The 1980’s were a seminal time; a decade defined by excess and socially valuable moments. On one hand, you have the lower end of the spectrum – terrible clothes, worse haircuts and yuppies polluting almost every nightclub on Friday nights (a la Christian Bale/American Psycho). On the other hand, there’s the good stuff – Prince, Michael Jackson and (most importantly) influential cinema. The mid-80’s were dominated by the muscle-bound heroics of Stallone & Schwarzenegger, blowing everything up in their way that wasn’t female and then hitting us with those legendary one-liners (‘See you at the party, Richter!’).

Yes, it was a great time to be a male film fan, but also a great time to enjoy Science Fiction. Action and Sci-Fi seemed to crossed paths harmoniously during those ten years, with audiences being treated to such greats as The Thing and The Terminator. And of course, if you’d seen those treats then you would have definitely viewed James Cameron’s Aliens and John McTiernan’s Predator at some point or another. As is common place these days the video game industry inevitably came to a ‘calling and with it the release of an electronic mash-up that’s inspiration is still being felt more than two decades after the films’ respect releases.

I’m going to get right down to the point here; I’m not talking about the original Aliens Vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar or the subsequent PC iteration. These were both excellent games and titles that you could sit quite comfortably near GoldenEye and not be embarrassed (I remember playing a demo of the later round a friend’s house for the first time – so scary…SO SCARY). No, I’m talking about the most recent entry, the 2010 re-imagining that’s as dreadful as it is enthralling.

Aliens Vs Predator starts off brilliantly. Pressing start on the ‘Marine Missions’ tab whisks you into a fully realised representation of the 1986 film, atmosphere and all. The first encounter with a xenomorph is well structured and there’s that lingering feeling of anxiety throughout that is oh-so quintessentially Aliens. Through the early stages, you’re constantly reminded of the attention to detail made by the developers, from the way your foes jump from wall-to-wall to the impressive burst given off every time you squeeze the trigger on the pulse rifle. And all this is complemented immensely but what I would describe as the perfect mechanic for inducing fear; the iconic motion tracker. You’d be forgiven then for thinking that the rest of game continues with the same aplomb. Unfortunately, it does not.

Aliens Vs Predator struggles under the weight of its own design; there just isn’t enough modernization to constitute a £40 purchase. Apart from the aforementioned rifle, there’s the shotgun, smart gun, sniper rifle, the obligatory pistol…and that’s about it for the marine side of things. To make matters worse at the halfway point of the initial campaign things start to become stale, with weird cyborgs and uninspired locations cropping up at every turn. There’s no iron sight, no vehicles…just disappointment.

It’s at this point then that you would look for solace within the two other strands of solo missions…you would find nothing of the sort. Playing as the titular alien is one of the most frustrating experiences you can have with a control pad between your fingers, the wall crawling ability made painfully difficult by some imprecise design (very similar to when you sent out a tentacle or two on The Darkness). The predator scenarios are slightly better but again would have benefited greatly from some more intelligent control mechanics.

Aliens Vs Predator is most definitely a labour of love. For every accurately re-enacted marine set piece there is an equally bad alien version, for every exhilarating Survivor session, there is a boring round of Deathmatch. And yet, despite the obvious shortcomings, to this day I still find myself going back to it. Whether that’s due to a love of both franchises or just a hankering to play something different I’m not sure. What developers Rebellion have proven is that there is no concrete formula for making a modern computer game and that sometimes with only a small amount of polish and some bare essentials, an old-school FPS can survive in the contemporary market.