Alien Isolation

seems to be getting mostly good/great reviews, with the main complaints being the length, and the unpredictable alien AI (which is a main selling point) being maybe a little TOO unpredictable. supposedly you will die lots due to deaths which will seem as if they came down to pure chance, even if you did all the best things you could do in that situation (like hiding etc). also the game handles saving with save points, which are sometimes far apart, making those deaths pretty painful if you've spent 10-15 minutes slowly crawling between enemies stealthily, hiding and waiting, etc, then die with seemingly no recourse. so there are a few really low ratings some reviewers gave it, causing a bit of an internet shitstorm in their comments sections.

i have it, a few hours in, on hard mode. pc, with a nice 60fps everything maxed out. graphically, it's mostly beautiful. main flaws are the lip synching (as everyone is saying), and what can be pretty bad aliasing, which seems pretty weird to me that they can't fix that in this day and age. you can see lots complaining about the aliasing and i'll admit it does bug me because sometimes it actually makes it hard to see whats in the distance, and also just knowing the fact that the game would look even better without it. but even with it- oh man. WOW. it looks fucking great. sometimes i'll be looking down a dark space station hallway with fog coming out the walls and light coming through vents or fan blades, and i can't believe i'm seeing it. they finally made a good alien game. the amount of attention to detail is pretty insane. very authentic to the first film.

besides the environment looking great, the gameplay, well it might not be mind blowing or revolutionary, but the immersion of being in this kind of environment really goes a long way towards making up for any flaws there, imo. i'm not far enough in to comment on the cheap deaths, or the length of the game, but both seem like reasonable complaints. i like to think those reviewers were wrong and they just couldn't see how they could have survived. i did just have one pretty cool encounter last time i played, where i hid mostly just based on my intuition (well i had other clues but you ALWAYS hear creepy ass creaking and footsteps and stuff so its hard to know when it actually means anything). i FELT the thing may be nearby so i just hid, and watched a very pissed alien look for me before running off. its only got me once so far. i saw it, it vanished, so i went the direction away from where i saw it last, then i turn around and its right there looking at me. i almost shat. GAME OVER MAN

so maybe later on i'll end up hating aspects of it but for now i'm in love. i go from grinning, to intense focus, to panic, back and forth.

  On 10/9/2014 at 2:41 PM, MisterE said:

i FELT the thing may be nearby so i just hid, and watched a very pissed alien look for me before running off. its only got me once so far. i saw it, it vanished, so i went the direction away from where i saw it last, then i turn around and its right there looking at me. i almost shat. GAME OVER MAN

 

so maybe later on i'll end up hating aspects of it but for now i'm in love. i go from grinning, to intense focus, to panic, back and forth.

That sounds just like how an alien game should be..

Nice to hear you're enjoying it. I had high hopes for this game. Should really give it a look in should I

Some reviews saying the DLC is better than main game.

hadn't looked at anyone talking about the dlc yet so thats interesting to hear. i was on the fence about pre-ordering which wouldve got me the first dlc for free. but preordering is always risky and the alien franchise hasn't been handled very well lately. i'm stingy when it comes to buying new games for full price (rarely do), so i'll prob wait until all dlc is out, and has come down in price before i check any of that stuff out.

I would think the return of Sigourney Weaver & cast would be a motivation to preorder?

She's not getting any younger, and this might be the final time she plays Ellen Ripley.

This game looks awesome.

got this from a steam sale yesterday which is still running: http://store.steampowered.com/app/214490/

probably the best game since portal and HL2. I was truly scared 2-3 times even tho nothing really happend

It is/was a great fucking game even though it overstayed its welcome.

Creative Assembly must be the first developer ever to use the Kinect in a way that made perfect fucking sense. The Xenomorph and the NPCs would react to you talking or making any kind of sound. So when I played it with my friends or girlfriend we would only whisper to each other and sometimes we would distract the enemies simply by yelling out loud.

Loved the aesthetic of the game, looks exactly like the original Alien movie in set design. Stuck hiding from the xeno in the hospital currently. Can't handle the tension.

Amazing game, tough as nails, just like it should be

my goty 2014, amazing game, the first few hours and the first encounter with alien is crazy, I don't remember was so nervous in modern games, except dark souls, also yes, the hospital level is hardcore, then alien is really on the beast mode

It's an exceedingly powerful game, great storyline + the darkness, soundtrack, sense of dread...the slow burn. I hadn't even got to the bit where the alien first appears yet when I started dicking around with my pc and lost the game. Gonna reinstall it this week and get back to it. Double dawg dang it's eerie as fuck in there.

Game is scary as fuck and really difficult.

Im very tempted to get all the DLC, as its only 10 quid or something.

the soundtrack is also very good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpQLZ_YS5gY

It captured the atmosphere of Alien/Aliens really well, I kind of gave up when those replicant/androids (whatever they're called) showed up and kept finding me.. creeps

Absolutely terrifying in VR. We use to get drunk and take turns with the DK2

and see who survives the longest. The claustrophobic 70's sci-fi hospital environment

is too fucking horrible to experience for longer than short bursts.

  On 1/12/2016 at 12:57 PM, the burglar said:

Absolutely terrifying in VR. We use to get drunk and take turns with the DK2

and see who survives the longest. The claustrophobic 70's sci-fi hospital environment

is too fucking horrible to experience for longer than short bursts.

Blimey, that sounds awesome!

They need to get a move on and implement VR for the home consoles. Genuinely excited for this!

playing this as its now available on mac, one of the best games i've played, damn scary love the original alien vibes, sonuds & aesthetic. one criticism, a few too many times hiding in lockers & when the alien is checking me hiding out his head sometimes goes through the metal locker, (which is lol)

  On 2/29/2016 at 7:07 PM, pyramidpanes said:

one criticism, a few too many times hiding in lockers & when the alien is checking me hiding out his head sometimes goes through the metal locker, (which is lol)

You actually better not use lockers save for a couple times. I myself hid there for a good hour the first time in the hospital, you just don't progress this way as the alien keeps circling like a shark - its behaviour is not "too random" as many mention, it's random within a frustratingly little distance until you move out. I also read from creators in a recent article on in-game locker mechanics that eventually the alien AI expects you to hide there (essentially cheating, coz to learn that it should first find you and obviously kill you).

I replayed the game recently on a harder level, still a masterpiece in my experience even after the novelty has worn off. As with any game with a cinematic story, the only major flaw is plot development (you're the only one who makes shit done on a space station and that shit is never done completely), especially multiple and weirdly unrealistic twists at the end for the sake of spectacle. It was so delightfully restrained before that.

i dont play games but got surprisingly deep and into the youtube playthrough of the game. lol

i played through it on the hardest difficulty when it came out but just found out a month or so ago that they had released an update with a new even harder one where the motion detector doesn't work too well. sounds nuts, been thinking about going back and trying that.

  On 2/29/2016 at 7:07 PM, pyramidpanes said:

playing this as its now available on mac, one of the best games i've played, damn scary love the original alien vibes, sonuds & aesthetic. one criticism, a few too many times hiding in lockers & when the alien is checking me hiding out his head sometimes goes through the metal locker, (which is lol)

ha yeah i don't know anything about the technicals of this stuff but it always seems weird to me that graphical glitches like clipping still happens so much in modern games. i've watched some street fighter 5 vids on youtube and for me a really blatant example is on the vs. screen with birdie selected, the chain he's holding goes through his necklace. wtf. it's right there on a super commonly seen screen. how the fuck did that not irk someone at capcom enough to fix that? it's the first thing my eyes go directly to. @ about 15 seconds in:

play in the dark

turn off the soundtrack (as it tends to be a bit too 'trigger-y' and you can figure out what's gonna happen next from the cues)

play with headphones

was expecting this game to be a turd, glad it wasn't.

I'm still waiting on Routine though.

After the first two films this is the next best thing in the Alien world, fantastic game. Is the Nostromo add-on worth a go?

  On 3/1/2016 at 10:24 AM, tec said:

After the first two films this is the next best thing in the Alien world, fantastic game. Is the Nostromo add-on worth a go?

if you can get it cheap enough, and you really wanna re-enact certain scenes from the film, yeah.

although really, it's no different from the main campaign. very few different art assets.