If we were in a perfect world, videogame forum boards in general would be populated by people with open minds and not condemn others for having different opinions than their own. Then again, it would be a little boring, so three cheers for unpredictability and chaos to keep us games journalists on our toes (yes, some of us do have time to browse videogaming forums from time to time). Some of the more vocal chaps here might have remembered a Friday Fives I did on beat-em-ups where I didn’t include a certain Capcom fightfest featuring predators. And aliens. And a  cyborg ninja and an Ah-nuld wannabe.

Personally, I thought it was overrated. Alien Vs. Predator is pretty good, but I felt that it didn’t do much to change up the already-stale genre until D&D: Shadows Over Mystaria and Battle Circuit reared its head. But I’m here to talk about what made this game memorable, not criticize it too much. Plus, Alien Vs. Predator the FPS is coming out on all major platforms this week.

AvP belonged in a rare breed of games based on movie/comic licenses that didn’t suck hard. Wait: games based on comic licenses don’t suck as hard as those with movie licenses. Never mind : the premise starts when the xenomorphs arrive on Earth and are going to tear s*** apart, but then came two humanoid cyborgs and two Predators who fight exactly the same (save for their different weapons) to save the day. Also, the Weyland-Yutani corporation is involved. Trust me when I say that an AvP game (PC or otherwise) will not be complete without the presence of this two-dimensionally evil big corporation.

Your staple beat-em-up templates are laid bare here: food and jewels acquired on the ground hidden by barrels and crates, four characters with three different fighting styles (fast person, tough tank grappler guy, and middle-of-the-line), hordes of enemies big and small (and cut-and-paste) that you have to beat up in a frenetic pace, big bosses that are meant to be cheap and overwhelming to suck off the tokens resting in your pocket. There’s also a bonus stage of sorts where you and a friend ride onto an APC and blast xenomorphs with your guns. It’s relentless in its action and the numerous hordes that appear are impressive for its time, but can get unmanageable thanks to its pace and the inclusion of small enemies that can’t be hurt by conventional means.

Said playable characters in the game have a lot of moves at their disposal. All of them have projectile attacks with unlimited ammo, but at the cost of overheating after two shots to prevent players from spamming. While there isn’t a dash of sorts, the Predators can do a quick horizontal jump that acts as both an airborne attack and a means to travel across the screen fast. The cyborg ninja Linn Kurosawa has an area-clearing charge attack and a jump attack that makes her bounce from one enemy onto another using her sword. As per Capcom games involving punching someone/something in the face multiple times, the controls are top-notch. You only have yourself to blame if you can’t seem to get yourself out of a corner getting dog-piled by purple and green xenomorphs.

A game that combined the terror of the xenomorph Alien menace and the bad-assness of the Predator tribe was not common in 1994, and with that, the prospects of beating up said xenomorphs with these badasses prove to be a great selling point for passerbys at the local arcade. The moody audio and gut-crunching sound effects (go, obvious marketing buzz that is Q-Sound), slick controls and the gorgeous graphics also helped. Yet even with all of that working in its favor, it didn’t age well design-wise. I am aware that beat-em-ups have this standard problem of repetition, but as time went by, games like Shadows of Mystaria & Battle Circuit at least felt fresh and introduced new things. They just weren’t as popular. Also, the last fight in AvP is basically the third boss with legs.

With a lot of beat-em-ups having up to four players on-screen (X-Men comes to mind), it seemed odd that this was just two players. But perhaps the one big offense this game committed was the fact that it wasn’t ported onto the Saturn or Playstation at the time. Hell, it wasn’t even in any Capcom classics compilation to this day. I suppose the argument of licensing comes into play here, but stranger things have happened.

So there you have it: a decent Capcom game where you get the chance to beat the stuffing out of those xenomorphs with your bare knuckles. It may not be one of my favorites in the genre, but it’s reassuring to know that there are developers out there who would go the extra mile to take a license and make gold out of it.