Hmmm... I seem to remember the PC version of AVP and AVP Gold Edition letting you play as any of the three. I actually preferred AVP 1s version of the alien controls, they were faster, and you had to be crazy agressive, and sneaky as the bugs to do any good since they had very little health. In the 2nd one which you seem to hold in such high regard gimped the controls, and made it too easy to play as the bugs. The predators in the first one were also very distinct, they were faster and more heavily armored than the humans, but they made a HUGE motion signature on the Humans motion detectors, and if they were in a special vision mode they might completely miss a target right in front of their face. Just saying that the best AVP game was the one shown in the picture not AVP2.

I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Splitter, AvP was absolutely fantastic and really left me with no "well if they only..." moments. Not only did I beat the entire game on Director's Cut mode, I think they captured the foreboding feeling of Aliens better with it.

Plus, multi was just tons of fun. The different classes, plus you could do survival with a buddy against waves and waves of monsters. A fabulous time.

I actually agree. All three of AVP2's single-player campaigns were good. I didn't play the MP quite as extensively, but the original AVP felt a little dreary, I couldn't get past the first few levels.

I don't mean to slight the work Rebellion did in the first game, which was certainly impressive. But in terms of "defining an entire generation of multiplayer gaming", as the press release claims, I feel that Monolith did a much better job of creating a well-balanced, generous, and long-lived multiplayer game. They improved on AvP1 in every way and really nailed that Starcraft feeling of different-but-equal.

I'm not saying that AVP2 is bad, but can you really compare it to Starcraft when it's never been copied or duplicated? I mean, TONS of RTS's use Starcraft basic Terran/Zerg/Protoss mechanics. AVP2 didn't seem to have that kind of influence.

I think Counter-Strike/Half-Life was the Starcraft of shooters, personally.

I'm weighing in with the AVP1 people. It's 3 to 2! WE WIN! HOORAY!

I think what Tom was going for with the Starcraft comparison was not popularity. Rather, Starcraft beautifully created 3 races that were very distinct, very different, yet wonderfully balanced. As each side was so differnt, you had to change strategy completely depending on the race you were playing.

I think AVP did a very nice job as well. It was a very different game depending on which character you played, yet any choice was viable and no one class/character was gimped or unplayable.

I'm still not entirely sure what you're trying to say Tom. Did you try AvP 1's multiplayer and think it was lacking? That it wasn't as well balanced as AvP 2's multiplayer? You do realize that AvP 1's multiplayer also featured all three completely different races, right? That the sequel was more refined in multiplayer should be expected, but it was AvP that first pioneered the idea, right? And it even came out before Starcraft, I believe, or close enough.

What was fascinating to me in multiplayer in both AvP1 and 2 is that the fear from single player actually carried over to multiplayer. There was something that truly connected with the animal brain when the motion detector registered someone closeby and you saw an alien crawling on the wall towards you. So awesome.

Did AvP1 multiplayer have Hunt and Survivor modes? Those two mp modes in AvP2 were what really made the game for me, allowing for a really nice ebb and flow in LAN matches and forcing me to learn all three races and not just sit back and be happy with a warm gun.

Playing a facehugger turned out to be exceptionally gratifying, mainly because of the screams from the team of guys playing as Marines in the dark other room. This game really brought out what makes playing on a LAN so special.

I also seem to remember AvP2 doing much to level the playing field in our LAN games, although it's been awhile. There were a couple of times one guy who knew the maps could dominate as a Predator. All he had to do was find that disc thingy and camp out. But other than that the multi was balanced nicely; the next round you had a crack at being the race that just pwned you.

I think I finally need to work my way through AvP2 single player. Unfortunately this may entail getting a new computer. Damn you Tom.

It's possible I'm not giving AvP1 as much credit as it deserves, but I distinctly recall how much more refined AvP2 was as a multiplayer game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the multiplayer in AvP1 just the three races lumped together in deathmatchy type situations? If not, it's possible I'm just not remembering it very well and I'd be happy to amend my comments.

But I remember that it was AvP2 that really tuned the weapons, the abilities, and the gameplay modes. Stuff like the facehugger and queen, the dynamics of the motion sensor, the interaction of wall crawling and map design, the survivor and hunt modes, and the carefully weighted interaction of firepower (Marines), speed (Aliens), and stealth (Predators) were all unique to AvP2.

As Bluedev points out, the Starcraft comparison has to do with how well it built multiplayer gameplay around asymmetry. Before AvP2, I don't recall many (any?) shooters doing that so well. Teamfortress had certainly gone there, but I feel AvP2 did it with a perfect storm of game design, licensing, and awesome visuals and level design.

But those of you who remember the multiplayer in AvP1, please weigh in if I've got it wrong. I don't want to not give Rebellion their due if I'm overlooking something.

As for game modes, AVP1 had just two. Full deathmatch and team deathmatch. And you even had to play them on mplayer, yech! Still, you're definitely not giving it its full credit for the team balance, weapons or level design. Levels were definitely put together in such a way as to give aliens lots of places to pop out from, or tunnels through which they could zip from one corridor to the next without being exposed. They could definitely wall crawl. The CM weapons were great, with a lot of visual and aural punch. And the Predators had a full compliment of abilities, from the healing to the spear (AvP had wall-mounted decaps long before Fallout 3!) to the disc, though most games turned the disc off. Too damn powerful.

You should definitely give their graphics engine more love, too. It was brand new, they pretty much did it themselves, had morphing explosions and may very well have been one of the first games with shadows and dynamic lighting. I loved the fact that as the alien you could run around and break lights in a hall, so any marine wandering along beneath you was gonna be tooooooast.

The single player was great, too. Though it was balls hard. And each of them was different, too. All three were slower, measured FPS experiences, but the marine was the most traditional. Playing the predator was very nearly a stealth game. You had to measure the use of your invisibility, your use of your weapons. Spears could be used and keep you invisible, but you had a finite number of them. That sorta thing. Finally, the alien was pretty stealthy, but the fact that the game's autocannons could absolutely destroy you in a fraction of a second basically made the game more of a puzzle. Think of it as the original Portal! But without Portals! And you eat peoples' heads!

What did AVP2 have? Facehugging mode. Pfft. Gimmick. And frankly, I donno if that Lithtech engine was all that, my friend.

Edit: Goddam, but your captcha seems to fail on me like a quarter of the time.

Avp 1 was the most amazing lan party game

Avp 2 might have been the more polished version but it was in no way genre defining

can anyone tell me if you were able to play as a facehugger and baby alien in AvP, or if that feature was not implemented until AvP2