EXTROPIA’S RETRO-GAMING: AVP
AVP or Aliens Versus Predator was a special game for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was released for the Atari Jaguar, a supposed 64bit games console (although there were doubts over whether this was truly a 64bit machine). This was a platform that had more than its fair share of bad titles, most of them just tired rip offs of staples like ‘Mortal Kombat’. But AVP stood out from the crowd by being a very good game. And this brings us to the second way in which it was special, because this was a great game based on a movie. Typically, games based on movies were awful.
Maybe what helped AVP was that it was not based on any real movie that existed at the time. One reason why official movie adaptations turned out bad so often was because they had to be rushed in order for their release to coincide with the film’s run in the cinema. But AVP the game was released long before any AVP movie made it onto the big screen. This gave its developer- Andrew Whitaker- the luxury of taking his time in crafting a quality product.
One look at the game and the first thing you will notice is that this was a Doom clone. This was actually a pretty smart move, because the classic Doom gameplay of making your way down corridors and into rooms, guns ready to shoot whatever nasty jumped out, lent itself to the atmosphere of the Aliens and Predator movies.
Although it looked like a Doom clone, it was best not to play it running and gunning. This was particularly true if you opted to play as a Colonial Marine. In that case it was advisable to treat the game like a survival horror and make your way cautiously along.
Of course, no AVP game would be complete if you did not have the option to play as those titular monsters. Here we find one of the main reasons why this game was so good, because playing as these different characters lent a lot of variety, as each had its own goals, strengths and weaknesses.
The game was not perfect. One of the main gripes I had with it was that the environments tended to look similar, so it was easy to get lost. Still, I suppose that rather lent itself to the tense atmosphere of the movies.
All in all, this was a good game, possibly even one of the best attempts at turning a movie into a videogame experience.
Thanks to Atari for the images.