The colonial marines are your token human species, based on the marines from the second and fourth Alien movies. The marines do not have a fixed base but instead are based around the Comm Tech. Comm Tech’s are critical since they are the only ones who can order new units and then have them delivered via drop ship (money is earned by repairing Atmospheric Converters (ATMO’s)) While this is a little bit of a stretch, it almost kinda works in the context of the game. The rest of the units are recognizable from the movie with basic infantry, flamethrower units, and smartgunners making appearances along with some other units that are derivatives of things in the film (the battle-suited trooper is reminiscent of the military version of the loader suit that Ripley used at the end of the second movie).
The aliens (Xenomorphs for the hardcore out there) are a little more complex. The aliens start life of as eggs which contain facehuggers. You know the drill from there. You have to find fresh bodies for the facehuggers to lay eggs in. The host you select determines the type of alien created. Eggs can also be modified to generate Queens which in turn can lay more eggs. The problem lies in finding hosts in which to gestate more aliens. Since most people aren’t going to be willing hosts (especially since the process is fatal to the hosts) you have to have other drones go out and collect them. Hosts don’t have to be human or predators. There is plenty of wildlife in the area that can serve as hosts until you have enough drones to go after bigger fish. A nice feature is that after a battle you can set your aliens to collector mode where they will drag back corpses to the nest. This allows you to focus on other things rather than having to individually select aliens and bodies to be dragged back for impregnation.
The final race is probably the most fun to play as they have the most goodies to use. The Predators possess all of the cool little goodies from the movie franchise as well as some new things (XX verify this XX). The Predators are based around a shrine. The shrine can call the orbiting mothers ship to order new units. New unit costs X amount of honor points which are earned when you kill another unit. Bonus points are earned for collecting trophies (the skull of the fallen enemy). The harder the unit to kill the more honor is earned by killing and collecting. Like the aliens, the Predators can be set to collection mode where they will automatically harvest trophies without you having to pick a predator and body to harvest from.
The background graphics
Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction are decent but not something to write home about. This isn’t necessarily a knock against the artists because the world these three species inhabit isn’t exactly a bright and colorful one. The unit models aren’t much to look at either, as it can be difficult to discern between some of the units (especially with the Aliens) unless you are using the close zoom mode. This can be frustrating especially in larger battles when you are trying to find a specific unit for a task. That said, there are a lot of nice graphical touches that help pull you into the game. Each species has a unique user interface and there are some nice effects tossed into the game (each species bleeds the right color which is a nice touch).
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