I am honestly trying to enjoy this game.

[Ferrum]

I can look past the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ graphics, I plopped custom self-tweeked SweetFX in there. I use it on pretty much every game. Also got the DirectX 10 mod. It's dealable. Not impressive but good enough to write off.

I can look past the terrible campaign, because I honestly just like shooting the retarded aliens, and the animiations involving melee and whatnot are pretty decent. Not terrible, not exactly fantastic, but playable.

I can get past all the bugs in both campaign and multiplayer. Most of them are only minor annoyances, no big deal.

I can get past the lack of content.

However, even after trying to look past all this ♥♥♥♥ and enjoy the game, the developers want to punish me for some reason. I am of course refering to the "challenge" system. It is apparently the only way to unlock any form of customization and thus, a large majority of the content in the game.
This doesn't sound so bad at first, however, it is not a fun "unlock things as you play!" set-up. It actually feels like the developers are sadistically torturing me with the difficulty of some of the challenges. Not to mention the fact that they have to be done in order, so I am currently stuck on 3 challenges that are pretty much impossible, and cannot unlock any new content what-so-ever.
I honestly get the impression that they did not test this system to see how people would receive it. I remember like challenge number 5 or 6 for one of the different trees was "pounce 3 people in 10 seconds". This was so difficult that they only way I was able to achieve this was due to the fact that my internet randomly went out in a match and I was hosting. This allowed me to pounce on 3 people before the game disconnected me.
I thought to myself "Oh good, I can move on now! Unlocks ahoy!"
Right away I got stuck on the challenge "kill 5 enemies with melee in a single campaign"

I thought ok, that's cool, I'll pop into campaign and breeze through this. I then learned how impossible this is due to existing game mechanics.

1) It take somewhere around 8-15 melee hits to kill a zeno in a normal difficulty campaign. it take maybe 5-7 hits to kill you. If your health gets low enough, you can just instantly die.
2) The useless AI marines who follow you around suck too much to really be of any help in a fight, however they do just enough damage to kill a zeno as you go to land the final melee hit.
3) It's pretty much impossible to judge how much to shoot them before you begin melee to shorten the amount of effort it takes to kill them. Sometimes it seems to do nothing, and still require 3 minutes of toe-to-toe smack-down time, others you blow their arms off by accident.

I thought that one was bad till I got something along the lines of "Hit enemies with an entire magazine from any rifle without missing." I really don't feel that it needs to be explained why this is so retarded in this game, but I'm going to for the sake of my post.

1) Everything in this game moves constantly. Not enough to make it difficult to kill them, but you normally miss some shots before you do.
2) The magazine capacities for all the rifles are MASSIVE. 40 rounds on the pulse rifle pretty much makes that impossible for the challenge. I don't remember how big the magazines are for the assault rifle, but the recoil on it makes it pretty much impossible. That leaves the battle rifle, with it's huge 15 round magazine.
3) Your retarded AI marines will regularly clip through you and cause you to suddenly shoot into the back of their head. They will also kill a person you are about to shoot, causing you to instead miss or hit their dead body ruining your attempt at getting 15 in a row.

I can't wait to unlock the next challenge. I'm expecting it to tell me that I will unlock 1 camo pattern for my marine for tying my shoe laces using only a wooden spoon.

[Dark1]

This made me laugh! Your right aswell that melee challenge was HARD! Plus now deading that wholw clip one jesus!

[Urnefar]

"I can't melee aliens" - "pulse rifle has too much ammo" - "the aliens move around too much".


Geez... have you even seen an Alien movie or played an AvP game before?

[Ferrum]

Originally posted by Urnefar:

"I can't melee aliens" - "pulse rifle has too much ammo" - "the aliens move around too much".


Geez... have you even seen an Alien movie or played an AvP game before?

Actually got got me, I haven't played any AvP games(especially not the really terrible one released recently), or watched any of the movies or even played the Sega Genesis Aliens games. My long critical post was actually me pointlessly whining and not pointing out that they force you to play the game in a way that is not fun.

That's actually the best way to play the game. Over and over so you can keep trying a menial task to get the next locked bit of content.

It's a good thing you incorrectly paraphrased me and made me realize that I'm an idiot. Oh thank you, benevolent poster of relevant things!

[Polar Bear]

5 Melee Challenge - Easily done on the second level. Let the facehuggers attack, throw them off you, melee them. There are five facehuggers.

10 Melee Challenge - Easily done on the second level. Got it on my first try. Kill the five facehuggers, there's five. Use melee on the humans, they go down in two hits if they haven't taken any damage. If you can't get close enough, hit 'em with an electrical round from the tactical shotgun to stun them first.

Don't Miss An Enemy with One Magazine - Easiest to do on the second level. Use the battle rifle, take your time, and choose your shots carefully. If you can't get all 15 shots on the first wave of soldiers, then you still have five facehuggers coming up...

Noticing a pattern here?

[The Gamer Doob]

I can play the multiplayer just fine for a few games but after awhile, the screen freezes up when I look for a game to join. The music is still going but it doesn't respond. After I end it using ctrl alt del it won't let me open it back up again nor will it let me open steam. I have to restart the computer to open these two. Does anyone have a solution?

[Ferrum]

Originally posted by Jesus Christ:

Noticing a pattern here?

Play the second level over and over? I think it's rather tiring to play the same level so many times. Really sucks the fun out of a game I'd otherwise enjoy.

I didn't think of smacking the facehuggers with melee. I managed to get the five on the fourth level, I think it was. The part where you walk down into the tunnel with the smartgun.

I got the full magazine thing on the second level. Got all the way to the end because I ether went to shoot someone and O' Neal shot them, or Bella ran in front of me blocking my shot. I finally managed to shoot the same heavy smartguy guy with the battle rifle like 10 times, just shooting him in the leg, then got 5 hits on other people in the room.

Not my idea of fun. So again, I'd like to point out that it feels like I'm being tortured to get a large percentage of the content in this game.

[Polar Bear]

It is tiring to keep playing the 2nd level, but it's the easiest way to get a lot of these difficult challenges completed. I was able to grind out six or seven of them in about a half hour.

[Ferrum]

Originally posted by Jesus Christ:

It is tiring to keep playing the 2nd level, but it's the easiest way to get a lot of these difficult challenges completed. I was able to grind out six or seven of them in about a half hour.

I think the fact that you used the word "grind" is a good indicator that the challenges should have been set up differently.

[Polar Bear]

I don't care for the challenge system, but if I want those neat doo-dads to put on my guy, then I gotta do what I gotta do.

Some of them are ridiculously hard (like the "pounce three times in 10 seconds" one) and others are frustratingly simple ("kill two enemies with a smart gun").

[Polar Bear]

To add, I REALLY don't like how you can only complete whatever challenge is available at that time. One challenge is to complete a mission on "Hardened," even though I'd already beaten the entire game on that level. I sighed, fired up the first mission, and beat it on "Hardened" again. Next challenge? Complete a mission on "Ultimate Badass."

I really must like this game, because I wouldn't bother if I didn't.

[The Dude]

Screw that... no way am I meleeing a freaking alien. Give me a BIG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gun.