For a very long time we did not receive normal games in the franchise “Predator” In the form of a full-fledged console project, the series made itself felt only in the distant 2005, when it was released Predator: Concrete Jungle. And it was another junk release. Predator: Hunting Grounds from Illfonic and Sony Interactive Entertainment should have closed an empty niche, but the final result is disappointing.
Hunting grounds went to PS4 and PC and offers asynchronous multiplayer, using the very first film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a starting point. Brutal pitching soldiers, a mission against bandits in the jungle, a canonical soundtrack, smearing with mud – all elements of the surroundings are in place, except that Arnie is not involved in the project, and the action itself is not happening in the 80s, but now.
Five people participate in the match – four soldiers and one predator. The soldiers need to complete several tasks and get out of the location, and the predator – to kill everyone and collect trophies, thereby “defending their honor.”
The alien is armed to the teeth and incredibly mobile. He will kill enemies with an energy rocket launcher with a three-point laser sight and blades that extend from the forearms. Of the gadgets there is a thermal imager and invisibility.
The weapons in the hunter’s arsenal are much larger: there is a bow, a canonical spear, a network gun, a disc that you can fight and throw, as well as a hand plasma gun, a club and many different items, such as grenades and first-aid kits. But all this is hidden under the cruel grind-wall.
A predator may be a more mobile ranger, but it is limited in items, or a slow berserker, but with an increased supply of health. However, you start for the average hunter class. With classes, the same problem with grind. They open at high levels, and to get to them you need to play long and hard.
In humans, everything is standard. The player can collect several classes that will be armed with two types of weapons, perks, grenades or first-aid kits. You start for an attack aircraft with averaged parameters, but later a tracker, scout and support will open, which differ in the number of items carried on missions and the health reserve.
The choice of weapons is small – a few rifles, shotguns, a machine gun and a grenade launcher. From the beginning of the game, one assault rifle is open, and the remaining guns are also under the grind wall.
All weapons have modifications, such as sights and enlarged clips, which open as the gun level rises. This happens in the process of using it.
The level of classes and all equipment (both for people and for a predator) sways so slowly that it disappoints. Although there is no donut in the game, it seems that it was originally conceived in order to reduce the amount of grind for money, but it was removed after all the scandals related to microtransactions. Or the developers are trying in an artificial and very wrong way to keep the players on the screens.
Regardless of class, the predator is always very mobile. He can jump tens of meters in height and quickly moves along tree branches. For more than half the match, you will run around the map and try to track down enemies by jumping from branch to branch. You can track people only by the thermal imager, because in normal mode the soldiers merge with the environment, and for some reason the predator does not hear shots even within a radius of 50 meters, although the place where the sound comes from is displayed on the thermal imager.
If you play using stealth, the predator has extremely powerful potential in both melee and ranged combat. And sometimes the matches end in a few minutes, when the player controlling the alien raids the enemies with the help of an energy gun, and then quickly finishes in hand-to-hand combat.
