I don't quite remember what came first, but they weren't far apart. It all started at about the age of 4. Back then I was into all kinds of monster things (as most kids of that age are) but then I remembered seeing a movie about skinned bodies hanging upside down, & it scared the cr@p out of me. Around the same time, I remember seeing a movie about marines fighting for survival against an onslaught of vicious creatures. At the time I didn't quite understand what was going on too well, I was probably just thinking "monster movie".
A couple of years later, & I was very interested to see those movies again, & remember what I loved so much about them. By that time, I had already watched segments of the original Alien, Alien 3 & Alien Resurrection, but never the full films. I still remember the first time I watched predator through to the end, the first time I saw the creatures face I was thinking "that is the coolest fu*#ing thing I have ever seen". Immediately afterwards I stuck predator 2 in the VCR, & I thought it was an excellent movie. Not too long after that, I went out & bought the predator 10th anniversary double pack, aswell as the Alien Sage triple pack with an extra copy of the latest movie in the series, Alien Resurrection. I also had bought an Aliens vs Predator vs Terminator comic book around the time, as just the mere thought of seeing aliens & preds going to head could just about get me foaming at the mouth.
Mid-2004- I was reading a gaming magazine in a newsagents, & saw a small movie still in the corner of one of the pages. It was a picture of a predator, & it was underlined in big, bold text,
Alien vs. Predator. My mind immediately went numb, I couldn't believe it was finally going to happen. In the waiting months until the movie's release I could barely think about anything else. Several weeks beforehand, I couldn't contain my excitement. I had been constantly reading up about everything concearned with it. For years I had also been hearing about the Aliens vs. Predator 2 PC game, & how well recieved it had been. Soon after, I went out & bought the AVP2 Gold Edition, & was absolutely stunned by the brilliance of the game. The way it had managed to pull off an incredibly authentic world in the Aliens & Predator universes with the creatures themselves seemingly taken directly from the movies, it was, & remeins to this day in my opinion, the best Predatot or Alien game around, I still play it almost everyday.
Oct 7th, 2004. The day had arrived, the movie had been out for a week or so by this time, but I had not been able to get a chance to go & see it. But now was the time. After the 20 min drive to the cinema, nothing could impede my excitement. Sitting next to one of my friends in the cinema, it was incredible. By the end of the movie, we both walked out & we were loving it. It was the greatest movie we had seen in ages. Sure, in comparison with the original films it was poor, but as a popcorn flick it defenantly served it's purpose.
Late 2004- beginning of 2005- I was browsing the net for predator pictures, & I saw a link in the corner of a page on another site saying "preds r better than aliens, tell me what u think" or something to that effect. It caught my interest, I clicked on it & it took me to a different site. It was an AVP discussion board, filled with interesting people & great topics. From then on I was hooked, I visited the site almost everyday as a guest for well over a month. Then finally, I signed up, & I still go there today.
May 13th 2005- The release oame which I had been waiting for for months. Predator Concrete Jungle. I was so hyped for the game, because it would be the first proper predator game released on a console (excluding the old jaguar AVP games). I played the game, & I thought it was great. Just the rush of being a predator & hunting down prey was enough for me to look past the shoddy AI & sub-par graphics.
...& there u go, from my introduction to Aliens & Predator to this very day. Hope u enjoyed reading it, lol.