Not to be confused with Alien vs. Predator from British developer Rebellion, this gaming sequel was created by Monolith Productions and published by Sierra On-Line in 2001.
Whatever you think about the AvP series you can’t disagree that the concept does work extremely well as a video game, and this first-person shooter arguably proves that.
Assuming the role of either Marine, Predator, or Alien, Aliens versus Predator 2 provides the player with three separate single-player campaigns (one for each faction), plus a healthy multiplayer game. Each campaign differs significantly in terms of weapons, environments, goals, and gameplay.
The Alien, for example, has an entire life cycle that can be played-out, which is really interesting. Facehugger, chest-burster, then big alien, with each having slightly different mechanics. It doesn’t take long for the alien to reach maturity, but playing the life cycle in real time is both fraught with danger and also quite fascinating (well, fascinating for those who like their sci-fi).
The Predator has his guns and gadgets, and also weird, hieroglyphic readouts at the side of the screen. The Marine – as you’d expect – is packing state-of-the-art ‘Jim Cameron‘ style firepower, plus: also has use of the APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) as seen in the film Aliens.
Strangely, Aliens versus Predator 2 doesn’t seem to be available to buy now, at the time of writing. I can find the other AvP games for sale online, but not this one. Am not sure why (possibly legal reasons), but am hoping that changes at some point soon. Monolith‘s game deserves a re-release.
More: Aliens versus Predator 2 on Wikipedia
The King of Grabs 
It’s legal reasons keeping this one at bay unfortunately, a shame as the online was cracking. That said, there’s still a dedicated bunch of folk committed to keeping it alive, with various fan patches fixing issues and making it so the multiplayer/LAN works.
The legal issues seem to relate to the fact that Monolith own the game engine, but Fox own the IP, effectively meaning they both own half a game each, and for whatever reason (possibly not really caring, I suspect) they’re not meeting in the middle.
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