Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt
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| Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Third Law Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra Entertainment |
| Engine | Lithtech |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release date | NA August 13, 2002 EU August 16, 2002 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: M (Mature) USK: 16+ ELSPA: 15+ OFLC: MA15+ |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| System requirements | 450 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 16 MB video card RAM, 16X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 8.0, 500 MB available hard disk space, Windows 95 |
| Input methods | Keyboard, mouse |
Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt is a prequel expansion pack for the PC game Aliens versus Predator 2. It was released in 2002, one year after the release of AVP2. It was developed by Third Law Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment and the now-defunct Fox Interactive. It runs on the Lithtech engine as did its predecessor.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Primal Hunt was released to extend AvP2 (developed by Third Law Entertainment). The pack included several new weapons (dual pistols and sentry guns for human players; energy flechette for Predator players), new indigenous wildlife and new multiplayer maps. Its single player campaign also tied up several loose ends in the story of AvP2 (including the identity and nature of the artifact sought by the corporates in AvP2). However, factors such as the shortness of the single player campaign, and the sometimes clumsy nature of the pack's additions limited its appeal.
[edit] Setting
The expansion takes place in two time periods. The first is roughly five hundred years before the events in AVP2. The second time period is in 2230, about five weeks before the beginning of the Alien's game in AVP2.
In both time periods, the game takes place on the planet LV-1201, the site of AVP2. The expansion revisits the Forward Observation Pods, a group of elevated habitation modules which comprise one of two main human facilities on the planet. Specifically, the player visits Pod 5, which was destroyed prior to the events in AVP2. The cause of its destruction is revealed in the expansion. The player also visits "Zeta Site," a portion of a Xenomorph hive alluded to in the main game. Zeta Site contains Pilot technology and Predator ruins.
[edit] Characters
The player can choose from three characters, each of which plays a different role in the expansion's intertwining storyline.
- Major Dunya is a member of the Iron Bears, a mercenary group employed by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to maintain security on LV-1201. She also plays a small but important role in AVP2 as a non-playable character. She is engaged to Dimitri, a fellow Iron Bear.
- The Ancient Predator was the first of his species to hunt on LV-1201. He discovered a hive of xenomorphs there, and his clan quickly built a facility among the hive from which to organize their hunts. When the hive facility was breached, he was accidentally put into stasis while trying to make repairs.
- The Predalien started life as a facehugger which assaulted the Ancient Predator as they went into stasis. It birthed from his chest five hundred years later in the human-built Pods.
Two other characters also play important roles.
- General Rykov is the leader of the Iron Bears, who runs an operation smuggling Pilot technology off-planet behind the facility administrator's back. He sends Dunya on a mission to retrieve one such piece of technology at the beginning of her campaign. He plays a crucial role in AVP2; he is the final enemy faced by the Predator Prince.
- Dimitri is Dunya's fiance, who is endangered by xenomorphs in the expansion. He appears briefly in AVP2 before he is killed by xenomorphs. His death gives Dunya part of her motive for her actions in that game.
[edit] Plot Summaries
[edit] The Predator's plot
Roughly five hundred years before the Incident of AVP2, a Predator spacecraft encounters the planet LV-1201, which was previously unknown to them. A lone Predator is sent out to hunt game. He encounters a verdant world, full of dangerous prey including a carnivorous, moose-like creature, a hulking, bipedal reptile capable of disguising itself as part of the terrain, and a wormlike organism which attacks from underground. Quickly, however, the predator discovers more dangerous prey: xenomorphs. The Predator follows them to their hive, through ancient Pilot ruins, where he discovers and activates an ancient Artifact which has the power to keep xenomorphs at bay.
Eight months later, the Predators have built a sort of hunting lodge or base camp around the Artifact from which to organize hunts deeper into the hive. The player's Predator descends, with some companions, deeper into the hive, in search of the xenomorph queen. However, an alarm from the facility cuts their hunt short. The Predators return to the facility to find it overrun by xenomorphs; the Artifact has been powered down. The Predator fights through hordes of xenomorphs, restores power to the artifact, and then attempts to restore power to Pilot-built stasis fields keeping bays of xenomorph eggs from hatching. While manually repairing one field generator, the Predator is surprised by a facehugger—and both are caught in the newly-activated field.
The Predator awakens five hundred years later, when the field is deactivated. He recovers his mask and makes his way to the now-ruined Artifact Chamber, where a human (Dunya) is making off with the Artifact. He pursues her through the infested ruins of the Predator facility. Finally, he tracks her to the Pods. He infiltrates Pod 5, inadvertently allowing hundreds of xenomorphs inside with him. He hacks into the human systems to learn the location of the Artifact, which he retrieves. He then breaks into a communications room and transmits a signal to his fellow Predators in the Nodus Secundus system, nine weeks away. Presumably, this transmission is the reason for the Predators' visit in AVP2. Immediately after sending the transmission, the Predator is killed when the alien chestburster incubating inside him bursts from his ribcage.
[edit] The Predalien's plot
The alien begins its game as a facehugger inside the Predators' facility, five hundred years before the Incident. The facility's integrity has just been breached, and the facehugger must sneak through the complex, seeking a solitary host. If it attacks and subdues a Predator in the sight of others, it will be killed before it can implant its embryo. The facehugger scurries through vents and under floor grating, using occasional xenomorph attacks as diversions. Finally, it locates one Predator attempting to repair a stasis field generator below the facility. It strikes—but both creatures are overcome by the rising stasis field.
The alien emerges from its host five hundred years later, inside Pod 5. Now a chestburster, it must find a food source while evading human guards. It makes its way through vents, corridors, and a lavatory to the Pods' morgue, where it feeds and molts into an adult.
When fully-grown, the Predalien stalks and slaughters its way through Pod 5, seeking the Artifact which its host was carrying. Its path back to its host is now blocked by wreckage from the humans' battles with other xenomorphs, so the Predalien must find an alternate route. It cuts through the botanical labs and nears the Artifact when sirens start going off—the Pod's supports are going to be detonated. The alien abandons the Artifact in order to save its own life. It fights through a small army of combat synthetics and armored Exosuits, finally escaping through a vent near the pod's generator. It flees with several other aliens along a support girder just before the supports are destroyed.
[edit] Dunya's plot
Dunya's game begins five weeks before the Incident in AVP2. She is spending some quality time with her fiance Dimitri when they are interrupted by a call from their mutual superior officer, General Rykov. Rykov asks to meet with Dunya immediately, explaining that they have "found a buyer." When they meet, Rykov explains that Dunya is to retrieve an Artifact discovered during a synthetic-team exploration of Zeta Site. The synthetics were quickly destroyed, but they transmitted information about the Artifact back to Rykov. Doctor POst, a scientist in Rykov's employ provides Dunya with a "worm device," designed to hack into Pilot technology and shut down systems indiscriminately so that she can retrieve the Artifact.
Dunya, Serge, and Decker (two other Iron Bears) infiltrate Zeta Site while the Weyland-Yutani guards have been conveniently incapacitated. They descend to the hive, where xenomorphs overwhelm the other two—Dunya is the only survivor. She runs through the hive, scavenging supplies from the destroyed synthetic expedition. When she reaches the Artifact Chamber, the xenomorphs pursuing her stop dead in their tracks, watching warily. Dunya reports the situation back to Rykov, then installs the worm device. After some time, the Pilot technology around her starts to fail and collapse, blocking her entrance route.
Finally, the Artifact itself shuts down, allowing Dunya to retrieve it. She does so and is immediately accosted by aliens. She escapes by clambering over the ruins to the abandoned Predator facility. She fights her way through dozens of aliens and cunningly-placed eggs to the surface, then across a series of narrow, bridge-like formations spanning a series of rocky hills. She finally reaches a waiting APC, which takes her back to the Pods.
Later, at the Pods, Rykov informs Dunya that xenomorphs have infiltrated the Pod and orders Dunya to retrieve the Artifact from storage. Dunya goes to secure the Artifact, arriving just in time to see the Predator making off with it. Rykov, having encountered Predators before, warns her to abandon the Artifact and evacuate the Pod. She arrives at the main elevator, but learns that her fiance Dmitri went to seal the breach which allowed the xenomorphs entry, and he has not been heard from since. Dunya tells the others to evacuate the Pod, insisting that she will keep the cargo area clear until her fiance returns. Using a mounted minigun and a few automated sentries, she does just that. She and Dmitri evacuate the lift, and Rykov detonates the supports keeping Pod 5 attached to the rest of the Pods. Pod 5 crashes to the valley floor below.
[edit] External links
- Dedicated sites
- Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt at AvPGalaxy.net
- Files for AVP2
- Aliens vs Predator Unknown Custom Skins & Mods for AVP2
- AvP2 Mods: Skins & Mods for AVP2
