Game On, Man: Aliens Versus Predator Free On GOG

Years of pining for a decent Alien game have been ended by Alien: Isolation, a right little stonker, which probably means it's time to start hoping for another good Aliens game. That little extra s makes a huge difference, calling for space marines with big guns yelling "Let's rock!" then melting in sprays of acid blood. If you fancy a fun interspecies rumble on PC, you'll need to look back a good decade.

As luck would have it (or a convenient marketing opportunity), you can now grab one of the last good Aliens games for free. GOG are giving away Rebellion's Aliens Versus Predator (the nice one from 1999, not 2010's so-so Aliens vs. Predator) to get folks testing the infrastructure for the upcoming Galaxy service.

To get it, sign up for the Galaxy beta over here before 9:59am (that's GMT) on Friday. GOG are sending AvP keys out in batches, saying you should receive one "within the next few days." Galaxy keys will go out in batches too, although the client service is not yet ready for public consumption - the current test is for infrastructure rather than the service itself. AvP only costs £3 on Steam but hey, free's free (they've got my e-mail address anyway), and that's been a week's food budget at times in my life.

To be precise, this is Alien versus Predator Classic 2000, a version of AvP with its addons that's been updated to play nicely with modern operating systems and support gamepads, for if you want to make an unforgiving game more difficult. GOG are poking around to make it support multiplayer with the Steam version too.