Aliens vs. Predator 2

The Races The Marine: As a marine, the arsenal you start with is pretty decent. Considering the fact that the human is the weakest of the 3 races, you're going to need all the help you can get. Besides the mostly useless knife and pistol, the M-41A Pulse Rifle rounds out the basic arsenal nicely. With the attached grenade launcher, the M-41A is hard to beat, although it did seem that grenades were far and few between. A fat clip also helps too, as each magazine holds 90 rounds. Weapon upgrades include the ever-popular shotgun, which is capable of 2 modes of fire, the M-240A1 Incinerator, which is probably the best weapon against slews of attacking Aliens, the target locking M-56 Smartgun (aiming not required), and the thick skin/heavy armor piercing M-90 Mini-Gun (why they call these things mini-guns is beyond me), which can hold 900 rounds. "What more could anyone ask for?" There are other weapons that the marine finds along the way, but I didn't find much use for them. Weapons such as the WY-102 Sniper Rifle and the M-92 Grenade Launcher never really seemed to be needed throughout the Marine missions. The marine is also outfitted with a few devices that prove highly useful. Items such as a shoulder lamp, image intensifier, hacking device, and welding torch all provided aid in several situations. And what marine would be caught dead without a trusty motion-tracker? Since the marine is the most handicapped in the ability to easily spot threats visually, the motion-tracker balances out the hunt. The Alien of course has no weapons to speak of, aside from what it's born with. But Alien claws and appetite for flesh is hardly anything to sneeze at. The Alien has the ability to rip a human to pieces in a single stroke, render a person helpless with a sting of it's tail, our totally obliterate most enemies by pouncing on them. Aliens also possess the ability to walk on walls and ceilings, although one should watch just where they attempt to do so, as some of the areas are electrified and will instantly kill. As an Alien, you are pretty limited on what you can do. As a face-hugger, your best bet is to avoid being spotted by trigger-happy humans until you can find a suitable (translated: sleeping and alone) host to begin the next phase of your life cycle. The second phase of the Aliens life is, without a doubt, the most frustrating portion of the game. As a newly hatched Chestburster, you pretty much can't do…well… much. You lose your ability to climb walls, your bark is greater than your bite, and humans seem to spot you easily from relatively long distances. About your only defense is to spring like Tigger on your tail and run (slither rather) as fast as you can! Seeking the cover of darkness helps too, at least until you can find a meal small enough to help you grow into a full-size drone. All 3 stages of the Aliens life cycle include the ability to sense pheromones from most enemies, making them easy to spot in even the darkest situations. The Predator: Of the 3 races, I would have to pick the Predator as my overall favorite. With the most interesting arsenal at his disposal, and the 4 different vision modes available, the Predator just reeks of fun. And to top it all off, Predator has the ability to become completely invisible, at least to humans. Cloaking won't help one bit when facing Aliens, but this is a small caveat. Each of the 4 vision modes has it's own advantage. The first is the default regular vision mode, which is just like seeing out of the eye of a human. Nothing special about it except that details are clear, given there is adequate lighting. The second vision mode, thermal mode, makes spotting humans much easier, although at the cost of losing overall level clarity. The third mode, Electromagnetic Spectrum mode, focuses on Aliens, and the fourth, Predtech mode, on other Predators. In addition to being able to easily spot a given target, you also gain the ability to auto-target threats, provided you are in the appropriate vision mode. Auto-targeting only works with two-weapons, the Shoulder Cannon and Disc. The vision modes are compliments of the Predator's mask, which also possesses the ability to zoom in on targets. Predator starts out with his trusty Wrist Blades and a Spear Gun. There is nothing more satisfying than finding a nice perch high up a tree, zooming in on the nearest marine, and popping off a shot from the spear gun directly at the targets head. A successful headshot not only decapitates the enemy, making it easier to locate and reuse the spear, but you also get a nice hearty, deep chuckle as the Predator relishes in yet another easy trophy. Weapon upgrades include the Combi-Stick, which is able to slice through even the toughest armors (ginsu knife free with Combi-Stick purchase in the next 60 minutes), the Remote Bomb for setting up booby-traps or taking out groups of enemies, the Shoulder Cannon, which shoots powerful homing energy bolts, the Netgun, no explanation needed, the Disc, which generally kills in one shot, but must be retrieved in order to use again, and finally the Plasma Pistol, with 2 modes of fire, concentrated fire and radius. The main drawback of the 2 auto-tracking weapons, as well as the Plasma Pistol, is that you cannot remain cloaked while using any of these weapons. Once you try to fire any one of these three weapons, you will become visible to all, that is if you were even cloaked to begin with, and the Plasma Pistol will actually cause you damage if you shoot it while you are cloaked. Ouch! Medic!!!: Each of the races has a different way of regaining lost health, and in the Predator's case, energy. The marine simply needs to locate first aid packs that are scattered throughout the missions in order to heal wounds, while the Alien just needs to fulfill a case of the munchies. The Alien can regain the most health from enemies by biting their heads of, whether the enemy is still alive or dead. The Predator has the most interesting form of first-aid of the three. Predator uses a device called the Medi-Comp, in which 2 "needles" (more like small daggers) are jabbed into his own body, completely restoring lost health. The downside of the Predator's method is the possibility of drawing attention to himself from the loud roar of pain resulting from his unorthodox approach to health. Both the Marine and Predator use energy as well for weapons and devices. The marine uses a battery to charge both the shoulder lamp and image-intensifier. Fortunately the battery self-charges rather quickly. Predator is much more energy reliant, as a few of his weapons will use it, as well as his cloaking device. Also, using the Medi-Comp drains about half of the Predator's full reserve of energy. In order to regain energy, which does not automatically recharge itself, Predator must use his Energy Sift device. The device is capable of completely refilling the power reserves, but unfortunately leaves Predator vulnerable to attack for several seconds. Not to mention that travel speed is greatly reduced while recharging.