I remember playing this many years back, though I admit I was disappointed by it in a few areas. Still, I enjoyed what they tried to do by making an RTS based on the AVP universe.
Each group as their own campaign, which the story for is covered in a wall of text before each mission. No acting, no animation and voice overs. Just text. This gets pretty frustrating, however the story was very interesting for the alien faction as humans are once again attempting to experiment on them, even managing to create a species of Xenomorphs where the Predalian is a queen! Needless to say, the normal species don't like this unnatural version.
Gameplay: I'll note how each group works. They obtain resources in a different way compared to your typical RTS.
Aliens: As the aliens, you usually start with a queen and a drone. The hive has walls that spread, similar to Zerg in Starcraft and when on these walls, your units regenerate. This, coupled with any creatures that your subdue and then impregnate with a face-hugger adds to DNA points, which can be used for creating praetorian facehuggers to birth the "princess" of the hives, being the praetorians who can not only evolve into a queen if you lose yours, but also a set of different special aliens, such as one that can carry facehuggers (whose limited lifespan normally runs out, outside of the egg) and have them launch off in combat or a heavily armoured one that has huge hitpoints and massive blades which often kill so you can't harvest the bodies for impregnation. This is a point as they don't "kill" the enemies you fight, be they humans, predators or wild animals that inhabit the planet. This is why the drone is often needed as they can go out hunting and then drag the body to the hive where the eggs are for the facehuggers.
Your normal facehuggers only birth whatever they have grabbed onto. For example, Predators creating the Predalian and four-legged beasts to create the runner one from Alien 3.
Of course, these resources are limited, so you need to be careful that you don't send all your warriors to their death as you aren't going to be able to get many, if any, back.
Marines: Here we have the Wayland-Yutani marines and as such, their resources are credits used to call down dropships that give them more troops or even mechs. One of the most fun units, being those with the smart gun that can very easily take down any xeno you come across! I'm sure is what the manual says.
They earn resources by finding ATMOS generators (like the one from Aliens, but in the game they are MUCH smaller and blow up after being used up) to help terraform the planet for the company that has contracted them. There are only a small number of these on the map, so be careful with your troops! Also, as you kill creatures with bullets, you make it so that neither of the other groups can obtain points from the bodies.
Predators: As the predators, you get new predators dropped in, often all of the units are a type of predator excelling with a certain weapon. More can be called in, similar to the marines, however, the only way you obtain points is by killing creatures (humans, aliens or wild animals) and afterwards, commanding the predator to tear off the skull for collection, much like in the space ship in Predator 2. This gives you a certain amount of points per kill and may be one of the longest lasting resources out of the three factions.
Of course, you can't collect from those not killed by your predators, nor can you kill and collect from creatures that were incapacitated by aliens and not decapitated by those big ones and synths net no points because they aren't considered a prey, being a machine. Makes sense as you can't impregnate them as the aliens because, again, being a machine.
I'm not a fan of this form of resource gathering, but I did enjoy it due to the licence being attached here, but I think the biggest issue is that this is a RTS being put on console only! I really don't get that. I'm not being a snob, like with PC gamers saying "Mouse and Keyboard is superior in FPSs" but it is in regards to RTS as that's the platform it was made for and attempting to navigate a map with a controller is like trying to move around the map of games like C&C, but not being allowed to click on the minimap and you have to drag your mouse to the corner of the map and wait.
It's not a mind-blowing game by any means, but it's not that awful as it could've been in regards to what I've seen happen to numerous other licences in the series.
Each group as their own campaign, which the story for is covered in a wall of text before each mission. No acting, no animation and voice overs. Just text. This gets pretty frustrating, however the story was very interesting for the alien faction as humans are once again attempting to experiment on them, even managing to create a species of Xenomorphs where the Predalian is a queen! Needless to say, the normal species don't like this unnatural version.
Gameplay: I'll note how each group works. They obtain resources in a different way compared to your typical RTS.
Aliens: As the aliens, you usually start with a queen and a drone. The hive has walls that spread, similar to Zerg in Starcraft and when on these walls, your units regenerate. This, coupled with any creatures that your subdue and then impregnate with a face-hugger adds to DNA points, which can be used for creating praetorian facehuggers to birth the "princess" of the hives, being the praetorians who can not only evolve into a queen if you lose yours, but also a set of different special aliens, such as one that can carry facehuggers (whose limited lifespan normally runs out, outside of the egg) and have them launch off in combat or a heavily armoured one that has huge hitpoints and massive blades which often kill so you can't harvest the bodies for impregnation. This is a point as they don't "kill" the enemies you fight, be they humans, predators or wild animals that inhabit the planet. This is why the drone is often needed as they can go out hunting and then drag the body to the hive where the eggs are for the facehuggers.
Your normal facehuggers only birth whatever they have grabbed onto. For example, Predators creating the Predalian and four-legged beasts to create the runner one from Alien 3.
Of course, these resources are limited, so you need to be careful that you don't send all your warriors to their death as you aren't going to be able to get many, if any, back.
Marines: Here we have the Wayland-Yutani marines and as such, their resources are credits used to call down dropships that give them more troops or even mechs. One of the most fun units, being those with the smart gun that can very easily take down any xeno you come across! I'm sure is what the manual says.
They earn resources by finding ATMOS generators (like the one from Aliens, but in the game they are MUCH smaller and blow up after being used up) to help terraform the planet for the company that has contracted them. There are only a small number of these on the map, so be careful with your troops! Also, as you kill creatures with bullets, you make it so that neither of the other groups can obtain points from the bodies.
Predators: As the predators, you get new predators dropped in, often all of the units are a type of predator excelling with a certain weapon. More can be called in, similar to the marines, however, the only way you obtain points is by killing creatures (humans, aliens or wild animals) and afterwards, commanding the predator to tear off the skull for collection, much like in the space ship in Predator 2. This gives you a certain amount of points per kill and may be one of the longest lasting resources out of the three factions.
Of course, you can't collect from those not killed by your predators, nor can you kill and collect from creatures that were incapacitated by aliens and not decapitated by those big ones and synths net no points because they aren't considered a prey, being a machine. Makes sense as you can't impregnate them as the aliens because, again, being a machine.
I'm not a fan of this form of resource gathering, but I did enjoy it due to the licence being attached here, but I think the biggest issue is that this is a RTS being put on console only! I really don't get that. I'm not being a snob, like with PC gamers saying "Mouse and Keyboard is superior in FPSs" but it is in regards to RTS as that's the platform it was made for and attempting to navigate a map with a controller is like trying to move around the map of games like C&C, but not being allowed to click on the minimap and you have to drag your mouse to the corner of the map and wait.
It's not a mind-blowing game by any means, but it's not that awful as it could've been in regards to what I've seen happen to numerous other licences in the series.
Well it's just an average RTS game for the PS2 the models are good and the lore of the units are kinda interesting, but the IA is so lame for the player and unfair when they attack you, but anyways it's ok nothing less to say, even than I love so much this game I have to be fair.
Es un RTS llamativo con una dificultad competente y mecanicas divertidas de explorar con las 3 tribus, espero que algun dia lo porteen a PC.
It's a pretty average RTS game. To it's credit though it is a cool idea for a AVP game. It is a genre they haven't done yet and makes a bit of sense. Just was aggressively mediocre.