Alien: Isolation Review - Structural Perfection

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Well ive been playing it for a few hours so far and its the single best game based on the franchise ive ever seen. i dont experience fear in games at all. jump scares yes but not fear. this however yeah i stopped playing it 20 minutes ago and i still have that sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.. love it

pc version her too. looks gorgeous.

one thing i especially love is the fact there isnt a minimap constantly displayed, no compass, no giant arrow on the hud saying go here.. there is alot of exploration.

after this id like to see them try and aliens game, they absolutely nailed alien.

dare i say it. it actually lived up to the hype for me.

CA i forgive you for rome 2's release

 

[aliengmr]

What I originally wanted was the Colonial Marines I waited 6 years for, that never really arrived and then Isolation was planned and it kinda gave me hope, then they showed it to be an Amnesia type game and my interested shot down to zero, I wasn't really a big fan of Amnesia and I like other types of Horror games but not the Amnesia types so I'm going to pass on this and sigh because I'll probably have to wait another nigh 6 years until I finally get the Aliens game I want that isn't a staple from another game.

The problem with going for an "Aliens" (with an S) game is no matter what you do it becomes just another shooter that has to go to great lengths to justify the license. The "Aliens" are just another thing with teeth and claws that you have shoot. Its hardly unique in terms of gaming. That's not to say that it can't be done, just that it would have to overcome just being just like the rest.

With Alien: Isolation, the Alien becomes what it was always intended to be, an unstoppable killing machine you have to avoid. In this way the essence of the first movie, and arguably the entire franchise, it presented in the best way possible. That essence is "fear". The Aliens are fear and terror given form. They have no name, no culture, no feelings, just claws and death. But killing 5 of them before reloading reduces them to just another baddie. When this is the case the fundamental essence is lost.

This game does more for the franchise than many of the movies. I love the franchise, always have and I'm not into the "Survival horror" genre myself, but I can say that Alien: Isolation is the first, and really only, true game that used the franchise.

Alien v. Predator, I contend, is a different franchise altogether.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

This game does more for the franchise than many of the movies. I love the franchise, always have and I'm not into the "Survival horror" genre myself, but I can say that Alien: Isolation is the first, and really only, true game that used the franchise.

Alien v. Predator, I contend, is a different franchise altogether.

The problem with that is if all you can do is run,run and run some more, hide more as well and probably lock a door or two then that's all there is to the game in the same way you would say shooting, imagine another 5 Aliens games where it's the same as isolation, there are people out there like me that liked the aspect and idea of Colonial marines, those that in the movie franchise had guns and yes they were meant to use them but due to the movie script they were told to die one by one and since it's a movie with only one way scenes that's how it's presented, give me a gun and choice and I'll decide whether to fight or flee, that's what I want, that's the Aliens game I want to play.

What I don't want is the only one formula that Iso presents, it's very much reminiscent of Amnesia where you are forcibly helpless on purpose from the game devs point of view which to me feels a lot like a movie script of me being told what part I have to play and makes me feel like I'm locked into the only option of running which is no fun to me, I like the idea of having a gun, running away and shooting only to find I ran out of bullets and the last cache is right behind the beast with my decision to run and lock the doors behind me or outwit the monster to grab the last cache.

I wouldn't say it's the only true use of the franchise either, I've seen Aliens games in the past that were scary to quite a lot of people but also fun to play, I also loved the AVP series and how that played out, what I don't like seeing is Amnesia replacing everything in horror games as a one only rule, it actively forces a lot of people away from those games like it's doing to me, I don't want to play Iso because it's nowhere near my cup of tea and for that I now have to wait and hope a new Aliens game comes with something different from Iso that's not made by the same team.

 

[TexDangerfield]

If CA did Aliens, but paid such careful attention to detail like they have in this game then you'd have a winner. I've played up to the first encounter and I'm constantly nervous when doing simple things like checking my mini map. I kept thinking I was seeing the Alien in the tunnel during that first time

 

[Kameburger]

This game does more for the franchise than many of the movies. I love the franchise, always have and I'm not into the "Survival horror" genre myself, but I can say that Alien: Isolation is the first, and really only, true game that used the franchise.

Alien v. Predator, I contend, is a different franchise altogether.

The problem with that is if all you can do is run,run and run some more, hide more as well and probably lock a door or two then that's all there is to the game in the same way you would say shooting, imagine another 5 Aliens games where it's the same as isolation, there are people out there like me that liked the aspect and idea of Colonial marines, those that in the movie franchise had guns and yes they were meant to use them but due to the movie script they were told to die one by one and since it's a movie with only one way scenes that's how it's presented, give me a gun and choice and I'll decide whether to fight or flee, that's what I want, that's the Aliens game I want to play.

What I don't want is the only one formula that Iso presents, it's very much reminiscent of Amnesia where you are forcibly helpless on purpose from the game devs point of view which to me feels a lot like a movie script of me being told what part I have to play and makes me feel like I'm locked into the only option of running which is no fun to me, I like the idea of having a gun, running away and shooting only to find I ran out of bullets and the last cache is right behind the beast with my decision to run and lock the doors behind me or outwit the monster to grab the last cache.

I wouldn't say it's the only true use of the franchise either, I've seen Aliens games in the past that were scary to quite a lot of people but also fun to play, I also loved the AVP series and how that played out, what I don't like seeing is Amnesia replacing everything in horror games as a one only rule, it actively forces a lot of people away from those games like it's doing to me, I don't want to play Iso because it's nowhere near my cup of tea and for that I now have to wait and hope a new Aliens game comes with something different from Iso that's not made by the same team.

I thought I'd chime in on this cause I think it's interesting when it comes to this franchise in particular. I think the really frustrating thing about Aliens:CM was that somewhere between the marketing and the actual game there was a lot of potential for a really good Aliens game. I really liked the AVP series, and I think that some of the things it did there were absolutely irreplaceable. But I think what I might really be saying here is that maybe the best parallel I can draw to this franchise is actually the Spider-man movies. It's maybe more frustrating because between all the bullshit, there is something really cool buried there, but somehow between Sony's meddling and what ever weird vision Webb had for the characters, it ended up being quite bad.

I think this is the same thing happening here. Clearly with Colonial marines, Gearbox didn't give 2 shits about this game, and bought time for themselves to pump out more Borderlands because they feel like that's their baby. Thus, another game with a lot of potential gets plopped out half-assed.

I feel like with Aliens Isolation, what ever one could say about it, you can't say it was half-assed, or plopped out, or uninspired. I think that's a key distinction. I looked on metacritic, and the lower scores for users were pretty much upset about the type of game this was; that it was too much hiding and quite unfair, but if you tell that to me, this is the exact kind of Alien game I've always wanted. Actually Aliens is my least favorite of the series ironically, followed closely by Resurrection and I think this was a key reason was that Alien had been jump roping with which genre it was supposed to be. The games, always seemed to tend toward the action side of things as well, and for that reason I think this is a bit of a breath of fresh air.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

I've been waiting to see what Jim thinks of this game
Not because his opinion would sway me in any direction, but because of how much Jim seems to like the Alien franchise and also seems to like horror games.

From what I've picked up from the various reviews is that the game could have done with being a bit shorter and somehow (I wouldn't know how) make the game a tad less random. "Less unfair" if you will. It's almost screaming for a sequel by the looks of things from the standpoint that they could refine some of the game mechanics - as they seem to have already nailed the aesthetics. Then on the other hand a sequel doesn't necessarily sound like a great plan in general.

It was always going to be a tough game to make but CA seem to have done a really good job on something this difficult to make.

 

[ricree]

The problem with going for an "Aliens" (with an S) game is no matter what you do it becomes just another shooter that has to go to great lengths to justify the license. The "Aliens" are just another thing with teeth and claws that you have shoot. Its hardly unique in terms of gaming. That's not to say that it can't be done, just that it would have to overcome just being just like the rest.

The best way to handle an Aliens adaptation, I think, would be to take a page from Yahtzee's What if We Leveled Backwards [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/extra-punctuation/8661-What-if-We-Leveled-Backwards] article, and have the character's capabilities seriously degrade as the game goes on.

At the start, you're a badass space marine whose capacity for violence put Serious Sam to shame. But as time goes on, you lose more and more of your weapons stores, upgrades burn out, and those helpful squadmates of yours get slowly picked off. There could even be an element of choice, as you are faced with multiple fortified points being overrun, and only enough time to reinforce one of them. Depending on which you pick, you lose some ability or weapon permanently, and it might even be possible to lose both.

The idea is that you start out as a light, run and gun shooter, but by the end the player should feel desperate, hounded, constantly on the move. Barely clinging on to survival, much less able to complete any meaningful objectives, since you're down to just your most basic gun and a smattering of ammo. But somehow (thanks to the magic of good level designs), you just barely manage to pull it off and escape with heavy losses.

 

[BaronVH]

I tried playing this on normal, and gave up as other games came out. I just recently returned, and on the advice of several, started an entirely new game on easy. After completing the game I came to realize something: this may be the best game I have ever played. It certainly is the best licensed game.

First of all, it was long, but not in a bad way. There were several times I thought it was over, and if that were the case, I would have thought it was a typical game ending, but I was so wrong. The other aspect was that it had a definite ending. Not a Halo 2 or The Order ending. It was a fully fleshed out story.

The other aspect is that the production values were through the roof. The voice acting and music were top notch.

Finally, it stayed true to its purpose and never wavered. At one point I thought it would devolve into a typical shooter. Nope. If you shot your gun, it had better be the absolute last resort. I thought it took the original Alien movie and actually one upped it. It was certainly scarier. Thank goodness there was some snow days, as it allowed me to play it for multiple hours on end. Great, great game.