So what's the problem with a gold version of Aliens vs. Predator? Nothing, in theory. I would love to see the developers make some new single player levels, come up with a few new weapons, add some of the widely requested multiplayer modes, and perhaps give us a few new enemies to fight. No such luck. The new stuff here is barely worthy of a patch, much less being repackaged as a gold edition. You'll find three things in this box that you won't find in the original Aliens vs. Predator: a strategy guide, some new weapons, and some new levels. None of these is anything to get even mildly excited about.
There's a 168-page Prima guide included, the bulk of which is your standard issue walkthru. The black and white screenshots are often hard to associate with the actual game, but the author has done a decent job of providing a step-by-step solution to each of the levels (which is especially difficult for the Alien levels, since Aliens can violate the conventional rules of up and down by walking on the walls and ceilings). The information on the particulars of each race is fairly helpful, but the general tips are next to useless. The multiplayer tips are so broad that they'd apply to almost any first person shooter. As far as Prima's guides go, you could do far worse. But there's nothing here you wouldn't be able to find online (for instance, here [http://www.avpnews.com]).
New weapons are a great idea for the gold version of a game, but you'd never guess that from what Rebellion has given us. There is nothing new for the Predator or the Alien. Instead, it looks like we got rejects from the Marines' original arsenal. There is a useless pistol that's only slightly less useless when it's doubled up, John Woo style. But I'll take the default Pulse Rifle over dual pistols any day of the week. And the Skeeter is just a huge unruly rocket launcher.
And then we have new levels. This sounds good at first, but there are a couple of caveats. First, these are only multiplayer levels. There is nothing new for the single player game. Let me repeat that: there's nothing new for the single player game. Nothing whatsoever. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Second, most other first person shooters ship with open architecture or a level editor so you'll see new third party levels blooming like flowers in the spring, available for free download on the internet. Not so with Aliens vs. Predator, where we have to pay for a paltry nine new multiplayer levels.
