The new Aliens vs Predator demo has been out for a few days now and here are some of my impressions thus far. The featured game mode, free-for-all deathmatch isn’t the best mode to showcase the gameplay but still does its job. At first the game felt a little clunky and melee combat felt slightly awkward but after spending time with it I came to enjoy its simple rock-paper-scissors mechanics. In melee combat you can choose to perform a block, light attack or heavy attack (only preds and aliens can perform a heavy attack). Blocks counter light attacks, light attacks counter heavy attacks and heavy attacks counter blocks. This rock-paper-scissors combat creates some interesting mind-games during the frantic close combat battles.

In the demo you get to choose from 3 races, the humans, aliens and predators. Each of these race has a distinctive playstyle with its own strengths and weaknesses. Humans excellent ranged weapons and an extremely useful motion tracker but suffer from poor vision in dark areas. The xenomorphs have clear vision in darkness, are devastating in melee and can see enemies through walls. They are also able to scale any surface but they lack any form of ranged combat. Last but certainly not least, the predators have the most versatile arsenal of ranged and melee weapons which work in tandem with the stealth abilities. The predator can also switch between two vision modes to track humans or aliens but these lower their ability to see other things while active.

All in all I had a great time with the demo, despite many people complaining that it didn’t meet their expectations. For me, the feeling of crawling on the ceiling as a xenomorph and leaping at a potential kill was an extremely satisfying experience.
Did you try the demo? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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