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

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I think if people watched Alien before playing this then they will know why fans love how close to perfect this game is.

I would actually disagree with that. In Alien the alien itself stay in the air ducts, never hunts in the open, never attacks groups more than two, never makes screeching loud noises or smashes through rooms. The Nostromo crew hunted the damn thing. To little effect yes, but it was less the alpha hunter and more a cornered dog they were trying to put down.

And I think what we mean by 'immune to bullets' isn't that this game should have been an AVP game with Marines, turrets, etc...but that this living creature runs up to you and you blast it in the face at point blank with a shotgun and nothing happens. There is nothing in this world that can shrug off a full shotgun blast at close range. What we mean by 'immune to bullets' is that if guns are utterly useless against it, and you never want to get into gunsfights with humans, then WHY are there guns?! Why bother?! Or if having one is critical, why multiple? Why a shotgun, pistol and boltgun if you a) never want to use them and b)can't be used against the greatest threat.
It really does seem like half the tools in your arsenal are utterly useless, save maybe one specific instance when you first acquire them.

And come on man, the save system is great? Read the Steam forums, read reviews of the game. No one likes the save system. Even in glowing reviews, the one caveat people allow is that the save system is just ass.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I think if people watched Alien before playing this then they will know why fans love how close to perfect this game is.

I would actually disagree with that. In Alien the alien itself stay in the air ducts, never hunts in the open, never attacks groups more than two, never makes screeching loud noises or smashes through rooms. The Nostromo crew hunted the damn thing. To little effect yes, but it was less the alpha hunter and more a cornered dog they were trying to put down.

And I think what we mean by 'immune to bullets' isn't that this game should have been an AVP game with Marines, turrets, etc...but that this living creature runs up to you and you blast it in the face at point blank with a shotgun and nothing happens. There is nothing in this world that can shrug off a full shotgun blast at close range. What we mean by 'immune to bullets' is that if guns are utterly useless against it, and you never want to get into gunsfights with humans, then WHY are there guns?! Why bother?! Or if having one is critical, why multiple? Why a shotgun, pistol and boltgun if you a) never want to use them and b)can't be used against the greatest threat.
It really does seem like half the tools in your arsenal are utterly useless, save maybe one specific instance when you first acquire them.

And come on man, the save system is great? Read the Steam forums, read reviews of the game. No one likes the save system. Even in glowing reviews, the one caveat people allow is that the save system is just ass.

I can agree with the movie thing. But it was still a deadly and smart creature. It outsmarted them when they tried to corner it in the air ducts. I think it was always the alpha hunter, it outsmarted and killed them regardless of what they did.

Agreed with the gun thing, i guess they had to add those to deal with the humans and synthetics. But i dont think it would be worth the risk using a gun against the alien as it could kill you. Its not an fps so its a different mindset. After all in stealth games you can shoot people, but you dont. Maybe the bolt gun should have been your only weapon as its slow but effective against humans and robots, but not something you would risk using against an alien.

I completed the game and the only levels i hated the save system was level 5 because the alien never left me alone for a second and had to keep replaying that level a lot. Other than that its fine and wasnt an issue. If you and people on steam had problems with it is just your opinion.

 

[weirdsoup]

Love how people are bitching about the save system.

I'm old enough to remember gaming before most games had save systems. You complete the game in one sitting or you don't complete it

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

I completed the game and the only levels i hated the save system was level 5 because the alien never left me alone for a second and had to keep replaying that level a lot. Other than that its fine and wasn't an issue. If you and people on steam had problems with it is just your opinion.

Well that explains it. I just finished level 5 and am on 6 and the saves have gotten better, but its still a little iffy. Just a little autosave at important points would be great. Hit the button, make all the lights turn on and alert the Joes and the Alien...a quick save would be nice in case of dying, instead of having to take it from the top. Because after three or four play through, the atmosphere has gone damp and the scares are cheap. It's like rewinding a scary movie and re-watching the same scene over and over. It takes from the experience.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

SNIP

I completed the game and the only levels i hated the save system was level 5 because the alien never left me alone for a second and had to keep replaying that level a lot. Other than that its fine and wasn't an issue. If you and people on steam had problems with it is just your opinion.

Well that explains it. I just finished level 5 and am on 6 and the saves have gotten better, but its still a little iffy. Just a little autosave at important points would be great. Hit the button, make all the lights turn on and alert the Joes and the Alien...a quick save would be nice in case of dying, instead of having to take it from the top. Because after three or four play through, the atmosphere has gone damp and the scares are cheap. It's like rewinding a scary movie and re-watching the same scene over and over. It takes from the experience.

I think its because there was an achievement to complete level 5 without being killed by the alien. I agree the save thing sucked for level 5 - so much redoing that level, dont remember level 6 much. But after that it gets better as the alien is less annoying but im so glad i persisted through that level. Maybe the alien had to much caffeine for level 5? I was frustrated at level 5, but after that the levels got better and the alien wasnt so psychotic in its hunting of you. Some levels you rarely see the alien as long as your crouched and make no noise though you still have to deal with the robots. But atleast by then you have stun mines and those noise making things and you can out run the robots.

Something i learnt to late. When crafting objects, even if you dont have all the pieces you can still allocate parts from your inventory thus freeing up space to pick up more stuff.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

And I think what we mean by 'immune to bullets' isn't that this game should have been an AVP game with Marines, turrets, etc...but that this living creature runs up to you and you blast it in the face at point blank with a shotgun and nothing happens. There is nothing in this world that can shrug off a full shotgun blast at close range. What we mean by 'immune to bullets' is that if guns are utterly useless against it, and you never want to get into gunsfights with humans, then WHY are there guns?! Why bother?! Or if having one is critical, why multiple? Why a shotgun, pistol and boltgun if you a) never want to use them and b)can't be used against the greatest threat.

The Alien is not off this world...

On a slightly more serious note, the movies never really show the effect of civilian weaponry on the Alien. All we get to see is that military grade high explosive ammunition can reliably kill an Alien if fired in a burst against it, but for all we know you need the explosive part to even get past the Aliens skin. Keep in mind that there are several creatures on earth that will not be deterred by a shotgun blast, if they are attacking, ranging from boars to hippopotamus, rhinos and elephants.

As for the guns in the game, they have their conditional uses, just like every other item in your inventory. I used the shotgun quite a lot during the mid-game. Just as with all your items it is a trade-off, you get the ability to take down a human or synthetic opponent at the cost of revealing yourself to its' allies and potentially the Alien. Some times that's a worthwhile trade off, some times not. Alien: Isolation differs from other survival stealth games in that the optimal way to play it is to learn when and how to make noise, not to try and remain hidden at all times. Once you learn how to deceive the Alien in a few ways (since it won't fall for the same trick twice in a row) you get a lot more time and possibility to explore the levels and move about without having to worry about the Alien coming down on you. But the game is absolutely unforgiving and doesn't give many clues as to how to best tackle it.

 

[fix-the-spade]

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.

It is kind of the great contradiction of an Alien game, to make the Alien scary it has to be capable of defeating the player, but making it capable of defeating the player also makes it frustrating. It was the problem with Alien Resurrection 15 years ago too, the Xenos could more or less one shot you and there was never quite enough ammunition to consider yourself safe. It's better than ***** slapping them round the map like AvP 2010 though!

Anyway.

There is a quirk (or appears to be) to the Alien's AI that means it is more likely to spot you when you can't see it than when you are looking at it.

Also, the beeps your motion tracker makes can be heard by everything, including mr toothy, using it to track the Alien too much is a recipe for disaster. The game seems to assume that everyone would know this, but almost all my early deaths were from over using the motion tracker.

The way it seems to be able to teleport around is actually a plot point too...

 

[Arshaq13]

I just finished the game on hard except for mission 5 where I found it too difficult even on normal, I actually had to drop it down to easy to finish that one.

Yes the game was still frustrating at some points after that but you eventually learn a few things. To my experience, the primary reason why mission 5 was so hard was because I was still 'learning the ropes' so to speak and a couple of my friends felt the same way. It was, well, your first ever proper encounter with the xeno. It gets easier after that because you're constantly on alert and you eventually get the hang of what triggers the alien being 'summoned' around you. The guns were there to deal with androids and humans and it is pretty useful once you get spotted.

Quick tip, it's FAR better to just keep yourself leaned back in a locker at all points since it reduces your chances for anyone to spot you and you can have a full view of your motion tracker.

The game is incredibly unforgiving and one can very easily see why someone wouldn't really like this game.
I enjoyed the heck out of it though.
No two encounters ever feel the same with this game and that's very refreshing.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

On a slightly more serious note, the movies never really show the effect of civilian weaponry on the Alien. All we get to see is that military grade high explosive ammunition can reliably kill an Alien if fired in a burst against it, but for all we know you need the explosive part to even get past the Aliens skin. Keep in mind that there are several creatures on earth that will not be deterred by a shotgun blast, if they are attacking, ranging from boars to hippopotamus, rhinos and elephants.

Well, there was the scene where Hicks blasts an alien point blank in the mouth with an SG and Vasquez kills 1 point blank with a pistol, and I can't quite remember but her and Gorman might have accounted for a couple after that before they ran out of ammo and blew themselves up.

That said...this is on a space ship/station, no doubt full of lots of expensive fragile equipment that's probably very important for keeping you alive. Not really the environment you want to be firing little solid lumps of lead at supersonic speeds. I would explain it in my own headcanon with the use of low velocity rounds, glaser rounds or something similar. Makes a mess of flesh but won't penetrate far, so the alien's "polarised silicate exoskeleton" is enough to stop them.

 

[beastro]

...homing bacon...

That's one way of putting it.

It's annoying because I love the otherwise fine senses the xeno has on hard but normal removes those on top of that beacon.

I keep feeling bad for lowering the difficulty when I accidentally stumble into a hallway or in front of a window and let the thing get a good sight of me, but because it's on normal it doesn't pick me up.

Also crouch everywhere, never stand up.

You do that and it'll just track you down. You need to learn the distance when standing up and getting that extra bit of speed doesn't attracted it. I originally tried doing what you said and basically replay Thief but once it got a scent of me in an exposed area it would just bugger around until it saw enough of me to attack.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Well, there was the scene where Hicks blasts an alien point blank in the mouth with an SG and Vasquez kills 1 point blank with a pistol, and I can't quite remember but her and Gorman might have accounted for a couple after that before they ran out of ammo and blew themselves up.

That said...this is on a space ship/station, no doubt full of lots of expensive fragile equipment that's probably very important for keeping you alive. Not really the environment you want to be firing little solid lumps of lead at supersonic speeds. I would explain it in my own headcanon with the use of low velocity rounds, glaser rounds or something similar. Makes a mess of flesh but won't penetrate far, so the alien's "polarised silicate exoskeleton" is enough to stop them.

Sure, but since both the shotgun and the pistol seem to be standard equipment for the marines it is likely that they too were loaded with some form of high quality ammunition designed to defeat armor and destroy fragile tissue. This along with your "head canon" really presents a plausible scenario that explains why Amanda can't hurt the Alien with firearms, they are simply on a whole other (and much worse) level than what we later see in Aliens.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Sure, but since both the shotgun and the pistol seem to be standard equipment for the marines it is likely that they too were loaded with some form of high quality ammunition designed to defeat armour and destroy fragile tissue. This along with your "head canon" really presents a plausible scenario that explains why Amanda can't hurt the Alien with firearms, they are simply on a whole other (and much worse) level than what we later see in Aliens.

Maybe the pistols, Hicks' shotgun wasn't military issue, it was IIRC a "family heirloom", that said it could easily have been loaded with slugs. Also, though not from the film, the pistols only use standard ammo in the officially licensed RPG.

[Apologies, I'm a terrible nitpicker when it comes to Aliens...absolutely awful]

It's all plausible really, we're discussing something that doesn't exist and we don't have enough info to really get the creators' intent, if they even did certain things deliberately at all.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm on the sixth mission now, too, so I can finally comment. It took me long enough; I seem to be progressing at a snail's pace (though nowhere near 24 hours; only seven and a bit).

Playing on Normal, and I think the Alien's AI is punishing, but no more than it's supposed to be. I quite like the challenge. Dread to imagine the fucker on Hard, though.

I do have one minor gripe, though; when you're accessing the computers, and the Alien is around, you really can't read all of that backstory. There's no way I can read three paragraphs before it decides to sniff out the room, even if I start reading when it's at a distance. I appreciate that they're keeping the suspense up, but I'm missing out on plot.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I do have one minor gripe, though; when you're accessing the computers, and the Alien is around, you really can't read all of that backstory. There's no way I can read three paragraphs before it decides to sniff out the room, even if I start reading when it's at a distance. I appreciate that they're keeping the suspense up, but I'm missing out on plot.

Here's a trick:
1. Quickly access every log on the computer.
2. Log off
3. Open your map, in the top you should see three buttons (one being a map, the second being a play button)
4. Click that "play button" and you'll get to a screen with all the logs you've found so far. Bonus for the gaming being paused so you can read them at a leisurely pace. As even more bonus they are also listed in a rough chronology of when you are expected to find them so you can easily see how many you've missed and extrapolate roughly in which area they can be found.

 

[Silvanus]

Here's a trick:
1. Quickly access every log on the computer.
2. Log off
3. Open your map, in the top you should see three buttons (one being a map, the second being a play button)
4. Click that "play button" and you'll get to a screen with all the logs you've found so far. Bonus for the gaming being paused so you can read them at a leisurely pace. As even more bonus they are also listed in a rough chronology of when you are expected to find them so you can easily see how many you've missed and extrapolate roughly in which area they can be found.

:O

Thank you!

I spend a great amount of my time hiding in storage lockers in this game already. I'll be spending even more in them now.

 

[Damicles]

One way to do the medical section is when the alien in swooping out of the vent just run past it to the door that needs the code put it in. Hit the door lock and keep walking. Did this on my second playthrough and it was more or less a breeze and that was on hard. You just have to keep moving if you stay in one sport it will just keep circling you until it finds you.

As for reading computers read fast or die lol.

 

[Kathinka]

not sure if someone said it already, but: the motion tracker makes sounds when active. not much, not loud. but the alien with it's superhuman hearing sense WILL hear you use it in a locker if it's very close. that's probably what got you your face eaten.

 

[Delicious Anathema]

When I first started playing, I was expecting it to be horrible and hard, but to my surprise it actually isn't that much.

The save system is okay, it's the same as older games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and the like. Fixed save stations isn't anything new, it's just that modern players have become accustomed to checkpoint systems that makes sense in some games, just not in this one. The difficulty adds to the tension, because otherwise you're just pushing through this wall trying to get to the next checkpoint. Save often and you'll lose less progress with each death, and you'll make the next attempt quicker and with less mistakes. If you get stressed, stop playing as one needs to be cool headed for the scenarios in this game.

The Alien AI didn't seem that complex or hard to be honest. Most of the time I was caught was because of my own fault, and when it wasn't, it was a punctual encounter where I had nowhere to hide (or hide fast enough without running). There were even times I was circling it around a single box without it noticing me, which broke the immersion and made me think how dumb the stealth was really. At times it could be annoying that the Alien didn't leave or seemed to pop very frequently, but I didn't have that happen very often at all, I experienced that more with Survivor Mode.

Maybe that's due to me not playing much modern games and being used to older mechanics, but it's not that bad. Man up.

 

[Schtoobs]

The game took me about 25 -30 hours to complete on hard. I didn't notice the backtracking too much as it made total sense to have to travel the same parts again whenever it occurred. Maybe I'm not very good at remembering locations or something.

I don't understand the claims of a poor save system or unfair AI... both were brilliant I thought and I rarely felt put out by having to do a bit again. At some points I was surprised by how many save stations there were.

The game really isn't hard unless you are impatient and try to sprint everywhere (sound is very important and isn't just for effect). LP's I've watched where the player dies repeatedly it's almost always because the player hasn't realised all the options they have or how the alien detects them. It is complete common sense but we aren't used to applying common sense in games for the most part. Hand holding and very strict logic and behaviours are what we are used to.

Changing the save system would break the immersion, I think it's pretty much spot on. I'm playing through again and it really is easy now. Bear in mind the game gets easier not just because of all the extra tools for distraction and self-defense you get, but because you become more familiar with the aliens behaviour and what all the different sounds mean (like getting in and out of ceiling vents).

You might have guessed I'm a big fan of this game. I'm glad so many people on here get the game and why the save system makes sense. It's frustrating that even when a game gets it so right some people still complain.

 

[Hithel]

"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."

OP has likely never played an old-school game. These days checkpoints and instasaves are what I consider to be ruining games.