Predator: Concrete Jungle
Welcome to the most annoying controls, cameras, and levels ever.
Nearly one year later, VU's game has arrived on Xbox and PlayStation 2 fully realized, complete, and completely unchanged. Its labyrinth of confusing controls, over-use of gadgets, and abundance of tools and weapons wreck any kind of immersive possibilities, detract from potentially continuous action, and create frustration and confusion wherever possible.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Predator's fantastic arsenal. On the contrary, it's super freaking cool. But Eurocom's inability to handle them in a manner that's fun and engaging prevents the game from reaching its purpose, which is to enable players to feel stealthy and powerful while having fun slaying, flaying, and beheading the evil thugs who rightfully deserve such deeds.
Story
There are a ton of other problems in the game, so please allow me to begin with a few of the less primary issues before returning to the game's miserable rat's nest of a control system.
The brand new story follows a 100-year time span of arrogance, pride, and stubbornness. Eurocom's story starts with the Predator causing a huge ruckus back in the early 1920-30s by breaking all the standard Predator rules. The Predator is part of an ancient civilization of hunters who live primitively yet wield fantastic technology. As a hunting tribe, they wield a handful of short- and long-range weapons, a multitude of "visions," and the sheer cunning and aggressiveness you'd expect from such a dangerous race.
They hunt purely for sport, and so they all follow a few simple rules. Killing unarmed civilians, for instance, doesn't bring much glory, so it's not valued very highly in the Predator civilization. In fact, it's frowned upon. Killing numerous innocent bystanders is regarded as humiliating and disrespectful to the tribe. Unfrotunately, your friendly Predator ends up getting in too far over his head, getting injured, and having to blow up a massive part of the city, not to mention attracting the National Guard. You get the picture. The tribe arrives to survey the situation and it nabs you, brings you to a dangerous bug-infested wasteland of a planet, and gives you one weapon to defend yourself. Then they leave, returning 100 years later to survey your progress. You have survived, naturally, and so you've given the opportunity to redeem yourself back on Earth.
Being the rather thick-headed type, you return with a major chip on your shoulder in the near future. You discover that, upon resettling on Earth, a powerful mob family has found the technology you left behind and is using it for various nefarious purposes. Your goals, thusly, comprise recovering all of your former weaponry and destroying the ring of baddies who control them.
The story has a sketchy premise, but it never has a chance because it's told poorly, and the gameplay doesn't help it in any way. Furthermore, the story is told using a beguiling female narrator, whose role isn't clear from the beginning and doesn't make much sense in the tradition of the Predator.
Gamplay
Predator has the potential to be a knockout game. It's easy to see. There is this kick-ass, highly skilled hunter-killer, a proven bad-ass, armed to the teeth with high-tech weaponry. We all know who this bad-ass is thanks to his role he played in Arne's action-thriller,Predator, trailed by the rather limp second movie, and a slew of comic books that followed in their paths. All VU has to do is deliver the game in a way that's fun, compelling, and playable. Ah, obviously I must be a naive and idealistic videogame journalist who thinks making a game is easy and simple. I poke fun at myself only because I can. Making a game is easily one of the hardest things on earth to do, but that still doesn't explain how a game with this much potential has been so mishandled and ruined in nearly every way.
Right off the bat, you'll notice the Predator is capable of a multitude of awesome things. He can jump all over the place, has an arsenal of possible weapons to choose from, and is nearly invincible. Yet, he's amazingly powerless once you start playing the game. This is the crux of thePredator's greatest irony. With all of this fantastic technology and power, why is it so hard to just get through a few lousy missions? Why do you feel compelled to throw your controller across the room? Tear your cat's head off? Slaughter your baby sister's Habit-Trail of hamsters? The answer isn't easy to come by, but it's rooted in the game's wonky controls, the poor level design, and the developer's lack of focus. Finally, it's VU Game's fault for not having managed or directed the game's fate, knowing how badly the controls felt a year ago.
I can go on and on, but I'll spare you the long-winded rant. Instead, here's the short one. The crux of the game's problems rest in the overdose of weaponry poorly mapped to the controls and poorly implemented throughout the game. For instance, if you want to use any particular weapon, you have to collect them throughout the city. Not that big of a deal, but when you do want to blast enemies with the Plasmacaster, you essentially use all of your energy or juice. Meaning you'll have to re-charge somewhere in the city. You can basically shoot two, maybe three shots of this before having to refill. That's just weak sauce.
Then, there's the CombiStick, which actually isn't all that powerful, or the Speargun, which isn't all that fun to use, and well, it goes on and on. The point is you never really feel as powerful as the Predator really is, and you're constantly in need of having to re-charge your energy to do just about anything.
Then there are the vision modes. If the controls weren't annoying already, flipping through the four vision modes is a chore that's repetitive, awkward, and sometimes just plain useless. There are very few times when I actually needed to use the psychological vision mode, quite frankly. It just gets in the way. This game is simply too complicated for its own good. A more focused and more fun approach would enable you to use specific weapons at certain times, or to simply use fewer weapons, but to use them really well. Finally, the camera system makes you constantly struggle to achieve the right angle, and quite quickly you'll realize you'll have to find it non-stop, sucking any remainder of fun from your experience.
Graphics
While the gameplay might frustrate your hands and mind, at least most of the visuals don't disappoint or hurt your eyes too badly. The Predator model is sharp looking. His animated "hair" tassels are complemented by articulate body parts, dangling skulls at the waistline, correct weaponry, and an accurate replication of the Predator's hideous alien maw.
The painful abundance of view modes, even if they aren't always that functional, is at least interesting to look at. They add a certain alien quality to the world. For instance, the menu screens for the essentially useless "psychological vision," with their measurements and analyses, are nonetheless cool to see. The Predator's stealth mode is also good looking, showing a mercurial surface to the hunter's form as he stalks through the steaming city. Last, the city's architecture is neat in function and design. It's useful as a concrete jungle gym for the Predator, so it not only is a re-creation of major urban metropolis, but it functions as a kind of obstacle course that would be so much more fun to use if the camera system wasn't so annoying.
Everything after that, however, registers in the mediocre range. The city is blandly textured and unlike the well-designed Predator model, the rest of the characters, be they enemies, bosses, or simple civilians, are simply animated, textured and modeled.
Sound
Like the excellent visual model of the Predator, the sounds issued from his hideous maw are spot-on. While resting, the creature chortles like a sick deranged lion; when it recharges with medicine, it lets loose a ferocious and characteristic roar. And then there are all the sounds of it jumping, landing, and skulking, with things jangling, feet heavily stomping, and the occasional grunt.
The music plays a solid role. It deals out a good sense of the Predator's dark and ferocious character. The general score is theatrical in nature, with dark strains running through it for impact, and it's complemented by dynamic changes in the action. The music is enjoyable and appropriate for this game, even if the voice-overs, especially the narrator's, are amateurish and overdone.
Verdict
Predator: Concrete Jungle is a good idea gone bad. Eurocom's handling of this unique action character is clearly focused on re-creating the character as true to the film and franchise as possible. Unfortunately, four vision modes, a wonky camera, and an arsenal of superb weapons hampered by weird restrictions, limited power, and incredibly awkward controls absolutely ruins any continuous or deep feeling of enjoyment or fun that might be had.
For true, diehard fans who don’t care about it being a lousy game and who simply want to control the Predator, well, this won't disappoint you too much. The Predator model, animations, textures, abilities, and sounds are all very good. Too bad those qualities alone don't make for a good game.
In This Article
Predator: Concrete Jungle
mediocre
Douglass C. Perry