This guide is mostly for multiplayer. If you're tired of all the standard game modes and want some ideas for different things, this guide is for you.

As a brief aside, there are already a few different guides on stuff you can do just in single-player. If that's what you want, here are some ideas: unlock all the bonus modes, play around in debug mode, spawn a ton of bots and watch mayhem play out, play all the single-player missions as different species, and try to access areas you're not supposed to get to in the single-player missions.

There are also some cool custom single-player maps you can download and try out:

• Derelict
  
• Waterfall Episode 1
  
• Research Base

In my opinion, an interesting game to play in Research base is to put it on Director's Cut and try to kill the first queen only using the turrets (xenoborgs don't count!).

*NOTE* All custom maps mentioned below can be found in the Ultimate Map Pack (UMP) available on ModDB.com

I already wrote a guide on how to do this, but I just wanted to mention it here, too. You can either use the game's normal single-player missions and play them in coop mode or download the UMP that contains the B-Maps, which are super-loaded with aliens, praetorians, and predaliens in each level.

For a completely insane setting, limit lives to 1, turn off item respawns, turn on falling damage, and turn on pre-destroyed lights. >:D

Credit goes out to Hippie Chick[www.angelfire.com] for this!

What? You don't know what King Of The Vent is?! Well, I'll just have to teach you! :)

King Of The Vent is a very fun game invented one day long ago by KIAN and I. I'm not sure exactly how it came about, really, but since then it has spread in popularity!

Anyone can play King Of The Vent; it's easy! You can have as many players as you want also, whether it be only 2 or all the way up to 8! The more players there are, the harder it is, so if you're new to King Of The Vent, I suggest playing with two other people.
This game MUST be played in the Subway, and every person MUST be an Alien! It doesn't work in any other level, or with any other species. So host player, make sure everyone has to be an Alien.

The game is simple! The goal is to be King (or Queen) of the vent! The vent in question is the rather long vent tunnel in this level. All you have to do is get into the vent, then kill any other Aliens who try to take your throne! There are two ways you can determine the winner of a match:
1. The person with the highest score at the end. If you do use this method, set the scoring so one kill equals one point, that way it's easy to tell who is winning and by how many kills.
2. The person actually in the vent at the end of the game. This method isn't used too much, but you can give it a shot. If there is more than one person in the vent when the match ends, the one furthest down in the vent would be declared the winner.

There are only a few rules! The most important is killing enemies outside of the vent. You should not be killing other players outside the vent, the only kills that count are those that take place inside the vent. In other words, you're not really King or Queen of the vent if you just hang around outside killing everyone else.
When you are in the vent, chat at your own risk! There are no chat frags for those in the vent. Outside the vent, however, just face a wall if you want to type something.

Well, I think that's all you need to know about King Of The Vent!

Everyone turns their gamma to the lowest setting. For additional darkness, you can choose the setting Pre-Destroyed Lights. Works best if it's an SDM with all marines and one alien, or ATAG. All the marines try to kill the alien before he kills them. Nostromo and Sewer are great maps. Simple idea but challenging. For the sake of fairness, the alien player turns his gamma all the way down too.

This idea works best in the custom map AvPRedux-JungleXL, but it can work in any of the Jungle levels. Game mode is either SDM or PTAG. One player is the predator and the rest are marines. Marines obviously stick together to try to kill the predator. It works best in the Jungle maps because the predator has an advantage with the cloak ability and increased dexterity to make jumps that the marine will find difficult. It's also the most similar to the first Predator movie.

In this mode, one person functions as the "summoner" and everyone else is a "warrior." This can work in any game mode but the summoner must be able to spawn bots in multiplayer. I will NOT explain how to do this, but suffice it to say this is common knowledge amongst experienced players.

The summoner cannot attack, only summon aliens, praetorians, and predaliens. It's easiest if you've bound ALIENBOT, PRAETORIANBOT, and PREDALIENBOT to various keys so you can summon them quickly.

The summoner will hide in a difficult spot to reach (or just a good hiding spot) and defends himself with his bots. The warriors' job is to kill the summoner while avoiding dying from the onslaught of bots. Alternatively, you can organize it so the warriors just kill the bots, but I suspect the fun won't last very long with that rule.

This is a game that I, along with some friends, invented 'accidentally' one day. The idea here is to only allow minigun marines and increase spawn invulnerability time to maximum (255 seconds) or something close to it. The map should be Office, since it's small and for another reason I'll get into. This works best with the more players you have, and also is best if everyone can hear each other, either via Steam chat, Discord, Teamspeak, or whatever. The idea is that since you lose your invulnerability the instant you fire a shot, you're immediately vulnerable if you make a shot. However, what you want to do is actually not lose your invincibility until someone's shot you, then you kill them. Office is a perfect-sized map for running around, hiding, and then pretending that you're invulnerable even if you've lost your invulnerability. This is a great mind game, as you'll want to try and trick others into losing their invulnerability. The best part about this being in Office is the furnace in the basement serving as a test of who's invulnerable and who isn't. If you jump over the fire and you don't catch on fire, you're still invulnerable. However, if you do catch on fire, you are vulnerable and everyone will try and attack you. Since there are no nametags over anyone's heads, and hardly anyone knows the code for identifying players (it's BIND X ID_PLAYER), you can try to fool the others into either saying you did pass through the fire unscathed if you really are vulnerable. This makes for a potentially hilarious series of mind games.

Here you'll need the map Nostromo 2000. This is a map of Ferarco with various spawn locations. This can be played either as an SDM with one alien and everyone else as a marine, or ATAG. This is basically a recreation of the scenerio from Alien, where a single alien is trying to kill all the humans. Since the map is so big and spawn points are spread out, marines won't always be near backup. Pretty fun stuff. For an extra challenge, give the marines only the pistol or flamethrower.

In the game's settings, remove all aliens and predators, and set "Specialists Have Pistols" to No. Immediately after joining, have everyone use up all their ammo. I prefer only allowing the flamethrower marine because that takes the least amount of time to deplete. As a marine without pistols, once all your ammo is gone you only get to use your melee attack. Now everyone fights each other only using the melee attack! This attack is pathetic but it's good for a laugh. It also helps to turn item respawn off so no one can heal or pick up their ammo again. If you allow people to heal the battle will probably never end.

Proximity mines suck, but there is one fun use for them. Make sure everyone's on board first because most people hate mines. But what you can do is set invulnerability time to zero seconds have all players spawn as the grenade launcher specialist, and have everbody mine the spawn points. Everyone will be dying constantly and it's pretty funny. Try small maps like Leadworks and Hive.

Very simple game: by using an alien's wallcrawl ability, try to boost a marine up to a spot that he normally can't reach. For instance, an alien can boost a marine up to the top of the building in Subway.

Super easy. Try to build a totem pole with players as high as you can. Obviously it gets harder the more people you have, but if you have a ledge that players can fall from to build the pole, it'll be significantly easier.

Wish you could fly as the predator? Maybe you can! Use the speargun's ability to boost you into the air to reach all kinds of places the predator can't normally get to.

This is a game that is played best on the custom map TheRiver. Two (or more) predators use their mask's zoom ability along with their spearguns to snipe each other. The map is fairly big (and unfortunately somewhat buggy) but there are enough vantage points and bunkers to provide you with cover as you snipe the other player(s). And plus, how often do you get to use the green vision mode to snipe other players, huh?

There are a few games you can make up in the Event Horizon or EventHoriZon2 maps, but one of my favorites is the corridor game. For this, you have the players stand at either end of the extremely long corridor found in either map. The goal is to kill the other player in one shot; SADAR is the most fun imo, but the speargun, SC, or pulse grenade can work too. Easy mode is using the pred's zoom feature, while hard mode uses the marine.

There are a couple things you can do in the custom map OPPAVP1ge, the pyramid map by Bladeghost. The first is a coop game; the goal of the game is to make it to the queen, release her, and then detonate the self-destruct device to blow up the entire pyramid and destroy everything inside. If you die, you're out of the round and can't continue until the next round after the pyramid is destroyed.

The second game you can play here is trying to reach the ship outside on the ice. There's an invisible wall supposed to prevent you from reaching it, but there are still ways to reach the ship. Once you're there you can try to go past the walls of ice on either side to reach the extreme boundaries of the map...

There are a couple things you can do in the custom map DRSHProom. As an alien, you can try to find the perfect spot on the ceiling from which to fall so you make it inside the predator dropships every time.

Make everyone a flamethrower specialist. While only flying with the jetpack, ignite the other players as they pass by and try to kill them with this method without dying!

You can also have a footrace from one end to the other. You can also try to hit the other player(s) with the SADAR or pulse grenades at extreme distances.

The following video is a footrace set at 70% gamespeed, walk button held down, and no strafe-running or jetpack use allowed.

In Bladeghost's Waterfall Episode 1 map, there are I believe eight exploding monkeys to be found. Also, in the level's files, there's a reference to the joker from The Dark Knight. I've only found a few of the monkeys and haven't found the joker reference. See if you, along with a friend, can find them all!

From Planet AVP[gamespy-archives.quaddicted.com] (grammar cleaned up for clarity):
Alien British bulldog
At Statue's pit (centre of the level near the alien's legs) is a classic playground layout. What a team of predators and marines have to do is stop an alien from getting to the other side without using any weapons. It's great fun.

Trophy Wall
In Stranded there is a small corridor from the main area where any number of predators can play this. All they do is stand with their backs to the wall and with spearguns snipe any aliens, praetorians, or predaliens. With the time it takes for the aliens to reach the predators, the predators armed with a speargun will shoot down any alien that enters the corridor (a nest is nearby so they will come quickly; if not, just taunt as the pred's taunt attracts them). After a while, several aliens will become speared to the back wall to make it look like a Trophy Wall. The game ends when all predators are out of ammo or until a set time has stopped. Then press ~ to see which predator killed the most aliens and that predator is the winner.

Alien Alliance
In any level, a predator and an alien team up to kill as many marines as possible. Easy but fun. One good tactic is for the predator to find an out of sight place to hide and snipe any passing marines while the alien runs around getting attention, and then running away so that the marines follow and then the predator snipes them off. Good fun.

Hide and Seek
Any number of people play hide and seek. One player hides and the rest have to find him and kill him. The player who kills him then has to hide and so on and so forth.

Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment. If I think of anything or if I get any suggestions, I may add them to this guide. Thanks for reading and enjoy playing!

This guide was written by me (Olde), Hippie Chick, and Kyle Watts. You can (and should!) use this guide and share it with others. However, you should not distribute it while giving authorial credit to either yourself, someone else, or to nobody at all. You may quote from it at length but please do not post the entirety as a guide on any other forum or site without my express permission. I also reserve the right to remove or modify this guide at any time and/or make it unavailable, with or without providing a reason.