Alien: Isolation

[Fierce_LiNk]

Picked this up on Tuesday after trading a few games in.

 

It is so good. Very similar to ZombiU, obviously with this being 10 times better. It is so tense, one mistake and you are screwed.

 

I'd imagine this would have worked quite well on the Wii U with the gamepad.

 

Really enjoying it, just done the

LV-426 bit investigating the ship, soooo good!

 

It's my game of the year, by far. Sublime game.

 

It's one of my favourites for the usage of the Dual Shock 4's light bar. I love the way that it pulses. The sound design in this game is also particularly good.

 

I still can't believe how good it ended up being. It's completely lived up to my vision of what an Alien game should be about. The more that play this, the better. I just need to finish it as I'm close to the end.

[whizzart]

Alien is the best game of the year hands down

[somme]

It's definitely the best single-player experience I've had in many years. The atmosphere, the story and the gameplay itself were all top notch. I really hope there's a sequel.

[Diageo]

Saw this at 25 and just had to get it. Still haven't played it yet but am excited to get to it.

[somme]

Saw this at 25 and just had to get it. Still haven't played it yet but am excited to get to it.

 

You're in for a fun, emotional and frightening rollercoaster ride!

Edited December 13, 2014 by somme

[Fierce_LiNk]

I'm on the final chapter!

 

Chapter/Mission 17 was a bitch.

 

Where you have to use the leaver to open the door right at the end of the mission, but the power shorts out and you need to go back to the "games room" to activate the generator. The music that played through that entire section got my blood pumping.

 

I LOVED the way that the Alien crawled through the gap between the barricade and the door, how it sorta crawled through and then rolled onto the ground. Very athletic.

 

 

I've been playing for about 3 hours and a half. I'm exhausted!

[Guy]

I played a little bit of this the other day, the Nostromo DLC stuff. It's a terrifying game... just wow.

[Agent Gibbs]

I played a little bit of this the other day, the Nostromo DLC stuff. It's a terrifying game... just wow.

 

Don't start with the Nostromo stuff, i tried that and just kept failing, i got the feeling its at the end of a learning curve of how to play the game you'd only learn by playing isolation first, and coming back to this

 

that said as a show piece to show off the game its amazing

[somme]

Yeah the DLC is really much better if playing after the main game.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I have finished eeeeet!

 

Oh my god, I'm (not) going to sleep for a month. I'm exhausted, but still terrified. My legs were shaking during one of the final sequences.

 

The final two missions of the game are absolutely fantastic. The last segment for the final mission in particular is very, very good.

 

 

I LOVED the ending. Was not expecting that. I expected to just get aboard the Torrens, go to sleep and some sort of audiolog at the end. I didn't expect that finale. It was excellent.

 

 

Game of the year. : peace:

I bought my PS4 almost solely on the basis of being able to play this and I am so happy that I had this opportunity. THE best game that has anything to do with the licence and one of the finest survival horror games that I've ever come across.

 

BRA-fucking-VO.

[Blade]

After reading about everyone's impressions i'm really tempted to get this.

[somme]

Glad you enjoyed it - it was, and still is, an excellent game. They've recently released two new difficulty settings as well, an ultra easy and ultra difficult: Nightmare.

[lostmario]

After reading about everyone's impressions i'm really tempted to get this.

 

Get it bought, it is incredible.

[Fierce_LiNk]

After reading about everyone's impressions i'm really tempted to get this.

 

I'm not sure you'll like it. It is VERY slow paced in places and you will only really make it through the game (on hard difficulty) if you take the slow and cautious approach. It's not for everyone. Plus, you have to be in love with the licence to really appreciate what this game is about.

 

Aside from that, it's a fantastic survival horror that has so little emphasis on combat and more so about planning about. I spent about an hour trying to make it out of a large room when I first got the game because the Alien was about patrolling the corridors. I hid in lockers, waited, moved a few footsteps to another hiding place and did this over and over until I was free. Had I tried to make a run for it, I would have been killed instantly.

 

It is, by far, the most tense and fear-inducing game that I've ever played. There were instances where I'd make it to the end of the level/chapter and I've have to wipe my palms on my jeans/trousers to get rid of all the sweat.

[somme]

I found I could only play in hour long bursts before needing a break. The stress was too much!

[Fierce_LiNk]

I found I could only play in hour long bursts before needing a break. The stress was too much!

 

That's similar to what I did. Maybe 2-3 hours and then stop. Sometimes I'd go a few days without playing before going back into it and getting my nerves shattered over again. :p

 

It's not the type of game you can binge on for 12 hours straight and then do that 5 times during a week. I could see it becoming a bit repetitive then, especially with the mission structure of the game.

[Clownferret]

I'm getting this for sure in the sales.

 

Just started playing Zombie U to get me in the mood (only taken me 2 years) and I'm dissapointed with the graphics, looks like a Wii game, I'm glad this wasn't the first Wii U game i played.

[Hero-of-Time]

@Blade and anyone else who wants it, GAME have this for £29.99 and it also includes all of the Alien films in a Bluray boxset. Very nice price for this bundle. Apparently it's today only though.

 

HERE

[lostmario]

Had a good hour or so on this last night. The next part to do terrifies me.

 

 

Just got to the reactor, oh boy.

 

My motion tracker is going crazy.

 

An alien dropped down and just stared at me before charging at me. Luckily I had my flamethrower ready which attracted more of them!

 

 

 

[dwarf]

 

How would you guys respond to these criticisms?

[Fierce_LiNk]

 

How would you guys respond to these criticisms?

 

I can't bear to watch the entire video. It's slightly ironic that they talk about the game being stretched out unnecessarily in a video which is...21 minutes long.

 

I would question what they think of the movie, since that movie is very slow and deliberate in a lot of places. It doesn't lend itself naturally to a video game. My criticism would be that the game could be slightly shorter, but it does get progressively better. The last five or so chapters are particularly well done. In fact, from the half way point onwards, the game is excellent.

 

Some won't enjoy the "puzzle" nature/tactic to opening doors or accessing certain areas. Do I think it fits in with the world that they tried to create? In my opinion, hell yes. They poked fun at the doors and opening them...well...the station is under lockdown and there are devices in place to seal off certain areas since they were trying to contain a threat. You have to use the blow torch to he emergency handles, there are braces to hold a door shut and security codes put in place to shut off areas. In my opinion, it all fits in. To fully enjoy the game, you have to buy into the world that they're striving for and understand some of the lore. Nobody really complains when you have to push blocks or flick switches in Zelda because you accept it as of that world.

 

What else do they talk about? Not watching the whole thing.

 

Edit: I'm assuming that they played the game on its intended difficulty- Hard?

Edited December 17, 2014 by Fierce_LiNk

[Agent Gibbs]

 

Edit: I'm assuming that they played the game on its intended difficulty- Hard?

 

what like Ign? who then complained about the unfair difficulty and it being like the Alien could always find you (which it can).....some people should only try the game on easy!

[drahkon]

@Fierce_LiNk

 

Do I have to have knowledge of the movies/franchise to enjoy the game (or rather the story)?

[Fierce_LiNk]

what like Ign? who then complained about the unfair difficulty and it being like the Alien could always find you (which it can).....some people should only try the game on easy!

 

Trying it on easy would be horrible, imo. It's meant to be hard and unforgiving. Even through playing it on hard (and I am by no means a great gamer...in fact, I would say that I'm pretty poor at games in comparison to a lot of others out there) I survived it and didn't think it was unfair.

 

@Fierce_LiNk

 

Do I have to have knowledge of the movies/franchise to enjoy the game (or rather the story)?

 

Be prepared for a long answer, because I feel that's the only way to give you the correct information.

 

Do you need knowledge of the movies/franchises to enjoy it? Absolutely not. You can quite easily have never seen Aliens/Alien3/Resurrection (fuck the AvP films) and will have a great time with this. It's solely based on the first film.

 

Do you need knowledge of the original film or its plot to enjoy the game? I don't think so. But, I feel that you get way more out of it than if you do than if you know nothing.

 

I'll start off by explaining the ship. There aren't many settings in this game and it is almost entirely played on space vessels. They contain a certain aesthetic look, almost a "retro" look based on it being what the future could look like from the 1970s. You're not going to see tablets or holograms, because that wasn't really believed to be part of the future, or at least it wasn't in the original. Instead, you'll have this padded-like material to the ways with a combination of clinical white corridors mixed in with industrial piping for certain areas (where the vast part of the machinery is to keep the ship running).

 

- these are the padded types I mentioned which make up a big part of the game.

 

- industrial corridors

 

 

compared with the film:

 

 

- white corridors

 

- industrial corridors

 

 

I haven't chosen the best images, merely the ones I could find. You'll get metallic looking areas in the game that look more like the image I showed in the film, and you'll also see dark areas in the film that look like the screenshots above.

 

In the film, there are many contrasting images that you come across. The corridors are bright and yet there are many areas of the ship which are very dark and mechanical. It's become a staple for science fiction ever since, even in gaming with games like Dead Space taking vast amounts of inspiration from the original film. The corridors are narrow, which give you that claustrophobic feel. It worked in the film and it certainly works in the games.

 

I geeked out when playing the game because they have perfectly captured what made the Nostromo (the ship in the film) so damn scary yet welcoming and have managed to transfer that into the game. Not just with aesthetics, but with the sound design which is some of the greatest I've ever seen. There are air vents which the Alien uses to move around in the original film (also used by the humans) which they have incorporated into this game. There's the clanging of boots on metal as you walk through them. If you knock over cannisters or objects in the game, they'll make a sound which can attract the Alien. It's very, very quiet on board the ship in certain parts, yet this is also contrasted with the sounds of emergency sirens or the ship giving you information over the intercom, which also happened in the film. Music is kept to a minimal (again, just like the film) but is used in certain set pieces to either get the blood pumping or is used in quiet sections as background, almost ambient-like noise.

 

Do you need a knowledge of the film to enjoy the game? In terms of plot, I'd say not. However, you have to have an appreciation for the world which they tried to create in the film because otherwise you'll be overlooking one of the biggest triumphs in this game; how they managed to successfully recapture the environments into a gaming formation. The contrast between light and dark, the inviting nature of the airlock juxtaposed with the harshness of deep space, the quiet of space and the ship mixed in with the warning sirens, the claustrophobic corridors, the slow opening doors which contain a bulky look to them, the ships computers which boot up very slowly and contain a retro-look. If you understand and appreciate all of this (and accept it), you don't need to know anything else about the game except for...

 

The Alien.

 

I was worried about how they would get this to work. One alien let loose on a ship. It's going to be boring, right? Not really, because there are other threats on board. Even still, one alien, that's easy, right? Nope. Just like in the film, they manage to make it perfectly believable that this creature is indestructible. It's the perfect organism. You can hide from it, you can try to outrun it, but you can't directly kill it. Do you need some knowledge of the creature going into this game? Yes and no. Yes, it helps because then you can sorta identify how it moves and where it could hide. No because if you know nothing, that'll make it even more frightening when you do play it.

 

You don't need to know much about the plot of the film to appreciate the game because it actually exists well on its own. There is one section of the game which almost directly mirrors the film (almost frame for frame) but I believe the game explains everything within it, so it's independent from the film.

 

My opinion: If you want a different type of space adventure, one that is slower paced and tense, then this would be it. It's almost a love-note to science fiction, particularly with how the environments are constructed. The sound design is some of the best that I've ever heard and it may even be something which makes you want to watch the films, the first two in particular.

 

You are going to hear some negativity about the game, so let me address that. The two that come up the most are:

 

- The length.

 

- The mission structure.

 

Is it quite a long game? Yes, it is. However, if you pace yourself, you'll have a good time with it. The missions do vary in length and I believe that there's just enough to keep it entertaining. It takes a few chapters to get going, but that's fine because it mirrors the slow build-up of the film. I also believe that they introduce the alien in the correct way because you intrinsically learn how to deal with it. You don't need any knowledge of the film in this regard. It also goes up a notch in the second half and the last third in particular is something else.

 

The mission structure is fit for purpose and what I mean by that is that it fits in with the environment and the world that it seeks to create. There are no left-field puzzles thrown in like moving blocks in a Zelda-like fashion or shooting switches on a wall like in Metroid Prime or boss fights. These are types of problems that you possibly would encounter on a ship which is desolate and in lockdown. There are lots of switches that need to be pushed, computers that need accessing to get passcodes, areas you need to traverse to get a keycard to get into a room on the other side of the ship. It fits, in my opinion. The downside of this is that there isn't a great deal of variation and it can seem a bit repetitive. However, if you pace yourself, you shouldn't have problems with it.

 

The last thing I'll talk about is difficulty. It's meant to be hard. Did I think it was frustratingly hard? Nope. And I am by no means a fantastic gamer. I play almost everything on normal and rarely go for the hardest settings. Is it a hard game? Yes. You can't pick up a gun, run into several rooms, shoot shit up and pick up a prize at the end. The game doesn't work that way. I've watched twitch videos where gamers tried using this mentality and they inevitably died over and over again, becoming frustrated. You have to be clever about almost everything, part of the reason why I found it emotionally draining in the best possible sense.

 

As I've mentioned already, it is by far my favourite game of the year. I cheered when I reached the credits for two reasons. 1, I was fucking relieved. 2, I did not truly believe that such a faithful game in the franchise would ever be created and I had all but lost hope in seeing anything like this. It has come out of nowhere really.

[somme]

A lot of people of the Alien Isolation forum have actually been leaning towards Easy as the more fun difficulty setting. And I agree. On hard the Alien is tethered to you, always right next to you and after a while the tension dissipates into frustration. On easy however the Alien gives you a wider birth but this also leads to more tension; you don't know where the it.

 

On easy it will pop out of vents you don 't expect and will take longer walks around the areas. It may be easier when it comes to quantities of items but when it comes to tension, fear and the alien itself? It's not that easy.