Aliens versus Predator: Extinction

From Xenopedia

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Aliens versus Predator: Extinction is a real-time strategy game developed by EA Games and Fox interactive. Released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2003. The player can choose to be [Predators] [Aliens] or [Marines].

[edit] Story

The storyline of this game, involves humans arriving on a newly colonized world and discover an alien (xenomorph) colony. Initially, they attempt to study the creatures and are unaware that a hunting party of Predators, are also present on the planet attempting to stalk their favored species, the Xenomorphs. At first, only minor battles occur between the humans and the Predators which escalates to a war between the two sides. While this is happening, the colony of Aliens attempts to escape and maintain its dominance over the two factions.

Sub-plots to the game involve the Predator Council of Ancients, Doctor Kadinsky, and the K-Series Aliens. In the Predator Missions, the player encounters hostile Predators alleged to be infringing upon the Player's Clan's exclusive hunting rights on the planet however, it is revealed that the Council of Ancients had set the two clans against each other in order to pick successors. Doctor Kadinsky was a Weyland-Yutani scientist who was performing experiments on both the Aliens and Predators; he was eventually captured by the Predators and tortured to death. Prior to this, he created the K-Series; an offshoot of the Alien race that was yellow in color, instead of standard dark tones. Eventually, the Elder's ship was destroyed by a nuclear bomb set by the colonial marines, a "PredQueen", one of Kadinsky's experiments was killed by the Predators and it's hive was wiped out by an Ancient's self-destruct device, and the K-Series was wiped out by the natural Alien hive to keep the species' bloodline pure.

[edit] Gameplay

In AVP:E, the game is divided into three campaigns of seven missions for each species. Each race has a unique method of gathering resources; humans must use a CommTech (A lightly armed marine technician) to repair Atmosphere processors in order to summon dropships of troops, while the Predators need to remove skulls from dead enemies to gain honor points, which are used to orbitally drop predators from space. Aliens gain infestation points by immobilizing or killing prey.

There are several types of damage in this game (such as fire, energy, kinetic, or raw armor-piercing damage), and status effects, such as radiation poisoning and bleeding. Many units have weakness or resistence to one or more damage types, for instance Predaliens take less fire damage than normal.

Each unit in the game has varying strengths and weaknesses; for instance, the Predator Spearmaster is excellent at dealing with large crowds of smaller opponents, such as Dog Aliens or Warriors due to it's knockback abilities, but larger enemies such as the Predalien cannot be knocked over and can quickly defeated. Meanwhile, the Predator Vanguard is excellent at quickly killing difficult opponents, even a Queen, but it's long windup time for its weapon makes it vulnerable to swarms of smaller enemies. Each unit in the game has an upgrade, which increases its power in some way; Warrior Aliens gain the 'Onslaught Gene' which allows them to deal raw damage and continue fighting even if they lose limbs, while the Ravager gains 'Collossal Resilience' which makes it vastly more difficult to destroy. It should be noted that while in most media the Predators can carry many types of weapons, in AVP:E, each predator unit only uses one type of weapon in combat.

Aside from the single-player campaign, there is a guide to the various units, including background information on their equipment and training. However, there is no multiplayer or skirmish mode.