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Alien: Isolation

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Everyone's bound to be skeptical of this off the back of Colonial Marines, but this is a different team and is very much a survival horror...

 

 

 

Few pieces from IGN's write-up

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/01/07/alien-isolation-the-most-authentic-alien-game-ever

 

Alien: Isolation – The Most Authentic Alien Game Ever?

 

People will definitely hear you scream.

 

But Isolation, based on my brief time with the game and speaking to the creative team, is a very different creature. It’s being described as a return to true survival horror in a time when that genre has seemed to wither at the upper-end of the market.

Even the story – perhaps the most difficult aspect to lend an air of authenticity – seems smart and respectful of the source material. The rationale is simple: who would have an interest in finding out what happened to the Nostromo?

 

Weyland-Yutani, the nefarious corporation who sent the mining ship in search of the alien planet, would definitely want to find out what happened to its investment by retrieving the ship’s black box. Perhaps. But the Isolation angles towards a more personal connection: the daughter of Ellen Ripley, Amanda.

 

And this isn’t an imaginative flight of fancy, if you were worried. In Cameron’s director’s cut of Aliens is a scene in which Ripley is told, after emerging from deep sleep, that her daughter has passed away. We’re even shown a picture of Amanda as an old woman. So Isolation follows Amanda in search of the Nostromo’s Black Box in a desperate need to find out what happened to her missing mother.

the experience which lies at the heart of Isolation: being stalked by the Xenomorph, while feeling entirely under-equipped and terrifyingly vulnerable.
Isolation was described to me by some of the team at Creative Assembly as a haunted house in space.
Towards the end of the demo it dangles the promise of an escape hatch in front of you. Naturally, your first instinct is to run as fast as possible towards it. But running obviously increases the amount of noise you make and draws some very unwanted attention. To reach your destination safely, you’re sadistically forced to move through corridors at a snail’s pace. It’s not even playing upon your innate fight-or-flight response; you can't fight and you can't fly, because either way you’ll be killed.

 

I can see how this may sound tedious – creeping slowly in the dark – but in reality, it’s not at all. In fact, when the game ratchets up, and sirens are activated and lights begin to strobe, you have to skilfully scan the environment and consult the motion tracker to quickly make the right decisions to ensure your survival. It’s stressful, yes, but when you’re smart about the decisions you make, it’s very satisfying.

 

In the interest of full disclosure and all that, I should mention that I spent a good part of the demo hiding under a table, crippled by indecision. When was the perfect moment to make a run for it? I could hear and occasionally spy the Alien by peering around and over cover, thinking, "I’m not leaving now and you can’t make me". Eventually I realised there never was a perfect moment. This is largely down to the unpredictability of the creature and some fiendish level design, which when you consult the map reveal themselves to more labyrinthine than they appear. The alien meanwhile is programmed with its own instincts – sight, smell, sound – to track you down. It isn’t on any predefined course around the environment, hoping to snare the player; it’s hunting you, and it’s very effective.

I was told there’s only one alien in the game, and it can’t be killed. For a fan of Scott’s film it’s extremely heartening that it’s H.R. Giger’s original design.

 

Gameplay

 

Edited by Retro_Link

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I recently re-watched all of the Alien films on Blu-Ray, from viewing just that announcement trailer this game gives off that important feeling of being within that same universe, something which doesn't seem to have been properly achieved or realised in any Alien game until now.

 

Naturally it would be best to remain cautiously optimistic but personally I have high hope for this. :)

 

Alien Isolation is now very much on my motion tracker. ;)

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Yep I have to say it's very much on mine too!

 

It's really worthwhile watching that IGN gameplay video even if you just skip through it, the game not only looks amazing visually, but looks scary too! The gameplay footage they show nearer the end when you actually see the Alien and it gets them was tense stuff!

 

The way the cover system works looks really intriguing! I guess you hold a trigger button to lock yourself in a position and then use an analogue stick to interact with the cover. Looks fantastic!

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I've noticed info leaking out about this game for some time, and saw a meltdown on GAF when it was announced the majority of the enemies would be humans and cyborgs, leading many to jump to the conclusion that it would be some sort of COD clone! Where as at the time i pointed out majority isn't a number, but rather a ratio and you could have 20 enemies in the entire game with 1 being the alien, and it actually taking a survival route, with many agreeing that we should jump to the conclusion....it didn't stop the meltdown because of recent games in the ip

 

 

I for one am very very happy to see it is a true alien game, it should follow the movie plots, featuring isolation and desperation, even Aliens as a film followed this route by sending in marines with false hope and we all know how it ended up, slow isolation, where the perceived advantage of weapons was defeated by numbers of aliens

I'd be happy with any true Alien game (that obsidian RPG had promise).....

 

but this is a wet dream, i hope it doesn't disapoint

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I like the look of it however I hope it doesn't end up as Slender in space.

 

Considering the length of the game, I think there are going to be plenty of non-alien segments in the game.

 

Hopefully they'll refrain from doing much shooting. Perhaps puzzle and investigation segments could work.

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So my one desire for this game is for it to be able to sustain that atmosphere and the ethos of one alien that can't be killed throughout the game. I feel like a lot of games sometimes make that misstep where they suddenly make the player uber powered at the end or throw caution to the wind. I've always hated about alien games how easy the aliens are to kill but thats kind of the nature of the beast when making an action focussed game based on the franchise.

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Alien: Isolation Won't Offer Multiplayer or Co-Op

 

creative lead Al Hope has spoken to RPS to set the record straight, and confirmed the game is

 

"It’s very much about a single player experience," he explained. "We did think about it, it’s not like we never considered it – and we had some pretty neat ideas around that. But for us the focus always was that single player experience. And I think because you have this dynamic alien and it’s about the player’s choices while they play it, it does mean that you can go back and try different stuff out. So I think there is a lot of scope to have players go back and do things differently."

Good good, keep it focused.

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I like that the Alien AI will apparently mean if you fail, you won't necessarily keep repeating the same part. I found with The Last Of Us I'd keep redoing areas and shouting "I know what to do, I just can't do it!" Seems like this will keep being challenging, rather than frustrating.

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I played this at EGX Rezzed on Saturday and it was pretty enjoyable. From the level I played it seemed very much Dead Space-esque. The only worrying part is that the Alien AI seemed to be very... accurate. You'd see it walk past and then suddenly turn back to get you.

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The only worrying part is that the Alien AI seemed to be very... accurate. You'd see it walk past and then suddenly turn back to get you.

 

So the worrying part is it has good AI that might make this an actually hard game and not a cakewalk

 

 

I'm totally okay with this as a gamer

 

 

as a consumer...if its too hard it might not sell and it would mean devs might not do this again, and in a years time gearbox will release Borderlands 3 and Colonial Marines 2

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An enemy being able to find you when they shouldn't is bad AI. AI isn't validated by how hard the enemies are or how easily they find you, but how realistically. If you've every right not to be found and then an enemy suddenly turns on you, that's just going to be frustrating.

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An enemy being able to find you when they shouldn't is bad AI. AI isn't validated by how hard the enemies are or how easily they find you, but how realistically. If you've every right not to be found and then an enemy suddenly turns on you, that's just going to be frustrating.

 

I might be going out on a limb here, but I think part of that would be down to how the Alien spots its prey. An additional sense and a greater awareness of its surroundings. It reminds me of that air-shaft scene in the first film where Dallas is being stalked, and then later again with Lambert and Parker.

 

Of course, there does need to be a line somewhere. If you're hiding and are perfectly still, and the Alien STILL catches you...then hmm.

 

One thing that worries me immensely about this game is the fact that Amazon have it listed for 360/PS3 as well as One/PS4. How optimised is this going to be for each console? It's showing a lot of good things so far, but I can also see it not living up to its promise.

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When the Alien turned back to catch me, I was perfectly still. I saw it walk past the end of the corridor so I stopped moving completely. It then immediately came back to get me. I'm hoping this could have been because it's unfinished or because they wanted to move people on as fast as possible. Though it wasn't mentioned in the introduction to the demo it could have even been something I did, such as having the motion tracker active.

 

One thing that worries me immensely about this game is the fact that Amazon have it listed for 360/PS3 as well as One/PS4. How optimised is this going to be for each console? It's showing a lot of good things so far, but I can also see it not living up to its promise.

 

At Rezzed they were only showing it on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. So if they are releasing it on the previous generation of consoles, they're in no rush to show it.

 

In terms of the shiny, it looked amazing on the PC version that I played. They were probably using beasts of PCs though. My favourite effect was that when you pulled up the motion tracker the focus shifted to it so everything else was slightly blurry. It really added to the atmosphere.

 

On the PC version all of the demo stations were hooked up to Xbox 360 controllers. So I can't say if it's going to be optimised for keyboard & mouse.

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If your motion tracker was on it heard you then...it beeps after all

 

didn't they say on the launch videos etc the alien senses like the movies, sight, sound, smell and heat? if so then when you said Accurate for the AI i thought you literally meant it was accurate to the movie, that this alien with no discernible eyes sensed you and found you, not that the AI just randomly got you, i'd say that was inaccurate AI as it wasn't following strict rules of how to spot a player

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If your motion tracker was on it heard you then...it beeps after all

 

That's actually quite a big flaw in the design of the motion tracker.

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When the Alien turned back to catch me, I was perfectly still. I saw it walk past the end of the corridor so I stopped moving completely. It then immediately came back to get me. I'm hoping this could have been because it's unfinished or because they wanted to move people on as fast as possible. Though it wasn't mentioned in the introduction to the demo it could have even been something I did, such as having the motion tracker active.

 

 

 

At Rezzed they were only showing it on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. So if they are releasing it on the previous generation of consoles, they're in no rush to show it.

 

In terms of the shiny, it looked amazing on the PC version that I played. They were probably using beasts of PCs though. My favourite effect was that when you pulled up the motion tracker the focus shifted to it so everything else was slightly blurry. It really added to the atmosphere.

 

On the PC version all of the demo stations were hooked up to Xbox 360 controllers. So I can't say if it's going to be optimised for keyboard & mouse.

 

That motion tracker effect does look/sound pretty cool. It's also designed to force you to switch between the two, since you'll lose your field of vision when using the tracker, but it prevents you from just walking through the game with it in front of you.

 

It all sounds and looks pretty awesome and what I ideally want in an Alien game. I just hope the execution is right. Imo, I'd love for them to just focus on the next gen systems/PC so that they can squeeze the absolute best from those machines. I worry it'll suffer from having its fingers in too many pies. I feel the same with Watch Dogs.

 

That's actually quite a big flaw in the design of the motion tracker.

 

Not entirely. The track emits a small pulse/low beep sound when just "searching" and then a higher beep when something comes within range. In the films, the range of the tracker is somewhere around 20 metres. So, you should be able to "hear" the beep well before seeing the Alien, giving you time to either shoot it (Aliens style) or hide/make a run for it. (Isolation). There might be a way to turn it off/mute it, although this is never shown or done in the films.

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Its a trade off of knowing if somethings near; don't use it and you are blind, use it and you know where it is? but do you really want to know if its behind you so you can anticipate death?

it sounds dark souls hard and i love dark souls

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It all sounds and looks pretty awesome and what I ideally want in an Alien game. I just hope the execution is right. Imo, I'd love for them to just focus on the next gen systems/PC so that they can squeeze the absolute best from those machines. I worry it'll suffer from having its fingers in too many pies. I feel the same with Watch Dogs.
I don't know but I hope and get the feeling this will be more like Titanfall, where every effort is being put into the PC/next-gen version and previous gen is the secondary focus/handled by a different studio or team.

 

Watch Dogs as a game actually spanded the console generations, where as the launch date and target for this one is actually far more rooted in next gen.

Fingers Crossed!

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I don't know but I hope and get the feeling this will be more like Titanfall, where every effort is being put into the PC/next-gen version and previous gen is the secondary focus/handled by a different studio or team.

 

Watch Dogs as a game actually spanded the console generations, where as the launch date and target for this one is actually far more rooted in next gen.

Fingers Crossed!

 

Yeah, that gives me more hope. Just the fact that they're even bothering to make a current/last gen version worries me, though, especially as the game seems to have a complex AI and special lighting effects and so on. I'm not going to lie, my original reaction when I heard about this and saw the announcement trailer was...Colonial Marines started off very similar to this. That's made me so weary about this franchise, especially as how there hasn't been a good game about the series in yeeeears.

 

Anyway, if it starts picking up 9s and high scores, I'll put an order down for a PS4 myself.

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Well watching all the things about this, one of the guys said that the alien can smell you, and you leave a faint trace of smell for a while before it dissipates, so even if you hide and stay perfectly still, he'll be able to find you by your smell eventually.

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