AvP 2010 - Demo is out, Wangland-Yutani Steam Group now active

SmokeStacks

I've been looking for a copy of AvP for a long time, because I have yet to play it, and I hear that it's awesome.



That dude in the back looks like he's sure having a good time.

Anyway, I come to you, PA, because I have just this very day gotten ahold of a copy of AvP Gold (well, a friend is bringing it over in a little bit), and I was wondering if there is anything I should know before playing.

Basically, I'm running XP so I'm not concerned about compatibility too much, but are there any patches I should track down? Mods that make the game better/cooler/scarier?

I'm thinking of going Marine first because I am in the mood to shoot some shit.

So let's discuss AvP while I wait for my friend to bring me his copy.

Edit: This has sort of turned into a thread on the new AvP game as well.

It should be out in February for the PC/PS3/360, and it's looking pretty good:



Look at those gibs! They look fantastic.

"AvP gibs look too fantastic" says Australian Ratings Board, game summarily denied classification.

Facepalm



Apparently Rebellion doesn't really want to release a special version for Australia where all of the blood is removed and the Aliens/Predators/Marines spend their time watching romantic comedies together instead of killing each other, so

Rebellion wrote:

We will not be releasing a sanitised or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices.

This is bittersweet, because it looks like gamers from Down Under will have to rely on us Freedom Loving Americans/Crumpet Loving Europeans to gift them Steam copies in exchange for kiwi furs or whatever they use for money down there, but at the same time, hopefully it will set a precedent that will eventually mean a higher ratings classification for videogames in Australia, which would mean less banned games. This is good, because it's pretty lame that an adult should not be able to make adult choices on what media he/she wants to purchase and enjoy.

UPDATE: - AvP in all of it's glory will be available in Australia after all, gg Aussies:

Unlucky wrote: »

Couscous in the video games sales thread wrote: »

http://kotaku.com/5429337/aliens-vs-predator-unbanned-in-australia

Knew something was up with that trailer rating this morning; Sega just let us know that Aliens vs Predator, a violent game which had previously been refused classification in Australia, has had that ruling overturned.

Sega Australia's general manager, Darren Macbeth, tells Kotaku "It is with great pleasure that we announce the success of our appeal. We are particularly proud that the game will be released in its original entirety, with no content altered or removed whatsoever. This is a big win for Australian gamers. We applaud the Classification Review Board on making a decision that clearly considers the context of the game, and is in line with the modern expectations of reasonable Australians".

The ruling means the game will now be classified MA15+, meaning only those aged 15 years over can purchase the game. It also means no cuts or edits will need to be made to the title in order for it be sold, which is lucky, since developers Rebellion had sworn that's something they weren't going to do.

YES!!!!!!

So, here we discuss Aliens, Predators, Colonial Marines, facehuggers, chestbursters, How much the AvP movies sucked, or how Resurrection never existed.

P.S. -

Katana-sr wrote:

[strike]Hi,

Here is the direct steam link to the avp demo for the poor folks in Germany and Australia, which can't download it normally:

steam://run/34200

If they browse to this link with internet explorer and steam installed it will install the demo regardless of country. Valve might ban their steam account for this, but it is very unlikely. Nevertheless, please include a warning in the OP.[/strike]

edit: This no longer works, and the demo has been removed from the Steam accounts of the people who used it.

Also, controller layouts:

Hiryu02 wrote: »

http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=28544.0

This needs to be in the OP. Answers quite a few questions.

Tanolen

Face hugging dudes was pretty fun.

Redlance

If you got the gold edition you should have everything you need. If you did not get the gold edition you should find the patch so you can save mid mission. I only remember one mod which was pretty neat but the whole group fell through and released what they had. I used to be part of a community that had a mod going called cancer black.

It was supposed to have a full single player story line and everything, but as what happens to most mod teams they had a falling out.What was done was Mp wise was released and their were some significant changes. The biggest ones I can think of is the predator gets a combi-stick and a sort of noise detector. Marines can be slower depending on what weapons they use and have to actually use the motion detector, staying as a squad was essential. They also have limited flares. All I remember about the aliens is you can start as a face hugger, but due to the way the game is you lose a point every time you hug someone since it counts as a suicide. If anything else it's worth a look, keep in mind it's been about 10 years since I last played it so it could be horrid. http://www.filefront.com/3756042/Cancer-Black-Mod/

Casually Hardcore

Wow....I remember this game looking a lot better...

Basticle

this was the first game I bought that required a 3d graphics card. I bought a whole new computer just to play it.

greeble

Yes play marines first. I remember it being really tense with the motion detector thing, not sure how it holds up now though.

Kitsuna

SmokeStacks wrote: »

Anyway, I come to you, PA, because I have just this very day gotten ahold of a copy of AvP Gold (well, a friend is bringing it over in a little bit), and I was wondering if there is anything I should know before playing.

When you play the Marine, you're going to die.

1) Watch out for running fans. They can suck you in and puree you.
2) Try not to let your motion detector freak you out - which is easier said than done.
3) Try to headshot Aliens. If you don't, then you're likely to get a bloodstained shirt... and that's not a good thing considering it'll be their blood.
4) In the later levels, if you see a red laser light scanning the area, be very, very afraid. And don't step in the line of sight of what's causing it until it goes out. Then use a well aimed headshot to deal with the cause. Failure to do this is likely going to result in your quick and painful death.
5) It's perfectly all right to laugh at the video briefings you get.

Anyway, enjoy one of the most frightening games in existence. Good luck, soldier... You'll need it.

Scotty

I didn't notice the 1999 part of the thread title right away, and thought this thread was about the new one.



When is THAT coming out again?

We wants it...the preciousss.




Still, having never played the older version, I bet it'd be a good way to hold myself over.:)

Mr_Grinch

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.

So yeah, it should be awesome.

Volucrisus Aedrius

AvP is still a pretty great game. Much better use of the motion tracker than in AvP2, partially because if I remember correctly all the Aliens spawned in the same nest area and then they use ducts and pathways unavailable to you to catch up to you, so it really felt like you were being constantly hunted instead of bumbling into the next scripted scare sequence.

Kitsuna

Volucrisus Aedrius wrote: »

AvP is still a pretty great game. Much better use of the motion tracker than in AvP2, partially because if I remember correctly all the Aliens spawned in the same nest area and then they use ducts and pathways unavailable to you to catch up to you, so it really felt like you were being constantly hunted instead of bumbling into the next scripted scare sequence.

Yep. In fact, I think there's only one scripted Alien encounter in the entire Marine campaign... and that's the very first Alien you encounter. As for the rest of them...

Watch the walls, man. Watch the walls.

Glal

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.
So yeah, it should be awesome.

More like the first than the second? Awesome.

SmokeStacks

Fucking Aliens, man

all running around and ruining my shit

"Oh, ok, I've got nearly full health, a decent amount of armor, and I've got ammo up the ass. I'm going to check out this hallwaHGUGHGHGGHGHGHGGHGH"

I love this game.

Kitsuna

SmokeStacks wrote: »

Fucking Aliens, man

all running around and ruining my shit

"Oh, ok, I've got nearly full health, a decent amount of armor, and I've got ammo up the ass. I'm going to check out this hallwaHGUGHGHGGHGHGHGGHGH"

I love this game.

Oh yes. We probably should have warned you the game really doesn't like it if you have nearly full health, a decent amount of armour and plenty of ammo. Should that happen, it tends to take steps to remedy that situation as you've found out.

Take heart. It gets easier the further you go.

That's actually a lie, but I wanted to try and make you feel more at ease in those dark cramped corridors where unspeakable monsters could be waiting around every corner.

warder808

The second one was fun. I barely played the first one.

Selorian

I used to really enjoy AVP. Online was great fun.

Accualt

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.

So yeah, it should be awesome.

Oh god, I am going to shit my pants with a look of terror on my face and a smile in my heart.
AvP is my favorite MP FPS and the most terrifying SP game I have ever played.

Kitsuna

Accualt wrote: »

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.

So yeah, it should be awesome.

Oh god, I am going to shit my pants with a look of terror on my face and a smile in my heart.
AvP is my favorite MP FPS and the most terrifying SP game I have ever played.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that in the new AvP game, if you're playing as the Marine, the Aliens will actively take out any lights they can around you in order to pitch you into darkness so that they can attack without making themselves easy targets.

Just so you know.

alset85

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.

So yeah, it should be awesome.

The only thing that could ruin this game for me would be slow moving aliens, like I've seen in those videos they've shown. Because fuck that shit!

Rubycat

They were much slower in AvP2, was a disappointment in some ways
-I mean the campaign in AvP for aliens was hectic high speed vertigo inducing insanity-

Drunk_caterpillar

I always wanted to buy this again for the Mac, but could never find a copy. Does anyone know where I could snag one?

UltimaGecko

There are, in fact, some potential hiccups to running AvP (or AvP Gold) on XP (or anything new). I'd link over to my LP, but strangely enough I never posted the information about getting the game to work in my LP, but in a slightly earlier thread talking about the Aliens: Colonial Marines game. So I'll leave that to my signature.

Getting the game to work:
If you have XP but are running on older hardware, you might actually get by with compatibility mode. Otherwise, you may encounter looping audio (bypassable if you're quick enough in the intro, but nevertheless annoying), screen tearing, ghosting, pixelation, interlacing or any number of things making the game unplayable graphically (and in some cases audibly). There are examples in my quoted post below if you need an example. So it is possible to get it working reasonably well.

Here is my afforementioned post:

I'm probably the only person trying to get my AvP to work, but if anyone else just happens to be trying I've got new and exciting (possibly) information. So here's my previous 'getting the game to run' post:

UltimaGecko wrote: »

It's essentially required that you select Windows 98/ME compatability mode (if you can't even install it, try exploring and doing this to SETUP.exe as well, although that shouldn't really be necessary).

This poorly designed website has dlls (to aid with videos and potential intro video skipping) as well as the AvP patch. The two DLLs go in the program folder (not the windows/system folder). If for some reason you still have looping audio: rename avp.exe to something else (like avpgold.exe), since XP apparently has a file named avp.exe and there's a slight conflict.

If you experience slowdown (especially audio-related slowdown) put the soundtrack CD in your drive, since it likes to read from it (and if you don't want the music just turn down the CD volume).

(also: thanks someone for pointing out the task manager's ability to set program cpu affinity...even if it didn't resolve the problem here)

Now, if you have a more modern video card (apparently DX10 compatible architecture), there's some graphical problems involved. From my vast websearches I found this (at the bottom of the page is the link to microsoft's page with the directx runtimes for a user-made patch (both files can be found here but I didn't want to throw random download links out here and make people suspicious).

So, instead of

We've got

which I don't think actually requires the updates to the binkw32 and smackw32 dlls. So, fan-made patch for new, modern hardware is awesome (or "teh win" if you will).

Since AvP was basically 'the game' I played from 1999-2001 (Half-Life? What's that?) - mostly lag-filled survival since 56k doesn't work too well with competitive gameplay, I tended to accrue useless information about how it worked.

A few game-defining spoilers over here (click them after you've played and want to know some mechanics of how it works or if you don't care).

As noted, the aliens are spawned inaccessibly and use pathfinding to locate the player. There are scripted aliens, but you'll find many more unscripted aliens. The first alien you meet is scripted. There are other clearly scripted aliens in Colony and (less noticeably) in Orbital.

Facehuggers, Praetorians, Predators, Predaliens, and Xenoborgs are scripted (if somewhat randomized because they often wander or have multiple interchangeable spawn positions).

There can only be 8 marines/aliens spawned at any one time (why they decided marines and aliens should share the same count I have no idea). What this means is that if you see 4 marines, there can only (at most) be 4 aliens running around). Predators have their own separate limit of 8. The only time you encounter marines and aliens together is as the predator (where it's fairly scripted to make sure they don't have much interaction) or in the marine and alien bonus levels.

Bots react dynamically when placed in a level. Despite the fact that a player will essentially never see 2 predators at once, the predators don't attack eachother).


Technologically, the game has a few defining charactersistics:
When rendered in directx, water is deformable (it has a wake with an actual height and ripples). The water's texture includes part of the special font used for the game (predator helmets and pulse rifle icons and such). Water is, however, incredibly rare (and the effect tended to kill framerates back in 1999). If memory serves, there's water on Derelict, Waterfall (not the waterfall), Colony, and the alien's version of Invasion.

The 'molten lead' in Fury 161 is a solid texture with a killing trigger zone above it.

The game had explosions conforming to level geometry (most notable and cool when you empty a grenade launcher loaded with proximity mines and then fire a SADAR at them). The explosion will travel down halls (a little, anyway) and turn corners and 'blow out').

Most of the lights were breakable in singleplayer and multiplayer (although things tended to be easier for the marine when there were no lights since the image intenstifier tends to work better than flares).

Mr_Grinch

alset85 wrote: »

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.

So yeah, it should be awesome.

The only thing that could ruin this game for me would be slow moving aliens, like I've seen in those videos they've shown. Because fuck that shit!

I can comment from PLAYING as an alien (didn't see anything of marines really) and you don't play slow, in fact the one thing I found the jarred me back to it being a video game, rather than being engrossing, was how twitchy and fast controlling the alien was.

I understand they can move fast, but when your view rotates THAT fast it made it feel like a video game. It's weird to explain but it didn't feel natural. Well, as natural as playing an acid-bleeding alien ever can be.

But that one complaint of mine aside, it did look and play pretty damn awesome. It'll be a purchase, that's for sure.

Zilla360

New multiplayer trailer:
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_aliens_vs_predator_multiplayer_trailer-8776_en.html

8 Marines Vs the predator? Yes. Sounds just like Hidden : Source.

CangoFett

Zilla360 wrote: »

New multiplayer trailer:
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_aliens_vs_predator_multiplayer_trailer-8776_en.html

8 Marines Vs the predator? Yes. Sounds just like Hidden : Source.

Only good, and with a non egomaniacal dev

METAzraeL

UltimaGecko wrote: »

snip

Ooh, cheers! I got AvP Gold from Goozex this summer, but when I tried to load up a marine game past the menu, the graphics would do terrible things. I will try these fixes you speak of.

It works! This is so awesome. I like how the first alien got me right as I was about to minimize the window and come here - it knew. Now I just need to put together a good playlist, probably a bit of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6ffNorwEG8

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Ngl2RY8sA

Adda

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I played the new one at Eurogamer recently. It was pretty much just the same as the old one with prettier graphics.

So yeah, it should be awesome.

Same here, can't wait for it.

Kipling217

The marine campaigne of the original AvP was awsome, because of the always spawning Aliens. Stand still and they will come to you! In AvP2 you knew that once you had killed an Alien in a certain area you where safe and if there wasn't an Alien there you just had to pass the ingame trigger to spawn it.

Like a big open space looking safe? in AvP2 you walked into it and the game spawned a Alien behind you in order to scare you. Kill it and you where safe. AvP? the game had already spawned an Alien and it was comming to get you. Kill it and another would be along in just a minute. No safe spot, no rest and no stoping the onslaught before the end of the level.

AvP2 had a better story though. even if half the Marine campagine was fighting other humans.

alset85

@UltimaGecko: WOOOOOOO thanks a bunch, that patch worked! At the next LAN party we're gonna rock the shit out of AvP 1 and that coop map with the bunker. Just like in the old days.

Commander 598

Kipling217 wrote: »

AvP2 had a better story though. even if half the Marine campagine was fighting other humans.

That's only because AvP1 didn't really have a story at all beyond "USCM Officer" telling you what to do to get out of the current map in the hopeless search for FREEDOM.

UltimaGecko

Nice to see my information has helped and the game's get some love a decade later.


As for the Super Secret Story:

Marine:
"Oh no, the new replacement colony we set up on LV-426 has been overrun with aliens and apparently we forgot to bring you with us during the evacuation. Oh well. On your way out could you visit some inexplicably reproduced scenes from Aliens and the blow up the colony for us? Thanks."

Then your dropship docks with Odobenus and the Predators are all, "That's the dude they left behind on that planet, let's dick him over." So they blow up the dropship you just came on and force you to use the ...apparently lone escape pod. Also, everyone is inexplicably evacuated right before your dropship arrives.

Then your pod lands you on Tyrargo and the commander's all "Yeah, looks like everywhere you go it's overrun with aliens - you're a walking disaster." So you fight your way through the ship and get to the hangar and reenact the end of Aliens with fewer power loaders and less Newt.


Alien:
"Get your ass to [strike]Mars[/strike] Earth."

(you can, in-fact, see it out some of the windows once you get to Gateway station)

Ferarco is also a reenactment of Alien with you as the alien. Unfortunately for the humans, they don't have a Ripley onboard.


Predator:
The marines have kidnapped your pal, go find out what happened to him; feel free to get some marine skull trophies on the way. Find out that they've got a secret base where they've been running all sorts of experiments and that they happen to have a laundry chute next to the place they stored your secret, hyper-advanced Predator spaceship.

Get butt-seksed up by aliens in Invasion. Kill your former-pal who was used as a facehugger love-mate and is now a predalien and blow up the base out of spite.

...Then go hunting randomly on the Fury 161 from Alien 3 and the go hunting again on some random marine base that has a queen.

Look at all that story. It's dripping with it....wait, that's just an overly slimy alien from Alien Resurrection - never mind.

zanmatto

Can AVP be bought on GOG or Steam?

akeso

Scotty wrote: »

I didn't notice the 1999 part of the thread title right away, and thought this thread was about the new one.



When is THAT coming out again?

We wants it...the preciousss.




Still, having never played the older version, I bet it'd be a good way to hold myself over.:)

Word on the street is February 2010, but for "sure" Q1 2010

It's also supposedly the first game designed with DirectX 11 features in mind.

Detharin

Just want to toss in my love for the constant spawns of aliens in AVP. You had to basically haul ass through the levels, because stopping to admire the scenery was a quick way to get yourself gutted.

akeso

Man, I should get a AVP thread going...

Rainfall

I think there's an AvP thread riiight here.

God, I spent so much time with AvP2. Light Predator, claws only, standard alien, any Marine with a pulse rifle.

Such a glorious game to play. Getting into a duel with an alien as a predator, battling it claw to claw, it just felt good. Alternatively, circle-strafing the alien queen with a combistick. Just a bit less epic.

I never could get into AvP gold, though. Something about it never clicked with me like AvP2. I am, however, tremendously excited for the sequel. It looks SO good.

MikeRyu

I was a big AVP2 online fan. So much time spent in there. I hope the new game has as much of a fun multiplayer as that was.

Rainfall

Well, every review I've read says that it's exactly like AvP but prettier. So that gives me hope that the multiplayer will be similar. I know that the Eurogamer multiplayer review certainly reminded me of when my friends first started playing AvP. 'Marines are way underpowered! Aliens are absurd!'

SmokeStacks

Searching for a copy of AVP 2 has been fruitless.

Anybody know where a guy might get ahold of one?

METAzraeL

Woo, beat the first level! Then a door crushed me a bit trying to get off the lift, and shortly after the game crashed.

Local H Jay

i really like the looks of the new one, ready to try that VS out