now for the bad stuff. It is basically unplayable out of the box, as it crashes 100 per cent of the time on the second Human mission, and you can't use the Alien night vision. So the first thing you have to do is download the patch (from www.versiontracker.com). Fine, but even then it is only semi-playable. You see, this game is what we on the Mac side of The Force like to call a 'bad port'. To put it bluntly, it runs like a dog, and I had to turn all the graphics options right down to get any sort of game play enjoyment out of it. In fact, iMac users beware! The box has a warning on it saying "not recommended for iMacs" - now I am not sure if that means the old iMacs, as they are well below the minimum spec, or iMacs in general - but you have been warned. All these technical problems are a great shame, though, because they spoil what is otherwise a great game, with what looks like fun (but also pretty unplayable) multiplayer action thrown in. Pros
Ô It's just like the movies!
Ô Biting people's heads off
Ô Three races to choose from
Ô It's scary! Cons:
Ô Unplayable out of the box
Ô High system requirements
Ô Runs like a dog
Ô Long load times © Parkside Media 2003
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