I'm no Columbo (or even Encyclopedia Brown, for that matter), but I do know that when a game is mysteriously absent from a company's press event it's often times bad news, and such was the case at Vivendi Universal's GDC showing last March. While the powers that be rolled out Cold Winter, The Incredible Hulk, Scarface (in video form), and most importantly, F.E.A.R., conspicuous by their absence were Red Ninja: End of Honor and Predator: Concrete Jungle. As we know (I hope), Red Ninja didn't turn out so hot, and Concrete Jungle's unfortunately DOA as well. In the quest to make the Predator cool again, Eurocom simply dropped the ball.

Ok! So you're the Predator! That's always cool, or at least it was way back when Capcom unleashed AVP in the arcades and Fox and Sierra rocked my socks with those PC first person shooters. In a way, it's fun here too. The creature's got all of his cool visor modes that allow you to see heat vision and such, he can cloak, and he's got more weapons than the Master Chief. Wrist blades, the combi stick, the shoulder cannon, the flying disk. It's all here and more, and the fact that he's got more hops than Tracy McGrady means you'll be able to leap over thirty feet into the air and building jump as if you swallowed a blue pill and dialed into the Matrix...and that's about all that's interesting about this game. The rest of it is just horribly unpolished. It's brutally obvious that developer Eurocom spent much of its time crafting the Predator character model and less time actually designing a fun game and it shows. However, I digress. Let's take a look at why the ultimate hunter is back on Earth in the first place.

The Predators are a race of aliens that hunt other creatures and only attack those who pose a threat to or challenge them, and you, my dear reader, play the part of the ultimate screw up. Way back in 1930 our friend was on Earth killing mob bosses and their cohorts. After pretty much getting his @$$ handed to him he takes the cheap way out and detonates his nuke, and because nuclear weapons aren't really dangerous he somehow survives even though he was sitting on ground zero. Now if you're a serious Predator fan I wish I had a picture of the look on your face as you read my last sentence. Yes...he survived, and he leveled the city in the process, killing tons of innocent people.

But wait! It gets worse. Not only did he survive the blast (which is a Predator no-no), but he also left behind some of the technology, but we don't know this right away. When his clan picks him up, they decide that he's dishonored them and therefore banish him to this strange planet for 100 years. We're treated to a cut scene where he's surrounded by all of these cool monsters, but instead of playing through a short mission where we can slice and dice these foul beasts, the game quickly cuts to another scene that's a century later, because as we know, 100 years is nothing.

Instead of welcoming him back into the group his peers let him know that humans have used their technology to create these super weapons that are now being used against them. Crack heads all over the globe (and I'm being serious when I say crack heads) now have cloaking abilities and laser weapons, so they stick some gear onto him and send him back to Earth to right his wrongs (because like I said, 100 years is nothing). Awful story? Check!