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The Predator chapter of the game is possibly the easiest, becuase you are an all powerful god. The Predator has too many cool weapons, neat bits of equipment] and cool vision modes, so you feel as if you've cheated with the marine, and enabled a God Mode cheat. This means that it seems a bit too much like a walk in the park, compared to the mind bendingly difficult marine and Alien chapters.
- Wristblades - these meaty blades look very nice, but are actually nearly useless for taking out enemies. If you swipe at Aliens with it, their acid blood will damage you. Marines will probably have killed you before you kill him. The only use is the secondary fire will charge the blade up - sneak up behind someone and you should get a kill. The blade can also be used on dead enemies to decapitate them - this will get you trophies at the end of the level.
- Spear Gun - this weapon is excellent. You can zoom in like a sniper and then pop a spear in between the eyes of a marine who hasn't even seen you yet, and you are then treated to a lovely bit of de-limbing. Whatever body part you hit is ripped off and pinned to the wall by the spear. The main downsides to this gun are that you have only about 30 spears per leve, and it is impossible to find more of them. Also, when you fire the gun whilst cloaked, your cloak will disappear and cannot be turned back on for a few seconds, so you have to fire while in a safe place.
- Shoulder Cannon - thisd baby is brilliant. It fires a ball of plasma at any targeted enemy (you target an enemy when you are in the relevant vision mode - see below) and can quite often blow most of the limbs off a human, and it makes a similar mess of Aliens. The cannon can be charged to give an even bigger blast, and is generally one of the best weapons in the game. Furthermore, it does not turn off your cloak, and so can be used when you are not in a hidden place.
- Energy Pistol - this weapon is acquired about half way through the single player game and is definitely the best weapon to use against Aliens. It fires a ball of energy which has some nice splash damage, meaning that you can take out Aliens without hitting them directly. It is also a great weapon for taking out facehuggers, and and humans you hit are "hilariously" electrocuted.
- Disc - all your Tron fantasies are belong to Aliens Vs. Predator. This baby can be thrown either with or without targeting, and will happily decapitate anyone in the way. It sometimes returns by itself, or you can go and pick it up, but if all else fails there is a button bound to recall disc, which teleports it back from wherever you threw it. This baby eats up Field energy like nobody's business, so should be used sparingly.
- Cloaking device - this is unspeakably good. You feel like you're playing the game with cheats on, but this basically stops enemies from noticing you. Sometimes they can see you - apparently the light can reflect off the cloak shield and give the game away, and obviously walking around in water is a no-no. Some weapons break your cloak, while some can be fired with it still on. The cloak uses field energy while it is on.
- Zoom - this can be bound to the mouse scroll wheel. It allows four different levels of zoom, and is useful for targeting the Spear Gun.
- Medicomp - as seen in Predator the film. If you have enough field energy you can heal yourself back up to full health.
- Grappling Hook - this is the Predator equivalent of the Marine's Jetpack. This allows the Predator to navigate Alien levels by firing it into walls and winching up. You can hang on this for as long as you like and then fire another one off. This technique can be used to climb vertical shafts. Again, it is only available in some bonus missions.
- Normal - this is identical to how Humans see, and how the Alien's hunting vision mode works (minus the "auras" though).
- Thermal - this makes everything Blue, except for Humans, who show up as rainbow coloured shapes. This means you can spot enemies from miles away. Auto tracking weapons will track humans in this mode.
- Electric - this makes everything (including humans) red, except for all types of Aliens and androids, who show up as a glowing silver - grey. Auto Tracking weapons track Aliens and Androids in this mode.
- Predtech - for tracking other Predators. Everything looks green, but Predators show up as white with green highlights. Auto Tracking weapons will track Predators in this mode.
The Field energy mentioned above is what limits the Predator from being truly amazing. It is a value which increases very slowly over time, assuming that nothing is using it. If you use the cloak, or the Medicomp, or fire the Shoulder Cannon or Energy Pistol then your field energy will decrease. If it runs out, you have to wait for it to recharge before you can do any of the aforementioned things, meaning you will have to rely on Wristblades and Spear Gun only. This is hard, so playing as the Predator usually means taking it slow so that your energy is never too low.
Overall, while playing as the Predator is probably the least fun of the three chapters, it is still fun for a while. You'll be back to the plain old horrible difficulty of the Marine soon though, I bet...