Alien vs Predator discussion
NeoSniper
Join Date: 2005-06-02 Member: 52976Members
Join Date: 2005-06-02 Member: 52976Members
<div class="IPBDescription">reply to recent tweet.</div>From <a href="http://twitter.com/ns2" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/ns2</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We're checking out the new Aliens vs. Predator. Some good, not-so-good. What do you guys think? #fb<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't played it, but it definitely looks close enough to NS2 to warrant a comparison and review. At least regarding the FPS stuff.
Is there a free demo out?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We're checking out the new Aliens vs. Predator. Some good, not-so-good. What do you guys think? #fb<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't played it, but it definitely looks close enough to NS2 to warrant a comparison and review. At least regarding the FPS stuff.
Is there a free demo out?
Comments
some stuff about the demo botherd me like when trying to connect to a game it takes forever. the deathmatch mode isn't as good as the other mods sounds like the co-op mode.
I love how the camera angle changes when aliens walk on walls and ceiling but I dont think such thing could fit in NS2 as that will make it harder to attack your targets as a skulk. If such thing might be considerd for NS2 I hope there will be an option to turn it on/off as u see fit.
I liked the marine side, it kinda gave me the feeling that I was playing NS2 as marine, I allso like how they handeld the flash light and the run cam it just felt right.
and yes the demo is free and u can get it now on steam
I have spent about five minutes with the game and was met with a thick, crusty layer of garbage. I grant there may be a layer of brilliance underneath, but I'm not willing to dig.
AVP Comments:
It feels really poor, no QC, and its all gimmick no substance.
The usability/interface is quite poor, it reeks of console menus with flashy backgrounds size 24-48 font and too few options. Matchmaking is a complete waste of time and the auto-talk "feature" is idiotic since it forces everyone with a microphone available to the windows mixer to be on and there is no way to turn it off. How could they miss this?
The graphics are fine, performance is nice, and in some ways that all works. The models and animations are particularly nice. The mouse actually works properly without any acceleration and no intermediary crap going on like other console ports, but there are some issues with refresh rate namely that it does not offer any options.
FOV is messed up as it is with so many games today. The FOV in old games for 4:3 was great, but then when widescreen came out the devs never bothered doing any work on it and just cropped to fit it... so now after people have complained the developers have just flipped the problems, making the widescreen fov the standard fov and forcing the 4:3 to use a much smaller one than should be used instead of giving widescreen a super wide fov and the 4:3 the regular fov. It is insane, they obviously avoided testing with 4:3 screens.
Concerning the game mechanics, it feels like a completely missed opportunity.
The alien moves around really nicely, I do like the effects and sounds when you engage the run mode (Q), but detest the wall climb, jumping, and combat. The wall climbing is a nightmare for doing anything in real-time as the fov is too narrow to actually see what is going on and with the smoothing animation that takes too long and the auto-aiming makes it is virtually impossible to do anything complicated properly. The jumping system is also annoying, you can jump to and from surfaces but you cannot leap. You can sometimes "transition" between walls but sometimes it is not necessary and does not work. Tail attack is lame, unlike in the old games where you coil the tail and then use another button to use it, its a single click and a long wait time to use it. Additionally, the tail is huge yet the range is not very far. Claw attacks are slow and it seems to be just a lot of button mashing.
The marine is annoying with the motion tracker and the fact that you have to run around to find items rather than select a load-out. He moves too slowly and like the other races it is like button mashing hoping to hit a target and disorient it.
The Predator is probably the worst implemented on the list. The cloak effect looks wrong (no, the predator does not look like a generic pixel shaded water surface), it is too easy to have it disengaged when using any of the weapons, and with these problems it makes cloak almost useless and thus the predator's style of play changes greatly. He moves too slowly with too little HP. The plasma cannon, which you have to find and pickup, offers the cool laser sight but to get it you have to engage it and when you lift the key it forces a fire. There is no way to aim and not give away your position. Additionally, you don't switch weapons... you hit a single key to use them. The jumping is also pretty messed up, having to hold one button while aiming to choose a pre-chosen area to jump to and then having to make the time consuming jump itself. Poorly implemented concept, it might work for single player, but for multiplayer coupled with the other issues it is a waste of time.
There is no time to enjoy kills because its a 1, 2, or 3 hit death. The insta-kill moves are so stupidly implemented it is just shocking. You run around someone or they turn their back to you when spinning around and you spam the use key to engage the insta-kill. You can try to counter it with button mashing, but you are basically toast. During this insta-kill, which happens too often to be special, the person making the kill is open to insta-kill since he is facing one direction. What happens here is that one set of animation will be piggy-backed by another, and even if you do the insta-kill to the first person, they don't die until their animation is complete. It is so badly executed, thought out, etc.. it is shocking that a supposedly AAA game would ship with it.
Aiming is especially sad in that there is virtually none of it. Almost everything is auto-aimed, and it seems to engage randomly. If you are the alien meleeing somebody sometimes it engages and you spin around following the person while you button mash. Same with the others. There is almost no need to aim save for setting your direction.
There is no crouch.
There is no normal "jumping" as it seems to always be checking if you are trying to jump to some other surface or something, it isn't real-time but it hitches.
To pickup items you to aim until you see the "PICK UP WITH THE E KEY" appears and then you have to hold it.
You dont switch to secondary weapons or items, there is a single key for it.
It feels completely wrong since there is so little control of what happens and so little ability to do better than random chance. Imagine a marine in NS that goes down with one bite, or a skulk that dies from one bullet...
BAD multiplayer, likely a sign of scripted and limited single player experience too.
Don't take this as a REALLY LOW BAR for ns2!!!!!! Consider it an opportunity to do vastly better than a AAA title.
just make a server browser and people join what they want, or see if everything is full and go doing something else rather than looking at the "searching for a game" label hoping it will be the next hour.
so my POV for aliens :
the sight switch when we climb a wall is awful for me, everytime it happens, i kinda lose my marks for 2sec, allowing a marine/pred to pwn me.
i love aliens model.
i love alien sounds (like when they run, jump hit^^)
Yes, there are no 1/2/3/4 etc... There is left mouse click (melee), right mouse click (heavy melee), and if you pick up a weapon or whatever as predator your hit alt key to use it. No aiming with it, no holding it, etc...
ive tried to play it 3 times....but the matchmaking wont let me.
had to watch my friends instead.....and from what i can tell....
if this is a demonstration of the final game...i dont want it...
its heavily consolified with the menus match making and wierd field of view designed for people sitting on a couch 3m away.......
-Horrible textures
-It feels like they reveresed antialiasing and made it more blocky than normally possible
-excessive motion blur
-terrible animations, terrible transitions when the aliens is moving along the walls, its really jumpy
-death match in a faction based game? terrible idea (the predator just owns everyone as you would expect)
-it feels like an old game with the J doom treatment to update the graphics
-its not satisfying to shoot
-boring level design
-doesnt seem to be any strategy or depth the gameplay
its on steam. BTW, its 1.2GB for 3 skins and 1 tiny map.
I have spent about five minutes with the game and was met with a thick, crusty layer of garbage. I grant there may be a layer of brilliance underneath, but I'm not willing to dig.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Kind of reductive to suggest that after five minutes you give up on it.
I found that the alien movement isn't very good, doesn't compare to either how ns1 or avp2 used to do the alien movement... some aspects are smoother but the whole clicking to change surface thing is clunky.
Also, the finishing moves idea is just wrong.
but I like the xp... anything that allows me to build towards something is a nice incentive.
The gameplay is simple but very smooth, and offers great tactical depth, more evident by the day as people learn to play the demo more subtly.
The graphics engine is not the most detailed, but isn't trying to be - it achieves what is important; lighting, blur and mist suitable for a game of stealth and observation skill under stress.
Aliens can hide in darkness, and blend in beautifully with hanging pipes and hive-masses on the walls - there's no artificial boost to this system, no invisibility - it just looks that good, they fade straight in. I frequently score Alien kills by simply sitting on the ceiling watching marines until one is isolated, then stabbing my tail through the back of his neck.
It's a lot of fun once you get into a server, it helps to have friends, but it's worth noting that the full game will have proper dedicated servers =)
lag sucks
matchmaking sucks
deathmatch sucks
things i like about the game:
very fancy looking graphics, has a nice feel in my opinion
i actually like the insta-kills. they are terrible when combined with lag because it's so unpredictable, same with all melee attacks. i keep getting hit from across the room. but when lag isn't so bad, it's fun, and the insta-kills add a lot to the intensity of the game when you can get into it. when i was strolling down the hallway and wasn't paying attention, then all of the sudden i had a predator lifting me up off my feet, i was quite surprised and it was cool
i've yet to play predator, but they seem fairly balanced from my experience. i never saw any game where predators dominated without an obvious showing of skill.
there seems to be a good atmosphere to the game. i really look forward to the single player, i think it'll be pretty sweet.
I wasn't expecting UWE to make a tweet enticing fanboyism when their motto is to "unite players". I'm kind of disappointed, not very professional.
I still have faith in NS2 though, but this was kind of low.
You may now call me a troll.
I wasn't expecting UWE to make a tweet enticing fanboyism when their motto is to "unite players". I'm kind of disappointed, not very professional.
I still have faith in NS2 though, but this was kind of low.
You may now call me a troll.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They unite players through play, not through avoiding discussions on forums.
On a side note, there's a ######load of europeans that are playing this game, and the matchmaking fail seems to always find a cozy spot in the middle of Bulgarians and Russians...
I believe you might have missed my point. I was talking about UWE's comment on AvP's demo being "<i>Some good, not-so-good</i>."
As someone that's studying to become a developer, I find it kind of weird to make public negative comments abut the competition, and entice your community to continue said attitude in your own forums.
It's not about avoiding a discussion, it is about starting one about a game made by someone else.
Now, I do understand that some concepts in both games are similar. If UWE's intention with all of this is to simply get feedback on what people liked and disliked about a similar game to apply such knowledge in their own game, then I apologize for my comment.
But if they are simply trying to bring the opposition down then that's kind on unprofessional I think.
That said, if they do want feedback based on the AvP demo, then please, make it so I actually get to spend more time playing the game than searching for a match!
As someone that's studying to become a developer, I find it kind of weird to make public negative comments abut the competition, and entice your community to continue said attitude in your own forums.
It's not about avoiding a discussion, it is about starting one about a game made by someone else.
Now, I do understand that some concepts in both games are similar. If UWE's intention with all of this is to simply get feedback on what people liked and disliked about a similar game to apply such knowledge in their own game, then I apologize for my comment.
But if they are simply trying to bring the opposition down then that's kind on unprofessional I think.
That said, if they do want feedback based on the AvP demo, then please, make it so I actually get to spend more time playing the game than searching for a match!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think its completely legitimate for them to say they want to hear the good things and the bad things we saw in the demo, I don't think you should read too far into it. They aren't saying rebellion is a mediocre studio who lucked out in getting back the AVP franchise after both years of unremarkable games and after Monolith really made the franchise into a solid hit for the pc ;)
If a few things are removed/added it will be perfect.
1-remove stupid stealth and finishing kills.. they don't have any place in a multiplayer game.
2-Make it so aliens can leap at any time.. would make closing the gap on rines/preds allot easier.
3-Remove the spread on the Pulse rifle.. just doesn't fit. (and do rines have flares? cus they need them)
If you take the time to get used to the controls and races the game is actually pretty fun.
I particularly enjoy getting the plasma caster as the pred and decimating all the aliens who don't know where the sprint button is.
While I appreciate and respect the fact they released a demo, I question why they aren't using their dedicated server support (in the full game) and why they're only allowing deathmatch which to me is one of the worst gamemodes in every FPS.
Either way it's a strong contender to NS2.
so if they saw something that didnt work so good do ya want them to lie and say its the greatest thing we have ever seen?
I myself didnt like some of the stuff in the game one BIG thing u can notice right away about PC version is this game is poory ported one big thing is autoaim... WTF?!
I dont wanna bash the game untill I see the final product but allthough I didnt like some stuff in the pc demo it still got some other stuff that I liked.
one major thing that botherd me is the controls especially for the aliens, why did they make it so damn hard for aliens to jump from one surface to another why didnt they just do it as NS dose it?
marine seems a little bit behind the aliens and predators, they are easier to kill.
many people are complaining about finishing moves, I myself like them but if they only where carfully done, like U have to sneak on an enamy without him seeing u to pull it off, instead what I saw is that when 2 players engage in a fight they use the mele attack while spamming E just incase to pull it off in the middle of the fight.
I think the other game modes like the co-op is gonna be much better I really dont know why they went with deathmatch for the demo, it is the most boring mod that game have.
If NS2 will be as good as NS1 was I think that UWE will win over the AVP fans out there. I hope they study this game and learn from it on what things that work and what dosnt.
anyway I was gonna buy this game just because it is as near as it gets to NS but after playing the demo I think Ill wait for the game to come out and read some reviews then ill decide.
if a game demo which is most definitley intended as a marketing tool can't demonstrate the fun aspect in the first 30 minutes then they have failed.
and up yours, i'm allowed to have an opinion.
I fully agree to everything CyberMantis mentioned. My biggest issue is the motion blur. While in general I love this effect, in a game where fast moving aliens crawl around your feet, it is simply stupid that the <u>smallest</u> movement of your mouse turns the the whole screen into some blurry noise. Judging from the demo, it's just a bad console port. I don't know why they released this. The overall reaction everywhere is just bad, and I guess they'll lose some preorders because of this.
Of course I find some joy in their misfortune, as NS2 will strongly profit from that. Just don't call your alpha a demo.
Releasing a demo without all the DX support and dedicated servers seems weird indeed. I wonder if they want to make an impact before the D3/SC2 hype really starts rolling.
<b>DEATH MATCH:</b>
If you love a game with
frantic, brutal chaos then Death Match in AVP multiplayer is for you.
It’s all about getting the most kills in the time limit set. Players
can also win the match by hitting the target score before anyone else.
<b>INFESTATION:</b>
For total over-whelming mayhem, nothing comes close to the tension and
potential for pant-wetting scenarios than INFESTATION. One player
starts the match as an Alien Hunter and their task is to kill the
Marine prey. When a Marine player is killed they will join the Alien
Hunter team and help to kill off any remaining Marines.
<b>MIXED SPECIES DEATH MATCH:</b>
just like Death Match, but with mixed species. Two teams, made up from
all three species fight to get the most kills in the set time limit or
to reach the target score before the other team.
<b>SURVIVOR:</b>
For the ultimate test of stamina, play Survivor Mode. Survivor allows
for up to four players to enter an arena to fight waves of
progressively stronger aliens. Each arena will be set up with two main
areas. One will be a platform which is relatively easy to defend; the
other will be an area where ambush by aliens is more likely. Supplies
of health and ammo will re-spawn in this second area.
<b>PREDATOR HUNT:</b>
If you’re after a more stealthy multiplayer game go for Predator Hunt.
In this mode one player is selected to become the Predator Hunter, the
rest of the players take the role of the Marine prey. The Hunter must
use the Predator’s stealth abilities and advanced equipment to pick off
the prey and score points. The Marines will need to defend themselves
from this threat and if possible, to kill the Hunter.
<b>SPECIES DEATH MATCH:</b>
Species Death Match pits a Marine team, Alien team and Predator team
against each other in a race to get the most kills within the set time
limit or to reach the target score before any of the other teams.
<b>DOMINATION:</b>
Take capture the flag to a whole new level with Domination. In
Domination two teams fight for ownership of Control Points around the
level. Owning a Control Point gives the team a small and steady, stream
of points. The more Control Points owned, the more that team scores. A
team will win when their score has reached 100 points.
(I just copied it)