Alien: Isolation. I want to like it, but...

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I think somewhere within the mess that is Alien: Isolation, a great game lies waiting. Sadly, its being smothered to death by a poor save system, unfair AI, and a general lack of polish. To quote from Jurassic Park:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should"

Creative Assembly set out to make the definitive Aliens game, and for lack of a better term, they succeeded. But I think a core part of the Alien creature/lore/world/whatever you want to call it, is that this alien is SOOOO much better at hunting you than you are at staying alive, that its utterly pointless. And MAYBE that shouldn't have been translated into a game.

As of writing, I am sitting bitterly on 24hrs of gameplay, according to Steam. One full day, and I'm on Mission 6. 6/WAY TOO MANY. And I can confidently say roughly 20hrs of that day was spent replaying the same damn sections over and over and over and over and fucking over again.

I'm not scared at any point in this Survival-Horror. I'm annoyed, frustrated and angry. The apparent cheating(I know its not cheating per-se, but I'm keeping this spoiler free) of the alien, watching it go around one corner and suddenly appear behind you...even if there is a legit Alien-verse reason for it, that's not making the game any less annoying. It feels like that the AI for the Alien was made so abominably difficult not to add challenge to the player(lets face it, standing down range at a firing range is challenging, but its not a good idea) but to pad out the game length itself. This may be whining, I grant that, but I spent money on this fucker, and I'm not getting my money's worth! Hell, I found Amnesia easier than this game, and Amnesia didn't have any weapons or a motion tracker or practically anywhere to hide!

To be anecdotal, I hid in a little box once in this game. First time ever, as previously I had hidden in lockers and under tables. First time in this little box at the end of a hallway. The alien had NOT spawned yet, but the motion tracker was telling me it was close.(.33m) I'm in the box, I watch the alien come down from a vent, it screeches and run directly at me, wrenches open the box and kills me. I had hidden BEFORE it appeared, and yet it still killed me, practically instantly. And it set me back a good 20mins of gameplay.
Now someone somewhere will defend this as noise or alerting the alien, blah blah blah. And I will counter with A) this was a section where other humans were around, making WAY more noise, and I could see them, meaning the Alien sure as shit could too And B) It didn't just sniff around, it fucking zeroed in on me in an instant! There was no holding breath thing, no watching it walk to and fro. It spawned and killed me. End of story, as if there is a line of code where the Alien finds and kills you every X steps/minutes, where X is a randomly generated number.

And I'm sorry, I know that its loyal to the Alien franchise and creature, but that doesn't mean its a good game, and certainly not one worth $45. For all the boasted stealth elements in this game, the Alien might as well be Slender-Man and just spawn right behind you when you pick up the macguffin. The game was actually scary when it was just the Working Joes and their lifeless glowing eyes and creepy 'You're not supposed to be here' lines. It was tense, it was exciting and there was a chance to get out of the danger. I remember waiting until the last possible moment to shoot a Working Joe in the neck. It staggered and muttered "Really?" and I laughed SO much.
But the Alien...its immune to bullets, and bombs and I don't have a flamer thrower AND its faster than you. When one sees me, I just reload. I don't even bother trying to fight it off or escape or anything. I just take the last 20mins of gameplay as a loss and try again for the billionth time today.

For me, the Alien completely ruins this otherwise scary Aliens game.

Not that it matters much, but I can't recommend this game.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

What difficulty are you playing on, and does changing the difficulty setting change the behavior of the xenomorph AI?

I mean, if you're playing the game on the hardest difficulty and then complaining that the game is too hard then why not just lower the damn difficulty? I mean, yes the game says that the hard difficulty is for the true intended experience, but if you're not having fun on that difficulty and it's just frustrating for you then does it really matter what the intended difficulty is? Why not change it?

 

[Grumman]

SilentPony's complaints sound less like "this is difficult" than "this is a broken simulation". The game should be difficult in the sense that on one side you're outnumbered and on the other there's a monster. It should not be difficult in the sense that the creators have the monster act OOC to get you. The antagonist should be the alien, not the game developers.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

To be anecdotal, I hid in a little box once in this game. First time ever, as previously I had hidden in lockers and under tables. First time in this little box at the end of a hallway. The alien had NOT spawned yet, but the motion tracker was telling me it was close.(.33m) I'm in the box, I watch the alien come down from a vent, it screeches and run directly at me, wrenches open the box and kills me. I had hidden BEFORE it appeared, and yet it still killed me, practically instantly. And it set me back a good 20mins of gameplay.

Now someone somewhere will defend this as noise or alerting the alien, blah blah blah. And I will counter with A) this was a section where other humans were around, making WAY more noise, and I could see them, meaning the Alien sure as shit could too And B) It didn't just sniff around, it fucking zeroed in on me in an instant! There was no holding breath thing, no watching it walk to and fro. It spawned and killed me. End of story, as if there is a line of code where the Alien finds and kills you every X steps/minutes, where X is a randomly generated number.

I recall a moment in The Last of Us where I was approaching a series of rooms filled with zombies, crouched in the shadows, armed with my bow. I watched for several minutes to get a sense of the zombie's walking patterns, and lined up a shot. The second I released it, the zombie twitched out of the way. I realized the shot would miss, and faded back from my shooting position to a "safe" spot near the door. At which point every zombie in the level sprinted to my exact position and ate me.

TLDR - Game AI is still deeply stupid and relies on cheats to perform. We're a long way from Scarlett Johannson in "Her".

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

This is why I won't buy it until it's way cheaper. I was never a fan of horror movies[footnote]In fact, I hold Alien as the only horror movie I've seen that doesn't just try to scare you with cheap tricks like scare chords and gory voilence. It attacked you psychologically, and very effectively, while other popular horror movie then and now are either "torture porn" or some dumb idiots being stalked by a big scary dude that just won't die, while you laugh at the carnage.[/footnote] or games. I am happy it patched up the reputation left by Colonial Marines, but I've always felt Alien had done everything to make the premise scary and another story built around that concept of helplessness alone just won't work, even if it jumped mediums.


I was skeptical of the AI when I first heard what Isolation was about, downright disbelieving it when I read some previews of the "perfect AI" written by journalist who really sounded like they'd been lost in the hype(or the swag), and still didn't trust reviews when it came out thinking that either they were still kinda hype blind or they didn't have much time with the game and were lucky not to be cheap-shotted like Silent was. NPC enemies in every game still rely too much on that "all seeing eye" the computer gives them. It's the tried and true method when the latest AI algorithms lose the player's position, and the programmers fall back on it so the game doesn't glitch and they don't have to make the enemy teleport around until it finds the player again. There's still a lot of work to do on AI in games.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

What difficulty are you playing on, and does changing the difficulty setting change the behavior of the xenomorph AI?

I mean, if you're playing the game on the hardest difficulty and then complaining that the game is too hard then why not just lower the damn difficulty? I mean, yes the game says that the hard difficulty is for the true intended experience, but if you're not having fun on that difficulty and it's just frustrating for you then does it really matter what the intended difficulty is? Why not change it?

The game recommends Hard as the default difficulty and at Hard the AI is not only working with all its' routines, it also gets a narrower area around the player in which it searches. I started out at Hard but during Chapter 6, after finding that I spent more time peering out of lockers than I did moving around I turned it down to Medium and I never regretted it.

The deal is that Chapter 5/6 are without a doubt the hardest in the game, since you are facing the Alien without a full inventory and you are lacking some of the items that makes it possible to survive being detected by the alien. When I was in Chapter 6 I had one pipe bomb and one molotov, the former incredibly expensive to make and the latter giving off light that attracts the alien, as the only two items that could scare the alien off. To get through those chapters on hard requires you to learn how the items work best and then use them to maximum effect, which is a tall order in a game where most core mechanics are very different from how they function in other games in the same genre.

I can honestly say that I pondered just giving up after dying a dozen times on Chapter 6, but I persevered, got through it and was rewarded with a very good game later on. I also died less times in all the chapters after 6 than I died in chapter 6, that's saying something.

 

[josemlopes]

The game becomes easier once you know what triggers the alien, even the motion tracker atracts him and you should only use it to get a quick idea of where his general position is.

Still, its incredibly annoying how little room they give you to roam around since he is always in a range of 20m no matter how stealthy you are.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

I agree the Alien can be a hassle. But I had no where near as many problems. I am playing it on medium and it is still a threat. I read that hard is just too hard. More from bad AI than anything else. You can knock the difficulty back down to normal mid game. I would suggest doing that.

 

[small]

The game becomes easier once you know what triggers the alien, even the motion tracker atracts him and you should only use it to get a quick idea of where his general position is.

Still, its incredibly annoying how little room they give you to roam around since he is always in a range of 20m no matter how stealthy you are.

thats it in one. you only use the motion tracker for a second or two . checking the area, once i realised that it tended to cut back on the alien stomping around the corridors a bit.

as for hiding before it spawns, well the motion tracker only picks up movement so if its still it wont pick up anything, if you had the tracker out, it might of heard it , and with the door shutting. knew where you were.. or crappy ai in the moment.

i find it best to play it an hour or so at a time so you dont get frustrated

 

[weirdsoup]

I'm kind of thinking that people are claiming a bugged AI for the game's difficulty.

No, the game is far from perfect but it's far removed from any game I've played in a long time in terms of difficulty. I think people have become too reliant on predicable patterns for bad guys that you can learn or having quick saves whenever you feel like it.

TLDR - The game is good, maybe it's you that sucks?

 

[Casual Shinji]

I recall a moment in The Last of Us where I was approaching a series of rooms filled with zombies, crouched in the shadows, armed with my bow. I watched for several minutes to get a sense of the zombie's walking patterns, and lined up a shot. The second I released it, the zombie twitched out of the way. I realized the shot would miss, and faded back from my shooting position to a "safe" spot near the door. At which point every zombie in the level sprinted to my exact position and ate me.

TLDR - Game AI is still deeply stupid and relies on cheats to perform. We're a long way from Scarlett Johannson in "Her".

Where was that, the sewer section where you're stuck with the other kid?

OT: There seems to be a mindset currently that being completely and utterly powerless makes for scary games. It doesn't. Outlast suffered the same, where I'm apparently supposed to feel frightened that I can't fight back at all. When all it does is just annoy the crap out of me.

From what little footage I've seen of Isolation it looks like even when a band of hostile humans spots you you're bascially fucked. This type of all or nothing stealth.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I've had the Alien kill me once on the hardest difficulty and after playing 6 hours. And that was because I decided to sprint by it, hoping to use the tram system. Nope.

Remember, if you didn't already, the motion tracker attracts the Alien more so than any other enemy in the game.
Sound if your best friend. Use headphones. The Alien has great footsteps, even from a distance, which makes it very easy to track its movement.

If you crouch walked to it, hiding in pretty much anything 98% of the time should conceal yourself from the alien.

If the Alien is several rooms away, you should be able to stand up and walk freely, at least you can from my experience.


I don't know. I'm not trying to make this sound like "you suck, get good" thing, but I just don't find myself having that much trouble. Maybe it's because I'm so engrossed in the game that I don't mind having to take my time. Out sneaking the Alien always feels like one of the greatest successes I've had in video games.

The humans on the other hand...fuck those guys. I have no tips for getting around them.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

OT: There seems to be a mindset currently that being completely and utterly powerless makes for scary games. It doesn't. Outlast suffered the same, where I'm apparently supposed to feel frightened that I can't fight back at all. When all it does is just annoy the crap out of me.

From what little footage I've seen of Isolation it looks like even when a band of hostile humans spots you you're bascially fucked. This type of all or nothing stealth.

Alien: Isolation rewards "perfect stealth" but it doesn't necessarily punish the occasional burst of violence or liberal use of distractions. In fact, compared to games like Amnesia and Outlast, Alien empowers you quite a bit more in that you can dictate the flow of encounters by virtue of all the tools you have available. From using noise makers, flashbangs and smoke bombs defensively to escape to using them offensively to conceal your approach for the kill to using weapons to kill men and machine and to scare the Alien away. Attacking when outnumbered just means you have to attack the smart way, as opposed to going guns blazing from the front.

For most of the late game I preferred to have the Alien roaming the corridors, because that meant I could target it with a pipe bomb or my flamethrower if it caught scent, as opposed to having it ambush me from a vent or coming down behind me when I was occupied with something else.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

TLDR - The game is good, maybe it's you that sucks?

I thought that for a good long while, but I've played both the Amnesia games, Outlast and Slender and I did alright at them. After checking both the Escapist forums and the Steam forums, I'm finding that my problems are far from isolated(no pun). It seems near enough everyone has at least one or two stories of how the Alien gets them in a situation when the game implied it wouldn't be able to.
From what I've read those that have completed or mostly finished the game attribute their success to a combination of pure luck and beneficial glitches that sees the Alien get caught clipping through a table and being stuck for the remainder of the mission.
It does seem like its a good game, despite the AI best attempts to ruin it. I just wish the developers had more on the design docs than 'its really hard'. A brick wall it hard, but its not an inherently great game.

You should try it on easy.

If that doesn't work, you can always do what I did with Outlast when I got to the point where I wanted to progress more than I wanted to be scared: Alter the game's .ini files so the bad guys all move very slowly and do very little damage. I'm not proud of it, but I finally finished that fucker.

I am actually on easy. Sad...maybe I do just suck? I started on Hard and found it a little too heavy on respawns. By mid mission 5 I had to knock it down to normal. Now mid mission 6, I knocked it down to easy. As far as I can tell, the difficulty levels reduce the frequency of the alien spawning, but not its lethality nor 'cheating' scripts.
Honestly this is where two big problems come together. I can deal with an aggressive AI or I can deal with a terrible save systems, but together? I kinda' like the manual saves, sorta reminds me of the typewriters in Resident Evil games. But they are so sparse and so distant from one another that on the map they're only 5 rooms and a hallway apart, but once the alien spawns, you have to get a code of some sort, find a tool to open a door and all the hiding and backtracking to keep the alien off your back, it can turn into a full hour of game play, all the while any second will see all the progress lost.
I agree that Outlast got annoying, but on reflection it feels like a better alien game than Isolation. At least Outlast built up tension between jump scares and bad guys. If for example the killer was always around, always two steps behind you, it would have taken all the tension out of the room. He'd still be threatening, but not scary. And that's where our good friend Mr. Dribbly Alien finds himself. He forgot that fear comes from the possibility of danger, not the smothering inevitability of it. I mean I ignore most of whats going on in the game just to bee-line it to a save point, and that can't reflect well on the game design.




Capcha: Catch the man. Fuck you SolveMedia.

 

[mavkiel]

I started off on hard, then got to the med lab, and the alien kept spotting me, after a dozen or so attempts to make it to the next save point I said screw it, went to easy.

On easy mode, you can still die fairly easy if you are careless. However, I found I enjoyed the atmosphere a heck of a lot more.

 

[XSTALKERX]

Nah man I completely disagree with you. Alien Isolation Is one of the best survival horrors Iv'e played. I mean compare the alien's AI to the monsters in amnesia and the psychos in Outlast. They are so predictable after a while, both in Outlast and amnesia there's a lot of places where you simply can just hide and wait for the monster to despawn or walk so far away that you can move freely for a little while. In Alien it is the complete opposite, the alien keeps darting in and out of rooms, up and down the corridors, so at least for me it kept me way more scared and tense to actually move and progress. And add to that, the the sound design is freaking amazing. I found myself so many times hiding and just listening to the Alien's footsteps, and trying to determine if he was actually moving through the corridors or in the vents.

The AI does cheat a little bit I will admit that but only on hard mode, switch to medium, my experience so far on medium difficulty is that the AI is very fair but still very challenging. Oh and checkpoints being to sparse? maybe you should just open your eyes. I don't want to sound rude or aggressive but in my playing time I never had a problem with the save stations in fact I think they are way more frequent that all other people are making it out to be. That or the fact that maybe so many other people just suck at stealth and constantly die which makes it frustrating.

I love survival horror games where you have to rely on stealth to get through the game. And for the longest time I viewed Amnesia as the the best in this genre. But after playing Alien Isolation I can safely say that it completely Crushes Amnesia, Outlast and slender in regards to actually thrilling and tense game play. And honestly I really think that the Alien's AI is what makes this game so good.

 

[beastro]

Turn it off of hard and play on normal.

Hard seems to have a ticking timer on the Alien where if you're not constantly moving from hiding place to hiding place it'll eventually zero in on you. I found that out after hiding in lockers in small rooms where it would just not leave, I thought i could just wait it out but it would eventually find me, tearing the door off even before doing the whole sniffing it and forcing you to hold your breath BS.

I tapped it down to Normal after that and found I could actually make use of hiding finally, though I don't like the dulled senses it has on the difficulty.

If they could just remove that homing bacon type shit on hard I'd go back.

The game becomes easier once you know what triggers the alien, even the motion tracker atracts him and you should only use it to get a quick idea of where his general position is.

I found that out when I ran into a guy and leaped into a locker beside him before he could attack me. While he was examining the locker as I dreaded being filled with bullets the xenomorph came from the left and took him down out of view to the right. I sat for a bit thinking it had wandered off more to the right and started wondering if it could hear the sensors beeps. Dedicated to give it a try and after one "beep" it came around the right, tore the door off and attacked.

I was too pleasantly surprised at such detail to mourn my death.

What it comes down to in this game is to always remain as hidden as you can and make as little sound as possible. I have a feeling the OP doesn't pay attention to the the ceiling vent openings and keep track of where they are. If you don't you're bound to lose track of it and have it come up behind you or run into other trouble by relying on staring at the motion sensor too much instead of looking around. I find for general walking about it's better to use it with the right mouse button down and keep your eyes on the screen and your ears on the tracker.

But the Alien...its immune to bullets, and bombs and I don't have a flamer thrower AND its faster than you.

The xenomorph (on normal) shines in those moments like hiding under a desk or popping into a locker when you unexpectedly see it coming around a corner and knowing that unless it doesn't lose interests there's nothing you can do whereas with the androids you can always fall back on attack it.

On hard though, I usually found myself hitting reload once I got into such a situation because I knew once I'd stopped I was already dead.

 

[Grumman]

...homing bacon...

That's one way of putting it.