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Amazon.com Product Description
Aliens vs Predator is an entirely new title for PC and high-definition consoles from acclaimed British developer Rebellion, the team behind the 1999 original PC gaming classic. Bringing the legendary war between two of science-fiction’s most popular characters to FPS fans, AvP delivers three outstanding single player campaigns and provides untold hours of unique 3-way multiplayer gaming. Experience distinctly new and thrilling first person gameplay as you survive, hunt and prey in the deadly jungles and swamps surrounding the damned colony of Freya’s Prospect.
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Too Bad about the Facehugger
Called me wierd, but I am a huge fan of both the ALIENS and PREDATOR series. So when I heard the XBOX 360 game of AvP was coming out, I preordered the Hunter Edition, with all the bells and whistles. I got my hands on it and, I have to admit, I have had better experienes with Video games.
The Hunter edition comes with a graphic novel, a patch, the game itself in a metal box, and a fist size replica of the facehugger.
The game campaign is rather short. I was able to complete the PREDATOR campaign in about 5 hours. This is not much of a deal killer as there is an online multiplayer content to extend playtime. Being the Predator is a bit fun and exceeding bloody.
The box additions are not much to write home about. The graphic novel isn't illustrated very well and a bit childish, even for a video game. The facehugger replica was broken, having been shoved into a small plastic box, most likely by the people packaging them. The patch is interesting to anyone familar with the ALIENS series only.
Taken as a whole, it came up short for the $100 I shelled out for this edition. I could have saved myself $40 by sticking withe the stand-alone edition and avoided the disappointment.
Fun, exciting, a thrill ride but with too many seatbelts.
Where to start on this game. Well I guess I will start from the beginning. When I heard AVP was being released on the modern consoles I was in immense excitement to say the least. I've been talking about it for years now, that they need to make an up to date game that would play from multiple aspects and contain campaigns based on race. Well they did exactly what I was talking about.
I pre-ordered my copy of AVP Hunter Edition after some difficulty finding a seller that offered international delivery. I was rather displeased that yet again a superior edition of a game was released in the United States but not in Canada. These "specific" country releases have been growing tiresome lately, especially with the recent Japan onry FFXIII bundle and all the Europe only packages they come up with. But that's another topic all together.
Anyways after playing the demo which is strictly a "free for all" online segment of the game that takes place in a single zone. I had run the round enough times to have tried every race equally and pinpoint both their advantages and disadvantages. When acquiring the actual game itself, I wasn't surprised to see that nothing had really changed. But here is what I thought.
The marine is a typical human with nothing extraordinary about him just like in any non-bionic oriented shooter. You have a small motion sensing device just like they had in Aliens (Alien pt. 2), and of course it makes a nice little beeping sound whenever something is coming close. When playing in most zones everything is dark and your range of visibility is very limited, you have a flashlight but in online mode that of course just gives your position away even more. Your only real defense against the xenomorph is your tracking device that will let you know if they are in the vicinity and how near to you they are, it of course does not give you any hint if they are above or below you. In fact one of the most suspenseful things about the marine is when something is moving close and then it just stops beeping once it's practically on top of you, you can just feel death coming as your heart beats faster. Your weaponry as a marine is limited but acceptable, however I did find the shooting to be very touchy and rather shaky, which makes multi-mode quite challenging. I'm not sure if my controller settings needed to be modified for the game or it just had a very very touchy aiming system. Either way, I wasn't a big fan of the marine, I found their disadvantages to be quite significant when you throw in that aiming problem.
The alien itself is a lot of fun and far less suspenseful since you more or less are the creepiest thing in the game. It is kind of the laid back, here's a bit of fun and relaxation, part of the game they give you. It's also a lot of fun online to stalk and hunt down your prey. They kill marines fairly easily and can do all right against predators but I suggest against a head on head fight. The darkness is your friend, take out the lights and be very quick with taking down your enemies. Especially since predators have a mode on their headset that make you shine out a nice bright green color to them, completely screwing you over. However this, minus the last sentence, is the hard part. The movement of the xenomorph is quick but somewhat hard to control. I liked the camera appeal as it kind of floats above the character (only for aliens), however sometimes it did get really confusing. Especially when climbing walls and going onto ceilings. A lot of times your camera will go nuts as you are trying to climb a wall or ceiling and more or less are having difficulty doing it. You will get very mixed up with which is up, down, or where the hell you are standing. It takes a lot of time to get used to this and get control of it, so don't get discouraged. They probably could have put a camera balance system in so the camera automatically adjusts for you (would've been nice!). Another big problem with wall climbing is sometimes it lets you, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you end up just flinging and spinning all over just to land back where you were. It's frustrating. The overall handling of the xenomorph is frustrating and could have used a bit more tweaking.
The predator is really the killing sport of the game, just like in the movies. It has an abundance of advantages if you know how to play it right. It's movement, just like the marines, is much better than the aliens. You of course get really cool weapons and a cloaking device. But the biggest advantage you have is your helmet see's in different modes. Night vision, thermal, and a couple others really put you ahead of the curve. Nothing can really hide from you. However you can only use one mode at a time, so for instance if you're using thermal to spot humans, you won't see aliens at all really. Likewise if you switch it around. Predators are a pain to kill, especially in online mode, you more or less have to catch them off guard; and you'll get very annoyed with them red laser'ing or shuriken'ing you with one shot.
Overall the game is a lot of fun. The campaigns are shorter than most shooters but their are three of them. So it kind of balances out in my opinion. The online multiplayer mode is tons of fun if you want to get away from your traditional CoD shooter. But I could see it being one of those games you play on occasion for something different or you play it for awhile and then move on. It's not going to have quite the "oomph" that Halo and other shooters have had on the community.
I would rate it 4 stars for fun, but 3 stars overall. The game itself accomplished everything it needed to in the sense that it is very lifelike to the way we know the story from the movies and comics. There are no lame add-on ideas thrown into the story to unbalance it or make it cheesy like we find in so many games taken from movies or stories. It's very practical and requires skill and practice in order to get by. However it could have stayed in the shop for a little bit longer and had some more tweaks done to it to make it better.
The Hunter Edition on the other hand had some major defects that dampen your overall excitement as soon as you open the box. For starters, I don't know who boxed or made these things; I'm assuming they contracted some crappy Chinese manufacturer. But for the money you pay you would expect quality. The badge stitching is amateur at best, letters are lopsided and not very well done, it doesn't look very professional at all. The "holographic" or whatever they want to call it is more like just a picture. It doesn't actually do anything no matter how you turn it, and mine was scratched from top to bottom. The casing for the game is nice, it's a steelcase appears structurally sound. But the star of the show, the facehugger, and probably your only reason for purchasing this edition was very disappointing. On top of being much smaller than images showed, it is packaged in such a small area that believe it or not, they broke the silicone structure of the tail. Whether from the cold or just bending it in a way it's not supposed to be bent, I opened it to find the tail in three pieces. A little bit of superglue and an hour of toying with it "fixed" it, it looks like crap but at least it's in one piece. I'm going to write amazon about this, as well as SEGA.
But back to the game itself, I would definitely say don't listen to all the critic sites that are out to find the most insignificant flaw. The game is worth the money, you'll want it on your shelf, you'll most likely even remember and speak highly about it after you're done with it. The Hunter Edition would be worth the additional funds if it was packed properly. But just don't walk in expecting it to be Mass Effect 2, be open minded and really take time to appreciate the game for it's own qualities. You'll have a lot more fun with it that way.
For fans only!
Don't listen to the other guy. The Comic packed in with the set is a nice little hardcover re-edition of a great classic AVP comic with new, better artwork. The patch and game case are very nice too. If you're not a real HUGE fan of AVP, don't get this or the game, it's not made for you. Only people who are die hard fans would need this.
The Hunter Edition is housed in collectible steel book packaging and contains the following: 
