Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

Paul finds it difficult to acquiesce

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The Alien versus Predator brand has always seemed a little redundant to me, two great movie franchises cobbled together for no real reason other than to settle the playground-style 'Who'd win a fight' argument. An entertaining enough idea to ponder over a pint or two granted, but surely not one worthy of the amount of time and attention devoted to the franchise over the last nineteen odd years. But still, a run of comics, a series of novels, numerous games and even a (dreadful) film and it's imminent sequel have at least proved there's clearly a market out there for the concept, which brings us almost neatly to the game of said movie sequel, AvP: Requiem.

Based very loosely around the setup of the film this PSP exclusive (surely that fact alone tells you something about the quality) focuses on a lone Predator left to clear up the mess left by a crashed ship. The aim is hunt down the escaped Aliens and find all the scattered parts of the ship before the human population twig what's going on and try to steal its technology for themselves.

What this boils down to is a series of levels where you take control of the aforementioned Predator, wander around killing aliens, picking up debris and avoiding humans. And that's it. Every now and then the monotony is broken up a little by needing to perform a task of some kind but since these never really become any more complicated than pressing a button to flick a switch or use a computer etc it's probably stretching things a little to call them puzzles.

The lack of mental challenge is increased when you realise that the in-game map handily shows the location of absolutely everything you'll need on each level. Anything from enemies to objectives to pickups are all there on display at the touch of a button meaning the whole game rapidly descends into running around consulting the map every few seconds as you go from one clearly signposted point of interest to the next.

Controlling your Predator from the third-person is easy enough and done using the analogue nub as you may expect. Access to your special abilities comes via the D pad and includes three pretty to look at but ultimately rather pointless vision modes intended to help with the spotting of Aliens, heat sources and missing ship parts. Unfortunately, along with the overly helpful map, these vision modes act as yet another way of having all the objectives unsubtly pointed out thus removing the need for any kind of real exploration. The Predator's trump card, invisibility, also makes an appearance and can be used to sneak past enemies undetected. Disappointingly while this works as described and comes in useful at times, the actual visual effect is more of a Predator shaped blurry mess than the cool shimmering transparency seen in the films.

The combat, surely a crucial part of any AvP game, turns out to be depressingly simple to the point where it becomes almost instantly boring. With the aid of the map and the vision modes it's rare you'll ever be surprised by an attack so using that advantage to take targets out at range becomes a simple exercise in locking on by pressing both shoulder buttons and taking them out. Should anything actually get too close the potentially intense excitement of face to face melee combat between the two species is soon ruined when you discover it only takes a few quick swipes of your claws to down your foes. Sure, you can get weapon upgrades, etc., by earning honour points but there's nothing there to get excited about especially since the game handles upgrades automatically, removing any kind of scope for personalisation in one fell swoop.

We all know PSP games often struggle with camera controls but AvP:R manages to be one of the worst yet, simply walking around requires almost continual manual adjustments via the shoulder buttons. This is 2007 people; at the very least we should be able to expect an attempt to get the camera to automatically follow the main character even if it does need a manual tweak now and then. This continual camera management becomes even more of a pain mid combat when you'd quite like to be able to spin around to face enemies without having to worry about adjusting the camera every couple of seconds so you can see who you're hitting.

The less said about the graphics the better, while they're never horrible to the point of embarrassing the graphics engine running things, as with every aspect of the game, never rises above the functional. Character models are okay but the world they inhabit is incredibly sterile and devoid of detail.

Away from the single player game there's a skirmish mode which aims to see how many kills you can notch up in a five minute game, as you can imagine it's just as dull as the main game. For anyone still hoping for value for money there's an ad-hoc multiplayer mode where you and a lucky friend can complete to see who gets bored first as you run around killing Aliens together.

AvP:R is an action game that fails spectacularly to doing anything exciting with a license built on the promise of exciting action. Instead it comes off feeling like a shell of a game waiting for someone to come along and add the ideas and fun. By leading you through the game by the nose, pointing out so obviously every little detail, you're left with a game so un-engaging it's almost scary. Apart from the camera there's nothing much actually broken about it, it's just that there's nothing to get your pulse racing in any way either. When the best thing that can be said about a game is that it succeeds in being thoroughly average you have to wonder what the point is. Much like a Predator, Requiem seems designed to blend into the background, even if you do end up playing it the chances of you remembering much about the experience afterwards is minimal.

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By Paul Newcombe