By Adam Smith on November 8th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
Colonial Marines isn’t due until February and that’s a long wait for the next attempt to capture the horror of man versus the ultimate murderer. The best parts of Rebellion’s first (and the best) AvP game are the marine levels, at least in single player. Horror games often take away weapons or severely limit ammunition in order to increase tension, but even if you’re armed to the teeth, aliens are deadly and terrifying. Beefjack spot oldschool.Dave’s work on a recreation of the game’s marine campaign, all built in Cryengine 3. Video of the opening scuttling in the air ducts down below. I remember the opening almost perfectly, even though I haven’t played it for ten years or so.
It’s early days but here’s hoping AvM isn’t ceasing and desisting anytime soon. At present it’s planned as a mod for Crysis 2 but a standalone application is a possibility.
08/11/2012 at 19:10 MajorManiac says:
I like to think of the three types like this:
Aliens = Space Ninjas
Predators = Space Samurai
Marines = Space Raiders…..the crisp packet.
08/11/2012 at 19:14 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Crunchy!
08/11/2012 at 19:18 tobecooper says:
Tastes like chicken to me.
08/11/2012 at 19:19 pupsikaso says:
Video of the opening scuttling in the air ducts down below.
I don’t see any video anywhere?
08/11/2012 at 19:43 Alien426 says:
Surely you could have clicked on the link to CryDev.net and see the video there.
Terrans…
08/11/2012 at 19:19 kyrieee says:
Awesome, I love AvP Gold
08/11/2012 at 19:20 lowprices says:
Surely man is the ultimate murderer?
08/11/2012 at 21:22 jon_hill987 says:
You don’t see the aliens screwing each other over for a god damn percentage that’s for sure.
08/11/2012 at 19:26 Shooop says:
Not seeing the video, but the words alone are very exciting.
08/11/2012 at 20:01 SuperNashwanPower says:
My favourite word was ‘scuttling’, followed closely by “isn’t”. The article was sadly lacking in the word “dirigible” however. And “crevice”.
B+
08/11/2012 at 22:00 Spengbab says:
Well, the vid also has exciting words. Like
-no autoheal
What an age we live in, to have such an exclusive feature. Gaming sure has gone far and turned right around again to have the need to list such a feature. (I’m not against it, just find it funny)
Other than that, I really can not get excited about Colonial Marines, it’s just trying too hard. On the other hand, these 4:38 minutes of a TC of an ancient game ooze so much more atmosphere it’s getting silly. Also reminds me how much I hated the Marines’ starting level
09/11/2012 at 15:57 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Darkness is scary and the game made full use of that, but for me it was the sound design that made for the worst scares. Sometimes the only way you know an Alien is approaching is by the hiss or the ticking of claws, and while the pulse rifle is firing at one you can’t hear another sneak up behind you and the motion tracker only detects in front of you… So when an Alien attacks, you have to effectively blind and deafen yourself to a full 180 degrees, and they come from all sides including above and below.
10/11/2012 at 00:34 Geen says:
And if you run out of flares… God help you. You do have nightvision, but it’s a piece of shit. And no radar! Which means you don’t even get to see what kills you.
09/11/2012 at 14:39 Sparkasaurusmex says:
The words are sort of confusing.
This isn’t Colonial Marines, right? It’s a mod. But is Colonial Marines a mod?
08/11/2012 at 19:27 db1331 says:
I loved AvP. I spent dozens of hours trying to complete all the Alien and Predator levels without being spotted by the lowly humans.
09/11/2012 at 10:08 Guvornator says:
Ha! As a marine, I spent dozens of hours trying to keep all my limbs in the same place. I can still hear the scuttle of facehuggers in my sleep…
08/11/2012 at 19:32 Mud says:
This vid ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7ip6gl0FQ8
08/11/2012 at 19:36 akushimai says:
More like this one: http://youtu.be/lvaXsiIl_fg
No alien in sight though, which is a shame.
08/11/2012 at 19:54 Dark Nexus says:
That was the best part of the level! It just kept cranking up the suspense and tension. Each sound of skittering, each ping from your motion sensor would make you jump. It made you paranoid that there could be an alien hiding behind anything that looked vaguely grate, door or window-like.
08/11/2012 at 20:05 akushimai says:
So true. ) I vaguely remember spending most of the marine campaign in a dark corner, quietly sobbing like a little girl.
09/11/2012 at 11:28 Cleave says:
One of my most vivid gaming memories is running through the marine campaign in blind terror. Easily the scariest game I’ve ever played. I always thought that was partly to do with how low tech the graphics were, even for the time, but I guess this mod proves that wrong.
08/11/2012 at 19:57 Alien426 says:
> No alien in sight though, which is a shame.
I feel your pain. But if they had shown something, it would probably have been its demise. Earth scum.
09/11/2012 at 00:32 theleif says:
The video ends where you see the first alien. I think. It was 10 years ago.
09/11/2012 at 10:05 Joe Duck says:
Well remembered, you came out of the elevator, walked down the corridor and turned right. The fist alien would come charging straight at you down the long corridor you see in the last seconds of the video.
I remember that I got the signal in my motion sensor, saw the alien, launched a grenade and shot at the bloddy thing. The alien let the grenade fly past him and explode at the end of the corridor, climbed on the wall, crawled on to the ceiling and back down the opposite wall as it kept on charging towards me and thus dodging my chaotic bullets. Then it proceeded to calmly eat my marine’s brains.
I turned off the game and went hide under the bed for a while…
This game was awesome.
10/11/2012 at 09:43 buzzmong says:
I always thought it was a stroke of genius that Rebellion saw fit to also put a big long stretch of duct above that corridor with a few bits leading down.
It’s scary if you see the alien charging down the corridor at you but if’s fucking petrifying when you’ve got the motion scanner telling you it’s moving right towards you but you can’t bloody see it as it’s in the duct.
08/11/2012 at 19:37 SuperNashwanPower says:
This is the blog equivalent of forgetting the email attachment.
08/11/2012 at 20:38 Adam Smith says:
Yes. Yes it is.
08/11/2012 at 19:42 Dark Nexus says:
The first Marine level of AvP still sets the bar for atmosphere in video games for me.
2am… dark room… surround sound…. only person home…
I finished the level, then went around turning on lights in the house.
08/11/2012 at 19:46 DeFrank says:
This reminds me, NS2 WiT soon please thanks.
08/11/2012 at 19:47 DeFrank says:
And if it isn’t a glowing review we can no longer be friends.
09/11/2012 at 02:16 Outright Villainy says:
Natural selection 2 is bloody amazing. I never played the first (being in N64 land at the time), but this is the best Multiplayer game I’ve played since TF2. I’m seriously addicted to it right now; I’m even enjoying commanding, despite never having played an rts before. Having helpful players telling you nicely what to do is the most disarming thing I’ve seen in quite a while. Doubly so since I’ve been mostly been playing CS:GO before this, where everyone’s an asshole.
08/11/2012 at 19:58 Casimir's Blake says:
I hope this goes far, such a mod/game would be worth playing if it features the somewhat non-linear level design of the original AvP.
I would rather forget I ever gave Sega’s “new” AvP more than 10 minutes of my time. It was poorly-paced, generic, linear and the “scares” were obvious.
09/11/2012 at 10:22 Guvornator says:
Really? I have to say the Marine levels were pretty good – atmospheric and properly scary. Everything else was pants, but then I bought it for £3.74 so I’m not complaining…
09/11/2012 at 10:45 Surlywombat says:
Sega just published it you know? the 2010 AVP game was developed by Rebellion too.
08/11/2012 at 20:13 mcnostril says:
Gah.
Now that it has done the rounds, I’m sure it’ll get a C&D because lawyers are cruel and hate joy.
08/11/2012 at 21:13 Duke of Chutney says:
What? the marine has to press the run button to move at 30mph, in the original you never stopped moving at 30mph.
Looks really good, in the new flash graphics it reminds me how absurdly dingy the whole place is. Imagine living in a room with a dark metal door and walls all the time.
08/11/2012 at 21:48 Hellifant says:
Kickstarter it, i will gladly donate my kidney money for it !
08/11/2012 at 22:39 Text_Fish says:
They’ll probably get Foxed, but at least they won’t get Red Crossed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lvaXsiIl_fg#t=211s Phew!
08/11/2012 at 23:10 DK says:
It’s really depressing that we have to be impressed by real dynamic and destructible lighting in the year 2012 – and we’re only seeing it at all because it’s a dedicated unaffiliated remaking something from a decade ago (which had more graphical features than fucking 2012s Call of cost-millions-to-make-Duty).
08/11/2012 at 23:26 sinister agent says:
Nothing in any game will ever be scarier than the facehuggers in 2000 AvP game. Even as a predator, they were fucking terrifying. Even after playing for a hundred hours, acing every level repeatedly and breaking every record for every stat, the goddamn facehuggers, if they got you, will still make you fill your pants.
09/11/2012 at 10:16 Guvornator says:
What did you do when you popped your cherry with them (um, metaphorically speaking)? Me, I fell off my fucking chair…
08/11/2012 at 23:53 Mr-Link says:
God dammit…….The Crysis series is one of the most boring games ever, but I always applaud them for pushing PC technology forward. They always have great mods going on. Last time it was the Mechwarrior Living Legends mod that made me buy Crysis wars or whatever it was called. This one will surly make me buy Crysis 2 if it doesn’t go standalone.
13/11/2012 at 14:29 2garinz says:
I don’t think we played the same game than — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHv7Laj3JiM
Sure, the story, the pacing, aliens design and some level design was crap. But, thanks to nanosuite mechanics, combat against regular humans was amazing and the most fun I had in any recent action FPS. Though I’m talking about 1st Crysis and its expansion only.
2nd Crysis on the other hand was simply shit. I’m still baffled why they thought removing everything that made the original game so fun a good idea. Looks like another case of severe consolitis. What a shame.
09/11/2012 at 01:41 alilsneaky says:
AVP everything looks like plastic edition, now with worse netcode and image quality!
09/11/2012 at 04:18 Faxanadu says:
Ah, yes, AvP Marine, 1st level, you started in that small room, there was a mirror, and all sorts of nice stuff.
Had some good times in that room… …mostly staring. Staring along the corridor leading out of that room. Yes, good times. I never left the room. I still enjoyed the game, though. I was so happy to stay in the room. The room with no aliens. No aliens at all.
Sometimes. Sometimes, I feel like I’m still in the room.
09/11/2012 at 05:44 Amun says:
Well I played one of those aliens (at least in multiplayer) — sometimes I’ll find myself playing CS and thinking about trying to climb up walls and slither into vents.
09/11/2012 at 10:50 Surlywombat says:
Can’t really see how this will escape the lawyers frankly. Surely both 20 Century Fox and Rebellion will feel they have to come down on this like a ton of bricks? A pity, but I really can’t see it going any other way.
09/11/2012 at 11:11 Kefren says:
AvP is one of my favourite games, though the bonus levels were rock hard (never completed the marine grappling hook ones).
I was pissed off when a new version was made available that works on modern PCs, but the developer removed LAN play. It was my favourite LAN game! I now play the new version for single player stability and a few mods, but battle to get the old CD version running for LAN play with the occasional friend. I have the way developers hobble older games – it’s no coincidence that they renamed it ‘Classic’ and expected you to buy their new ‘AvP’ game if you wanted multiplayer.
09/11/2012 at 12:54 ianos says:
“The best parts of Rebellion’s first (and the best) AvP game…”
But but but Rebellion’s first version of AvP was the Jaguar version.
And now I can exhale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEhFFU_vRZE
09/11/2012 at 12:56 Guvornator says:
“The best parts of Rebellion’s first (and the best) AvP game” Pedant Alert – the first one was on the Atari Jaguar. It was still jolly good for it’s time, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re referring to…
EDIT: Oops, beaten to the punch
09/11/2012 at 13:17 Ultramegazord says:
Why can’t we get a proper Alien game like this? Alien Colonial Marines is full of shitty “cinematic” crap.
09/11/2012 at 14:11 Ergates_Antius says:
I hate sprouts too, but I’ve never gone so far as to shoot them.
10/11/2012 at 03:16 FesterSilently says:
Um…am I the *only* gamer in existence who is of the mind that the original AvP (Rebellion studios) was merely “good”, and that the non pareil, ne plus ultra of Aliens games was, and still is, Aliens versus Preadtor2 (Monolith studios)?
The levels were tremendously better, the voice-acting was wonderfully ham-fisted, the tension in nearly ALL the campaigns was palpable…just a better game all around.
Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?
26/12/2012 at 12:22 LJFHutch says:
I never played the first, but AvP2 was absolutely awesome. Best lan game of all time.