I haven’t played the originally AVP. I should pick it up sometimes.
Metal Gear Solid 2 and Splinter Cell have been both released for the PC and would fall in the same general category.
HPL Indeed, do so. Play it alone, in the dark, with a decent sound set-up. For the full effect, stick to the marine missions that first gaming session.
Yikes.
Thief, as I recall, had much the same effect, the first few times I played it. Playing either of these games, with, say, a cat in the house, is like mainlining adrenaline. Or begging for a heart attack.
Very first time I played AVP, as a matter of fact, went something like this:
I stick in the CD, poke through the manual a bit while it’s installing, then kill the lights and sit down to play. I’m creeping through the abandoned base, trying to make my way out, wondering where the aliens are at, and hoping the whole game isn’t this boring, when…
I hear that noise, and this blur comes charging down the hall, through the hissing steam from a broken pipe, and I empty a clip all over the room, spastically chasing the xenomorph with explosive tipped-caseless rounds, and suddenly found I needed to start over. Damn, but them things are fast. I was reaching for the Esc key to do so, when…
The friggin’ cat landed on the back of my chair.
I knocked the chair over in my haste to escape the creature that struck from the darkness, and was surely trying to eat my face. I swear the cat laughed at me as it slunk out of the room.
My tension level did not significantly decrease for a while that night, but by crikey it were fun!
I hate to tell you this, but I can barely play through the haunted city(the abandoned part of town swarming with zombies) or the bonehoard in broad daylight with the lights off and my heart was still racing.
Same with the Segent Hall Rescue in AVP2 and pretty much the entire “LONG DETOUR” level. This is with the lights ON! Actually, it took me a day or so to muster my courage for “The Long Detour”.
That never happens to me when watching movies. The most I can get from most movies is a creepy feeling or few startles, even with all the lights off.
I haven’t had a crack at AVP2 (and as we’re not gonna be getting a new PC anytime real soon, that’s not gonna change quickly) but the first… two or three marine missions in AVP have that same “bonehoard/abandoned west side” atmosphere to 'em.
Playing as the Alien/Predator takes some of the blush off it for me, but if I haven’t played the game in a while, I find going back to those parts of the game still get the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
Although it no longer takes me 90 rounds to bag a single alien, but that’s because I no longer leap halfway out of my chair every time I hear that hiss/shriek coming out of the dark at me, losing my grip on the mouse. 
The thing about AvP is that no matter how many times you play it, the aliens are unpredictable. They are no triggers that set off the attacks. They just start at random. Also, about one in ten aliens is silent. When your relying on their sound for a bit of warning, you can get a little complacent. Then you suddenly see something out of the corner of your eye, and realise one has snuck up behind you. Every time it makes me jump out of my seat.
Also, when you hear the sound of a face hugger, you just crap yourself. The little buggers are hard to see and even harder to hit. You just keep backing off and backing off, whilst firing wildly, until you realise that something else is right behind you. Game over, man.
I hope that Doom 3 can be at least half as scary as this.
I’ll agree wholeheartedly on the facehuggers. It took me a few failed attempts before I realized that the autotracking of the smartgun will never nail the thing. You’ve gotta bag it manually, or hang back and use either the flamthrower or a grenade.
But it seems to my spotty memory (it’s been long enough that I think I’m in the mood to reinstall this puppy and have at it again) the aliens, within limits, are predictable, at least as far as where you encounter them. There are two or three different starting positions for all the aliens on each level, but not much more than that. I think.
Spoiler Warning for AVP
In the final bonus mission, marine, after you make your way into the base proper, there’s always one alien on the roof of the shack containing the armor. He triggers when you get about two steps away from the doorway, jumping the marine who’s in the room. If you’re fast enough, you can cut him in half before he jumps down, every time. There’s also one in the far right corner, who invariably gets the marine, if you bag the one on the roof.
That’s the only mission I recall specifics for, offhand.
OTOH, they do move pretty randomly, not always taking the same route to you, jumping around, sometimes on the walls, floor, or ceiling. And those friggin’ overhead air vents are a royal pain. What idiot contractor left 'em all open like that? If I wasn’t sure he’s long since been fed to an alien, I’d find him and shoot him m’self.
[sub]And I’m not the only one who backed right into that gaping hole in the floor outside the command center while backpedaling from the first facehugger you run into in the game, am I?[/sub]
Actually, now that you mention it, there are a few that always seem to be behind certain doors, and facehuggers are always in the same area.
I have definately noticed a lot of them are “rogue” though, and seem to wander about hoping to run into you.
I’ve also noticed that if you keep playing and completing the same missions, the game seems to add more and more of these aliens. This seems to stop it from ever getting monotonous. If you’re familiar with where most of the aliens are set up, you can feel safe momentarily. but you’d be wrong.
Creepy. I’ve heard the atmosphere is suprior in AVP while AVP 2 tells a better story with a creepy(but not as creepy as AVP 1) atmosphere.
The Alien and to a lesser extent, predator levels aren’t particulary scary, partially because you don’t see the aliens much until the last 3 levels, and also because the Predator is pretty close to being invulrenable. He has a device that changes energy to health, and another one that creates energy. The only limit is that someone might see you use it, so you can imagine how easy it is to abuse it). Though, maybe it’s needed, because the Predator cloak is useless againest aliens.
The Marine ones, though, are usually pretty damn creepy, at least on any levels that invovle you being totally alone in the middle of alien territory(which is more then it should be considering you have other marines with you…there’s at least one level where they could come with you, but decide to spend the level in the APC watching your camera. Bastards).
Agreed, with one real exception. I think it’s the third Predator level, the one where you first run into the aliens, is pretty decent, for atmospherics.
You run through a bunch of humans, without much trouble, and enter this long, sloping corridor that leads down to the “pens.” Once you reach the bottom, it’s a rat’s nest of rooms and narrow hallways, chock full o’ respawning aliens. Played at the Director’s Cut difficulty level, it gets hairy after a while, as you use up the power in your wrist unit a lot faster than it recharges, with all the healing you need to do. And after you get through all that, low on power and out of spears for the gun, you hit that twisting air duct with no room to manuever, leading to the room where the facehuggers are kept…
That’s it. I gotta get back to playin’ this one.
I don’t remember this one. Is it in AVP2 or AVP 1? I only know from AVP 2.
Ack. Completely forgot about that. It’s from the original.
[sub]Can I plead cough medicine as an excuse? I’m a bit thick headed this evening.[/sub]
Sure you can. I’ve screwed up enough without a reason that I can’t say anything even if I wanted to.
If you are at all interested in Half Life 2, Google for a game trailer called hl2-traptown (I cant remember the name of the site where I downloaded it but beware, its 185mb). I had no interest in the game until I saw this trailer earlier today. My god it has got me hooked already and I am usually much more attracted to more “realistic” FPS games.
This trailer completely blew my mind, I can’t wait for it’s release.
How on Earth can you possibly say such a thing?!?:dubious:
Forget traptown: check out “tunnnels”
In fact, grab Steam from http://steampowered.com , open up “games,” open up the properties of HL2movies, tell it to always download the movies, leave your net connected overnight and boom: hundreds of megs of HL2 goodness.
And you get SP Half-Life and Opposing Force for free, legally!
If you do happen to have a HL CD lying around, I again repeat my recommendation that you dust it off and try installing Natural Selection 2.0
This list is strongly FPS biased. So…
First of all, I can’t second Deus Ex and Half-life enough. THOSE ARE BOTH TOP NOTCH GAMES. Thief starts good, but pretty soon into the game… meh. Another “meh” for AvP, though I’ve never played the second one.
As for non FPS basically just go with what is real popular, the majority of PC gamers are a smart bunch, and very few crap games sell well, unlike with consoles.
Warcraft III; hell, anything by Blizzard
If you want to go old-school, I also recommend the Fallout series, you can get a bargain pack of Fallout 1 and 2 for 5-10 bucks. AMAZING RPG (they’re practically the same game). It ranks right up there with DX and HL, if not better.
Thanks Apos, downloading away…
Gotta mention Return to Castle Wolfenstein here. Rarely do I see a game that shines both in singleplayer and in Multiplayer. Very cool story, very cool atmosphere, many missions that rely very heavily on stealth (much like Metal Gear type games, if they see you, GAME OVER.)
The Nazi in the game speak English (with a german accent) which in a way is a bit unrealistic/disappointing, but it is fun getting to listen to all the mundane conversations guards have with each other. The Ambience of the game is wonderful, you really get to use your ears in this game. In some places, a creaky record player plays Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”.
That was a good game, though I got annoyed by the Stealth mission before you break into the missle base. Getting past that little house with the record player was tough. The rest of that mission was easy.
Kind of like the infamous room in Jedi Knight 2 where you have to sneak through a room full of guards and if anyone sees you, you automatically lose. Why? You’ve killed thousands of people over the course of 3 games thus far. A few more is really going to make a difference? Hit your stupid little alarm. Bring’em on.