Being a big fan of Rebellion's original Aliens vs. Predator FPS, the studio's new sequel--a faithful three-campaign amalgamation of the original experience--is extremely exciting to me. And while I didn't go hands-on with it at E3, I did get a behind-closed-doors look at the Marine campaign. And the Marine campaign, as any fan knows, is the best part of any AVP title.

What I saw was encouraging. In terms of raw graphical prowess, the new Alien vs. Predator is a pure species of Alien game. Smoke, light and shadow dominated the palette in an overrun civilian compound, the setting of the demonstration. Gaping, acid-encrusted holes in the steel walkways, turret targeting lasers faintly cutting through the haze--it all would have been intensely scary, had the introductory level not been populated with scores of NPCs.

But beyond the game's impressive graphical touches--those screenshots aren't doctored--Rebellion is putting some work into making the iconic enemies just as terrifying to fight as they were in the original.

In the new AVP, Giger's nightmares understand what shadow is, and will intelligently use it to their advantage. During one assault, three aliens rapidly closed in on the Marine and his NPC buddies. After taking down two of the beasts, the third quietly disappeared near the end of the battle. Sensing a trap, the Marine slowly moved toward a doorway, only to notice that the last Alien had been creeping along the wall, hiding in the black, hoping the player would let down his guard.

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Later, the Marine company was met with another furious attack. This time the Alien force proved overwhelming--in fact, the demo operator died several times in the course of the game--and one Alien managed to break through, pouncing directly onto the player's face. The Alien's head hovered over the Marine for a minute, and I expect it would have extended its protuberance for the fatal blow had the player not kicked off the thing and fired a saving shot.

The NPC soldiers were easily the most forgettable and unnecessary element of the demo. Of course, by the end of the demo, most of them were dead. Still, curious about how the overall game would balance the go-it-alone horror with the more scripted elements, I sat down with Alien vs. Predator project lead Tim Jones and producer Paul Mackman for a short Q&A on the promising title.

Shack: I can remember playing the original AVP back in.. what was it, '99?

Paul Mackman: Yeah, yeah.

Tim Jones: I was with Rebellion on that, and, yeah. We're still obsessed with it, and still really excited about bringing it all back home.

Shack: What sticks in my mind about that game was how scary it was. It was one of the first games I played that was almost repulsive in that sense.

Tim Jones: You always knew when a facehugger had got someone in the office, because they'd jump out of their chair screaming. [laughs]

Paul Mackman: As a matter of fact, at university I used to share the keyboard with a friend of mine. I'd do the looking and shooting, and he'd do the movement.

Tim Jones: How does that work? [laughs]

Shack: [laughs] Yeah, that's hardcore.

Tim Jones: It's hard enough already.

Paul Mackman: It's freakin' strange, but it did work. A lot of the time we played it in the dark, and those moments of backpedaling, trying to get away--it was really cool.

I started out in the industry as a games journalist, and one of the pieces I did was a retrospective on AVP, because I loved it so much. So while I didn't work on the original, it still [meant something] to me. And not just the game, the licenses themselves.

Tim Jones: Gamers' expectations obviously, and our own expectations, have moved along so far in the last decade that it's kind of daunting in some ways. It's like, how do we re-bundle the magic of the original on a new platform? And the rest of it is a really thrilling challenge, but when you catch those moments, and you catch yourself--even though you know how it's set up, and you play it again and again and it's still making you jump, and you're like "ahhhhhh," and you start swearing at the AI--"I'll get the bastard"--you know you've got something good.

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