PREDATOR: HUNTING GROUNDS
It’s pushed too many pencils
RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PlayStation 4
Also on PC (Epic Games Store)
Publisher Sony Interactive Ent
The audio and visual cues wrap around you. The eerie cackle of the unseen alien signals it’s close by, watching cloaked from the treetops. The option to ping “Get to the chopper” when all is lost recalls Arnie’s famous one-liner. The music thunders and rolls in the background, perfectly upping the tempo of the tension. Yet while Predator: Hunting Grounds manages to capture the tone of the original movie, it also stumbles along the way.
This asymmetrical multiplayer pits a four-player fireteam of muscled ’80s movie stereotypes against a player-controlled Predator (with the option, for the first time, to play as a female Predator). They have randomised missions to complete within the three maps, while the Predatorplayer’s goal is straightforward: kill ’em all. Everything is wellbalanced and each side has pros and cons. The fireteam can be modded with classes and perks, and working as a unit gives you a chance. The Predator has its cloak and heat vision tech and its agility ensures dancing through the trees is a joy, but when caught on the ground, it’s vulnerable.
The problems are technical. Matchmaking can take over five minutes to get a game as the Predator. When the action heats up, the framerate can drop and the screen stutters. And the core loop is too simplistic: within a couple of days you’ll have discovered many of the combat’s nuances, and you’re left with a soulless shoot-out. Still, when everything clicks, when you’re splintering the trees with overpowered guns in desperation, you’ll grin ear to ear. Shallow and plagued by problems, somehow this Predator still hits some of its targets. Ian Dean
A female Predator (nicknamed Big Mama) was first seen in comic Aliens /Predator: The Deadliest Of The Species in 1995.