Aliens versus Predator 2

Aliens versus Predator 2 is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sierra On-Line for Microsoft Windows in 2001, and for Mac OS X in 2003. The game is a sequel to Aliens versus Predator (1999); both games are based on the characters of the Alien and Predator media franchises as well as the Alien vs. Predator crossover series. It is set on the fictional planet LV-1201.

The game is played from a first-person perspective. In the single-player mode, players control one of three characters, each with their own abilities and individual story modes. An online multiplayer mode, which allows players to play as one of four teams in competitive modes, is no longer officially supported and requires a community developed patch to enable multiplayer.

An expansion pack titled Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt was released in 2002. A "Gold Edition" of Aliens versus Predator 2 followed, combining both the original game and the expansion pack into a single package. There was never an Aliens versus Predator 3 nor any plans for a sequel, but in 2010 Rebellion Developments made a reboot simply titled Aliens vs Predator.

Gameplay
Like its predecessor, Aliens versus Predator 2 allows the player to choose one of three characters: an Alien, Predator, or human Colonial Marine. Each character has different objectives, abilities and weapons at their disposal. The single-player campaigns present the player with conventional series of levels that are designed around the abilities of each character.

As the Colonial Marine, the player uses a number of weapons to combat Aliens and Predators. The Marine wears armor for protection, and uses an image intensifier, flashlight, and flares to improve visibility in dark areas.

When playing as the Predator, the player uses a variety of weapons from the Predator films such as wrist blades, a throwing disc, and shoulder-mounted energy weapons. The Predator is more durable than the human or the Alien and can survive falls from greater heights than the human. It can use a cloaking device to become invisible and several different modes of vision to help in the detection of enemies, including infrared vision and a mode sensitive to electrical systems. Unlike in the previous game, the Predator in Aliens versus Predator 2 recharges its energy supply using a personal item.

As an Alien the player can explore most of the game's environments freely, even climbing across walls and ceilings. However, the Alien has no weapons and must use its claws, tail, and jaws to attack enemies. The player can also use a form of echolocation in dark areas and can detect pheromones to discern human or Predator enemies. The Alien can drop from any height without injury and is the fastest of the three player characters.

Multiplayer
Aliens versus Predator 2 has several multiplayer modes which can be played through an internet or Local Area Network connection. In each game the player chooses one of four teams to play as: The Aliens, Predators, Marines, or corporate mercenaries (called "Iron Bears" in the game's storyline). Each team has unique abilities, advantages, and disadvantages. The Aliens are able to scale walls and ceilings and the Predators can become invisible, while the two human teams have a large array of heavy weapons as well as motion trackers.

There are six different multiplayer "modes" played on a number of "maps". "Deathmatch" mode is a free-for-all match in which the player's goal is to accumulate the highest number of kills. "Team Deathmatch" has the same goal except that the player is teamed with other players of the same species (or faction, in the case of the Colonial Marines and the Corporate Mercenaries). In "Hunt" there are two teams, one designated as the "hunter" and the other as the "prey"; the hunters accumulate points by killing the prey, while the prey can themselves become hunters by killing members of the hunter team. "Survivor" mode designates all players as "defenders" at the start; if a player is killed they become a "mutant" and can then earn points by killing defenders. Defenders gain points by staying alive without becoming mutants. "Overrun" is a timed match between two teams that is similar to "Survivor" except that each player has a finite number of lives; at the end of the round points are awarded based on the number of surviving members on each team. "Evacuation" is another two-team match with a finite number of lives, in which one team is designated as the "attackers" and the other as "defenders". The attacking team wins by killing all of the defenders, while the defending team wins by locating the map's evacuation point and having at least one member survive within it for ten seconds.

In November 2008, Sierra Entertainment shut down the master server browser for the game.

Setting
The story of Aliens versus Predator 2 largely takes place in the year 2231, approximately fifty-two years following the events of both Aliens and Alien 3. The player can make use of computer terminals and log entries scattered throughout various levels to acquire detailed story information. According to the information presented in these logs, shortly after Ellen Ripley’s death at Fiorina "Fury" 161, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation returned to the derelict spacecraft on LV-426 where Xenomorph XX121 was first encountered in Alien. Following the flight telemetry from the ship, the company discovered LV-1201, an arboreal world with ruins of the Engineer civilization infested with Xenomorphs.

After numerous failed attempts, Weyland-Yutani successfully established a long-term research facility to study LV-1201, the ruins and the Xenomorphs. The facility is headed by Dr. Eisenberg, a shady Weyland-Yutani official, and consists of a Primary Operations Complex and a network of five Forward Observation Pods suspended over a canyon. A garrison of corporate mercenaries known as the Iron Bears, led by the mercenary general Vassili Rykov, provides security.

It is later established in the expansion pack Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt that LV-1201 was also once the location of a Predator hunting ground, where the Predators hunt Xenomorphs for sport. In Primal Hunt, a lone Predator survivor from a previous botched hunt unwittingly caused a Xenomorph outbreak in Pod 5 while trying to alert other members of its kind to its location. The Iron Bears were forced to destroy Pod 5, while a lone Predator ship intercepted the call. The earliest point in the main game picks up about five weeks after this catastrophe occurred.

Plot
Unlike the preceding game, in which the storylines of the three player characters are independent and do not affect one another, the three story lines in Aliens versus Predator 2 intersect each other. The events of each storyline trigger events in the others.

Marine
In January 2231, on board the USS Verloc, the ship is carrying a small contingent of the U.S.C.M (United States Colonial Marines) to planet LV-1201. The Primary Operations Complex (POC), one of the main Weyland-Yutani facilities on the LV-1201, is missing contact with the rest of the pods for the last 6 weeks, and the Marines are to rescue survivors and secure the facility until the larger USCM 6th Battalion arrives.

Two dropships are deployed to the Primary Operations Complex (POC), but they are separated by hurricane winds and one is damaged, and they are forced to take a passage route to one of the abandoned landing beacons far away from the POC. It falls to Harrison to restore power and activate the landing beacon. When he tries to restore the local security grid, he awakens the Xenomorphs that had lain dormant following their conquest of the POC. Most of the Marines are able to evacuate, but Sgt. Hall is captured by the Aliens. Harrison tracks her to a part of the POC which has been converted to a Hive, but he finds that Hall has been impregnated with a Chestburster. She dies as Harrison finds her, and Harrison shoots her in the chest to prevent the Chestburster from coming out.

The Marines then attempt to reach the Pods via the tunnel network connecting them to the POC. Harrison is sent ahead to deactivate tunnel security so the Marines' APCs can proceed through. In the process, he accidentally cuts the security to the Pods themselves, which causes another breakout in which some of the Iron Bears are killed, but the team manages to go through the tunnels and arrive at the Pods.

When the Marines reach the Pods, both Eisenberg and Rykov inform them of the security breach while claiming that three archaeological teams have been stranded within a nearby Hive. Major McCain volunteers to rescue the teams in the POC, but the "rescue mission" is actually part of an elaborate plot by both Rykov and Eisenberg to kill the Marines themselves. After some convincing, McCain also manages to convince Rykov to allow Harrison inside the Pod to download the communication system data for the Verloc so they would be allowed to establish a communication link with the POC and the Verloc, which would allow the Marines to collect intel about the POC and to be informed about the station's condition.

As Harrison tries to establish a communication link with the POC and the Verloc, he receives an anonymous message that the archaeological teams are already dead and that his former Marines are led to their deaths, but the message is cut out before he could hear the rest. Major Dunya arrives to the scene, informing him that they need him in another facility, but then knocks him out and throws him in a prison cell within the Pods, used to hold convict laborers. Soon, Major McCain is told that Harrison was killed in a confrontation with an escaped convict. Harrison escapes, and, during his flight, he kills an escaped Predalien while unknowingly releases a captive Predator (who is none other than the main Predator character). Later, Harrison is contacted by a mysterious person. This person instructs him to pick up a data disk hidden in one of the labs in exchange for help returning to his team. He reluctantly complies.

As Harrison reaches the Pod's lowest levels, he sees the Predator he'd freed escape rather dramatically, slaughtering the rest of the crew on the Pod to escape. Harrison picks up new gear and kills Rykov's right-hand man Ivan and two Iron Bears before taking out another mercenary in an Exosuit, a bipedal armored combat suit. He finally escapes the Pods and heads for the POC.

As Harrison returns to the POC to find White Team, who had been stationed behind, he learns that the mysterious person who contacted him is Tomiko, an assemblyman's daughter, as the voice scrambler became defective, who signed up for an internship on LV-1201 to find out what had happened to her brother, who she suspects was murdered on the Pod 5. The data disk contains records of all the illegal activities taking place on the planet, which Tomiko wants to present to her father in an attempt to hold Weyland-Yutani accountable for their crimes.

Harrison finds several members of White Team, but they are all killed by Xenomorphs and Predators before Harrison can activate the landing beacon for an incoming dropship. Harrison manages to kill a Predator himself before reaching the dropship. Tomiko transmits the coordinates of an old entry site to the Hive, and Harrison, now in his own Exosuit, proceeds after his fellow Marines whom Rykov has stranded. Along the way, he must clear an infestation from some ancient extraterrestrial technology. His Exosuit is damaged during a fall, and he must proceed the rest of the way on foot. He locates his team in a massive chamber where the fossilized remains of an Engineer reside. A Xenomorph Queen attacks the squad, but Harrison is able to repel the Queen so that he and the rest of the Marines can escape via dropship. The Queen tries to stop them, but the dropship bombards her with missiles, killing her.

As the dropship puts distance between itself and the Hive, Tomiko overloads the fusion reactors in the Pods, destroying them and killing herself to save the marines. When the Marines return to the Verloc, Major McCain recommends abandoning any further rescue or salvage attempts on LV-1201, as they depart back to Earth.

Predator
In November 2211, a lone Predator arrived on the planet Korari, and discovers an early Weyland-Yutani research camp placed there. He stalked the Marines stationed there, killing many of them and skinning them alive. The last Marine, Cpl. Vassili Rykov, tried to escape the camp, but the Predator shoots him with a plasma burst in the back, causing him to fall several stories below and to heavily damage his spine, paralyzing both his legs. However, Rykov survived his injuries, crawled back to the base pack, and was evacuated by the medical team and returned to Earth for medical treatment.

In December 2230, 19 years after the events, and about 6 days after the incident in the POC, the lone Predator, ranked an Elite, arrives on LV-1201 with two clan members for a 'hunt', but their ship is noticed by Rykov himself, who is now a mercenary general and private defense contractor of the Iron Bears, with his hatred for the Predators. After a quick human slaughter and a meeting with some of his other clan mates, who provide him with new weaponry, the Predator discovers his two clan mates have been captured by the Iron Bears. Pursuing the mercenaries into the Forward Observation Pods, the Predator eventually succumbs to experimental electro-magnetic pulse grenades which render his equipment useless and result in his capture.

Rykov places the Predator in a lab where it remains in stasis for over six weeks. It is revealed that this Predator is responsible for Rykov's injuries and his burning desire for revenge. Saved from being impregnated with a Xenomorph and inadvertently released by Corporal Harrison, the Predator, despite being infected with several human diseases, powers through a horde of humans, reclaims his equipment and sets off in pursuit of General Rykov.

After a dramatic escape aboard a dropship, the Predator fights through the Alien infested caves and tunnels beneath the pods and eventually manages to signal his clan using human technology to broadcast the signal to them. The Predator clan promptly arrive and re-arm the Predator, who then sets off to finish Rykov, as he realizes that he is the man who escaped from him over 19 years ago.

Following Rykov, now encased in an Exosuit, deep into the Xenomorph Hive, the Predator fights his way into the heart of the Hive for a climatic battle with General Rykov. Overcoming his enemy, the Predator rips through Rykov's body, and claims his spine as his trophy after 19 years of chase, and meeting with other clan mates, departing from LV-1201.

Alien
In February 2221, 10 years before the original Pod 5 Incident, the Forward Observation Pods were attacked by a horde of Xenomorphs due to a power failure, killing many of the Colonial Marines and scientists aboard. Only one, Dr. Eisenberg, managed to survive by hiding in one of the locked storage pods, going so far as to eat one of his scientists to survive the event, and was then rescued by the search team, although near dead and badly burned by the corrosive Alien acid blood. The Pods and the POC were re-established years later.

In November 2230, a day before the incident at the POC, Dr. Eisenberg is discussing some of the facility's problems with a Weyland-Yutani auditor. Those problems include the loss of Pod 5 weeks earlier, missing artifacts, and unauthorized research conducted by Eisenberg, while the oversight committee is getting worried about the illegal activities and the loss of the facility staff on Pod 5, as the company is worried about being able to cover-up the research on the LV-1201 any longer. Eisenberg will have none of it, and continues research.

Meanwhile, Major Dunya delivers a large container to Captain Richter, operator of the cargo vessel Aurora. He has apparently been smuggling artifacts stolen by the Iron Bears, but this crate is larger than normal. He attempts to scan it, but the container is shielded against scanning. Richter is called away to a meeting with Rykov by a security guard, Lloyd, shortly before liftoff. The crate is knocked over and opened when the ship is bumped during the refueling process, revealing the Egg within. The Egg opens and the player-controlled Facehugger emerges. The Facehugger leaves the ship through a series of umbilical ductworks and begins to track an irritable guard, Cisco, through the POC. When Cisco retires to his quarters for a nap, the Facehugger springs on him and infects him.

In due time, a player-controlled Chestburster hatches, killing Cisco, while the Facehugger hides under Cisco's desk and soon after dies hidden. It flees through an open window and proceeds through the POC until it finds nourishment—cats apparently kept for research purposes by the corporation. After feeding on the cats, the chestburster grows into a full Alien drone. When the guards find him, he goes berserk and murders them.

The Warrior fights its way through the POC, releasing other Xenomorphs being kept as test subjects along the way. It reaches the lower levels, finally encountering a Predator that had been stalking it, probably believing it would make a suitable challenge. It fatally wounds the Predator, which activates its Self-Destruct Device, thus blasting a hole into the POC's drainage system and allowing the Warrior to escape. Incidentally, the hole also allows thousands of Xenomorphs into the POC, thus causing the incident to which the Colonial Marines respond.

Six weeks later, the Warrior infiltrates the Pods during a brief security failure caused by Corporal Harrison. As the Xenomorphs attack the Pods, they kill Dimitri, Dunya's fiancée and a senior Iron Bear soldier. The Warrior takes the opportunity to wreak havoc, killing dozens of guards and scientists, releasing a Predalien, and finally liberating an entire artificial Hive within the Pod. Along the way, it kills the scientists who are about to impregnate another Predator (the Main character Predator) with a Chestburster.

Eisenberg has taken advantage of the Marines' arrival to initiate the Large Mass Specimen Extraction, a project to capture the Xenomorph Empress. As part of the plan, combat synthetics have wired explosive charges throughout the tunnels of the Hive. After leaving the Pods and armed with this information, the Warrior must disable these explosives as it tracks the Empress.

The Empress is successfully captured, but the Warrior pursues her captors, including Eisenberg himself. It tracks them through an archaeological site, killing numerous guards, civilians, and Iron Bears mercenaries, to a dropship landing pad. It kills two Predators and sabotages the pad's support machinery, causing the dropship to crash. Furious, Eisenberg attacks the Warrior directly. When the alien incapacitates him, the game ends.

A cutscene reveals that Eisenberg (in his current incarnation) is an android, and he has been cocooned within the Empress' chamber. His limbs have been removed and his screams echo through the Hive, as a Queen and the Warrior gloat.

In a final cutscene, the USS Verloc is seen departing LV-1201 with the surviving Colonial Marines and Harrison. As it heads into deep space, the Predators can be seen stalking the ship in their own sleek battleship, chasing their next 'hunt' after Earth.

Reception
The game received "favorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Aliens vs. Predator 2 for its 2001 "Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year" and "Online Game Play of the Year" awards. However, it lost in both categories to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Similarly, the editors of Computer Games Magazine nominated Aliens versus Predator 2 as the best action game of 2001, but ultimately gave the award to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis.

Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt
An expansion pack to Aliens versus Predator 2, titled Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt, was developed by Third Law Interactive, published by Sierra Entertainment and distributed by Fox Interactive. It was also included in the "Gold Edition" of Aliens versus Predator 2 released the same year, which bundled the original game and the expansion pack into a single package. Primal Hunt adds new weapons and multiplayer maps to the original game, as well as a single-player campaign which serves as a prequel to the storyline of Aliens versus Predator 2.

Gameplay
The player is once again able to play as either a human, Predator, or Alien character, each with its own campaign and abilities. The plot lines of the three characters intersect and set up the events of the original game.

Plot
The events of Primal Hunt are set on LV-1201, the same setting as the main game, but take place in earlier time periods. The stories of the Alien and Predator characters begin five hundred years before the events of Aliens versus Predator 2 and continue in the year 2230, approximately six weeks before the events of the main game, which is also the time period of the human character's story. Primal Hunt revisits the Forward Observation Pods of the research facility and explains the destruction of Pod 5.

Marine/Mercenary
Major Dunya, a female member of the Weyland-Yutani private military contractor known as the "Iron Bears", is stationed on LV-1201. She is ordered by her superior officer, General Rykov, to retrieve an artifact from a location known as the "Zeta Site" which houses part of a Xenomorph hive as well as technology from an alien race (the race of the "space jockey" found by the Nostromo crew in Alien). The player battles xenomorphs through the Zeta Site, retrieves the artifact, and returns to find that Aliens have infiltrated Pod 5. A Predator steals the artifact and the player defends the cargo area from Aliens until the pod is evacuated. Rykov then destroys the pod's supports, sending it crashing into the valley floor below.

Predator
In the early 18th century (in Earth time), 500 years before the incident, a Predator spacecraft encounters the planet LV-1201 for the first time and the player Predator is sent there to hunt. The player battles numerous creatures before discovering that Xenomorphs also inhabit the planet. The player tracks the Aliens to their hive and activates an artifact which has the power to repel the Aliens. The game then shifts forward eight months, by which time the Predators have established a camp around the artifact. The player Predator descends into the hive in search of the Alien queen, but the artifact is deactivated and the camp is overrun by Aliens. While repairing a stasis field around a group of Alien eggs the Predator is attacked by a facehugger and the two are caught in the field and trapped in stasis for five hundred years.

The Predator awakens when Dunya deactivates the artifact, and the player tracks her to the research facility's Forward Observation Pods and breaks into Pod 5, inadvertently allowing the Aliens into the pod. The player retrieves the artifact and sends a signal to other Predators who are nine weeks away. The Predator is then killed by the Alien embryo bursting through his ribcage.

Predalien
The Predalien character's story also begins 500 years earlier. The player begins by controlling a facehugger, exploring the Alien hive and Predator camp in search of a host. The facehugger attacks the Predator, but both become trapped in the stasis field. The game then shifts forward five hundred years to the chestburster emerging from the Predator inside Pod 5. The creature is an Alien/Predator hybrid, called the "Predalien" in the game, and the player controls it and searches for food until it grows into an adult. The player then battles human guards in search of the artifact, but is interrupted when Rykov destroys the pod's supports. The player must then battle several android guards in armored exosuits in order to escape the pod with other Aliens before it falls into the valley below.

Reception
The expansion pack received more mixed reviews than the original AvP2 according to Metacritic. GameSpot cited it as "being boring," "repetitive," and "giving no sense of direction as the face-hugger." However, IGN gave the expansion a more positive review, stating: "Unlike the original AvP 2, Primal Hunt is all about leading players through claustrophobic caves, canyons, and corridors, and then spawning no-gooders from behind."