Predators Review

Predators, based off of the upcoming movie, comes with a high pedigree being published by Chillingo and developed by the makers of Guerrilla Bob, Angry Mob Games. Despite a few rough elements, Predators is otherwise grisly fun worthy of the Predator license.

The game has you playing as a nameless Predator, who is training to hunt humans for sport, and is given 23 different missions, acquiring new skills and weapons to hunt the humans along the way. You start off with just a set of blades, but obtain a large staff and a selection of melee weapons, as well as the traditional Predator cloaking device and thermal vision to help you get the jump on your foes.

Predators is just as you would hope a game where you play as a Predator to be - it is exceptionally violent, even rewarding you for executing more grisly kills, such as ripping out a human's head and spine, granting you more points to purchase towards weapon upgrades. As well, the game is a universal app, so iPad owners aren't left out of the fun, and it looks great on the iPad's huge screen. The game takes about two and a half hours to beat, with 23 standard levels to play, and a final level serving as a survival mode. The game is very addictive in much the same way to Guerrilla Bob, with levels being just short enough to feel like you could play just one more, and then one more, and if you're not careful, you might just wind up beating the game in one sitting the same way I did.

The controls of Predators suffer from feeling exceptionally random, especially in melee combat. This is particularly noticeable when you need to take a trophy kill - you can try to dash at the enemies or perform an particular combo move, but sometimes you'll grab the enemy, and sometimes you won't with no real reason why it didn't work. Also, the weapons besides the default melee blades are at best unnecessary, at worst useless. You can certainly beat the game without using them except when the game requires it.

Predators is a little rough around the edges, but overall, it is a good game that makes great use of its license, and it being a universal app as well should be the start of a trend that other developers and publishers pick up on.