Alien: Isolation

[SuicideBunny]

wot? They're diffuse reflections broken by surface dirt/smudges etc. There's nothing wrong with it.

reflections aren't blocked by walls. watch the right reflection in the vid and second gif.

 

[Sodafish]

Ah well spotted, didn't notice that.

 

[Morgoth]

On a related note: DANGER! ALIEN AT WORK!

Everybody loves #VideoLAN

 

[Paul_cz]

Umm so it is night, I was looking forward to playing this, headphones and huge plasma ready...I am playing, get to medical, Alien is prowling the corridors...and I realize that I do not actually want this. It's so god damn stressful and actively unpleasant to play.
That is a sign that this is brilliant game, and it really is. But eventhough I finished first three Silent Hills as well as both Amnesia, Outlast and pretty much every other horror PC game, I don't think I will be able to play this. The combination of sound design, visual design and Alien's AI is just too much.

But then I really want to play this. I love the Alien series. Goddammit.

 

[Lyric Suite]

What a fag. Git gud or get bent shitface trololo

 

[lurker3000]

I'm not going to read a 42 page thread so I'm just going to ask:

Should this be in my steam wishlist or not?

 

[Caim]

I'm not going to read a 42 page thread so I'm just going to ask:

Should this be in my steam wishlist or not?

Depends on if you would put receiving a People's Elbow to the dick on your Steam wishlist. If yes, then go right ahead. If not, give it a pass.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm not going to read a 42 page thread so I'm just going to ask:

Should this be in my steam wishlist or not?

Yes, but don't get it until it drops to around the 10$-20$ range.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Finished it a few minutes ago. Jesus Christ, that was the most stressful game I have ever played. I put off playing it all morning simply because it took me that long to work up the nerve to pick up where I had left off. I really liked this game, but past a certain point, I was playing to see the thing to its conclusion, not because I was "enjoying" my time on Sevastopol. Feel like I need to go take a hot bath and decompress. Jesus.

 

[Sodafish]

Just finished it too

Spoiler

Ungh the ending several missions just fucking sucked. Pointless extension after extension after extension. I almost rage quit in disgust during mission 17 when you have to find an alternate way to the space terminal, and the game forces you to backtrack multiple times between the generator and the door you need to escape from. Such fucking bullshit. And dat ending QTE... well, less said the better really.

Other than that it was a very worthwhile jaunt. The art direction, sound and graphics are all absolutely top notch. The human AI is beyond terrible though, and really needs fixing. Not to mention those awful game breaking bugs. As for the alien hide and seek stuff: it's thrilling at first, but due to the lack of variety it quite rapidly just becomes a tedious chore that you have to get through, which isn't great considering it's a core mechanic. I also felt that the game gave you too many resources, which thus lessens the tension. I didn't once use the smoke bombs, and only once tried the molotovs to try and destroy a facehugger egg (they're immune to molotovs but not the flamer, herderp). The pipebombs are great though.

Definitely one of the better games I've played recently. Deducting for the awful ending I'd give it 7/10 trolls

 

[lurker3000]

I'm not going to read a 42 page thread so I'm just going to ask:

Should this be in my steam wishlist or not?

Yes, but don't get it until it drops to around the 10$-20$ range.

Well 3 out of the 4 people who posted after me seem to like it. Mostly. I'll add it to the wishlist for the 2015 summer sale.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Probably early game spoilers.

Spoiler

So I just bought the game intro was slightly laggy cause I'm playing on PS3 yes im a console peasant unwashed and all anyways I get the intro time to find mama but then i do the tutorial and the game fucking glitches cause the dude didn't walk from the med lab to the bridge fucking piece of shit anyways a quick reload fixes the issue and then predictable shit happens I wander around get zapped by a electrical cord wife who's watching me comments on "oh great it's like Skyrim more wandering aimless" then I run into Axel and my wife says "Ooo! When does he die" then Axel does more tutorial stuff and the alien kills him but i can finally fucking kill people so i go to next place try to sneak past people die 3 times then i decide these fuckers will have to die i bang a wall loughly with my hammer them come out herp derp like Skyrim then i kill all four with a neat pile of bodies then i see alien again and then oh god androids are fucking creepy

 

[barker_s]

Finished it a few minutes ago. Jesus Christ, that was the most stressful game I have ever played. I put off playing it all morning simply because it took me that long to work up the nerve to pick up where I had left off. I really liked this game, but past a certain point, I was playing to see the thing to its conclusion, not because I was "enjoying" my time on Sevastopol. Feel like I need to go take a hot bath and decompress. Jesus.

Same here. For the most of the game I really enjoyed it - I thought the pacing was just right, it gave you nice balance of different encounters so you could blow off some steam after being hounded by the Alien. Those last few segments though? Fuck them. Not that they ruined the whole game for me or anything, but if they kept it well paced all the way (and the ending was a bit better) it would be a strong 9/10 in my eyes (now it's only 8/10 - still one of the best if not the best Alien game out there).

Also:

Spoiler

I've heard people complaining on other websites that once they itroduced multiple Aliens the game got less scary. I wholeheartedly disagree. With one xeno you knew you could always scare it off with a flamethrower or distract it with a noisemaker and buy yourself some time. Once you knew there were more, things got much more tense.

 

[Vibalist]

 

[Higher Animal]

Vibalist

Don't post Previously Recorded trash in these forums.

 

[Vibalist]

Oh, do ease up.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Are they right though?

 

[DeepOcean]

Are they right though?

They say:
It is a 5 hour concept stretched for 15 hours.
The alien animation is strange and look artificial as it more glides than walk on the ground.
The story is garbage, there are zero personal stakes or interesting characters. You only open doors the whole game.
The alien doesn't scare anymore.
The gameplay consist of pointless minigames to open doors and stealth is only hide under desks and inside lockers.
The stealth sometimes is pretty random.
There are fake sounds to fool you to think the alien is nearby you on some vent somewhere but you quickly learn the difference between the fake vent sounds and the true alien sounds.
You feel more nostalgia than actually enjoy it as a stealth game and it doesn't work as a horror game. The tension is more a byproduct of you losing progress for a random alien attack than real challenge.
Their opinion is pretty much similar with what Unkillable Cat and others said.Actually, I got surprised, the fat guy even mentioned Thief: The Dark project. I tought they would be just more youtube clowns but their review is pretty much critical.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Rich could easily become one of us if he hanged around here for a bit. The other guy is a lost cause of course but what can you do.

As one who used to be an Alien fanboy, i don't really feel they truly nailed the atmosphere of the film. The game looks very nice but i just don't get the same feeling, so i don't see the appeal even from the point of view of a simple nostalgia trip. Will probably check the game once it goes down in price, but as it is i see no reason to rush to it. No day one purchase for me i'm afraid. At least they tried i guess.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Are they right though?

They say:
It is a 5 hour concept stretched for 15 hours.
The alien animation is strange and look artificial as it more glides than walk on the ground.
The story is garbage, there are zero personal stakes or interesting characters. You only open doors the whole game.
The alien doesn't scare anymore.
The gameplay consist of pointless minigames to open doors and stealth is only hide under desks and inside lockers.
The stealth sometimes is pretty random.
There are fake sounds to fool you to think the alien is nearby you on some vent somewhere but you quickly learn the difference between the fake vent sounds and the true alien sounds.
You feel more nostalgia than actually enjoy it as a stealth game and it doesn't work as a horror game. The tension is more a byproduct of you losing progress for a random alien attack than real challenge.

Their opinion is pretty much similar with what Unkillable Cat and others said. Actually, I got surprised, the fat guy even mentioned Thief: The Dark project.

Thanks for the bulletpoints, the underlined point is the only one I do not agree with, I found the Alien to look and feel almost perfect...except maybe for the stomping sounds, which isn't that hard to fix.

And I stated at the start of my playthrough of Alien: Isolation that I had just come from playing Thief, so I felt confined in my mobility while playing.

 

[Jick Magger]

I don't quite agree with the last point though. I thought for the first half of the game the Alien was legitimately frightening. To deal with. Hearing it constantly scuttle through the vents, hearing it's heavy footsteps come closer and closer to your position, and then the ungodly shriek it makes as it comes barreling down on you faster than you can react, it's all very effective. Although I do think the design for the Working Joe ultimately came off more ridiculous than frightening in the end, and beyond my initial encounter with a hostile one, never really felt scared or intimidated by them.

But once you hit around the 10 hour mark, you've seen pretty much everything it has to offer gameplay-wise (you've found most of the weapons, seen all the variety to stealth you're ever gonna get, and have probably experimented with all the throwable explosives), and are probably starting to get to the point where the initial spell, the idea that the Alien is actually 'hunting' you, has probably worn off. You'll notice that it'll sometimes never come out so long as you just crouch-walk, sometimes it'll come out in 2-3 minute intervals just to do a sweep of the area not because it's a hunter out stalking you, but because the AI knows you're there, but can't actually do anything about it because it also doesn't 'know' you're there, other times it's behaviour is completely random and it'll just decide to zone in on your position, jump out of a vent directly in front of you, or rip the door off of the locker you're hiding in simply because the game feels like fucking you over. You've seen the zipper on the monster costume, so to speak. At which point, the game stops really being scary and just starts being frustrating, with the alien no longer being something to be feared and instead becoming just another obstacle in your never ending quest to unlock every door in the world.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Oh dear god the Revolver is the most useless fucking gun.

-Deals pathetic damage (only the Klobb from Golden Eye N64 is weaker). Pretty sure I shot a Joe 12 times in the head before he died, only to get the attention of two more who proceeded to gang-bang me: one droid cock in the butt and another in the mouth.
-Loud as fuck. Could probably send Morse code to the Torrens.
-Reloads slower than one of my ex-girlfriends trying to perform a blow job. Takes eons and it's highly unsatisfying.
-Looks stupid as fuck:

Spoiler

What the fuck is it made of, giant lego blocks?

Pretty sure the only purpose is to troll the player into thinking it's useful. My Maintenance Jack is infinitely more useful.

 

[Sodafish]

Well it is the first gun you get, it's not meant to be that good. Nonetheless it dispatches the non-armoured humans easily (one headshot or a couple of chest shots).

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Are they right though?

It is a 5 hour concept stretched for 15 hours.

I find it remarkable that people have no qualms firing same same guns for entire campaigns against same same monsters in linear corridors (aka Dead Space). But when a game comes along that both has more varied pacing and more open levels, but one that makes you inherently weak and forces you to slow to a crawl (in the developer's recommended difficulty anyways), it wears thin before dinner. The game can but tease you even after the initial slow burn of an opening, and occasionally turns the thing entire thing upside down, at least for short spells.

It's amazing that this was even green-lit by Sega. For all its faults, at the core it features some of the most bold and authentic design in an Alien(s) game ever since Aliens. That is Aliens, the by now hopelessly outdated UK game from Electric Dreams, not the US Gold game trying to mimic a couple dozen popular games all in one, a precursor to titles that would later follow. Such as the Alien³ games that all had zero to do with the movie but tried to bank on the popularity of platformers of the time, ditto a lot of the FPS (or even beat 'em up) games that later followed in the wake of Quake and Doom and Half Life and Street Fighter II. Nah, it's not for everyone as it's bloody slow, it's best taken in short spells over a good week as it's very focused and the objectives same, same and I can see how this can wear out for some. But even if the terror can't be sustained over such a long campaign, it remains a stressfull experience demanding commitment all throughout. This is a well written blog post that goes into why you should reconsider, especially if you're a fan of the first film.

http://brkeogh.com/2014/10/17/notes-on-alien-isolation/

For a more critical but still appreciative view, some spoilers inside: http://frictionalgames.blogspot.se/2014/10/thoughts-on-alien-isolation-and-horror.html

 

[MapMan]

To me, neither this game or the original movies are horrors. This game captures the mood and setting of alien perfectly, but it's more like an FPP adventure game. It's far from perfect, it has it's flaws but it is one of the best Alien games. I think it should be even more open world with more interesting mechanics when it comes to wielding doors and locking/disabling certain systems. Right now, all those torches, hacking devices act as simply keys, which is kinda lame. What I'd also like is more than a single alien but killable. There shouldnt be much of them, and you can never kill them all but it would make all those guns and items actually handy. With various objectives players could plan their actions, and prepare traps etc. It would be also cool if human NPCs were more than "fuck off or we'll shoot". I think AVP was more 'horroesque' than AI is and there was also a lot of tension. Can mods fix it? I think if the game is moddable in some way then yeah, modders could do wonders with this. Gotta wait and see.

Also after I'm done with my first playthrough I want to test it with oculus. I wonder how the tension and scares will look like in medical with oculus and headphones on.