Alien: Isolation

[Metro]

Morgoth thread? We've seen how this story ends.

 

[Outlander]

We havent seen any gameplay so why are you guys tripping so much.

We have, the videos just don't show the QTE promts

 

[DragoFireheart]

We havent seen any gameplay so why are you guys tripping so much

A video with scripted scenes doesn't mean anything.

 

[zerotol]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iulSTAQHST4

this is apparently in game??

The game play HUD-less it seems.

 

[Morgoth]

Why would you need a fucking HUD, genius? You got the handheld motion tracker already.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Why would you need a fucking HUD, genius? You got the handheld motion tracker already.

I do every much like games that keep HUD to a bare minimum/nonexistent while still giving you functional ala items. It's helps with IMMERSION but also helps with enhancing the mood of the game. Especially with scary/horror games.

I'm glad Sega did not give up on the franchise. There's a lot of potential so long as they scrutinize the devs and pick wisely.

 

[Morality Games]

http://kotaku.com/source-the-next-aliens-game-stars-ellen-ripleys-daugh-1449318113

The next video game in the world of Aliens will star the daughter of superstar space officer Ellen Ripley, according to a Kotaku source.

The game is called Alien: Isolation, and we hear it will be on both current- and next-gen consoles next year. Isolation is developed by the British studio Creative Assembly (Total War); it's a first-person shooter that uses both stealth and horror elements; and it's inspired by games like Dishonored and Bioshock, according to our source, a person familiar with goings-on at Sega, who spoke under condition of anonymity in the interest of protecting their job.

Perhaps most importantly, our source says that Sega took the critical reception to Aliens: Colonial Marines very seriously, and that the publisher put together a postmortem following the near-unanimously negative reactions to their last Aliens game, which was developed by the studios Gearbox and TimeGate. They want to make sure Isolation is a better game, and according to our source, it's already been delayed at least once—Sega originally planned to announce the game at E3 of 2013.

I first heard about Alien: Isolation this spring, not long after reporting on the disastrous story of Colonial Marines. I couldn't confirm what I'd heard, and I figured that with the game early in development, some of these details would be fluid, so I sat on the info.

But today, news came out that Sega has trademarked the name Alien: Isolation. With the title corroborated, I feel comfortable sharing everything I've heard.

According to our source, the protagonist of Alien: Isolation is Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, the character that made Sigourney Weaver famous and kicked off the ubiquitous sci-fi franchise over 30 years ago. Amanda, who is mentioned in the special edition of Aliens as having died while Ellen was frozen in space, has not yet been the focus of any books, movies, or games in the Alien extended universe.

You, as Amanda, spend most if not all of the game on a single space station, according to our source. There's only one alien for "most" of the game, our source said; you'll mostly be shooting through "clones and soldiers." Vents, lockers, and melee weapons are a big part of Isolation, our source said, and the game is heavily inspired by the first Alien movie.

Keep in mind much of this information is from six months ago; details may have changed over the course of development, as they sometimes do. However, our source re-confirmed many of these details today.

In 2011, Sega announced that Creative Assembly was working on an Alien game, but details have been sparse. Creative Assembly's most recent game, Total War: Rome II, was quite buggy at launch, but Luke revisited the game last week and gave it a positive review.

Sega declined to comment for this story.

Inspired by Dishonored and Bioshock?

Interested.

Good news. I love all the Alien movies, even the bad ones (which is all of them after the first one).

Why would you need a fucking HUD, genius? You got the handheld motion tracker already.

I do every much like games that keep HUD to a bare minimum/nonexistent while still giving you functional ala items. It's helps with IMMERSION but also helps with enhancing the mood of the game. Especially with scary/horror games.

I'm glad Sega did not give up on the franchise. There's a lot of potential so long as they scrutinize the devs and pick wisely.

How would John Adams put it?

Sega is misguided, but it is not despotic.

 

[Jaesun]

Holy fuck. That gameplay teaser video looked good. Please please please don't fuck this up. And make it at least a decent survival game. My pulse was racing just watching that.

 

[CSM]

Now it's officially announced:
http://www.videogamer.com/xboxone/a...or_late_2014_release_on_ps4_xb1_and_more.html




Gameplay:

Wtf is wrong with those videos? Every single click on the videos opens a new tab.

 

[Morgoth]

https://soundcloud.com/alienisolation/teaser-tuesday-audio-clip-mtracker

 

[Morgoth]

http://news.alienisolation.com/2014/02/05/spoiling-you-with-more-in-game-screenshots/

 

[Lunac]

shit

...
..
.

 

[Morgoth]

They certainly know how to build up hype. But I'm not falling for it until I've played through it 7 times it's out and post-review sentiments surface back to reality.

 

[toro]

They certainly know how to build up hype. But I'm not falling for it until I've played through it 7 times it's out and post-review sentiments surface back to reality.

Depends on the AI quality. But remarks like "you'll never feel safe in this game" are borderline retarded.

 

[Zewp]

This game will probably get great scores just because everyone wants it to be good after the piece of shit that was Colonial Marines.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

For their words to have any merit, they'd have to revolutionize AI programming and development.

While a part of me would love for them to do just that, and in an Alien game, the last two Alien games released were pretty bad.

 

[Azrael the cat]

They certainly know how to build up hype. But I'm not falling for it until I've played through it 7 times it's out and post-review sentiments surface back to reality.

The alien in that frame looks like he's saying something along the lines of 'now what this case study tells us about micro-economic theory is...'

 

[Morality Games]

This game will probably get great scores just because everyone wants it to be good after the piece of shit that was Colonial Marines.

The concept seems too promising to fail. One over-powerful enemy hunting you intelligently and a lot of environmental hazards to work through. Probably multiple solutions.

 

[Misconnected]

While a part of me would love for them to do just that, and in an Alien game, the last two Alien games released were pretty bad.

The fact that this won't be a controller-compromised FPS pretty much guarantees that it'll be a hell of a lot better than the last two games featuring the Xenomorph.

... Of course, that's no guarantee it'll be worth playing. But at least it's a possibility.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.shacknews.com/article/83607/alien-isolation-preview-extra-terrifying

Unlike previous Alien games, the humans absolutely cannot fight back.

I like what I'm reading.

 

[retardation]

At this point it is clear this is going to be a decent game. I'm going to refrain from reading and watching too much about it, so I don't spoil me some horror experience.

 

[Raapys]

Yeah the design sounds good. Let's hope the implementation follows suit.

 

[Infinitron]

RPS preview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/23/preview-alien-isolation-horror-game/

They found getting killed frustrating.

So, the playing of things. The xenomorph is clearly the centrepiece of the game. The hour-long PowerPoint slideshow that we watched before Creative Assembly turned us loose on the demo became positively masturbatory as the team regaled us at length with details of navigation meshes, rendering techniques, and blending. What did it all boil down to? “The alien is big. The alien is scary. The alien uses its senses to find you. The alien can kill you.”

Tension is a delicate thing. If you played Amnesia or Penumbra or Outlast or literally any other of the games in this vein, I’m sure you’ve encountered the following phenomena. You stumble into an unknown area and, whether through audio or visual cues, you know something terrible is about to happen. You sneak around until you finally get a glimpse of the enemy you’re supposed to avoid. You try to get away craftily, but through your own failures the enemy senses you and kills you. All tension from the hour-long build-up to this scene is now deflated, as you’re reminded that you’re playing a game. Now the enemy is just an obstacle — the equivalent of a platform for you to jump on to get to the next part of the level. It’s not frightening the second, third, fourth, or fifth, or however many times it takes you to get past.

Alien: Isolation absolutely has this issue. Creative Assembly’s xenomorph is, in their words, “lethal, terrifying, and believable.” Mostly that first one. In the demo, each time I was spotted resulted in immediate death. No chance to escape, or to hide after being seen. Death. You lose. Good day, sir.

Tension gone, replaced only with frustration. I wasn’t the only one — I spoke to another journalist who flat-out quit the demo, he was so tired of dying in the last bit.

“Just play the game better,” says the imaginary Internet commenter in my head. The problem is that the xenomorph’s AI is frustratingly inconsistent. The hallway I was in had mini-walls to hide behind, every five feet or so. At one point I heard the xenomorph coming and squeezed up tight behind one — no problem. It walked right by me, a mere two feet from my hiding spot. Then as it began to circle to the side I’d been hiding on, I slipped over to the other side of the wall (where it had just walked). This time as it passed by, it saw me. Blood. Murder. Death.

The same exact hiding spot, the same circumstances. It’s like the xenomorph is alternatively clairvoyant and the absolute dumbest creature in the universe.

Towards the end of the demo you have to escape through an airlock. Doing so requires activation of a manual override switch, which when triggered sets off an alarm and a ton of lights. Oh shit, run! I crouch-walked as fast as I could to the nearest conveniently-empty locker and stuffed myself inside, as the game clearly wanted me to do. The xenomorph stood right outside, Ripley breathing hard enough to power a wind turbine. My motion tracker went beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

And the xenomorph walked away. Now, I’m told that there was supposed to be a button prompt for Ripley to hold her breath, but that didn’t happen in my demo and that’s unfortunate. The xenomorph, with all its supposedly heightened powers of smell and hearing, couldn’t figure out I was hidden on the other side of a flimsy piece of metal.

Less predictable AI in a horror/stealth game is an admirable pursuit. I’m tired of stealth games that are secretly puzzle games, where the guards all walk in preset routes. Give me a real challenge from the AI.

Real challenge requires consistency. Real challenge requires that the AI plays by the rules, else players feel like they are getting fucked over all the time. I’ve stood in shadows and been seen. I’ve stood out in the open and had the xenomorph scoot on by. Creative Assembly says the alien doesn’t cheat, but I couldn’t help feeling cheated with every new death.

And this besides the fact that (here are my own biases speaking) I just can’t find the alien scary anymore. Really, can you ever find anything scary once you’ve seen it waddle by like it’s wearing shit-filled pants? Creative Assembly’s xenomorph is bigger, badder, meaner-looking than any we’ve seen in a video game, so props to them for that. It slinks through the shadows like one lethal motherfucker.

But at the end of the day…it’s the xenomorph. It’s so entrenched in popular culture, there’s nothing unknown about it. I’ve murdered dozens of them over the years. It’s like making a horror game starring Levar Burton.

And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that there is, despite initial expectations, combat in the game. You can’t kill the alien, but you will have to fight an assortment of robots and other dumb bullshit because of course this is a video game and video games have to have combat. We didn’t see any of that in the demo, but I swung my wrench around a bunch. Felt wrenchy.

Maybe Alien: Isolation will release to incredible acclaim. Maybe we’ll all look back on this preview and laugh and say, “Oh thank goodness. My expectations were so low, I’m now primed to fully appreciate the first phenomenal Alien game in the history of all games ever.” There’s an art to horror games and a ten-minute demo in a crowded room full of hot, tired journalists is hardly the correct place to know whether a game is truly scary.

Still, I’m buying some aloe and pills to alleviate the pain of getting punched in the face again.

 

[WhiteGuts]

It's more than that. They find the Alien's AI inconsistent, and that once spotted death is the only outcome. Legitimate complains, in my opinion.

 

[theSavant]

Can't help but feel that Alien lost its traction. Same as Dead Space. Be it movie or game. It's sucked out. It's over. Instead of coming up with something new they desperately clung to "established" labels. Why is it so difficult to create something different?

The details and lighting in the demo preview are awesome. I bet they hired an army of 3d modellers. But this doesn't make me want to play it.