For a while, it was just a soft and steady thump...thump...thump.... Then high-pitched beeps -- maybe they're more "whines" -- pierce the calm and start echoing through the dark hallways...slowly at first, but the pace and volume are picking up -- my motion tracker is going from quiet to "uh-oh." I wait for my foes with my pulse rifle cocked and ready, but they're not coming straight at me like I thought they would.

"They're coming outta the goddamn walls," I think to myself.

And those few seconds of gameplay were enough to make me jump to this conclusion: This "lowly" game -- due out Feb. 16 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC -- might just save a license that Hollywood spent millions of dollars completely wrecking.

I went into the Aliens vs. Predator press event with the lowest of expectations -- not necessarily for the game itself, but for all the associated brands. Remember Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) making a blind half-court basketball shot in Alien Resurrection? And I can't even keep track of all the nonsense in the last two AVP movies. The franchises lost their sci-fi cool a while back, and I've given up hope of ever seeing anything close to what director James Cameron gave us with Aliens back in 1986.

But developer Rebellion is treating the licenses with reverence. They know what the fans want, from the thump...thump...thump to the one-of-a-kind, unforgettable squeal of the M41A/2 Pulse Rifle on full auto. From the dimly lit corridors of cold industrial complexes to the lush forests that hide cloaked dangers up high. From spider-like Aliens to high-tech Predators to shit-talkin' Marines. You won't find any scared, small-town teens here (à la the second AVP flick).

The developers are not screwing around here.

It starts with the tutorials

The tutorial mission to the Marine campaign sets the mood right away. You wake up alone, separated from your squadmates. After picking up a pistol and a flashlight, you search through the blackness of an abandoned research facility for a way back to your fellow soldiers.

This scene is a little survival-horror, a little Doom 3. But creeping around, nervously anticipating an Alien jumping out of the darkness at any second, serves as a reminder that this very familiar enemy -- one that's permeated our pop culture -- is still just as scary now as it was 30 years ago when the original Alien film came out.

Predators were never as frightening, but they do have fictional canon that dives slightly deeper than "kill everyone" that a game should respect. They are, after all, a race of hunters, where pride and trophies matter more than self-preservation.

In their tutorial, you start as a young warrior at the bottom of a training pit. Elders watch from overhead as they toss deadly Aliens down into the small arena with you. They won't shed a Predator tear if you die -- they just want to see if you have what it takes to be a part of the clan.

"You know, Burke, I don't know which species is

worse. You don't see them fucking each other over

for a goddamn percentage." - Ripley from Aliens

These tutorials set the tone early on for each campaign -- the humans have to survive, and the Predators have to hunt. But how does a game tell a story from an Alien's point of view? Luckily, the developers don't subject us to a tale of young Facehugger Billy learning how to fight in the schoolyard because bullies are picking on him.

Science fiction -- from Aliens to Avatar to even a short post-credits clip in Futurama -- has made it clear to all that man is really the asshole in the universe. The game reinforces that concept during the Alien campaign tutorial where you see callous scientists raising you from baby chest-burster to adulthood -- not out of some nurturing instinct but to study how their living weapon kills...people. To that end, the researchers send in clueless human "volunteers" to be sacrificial lab rats for your vicious bites, claws, and tail-whip attacks.

Burke would've been proud.

It's in the game

Of course, mood is no substitute raw firepower in a first-person shooter, but the game is well-stocked in that department, from the aforementioned pulse rifle, the M59/B Smartgun (those giant, completely-impractical-for-close-quarters-combat cannons on swivels from Aliens), wrist blades, or the smart disc (the circular blade Predators use for cutting through frozen cow carcasses).

The developers even do the licenses proud in multiplayer. Outside of the traditional free-for-alls or species-vs.-species or mixed-species team deathmatches, you'll find a few off-balanced modes that you've seen before in various forms in other games, but here, they fit perfectly.

In Predator Hunt, a single Predator, cloaked and on the prowl, stalks a team of Marines, attempting to kill any that have wandered away from the herd. If a Marine kills the Predator, however, then he gets to be the new hunter until someone else takes him down (think Halo 3's Ninjanaut).

And in Survivor, a small squad of Marine players tries to hold out against A.I. Alien waves until no human is left standing. Yes, it's another Horde mode (Gears of War 2), but the license (or more accurately, its application) alone ups the thrills.

On one Survivor map, for example, the high-strung music, flashing red lights, and overworked motion trackers work together to disorient you just enough to make you feel extra uneasy about those shadowy figures climbing over barricades and outta the goddamn walls toward you. It's like that one scene...no, make that every other scene right out of Aliens -- it's certainly not a bad idea to draw many of your inspirations from the fan-favorite movie....

Perspective

I don't want to oversell this game, though. Its shooting mechanics and "feel" certainly don't match those of genre kings Halo 3 or Modern Warfare 2, and I haven't seen how the storylines fully play out yet. But everything I've seen so far about Aliens vs. Predator should thrill any geek who grew up watching those classic sci-fi flicks

Hopefully Robocop and the Terminator don't make any cameos, or else our heads could collectively explode.