The Quickfire Q&A is our schizophrenic antidote to over-worded, boringly constructed articles, giving you all the key info plus a joke or three in snappy question-answer format. Next up, Rebellion’s Alien vs. Predator for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Give us the feature breakdown on Alien vs. Predator.

You’ve got three single player campaigns for three different organisms: spindly, slavering Xenomorph, high-tech head-hunter Predator, and small, squishy, terrified, soon-to-be-limbless Homo Sapiens. On top of that, there’s online multiplayer for up to 18 players.

Three multiplayer modes have been announced. Deathmatch needs no explanation. Predator Hunt casts one player as the Predator while the rest don the soft, pink bodysuits of human Marines. Kill the Predator and you become him. Infestation pits just one Alien against Earth’s finest, but any human players killed respawn as Aliens.

What were you playing, where were you playing it and for how long?

A no-frills, 5-10 minute round of deathmatch on a PS3 build of the game at the Eurogamer Expo in central London.

No, it doesn't look quite this good.

First impressions?

It’s no feast for the eyes at this point. Textures are low-res, the geometry is blocky, the lighting lacks tone and depth and the framerate bounces in and out of the teens, especially when you’re using the Predator’s visors. Character models are quite large and detailed, though, and everything gets pleasantly graphic when you melee or stealth-kill somebody’s ass. Providing you’re playing a Predator or an Alien, that is. Marines? Not so hot in a brawl.

Which side were you on?

I was a Predator.

And did you stomp Marine scalp and kick Alien buttock?

The first part certainly. Predators can “focus-jump” to choice lurking/sniping spots as indicated by a little red reticule, then pick off dawdling ape descendants beneath with their shoulder cannons – these take a few seconds to lock on and must be recharged at energy depots between uses, but splat everything and anything in one hit. Or you might shrug into your invisibility cloak, sneak into the middle of a platoon and gut somebody with your wrist blades while his mates aren’t looking. Decisions, decisions.

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The Quickfire Q&A is our schizophrenic antidote to over-worded, boringly constructed articles, giving you all the key info plus a joke or three in snappy question-answer format.

Next between our cross-hairs is the follow-up to the fun but flawed Battlefield: Bad Company, in which men in padded camo helmets fire RPGs at walls to knock them on top of other men in padded camo helmets.

So what were you playing?

A 10-man round of Capture the Flag on an arid seaside map called “Flag Map C”. Probably a provisional title, yes. It was an Xbox 360 build.

Where were you playing it?

Ooh, can’t tell you that. Bit embarrassing. Let’s just say I was at an event in London run by a certain “E. Gamer”. No wait, that’s too obvious – how about “Euro. G”.

What’s Flag Map C like then?

Seems to be an old industrial port town near a dried-up river delta – think abandoned shipping containers, old sailboats sunk to the oarlocks in sand. I saw an entire tanker high and dry in the dunes, just like the start of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. On the outskirts of the town you get low brickwork houses, but there are two or three storey buildings further in. Plus a lot of corrugated metal fencing and bombed-out cars.

You know what would be cool? A multiplayer map aboard a ship you can actually sink.

Your immediate impressions on picking up the controller?

It didn’t feel too different from Bad Company, really. The combat knife is now on left bumper rather than being buried in the weapon select, which makes it easier to melee kill. Other than that, business as usual. Left trigger for iron sights, click the left stick to sprint, right trigger to fire.

Can you lie prone this time, or is it still just standing and crouching?

The latter. It’s hard to spot other players in Bad Company 2 even when they’re standing – few primary colours or clean edges, lots of incidental detail, and damaged buildings generate huge, lingering clouds of dust – so I guess they didn’t want to make it too noob-proof.

What about the freeform destruction part? Did the game look like it was working harder than its predecessor in that respect?

Not that I noticed, but then I spent a lot of my time at the controller crashing helicopters. The man behind was most amused. Objects seem to come apart in smaller pieces, and I was able to level buildings with airstrikes, but you can’t knock them to the floor, piece by piece, with things like RPGs and rockets.

Never bring a chopper to a tank fight.

What about classes and loadouts?

You’ve got Assault, Engineer and Recon roles as before – no Specialist or Support this time, though the new Medic class retains some of the abilities of the Support class. Assault players get rifles and grenades, Engineers pack shotguns, repair tools and anti-vehicle rockets, Medics get those chest-zapper revival things and Recon troops are the snipers.

Your prognosis, then?

I liked the original Bad Company, and the sequel’s dancing to the same tune. Could face serious competition from MAG though – there’s the same rough-and-ready urban warfare vibe, but MAG supports more players per side and gives you more unique, interesting ways of organising them.

The game’s out on 2nd and 5th March 2010 in North America and Europe respectively for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

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Sometimes you just can’t be arsed reading through a “proper” preview. If we’re honest, sometimes we can’t be arsed writing the bloody things. The solution in both cases? Cram any and all distracted notebook scribblings into an easy-to-produce, easy-to-read question-and-answer piece. Allow me to introduce FPS Gamer’s wilfully oddball Quickfire Q&A feature.

First up for the Quickfire treatment is Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2. Not long ago we spent an enjoyable hour with the single and multiplayer modes. Hit the jump for details of scopes, sex aids and Special Ops.

OMG, it’s Modern Warfare 2!

Get ahold of yourself, man.

But it’s MODERN WARFARE 2!

Calm down, you muppet. It’s only the sequel to one of the most popular and influential first-person shooters ever created. It’s only got new co-op functionality, new guns, upgradeable perks, customizable killstreak rewards and a sex doll in a bathtub. What’s the big fuss?

You’re just jaded because they boosted the price by a measly tenner – wait, did you say “sex doll in a bathtub”?

That’s right. Blonde and about 5”10, if memory serves. I didn’t get a look at the label.

Where and why is there a sex doll in Modern Warfare 2?

I’m guessing it’s one of them “joke” things. She was tucked away in the second floor bathroom of a forest lodge in one of the Special Ops maps, along with an awful lot of automatic weapons and explosives. Special Ops is the standalone co-op mode, you know. You can play it online or in offline split-screen with one other player.

Is the sex doll classed as “equipment”? Can you dump her out in the open to outrage/distract devout Muslim troops and heathen Russian mercenaries? What about bedding her to regain health?

What a wonderful imagination you have. Nope, I don’t think she’s good for much besides comedy value.

Well done for blowing 200-odd words on her, then.

Interesting choice of verb. But yes, let’s move on. I mention the doll because you’ll find lots of these jolly little touches in Modern Warfare 2. At the beginning of the Favela level, for instance, there’s this fiesta dancer figurine on the taxi dashboard. Gives the game real personality.

Fascinating. Any other hyper-relevant tit-bits, or can I go back to sleep now?

You want hyper-relevancy? Fine. Also in the Favela level, you’ll notice that NPC sniper scopes give off a winking reflection effect to make them easier to spot.

You mean they’ve actually gone and nurfed the sniper rifle?

No, don’t worry – this effect is exclusive to single player. Online sharpshooters will be just as murderously inconspicuous as ever.

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The PlayStation is one of the most recognisable brands in video game history and the FPS is arguably the most popular genre of modern gaming. How can it be then, that fifteen years of PlayStation hardware hasn’t produced an exclusive system-selling FPS title? Sure, we’ve had the likes of SOCOM, Killzone and Resistance but where is Sony’s Goldeneye, Half-life, Halo or Gears of War? Zipper Interactive are hoping to answer just that question.

Having an established history with online PlayStation gaming, the folks at Zipper have worked out that in order to compete in the busy FPS market drastic measures need to be taken. MAG (Massive Action Game) fully delivers in the massive department, allowing up to 256 players to partake in epic battles. Melding the developer’s SOCOM series with World of Warcraft and Command and Conquer, MAG is an MMO FPS on a scale beyond anything attempted on consoles before.

Clean-cut and crisp, if slightly minimal, MAG's visuals are perfectly serviceable.

Rather than simply throwing 256 soldiers into the meat-grinder, MAG follows a tight design that keeps the process as immediate and intuitive as possible. Having selected your fully customisable soldier, players choose between three PMC factions. S.V.E.R are the renegades whose dubious pasts endow them with above-average fire power, while Raven Industries cutting-edge technology give them the edge when it comes to accuracy. Valor Company are your obligatory all-rounders, balancing both power and accuracy, and reconciling the fact that the other factions have slightly more brooding names than them. Having selected your faction, you join your squad of eight, with four squads forming a platoon and four platoons forming a company.

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