I just fired this up. This blows the Red Faction demo away. There are three distinct things that are a lot better than Red Faction:

1. The weapon effects. I wouldn't even think about it if Tom or Mark (sorry, I just remember it was one of our kind hosts) hadn't complained about it. The pulse rifle with grenade launcher feels, sounds, and acts very cool, and produce good effects. The rifle kills bugs dead, something I had a hard time with in Red Faction (those guards take 5+ shots).

2. AvP2 has a ton of suspense built into the mission design. Maybe I'm slow, but it took me a long time to run into an alien. But the whole time I was ducking around corners and flipping my lamp on and off, trying to be ready for action. It made the experience a lot more fun, and parts of it reminded me more of Alien when Dallas was climbing through the air ducts rather than the obvious Aliens.

3. Unlike Red Faction, this game has great source material, and they seem to be using it very effectively. I particularly like the radio chatter and the holes burnt through the ceilings/floors.

Anyway, I took it off my computer because it made me extremely car sick (my ears are sweating right now - no joke!). But I think the FPS crowd will have fun, and I'm pretty envious (I wonder if Dramamine would help). And as to the discussion about MP, the demo has MP features (not accessible), although I don't know if you can play the campaign as co-op (the crux of that argument I think).

ps. SSX rocks!

Well, in theory, at least, Dramamine should help, as it makes your ears less sensitive. Drugs 'em out, so to speak, so that they don't care anymore whether you're moving or not...

Dude, keep your sweaty ears to yourself! ;) I just downloaded the AVP2 demo and I'm anxious to try it out.

I thought the Red Faction demo, so far, was quite impressive. Volition has great technical chops, and it looks like they really beefed up the textures for the PC version.

I am really impressed with this demo. The graphics are excellent and at 1024x768x32 with High detail the game runs perfectly well on my TNT2U. I was pretty damned surprised.

The Lithtech engine is really moving ahead.

This game is not for the faint of heart though. My heart was pounding after running through the demo mission and I can imagine - like the original AVP - I will be playing this game in short sessions.

There is one thing missing though... dynamic lighting. I remember from AvP the joy of being an alien and running round levels breaking lights to terrify people.

Unfortunately I don't think the LithTek engine supports it (I haven't heard it mentioned before anyway).

Otherwise, I'd just have to mention the fact that I'm still sweating over it now - I played it late at night with the lights off and the 5.1 system turned up... scary as hell! There were times I literally had to pause it and remember to breathe.

Great demo, can't wait for the full game (or even the Predator and Alien demos we are sure to get before long)

The AvP2 demo is scary. Red Faction is goofy. Just my opinion.

The AvP2 demo is scary. Red Faction is goofy. Just my opinion.

I was pretty disappointed with the AVP2 demo actually. It seems missing the precise control of the first game. I liked the way the aliens blew apart in that one too. The engine feels floaty and over-dark. Well, maybe it just feels too Lith-techy.

-Andrew

Yes, that was exactly my reaction. It's No One Lives Forever with xenomorphs. The same old LithTech bugaboos-- sloppy controls and poor performance on state of the art computers.

I dunno, I'm still interested, but I wasn't impressed. The Red Faction full game beats the AVP2 demo, at any rate. ;)