Rykov comes across as such an interesting character/antagonist in this kind of game. The care and duty he has to his men, sense of honor while still showing his bitterness towards the Predator. His dependence on painkillers could've been used as a means to humiliates him, but he shows his own disgust in having to use them, while his men understand and still respect him.

They could've made him comically over the top, but didn't. He's so well realized for an old 00s video game, and even blows characters from modern "movie games" out of the water given the amount of screentime he has.

"Should we really be talking so nonchalantly about all this classified information?"
"What, do you think there's a facehugger in the walls taking notes or something?"
facehugger adjusts glasses

This game had INCREDIBLE online multiplayer. The stealth systems only vaguely gestured at in the campaign actually worked great on real people, and a talented Alien player could absolutely get you with the 'blending into the pipes and coming from behind' move. Predators, meanwhile, have an amazingly high skill ceiling, and the all-timers could hold off a combined force of humans and aliens with deceptive ease. Marines had the smartgun. I played marine.

Fun fact: The ship in this game "Verloc", is named after the character in The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, who also wrote the book "Nostromo" and created the fictional town in that book "Sulaco". The devs weren't messing around.

Biting your way out of the guy's chest in this game immediately burned itself into my brain as a kid. Fucking incredible example of ludo narrative harmony.

Rest in peace, poor Monolith. May folks like Civvie keep your good memory alive for decades to come

The absolute joy in Civvie's voice when he shouted "Oh they gave it to Monolith!" is all you need to know how good this episode is.

I love the ending to the alien campaign because not only is the fade away of Eisenberg screaming in abject terror a provocative image, it implys extreme sadistic tendencies in the xenos. They have no survival reason to do this they just hate him that much they make him they're eternal trophy.

8:17 The moment in Alien campaign where the NPC turns around and whispers 'oh god' is engraved into my memory more than the scene where you burst out of a guy's chest. Such sheer terror in the delivery. Monolith was so good with atmosphere.

You can actually find the sniper rifle in a secret storage before the final mission. This adds whole 5 more minutes of using it

There's something funny about a facehugger running around vents, listening in on conversations like it's a spy

The genuine happiness in Civvie's voice when he said "they gave it to monolith"

"Eisenberg, who wasn't satisfied with almost dying, has come up with a plan that will get him all the way there"
I... just...

This must be a movie quote. This SHOULD be a movie quote.

23:27 I like how he stays in character as a pred and doesn't kill the cowering scientist because cowering scientists aren't worthy prey.

Man, this game is full of both Halo and Valve voice actors.  Jones and Harrison are both voiced by David Scully (Gny. Sgt. Avery Johnson in Halo), Jeff Steitzer (the Halo multiplayer announcer) is Rykov, Jen Taylor (Cortana in Halo, Zoey in Left 4 Dead) is Tomiko, and Gary Schwartz (Heavy Weapons Guy) is Eisenberg.

I did not expect "the sniper rifle is in the game, you get to use it for like five seconds at the end of the campaign" to be a literal and accurate description of what happens.

The Aliens teeth showing up on screen when you're in headshot range is such nice touch. Little UI additions like that are always welcome.

It baffles me how good studios like Monolith and Raven get fucked over nothing while Greasy-Man-In-Charge Randy, EA and Kotick basically thrives.

So for those unaware let me explain the legal nightmare AvP2 is tied up in.  Fox licensed it out to Monolith, who was working with Serria at the time.  So those three had a hand in it.  Monolith absorbed into Warner Brothers game development branch, Serria got sucked into Vivindi, which got absorbed into Activision-Blizzard, and Fox god absorbed into Disney.  So now those who made it, who had a hand in it are now Disney, Warner Brothers, and Activision Blizzard, and none of them will relinquish the rights.

Night Dive tried to pull on that thread to get the game out and got shut down immediately.

"Frosty, you move up and do literally everything. We'll cover you. From back here. In orbit."