Alien Isolation

[Yw-slayer]

Yeah, I'm not into scary games. I find the "flashlight-only" parts of Destiny nerve-wracking, even if I'm at the appropriate level, and even though you can clearly see where the enemies are.

[Reynard]

So long story short, probably because I don't have experience playing survival horror games, my initial progression with the game was exceedingly slow. Then to compound things, at a crucial point in the third mission, I saved my game because, while still weaponless I was getting killed easily by some AI with guns and wanted to be able to reload right there as opposed to starting the mission over from the beginning.

Anyway...there is a specific path you need to take to escape this room immediately following a cut scene to progress to the next area and because I ran back to a save point, there was no way I was going to get though this room w/o dying. Mind you at this point I've only just seen the alien once (and that was a cut scene) so I wasted over two hours trying to get through that one room two nights ago and finally quit out of frustration.

Last night I started the whole level over again from the beginning and figured out the error of my ways and was able to progress out of that room and finish the mission/level, which has led me to the meat of the game finally. I now have a motion tracker (which is excellent), a pistol and some MacGyvered flash bangs & smoke bombs and an actual xeno to worry about for the first time. Yay! So while it's still too soon to be able to comment on the AI behavior of said Alien (one of the supposed selling points of the game) I feel I can comment on some of the other aspects for you all.

My #1 favorite thing about it so far is the sound. The fact that they were able to use the score from the movie and have virtually all the sound effects from the ship/station's infrastructure and systems spot on... it is just perfect in my book. The environment modeling also spot on and is a proud nod to Ron Cobb's blue collar future vision. These two things combined with some good lighting effects really do set the scene/mood perfectly. That said the graphics aren't perfect in that there still is noticeable aliasing and shimmering on edges here and there which is kind of disappointing. Also in that dept. if you look down at your feet when walking they don't interact with the floor correctly. Either looking like your floating above it or they'll be clipping into it. But you really shouldn't ever be looking at your feet anyway so it's not a problem per se, just something I noticed.

The default controls are a perfectly fine 1st person affair and I only had to invert my Y-axis and lower the sensitivity 1 click for it to be comfortable. So obviously with this genre of game you're going to be sneaking around most of the time. That is all fine and good and there's a nice control in place for peeking around and over objects that I like. What is a bit difficult for me is simply judging when I'm truly in cover or not as there's no HUD type indicator so it's all done by simply seeing whether the AI reacts to you or not. It seems at times where I could be crouching against a wall, not really in any kind of shadow even and a person can walk by me about 10 feet away and not notice me where as someone on the other side of the room will spot me no problem. Again I'm still learning the mechanics of all this and perhaps it's really down to line of sight in so much as they can walk right next to you but if they don't physically turn their head and look at you, you're safe and to be clear I'm speaking of the human AI not the alien which should be a different affair all together. I've also only just encountered the "working joes" which are the androids on the station so I'm not sure what their behavior will be like.

So in regards to the comments I see here about "scary" games, I guess you can consider it scary but I don't. Neither would I say the movie Alien is scary to me. No what that and this game is about is tension and suspense. Perhaps that's just my definition of scary but if you like the adrenaline rush you get from being on the edge of your seat, holding your breath, wondering what may or may not be on the other side of that air vent as it slowly twists open, then yeah, they got that right too! One nice aspect is the "tuner" you have to unlock doors. It becomes essentially a little mini game with a timer involved to unlock the door and is easy to get wrong if your too stressed out. I like it a lot.

I should also point out that I am just playing the main game/campaign on the medium (out of 3) difficulty level. There is also a Survival mode and I have the "Crew Expendable" DLC from my pre-order which allows for game play with character(s) from the original film replaying specific events from the movie (I think). I almost just started that up as I was becoming frustrated in that one room but I wanted to save that for last because I anticipate it will be my favorite mode... we'll see.

So I'll get a bunch more playtime this weekend to hopefully pass a final verdict. Right now it's pretty good. The look, sound and atmosphere is exactly what I wanted, it's just a matter if the game play itself proves ultimately worthy that I'm still on the fence about.

Oh yeah, fwiw I'm playing the PC version, on my tv, with an X360 gamepad.

[Reynard]

So here I am again, slowly progressing through the game and I have to say I'm certainly on the fence overall. Mostly I put that down to the survival horror genre ultimately not really being my forte.

I will continually repeat that indeed they got the atmosphere and all the details right in regards to sound and visuals and that alone makes it a keeper for an uber fan of the film such as myself. Now that I'm interacting with the Alien itself, it's every bit as menacing as you'd want and it's true that it doesn't always stay running the same path on any given level like the other AI. That's great but at the same time, it does seem to be unnaturally tethered to your whereabouts at times.

So while when things are going as intended and I'm progressing along, sneaking from objective to the next, the tension can mount up tremendously. So much so that after 2 hours I truly need to take a break as my adrenaline is tapped and I feel exhausted. I know that sounds kind of awful but that's when it's great IMO, that's what I expect. However, my lack of skill, the sometimes weird AI and all the trial and error tends to break that fantastic atmosphere at which point it becomes chore-like.

I've still yet to try the survival mode or "Crew Expendable" but I'd say as of now that if you're a fan of the genre, I think this is probably a must play game. If you're like me and a fan of the film, it's definitely a must watch (someone else play) to see if it's for you or not. I'm happy to have it in my collection but it's certainly not a game that will have me jonesing to play it whenever I have the chance.

[novicius]

Heh, you said "jonesing".

[Reynard]

Nice. I wish I could say "pun intended" but alas it's just my 80's vernacular showing through.