This is easily my “I know it’s a much better game than my feelings about it are game” game. I wanted to love it. I see why people love it. At times I did love it and times I thought it may click to where I kept loving it. But in the end it ended up being a game I think it brilliant but simply and disappointingly not for me. But before we get into that, side note, this game may have my favorite box art of all time.
Being a big horror game fan but a huge stealth game hater I knew going in that I would be conflicted but hoped the horror would win out. This last sentence is probably the biggest reason this game didn’t work for me as the stealth won out. See, the thing is this game is brilliant in that you need to do these varied task across a vast spaceship while being quite and hide from the alien. At first it is super tense as you can almost always hear the alien as it’s surprisingly good AI roams around you both in the level with you and above you in the vents. You never know when you may make a wrong turn or make to much noise drawing attention to yourself and before you know what to do your dead. At first I loved this as the horror was easily the star of the show. However the longer I went through the game it got less and less scary and more and more a game of walking extremely slow and if I made a noise changing into a game of hide and seek. I no longer cared about the horror of the game, I just wanted to progress the story without waiting under a desk or in a locker for what felt like 5 minutes at a time so I didn’t get caught sending me way back to the last checkpoint, which are typically spaced good distances out. It became an annoyance and not horror.
I understand why people love it. The atmosphere is fantastic, the game is tense and the horror at the beginning is great. I know many enjoy the stealth aspect and with the good AI of the alien even for me it was fun at first. There just wasn’t enough in the gameplay loop to keep me wanting more and once the tense scare factor turned into a “ugh here we go again, a wait and hide montage” I just lost all interest.
Even though it wasn’t for me I’m still giving it a 3 star because I know I’m in the minority here and do respect it as a good game because it is. I also still recommend people play this because I think most people won’t have the same feelings I have towards the stealth “hide and seek” moments.
Also this may be and probably will be the last game I finish in 2023 as we are now a week away from 2024, as well as it’s Christmas time, as well as me and my wife are having our second child very soon. So I went ahead and made my Games I played in 2023 ranked list so if you’re interested check it out!
https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2023-ranked/
Being a big horror game fan but a huge stealth game hater I knew going in that I would be conflicted but hoped the horror would win out. This last sentence is probably the biggest reason this game didn’t work for me as the stealth won out. See, the thing is this game is brilliant in that you need to do these varied task across a vast spaceship while being quite and hide from the alien. At first it is super tense as you can almost always hear the alien as it’s surprisingly good AI roams around you both in the level with you and above you in the vents. You never know when you may make a wrong turn or make to much noise drawing attention to yourself and before you know what to do your dead. At first I loved this as the horror was easily the star of the show. However the longer I went through the game it got less and less scary and more and more a game of walking extremely slow and if I made a noise changing into a game of hide and seek. I no longer cared about the horror of the game, I just wanted to progress the story without waiting under a desk or in a locker for what felt like 5 minutes at a time so I didn’t get caught sending me way back to the last checkpoint, which are typically spaced good distances out. It became an annoyance and not horror.
I understand why people love it. The atmosphere is fantastic, the game is tense and the horror at the beginning is great. I know many enjoy the stealth aspect and with the good AI of the alien even for me it was fun at first. There just wasn’t enough in the gameplay loop to keep me wanting more and once the tense scare factor turned into a “ugh here we go again, a wait and hide montage” I just lost all interest.
Even though it wasn’t for me I’m still giving it a 3 star because I know I’m in the minority here and do respect it as a good game because it is. I also still recommend people play this because I think most people won’t have the same feelings I have towards the stealth “hide and seek” moments.
Also this may be and probably will be the last game I finish in 2023 as we are now a week away from 2024, as well as it’s Christmas time, as well as me and my wife are having our second child very soon. So I went ahead and made my Games I played in 2023 ranked list so if you’re interested check it out!
https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2023-ranked/
Essa foi uma maravilhosa experiencia de tensão e solidão no espaço, não tenho com não dizer que o jogo consegue fazer jus a frase que vende o filme, realmente, a todo momento se sente que "ninguém pode te ouvir gritando no espaço"
O Xenomoforfo é opressivamente implacável, e consegue te deixar com medo dele, de fato, não apenas pela fera imparável, mas a ambientação, consegue passar a sensação de solidão e claustrofobia que te esmagam junto com os barulhos da nave que deixam paranoico com a presença do alien.
A única coisa que me faz remover uma estrela é a ultima parte que parece arrastada e longa de mais.
O Xenomoforfo é opressivamente implacável, e consegue te deixar com medo dele, de fato, não apenas pela fera imparável, mas a ambientação, consegue passar a sensação de solidão e claustrofobia que te esmagam junto com os barulhos da nave que deixam paranoico com a presença do alien.
A única coisa que me faz remover uma estrela é a ultima parte que parece arrastada e longa de mais.
Arguably one of the best horror games ever made. I'm still in shock of how well this game holds up both visually and mechanically today. Graphics look like they were made for a game released today. Lighting and audio design are impecable. The alien itself is really intimidating and you never adapt to its behaviour making it a really imposing enemy, added to the fact that you cant really kill him. I love how all the actions in this game are purposely made extremely slow to add to the tense and thrilling experience. All guns feel really nice though I did feel that some of the tools you could craft were a bit too expensive to build for what they actually gave you in return. Level design in this game is extremely well made, everything you do feels immersive and intuitive at the same time. If you want to indulge in the xtra information the game gives you, you can and you'll be rewarded for it. Characters are all solid, I really liked Ripley. Story itself is nothing extremely new but it serves its purpose. I love the music in this game, it really adds up to the horror experience, though I do think that for its default setting it is a bit too loud. I love the saving mechanic in this game, it makes you really think your actions and planning. I do feel that the story get a bit too long and repetitive, especially towards the ending where the cycle of: do this, oh you cant you have to activate this first, wait you cant you have to go here to get this key, wait the key is in another room... I feel itt gets a bit repetitive. Also story in general carries on for a bit too long.
Um Survival Horror que depende intimamente de mecânicas de stealth não é pra qualquer um, não importa o quão bom ele seja.
Alien: Isolation me parece ser um excelente exemplo disso.
Sobre aspectos técnicos eu não tenho do que reclamar, o jogo é bem competente, suas mecânicas combinam com a proposta do jogo e, até onde joguei, a história sabe nos manter na ponta da cadeira bem o bastante.
Todavia, eu ainda notei alguns NPCs sofrendo de flickering e me cansei rapidamente de alguns QTEs que eu honestamente preferiria não ser obrigado a realizar, especialmente pelo tempo que eles tomam.
Visualmente o jogo me deixou bem satisfeito, embora o constante efeito de lens flare usado seja bem distrativo.
E claro, não poderia deixar de citar a dublagem e tradução pro nosso querido PT-BR, que na maior parte do tempo me deixou satisfeito, apesar da sincronia nas cutscenes ser pavorosa de ruim.
Dito isso, eu não sou capaz de negar que assim como foi pra muita gente, o ritmo do jogo me venceu.
Embora o horror do jogo se beneficie bastante da atmosfera de tensão que se constrói com a espera por um inimigo ou por um encontro com o temido Alien, cada longa sessão andando de um ponto até outro tende a se tornar entediante no momento em que o jogo deixa de causar medo.
Eventualmente, o jogo se resumiu a um ciclo enfadonho de correr, me esconder, distrair e reiniciar quando a IA decidia usar o sexto sentido pra me achar.
Que fique claro: o jogo possui uma respeitável variedade de ferramentas pra garantir que o jogador pode se defender ou escapar e delas, eu não tenho do que reclamar.
Em questão de história, o jogo segue um andamento que eu poderia definir como uma queima lenta, expondo apenas o que é importante e deixando o cenário e arquivos que encontramos contarem o resto da história.
Amanda Ripley enquanto protagonista me agradou bastante, demonstrando medo e coragem de maneira equilibrada e crível, sem perder sua postura contundente (por vezes impaciente) e decidida.
No fim, Alien: Isolation é um daqueles jogos que tem meu respeito, mesmo que eu reconheça que não sou realmente o melhor público para ele.
O jogo tem seus defeitos, mas suas qualidades os superam e garantem uma experiência interessante.
Alien: Isolation me parece ser um excelente exemplo disso.
Sobre aspectos técnicos eu não tenho do que reclamar, o jogo é bem competente, suas mecânicas combinam com a proposta do jogo e, até onde joguei, a história sabe nos manter na ponta da cadeira bem o bastante.
Todavia, eu ainda notei alguns NPCs sofrendo de flickering e me cansei rapidamente de alguns QTEs que eu honestamente preferiria não ser obrigado a realizar, especialmente pelo tempo que eles tomam.
Visualmente o jogo me deixou bem satisfeito, embora o constante efeito de lens flare usado seja bem distrativo.
E claro, não poderia deixar de citar a dublagem e tradução pro nosso querido PT-BR, que na maior parte do tempo me deixou satisfeito, apesar da sincronia nas cutscenes ser pavorosa de ruim.
Dito isso, eu não sou capaz de negar que assim como foi pra muita gente, o ritmo do jogo me venceu.
Embora o horror do jogo se beneficie bastante da atmosfera de tensão que se constrói com a espera por um inimigo ou por um encontro com o temido Alien, cada longa sessão andando de um ponto até outro tende a se tornar entediante no momento em que o jogo deixa de causar medo.
Eventualmente, o jogo se resumiu a um ciclo enfadonho de correr, me esconder, distrair e reiniciar quando a IA decidia usar o sexto sentido pra me achar.
Que fique claro: o jogo possui uma respeitável variedade de ferramentas pra garantir que o jogador pode se defender ou escapar e delas, eu não tenho do que reclamar.
Em questão de história, o jogo segue um andamento que eu poderia definir como uma queima lenta, expondo apenas o que é importante e deixando o cenário e arquivos que encontramos contarem o resto da história.
Amanda Ripley enquanto protagonista me agradou bastante, demonstrando medo e coragem de maneira equilibrada e crível, sem perder sua postura contundente (por vezes impaciente) e decidida.
No fim, Alien: Isolation é um daqueles jogos que tem meu respeito, mesmo que eu reconheça que não sou realmente o melhor público para ele.
O jogo tem seus defeitos, mas suas qualidades os superam e garantem uma experiência interessante.
The only scary thing here is the frame rate!
Joking, but I really do find that FPS style games suffer the most from aging. I can still pick up an old platformer or 3rd person game and have a good time but a clunky and jittery FPS really takes me out of the experience (which is a shame because the level design here was really well thought out). Made it a couple of hours in but I think that that’s enough for me :/
Joking, but I really do find that FPS style games suffer the most from aging. I can still pick up an old platformer or 3rd person game and have a good time but a clunky and jittery FPS really takes me out of the experience (which is a shame because the level design here was really well thought out). Made it a couple of hours in but I think that that’s enough for me :/
I feel like the amount of effort put into lockers specifically in this game speaks to the amount of effort put into everything
A disgusting amount
A disgusting amount
All the nay-sayers moan that they spent half their gametime in a closet....I don't get it. Everytime I tried to hide in one, I got found, even when the Working Joe didn't even see where I had hidden.
Perhaps it's because I played it on the hardest difficulty. Or because all of y'all are a bunch of pussies who can't handle a few spooks and the constant threat of horrific death.
Ok, that might be a bit mean, and yea, even on the easiest mode, you'll die quite often and maybe you don't feel like carrying on.
But it is doable on the hardest difficulty. It's just a lot of trial and error. A real challenge. And y'know what makes games fun? Challenge. If there's no challenge, it's a boring game.
And Isolation is sure no cakewalk.
The A.I in this bad boy, holy hell, why is this not the norm for games for today?
The aesthetic and environments are stunning. Ugh, I wanna live in this game!
The gameplay is fun, inventive and offers a lot of freedom to the player.
The sound design works so well into the fear of the Alien. The escaping steam, banging pipes, or any loud noises sound an awful lot like the Xenomorph, and it shits you up even when it's not even there with you.
And the music. The music will start popping off for no reason at times and get ya blood pumping. It's exhilirating!
The nay-sayers complain that you end up doing the same few tasks over and over again, and whilst that is somewhat true, each section of Sevastapol brings a new challenge to spruce up your sequence of events.
A big bit of criticism I've seen is that there is a big lull during the section after we've dealt with the first Alien. Whilst I did sort of miss the Xenomorph's presence, the game instead strips you of your weapons, and gives you a new android enemy type to face. A new challenge!
And after all that hutzpah, you get to wander round an Alien nest for 20 minutes! (or 45, if you're me)
After that point, I wasn't that much scared of the Aliens, I was more in fear of the goddam facehuggers. They're so fucken small and they show up without any warning, it's insane.
Yea, I don't get most of the complaints. Except for the fact that the game started to feel a bit long by the end.
Isolation is consistently fun. I cleared it in like a week because I kept thinking about wanting to explore more and conquer it all! It's such an engrossing game!
In the future, I definitely want to play this again on the easier setting just to go back and collect everything, but also take in the environment even more.
I love the vibes so much omg.
In conclusion, fuck IGN for sinking this game with their crappy review. This is top tier gourmet gaming.
Perhaps it's because I played it on the hardest difficulty. Or because all of y'all are a bunch of pussies who can't handle a few spooks and the constant threat of horrific death.
Ok, that might be a bit mean, and yea, even on the easiest mode, you'll die quite often and maybe you don't feel like carrying on.
But it is doable on the hardest difficulty. It's just a lot of trial and error. A real challenge. And y'know what makes games fun? Challenge. If there's no challenge, it's a boring game.
And Isolation is sure no cakewalk.
The A.I in this bad boy, holy hell, why is this not the norm for games for today?
The aesthetic and environments are stunning. Ugh, I wanna live in this game!
The gameplay is fun, inventive and offers a lot of freedom to the player.
The sound design works so well into the fear of the Alien. The escaping steam, banging pipes, or any loud noises sound an awful lot like the Xenomorph, and it shits you up even when it's not even there with you.
And the music. The music will start popping off for no reason at times and get ya blood pumping. It's exhilirating!
The nay-sayers complain that you end up doing the same few tasks over and over again, and whilst that is somewhat true, each section of Sevastapol brings a new challenge to spruce up your sequence of events.
A big bit of criticism I've seen is that there is a big lull during the section after we've dealt with the first Alien. Whilst I did sort of miss the Xenomorph's presence, the game instead strips you of your weapons, and gives you a new android enemy type to face. A new challenge!
And after all that hutzpah, you get to wander round an Alien nest for 20 minutes! (or 45, if you're me)
After that point, I wasn't that much scared of the Aliens, I was more in fear of the goddam facehuggers. They're so fucken small and they show up without any warning, it's insane.
Yea, I don't get most of the complaints. Except for the fact that the game started to feel a bit long by the end.
Isolation is consistently fun. I cleared it in like a week because I kept thinking about wanting to explore more and conquer it all! It's such an engrossing game!
In the future, I definitely want to play this again on the easier setting just to go back and collect everything, but also take in the environment even more.
I love the vibes so much omg.
In conclusion, fuck IGN for sinking this game with their crappy review. This is top tier gourmet gaming.
This review contains spoilers
Ah, Alien Isolation I wanted to love you but you wouldn’t let me.
Being hunted by a predator, through the width of an unknown and hostile space station, where the only way to progress is to come out and enter the very area it stalks makes for one hell of a horror game sell. Especially since I have heard for years how intelligent the Alien in this game was.
I was one of the rare existence who played the game before watching the movie(s) , but I didn’t finish it back then, I didn’t even make it past the first quarter of the game at that time, I didn’t drop it for any particular reason, just got distracted by something else.
But this time I was ready, watched Alien and Aliens to prepare, (Alien is pretty great) and now with enough context and excitement I headed in again.
Games dont really need to look better than this
The game started and I was hooked, the Nostromo-like ship I was in at the start I just loved looking around it. It was the ship I just saw in the movie, the game does a fantastic job of translating the movie’s feel into the game itself. Even after landing on the Sevastopol Station , the game did a great job of expanding on the already fantastic aesthetics of the movie. CRT’s everywhere and all the tech has a solid, cube like look to it, with blinking lights everywhere, 80s vision of the future. They had access to the original art for the movie and made something amazing out of it, the art direction is both unique and having such a strong backbone for the graphics and being technically one of the best looking if not the best looking game of its time means this game has aged phenomenally well visuals wise. The station feels like it's active and has been active, the smoke coming out of the pipes, something in the station is always in motion, no part of the station lacks detail, even in the lockers to hide in, there’s variety in what you find stuck inside the locker wall. The lighting that moves between clinical looking hospital like and the yellow hue of the star. The effects are another part of the game that stands out to me, the thick smoke, the fire, and even the dust particles moving around inside this station is what completes Alien Isolation’s visuals. Moving through the numerous dark corridors and hallways of the stations as the light of my flamethrower turns the environment, a shade of orange I thought “ Do games really need to look better than this ?” . I mean the game does use some tricks, turning off all the post processing can show the game’s age a bit, it uses both film grain and chromatic aberration heavily, but why would you when it’s so tastefully implemented. The game uses a lot of fog everywhere dunno if it's a thing to hide rendering or just a choice on the designer’s part and its Anti Aliasing is kinda awful and these 2 are the only technical complaints I have about it.
The real shortcomings in this department are 2 things, the human characters aren’t that well done, not bad for their time but definitely not on par with the rest, there is a stiffness with the character animation, poor lip syncing and animations.
But that’s not my main problem with the visuals, that would be the lack of variety, after a point the environments of the game started to blend together for me, they didn’t really switch it up with different styles to different floors, I mean it does have variety but that comes too late in the game, when you have already backtracked through the station once.
Sevastapol is never quiet
But the sound design, that’s one thing that never got old, the station is always filled with sounds of machinery and the systems running, every area is filled with hum and buzz. And when there are weird noises around you it's hard to tell if it’s because the Alien’s nearby or because this station is falling apart. Everything has a nice tactile feel to it, the machines work loudly which makes the interactions both satisfying and nerve wracking as you know the alien will hear the sound and come to investigate. The sound effects are layered and immersive and the music reminds me of the movie in bits and builds up tension in other parts but never overtakes ambience. It can get scary enough in the right conditions that I hid even when there was no actual threat present in the area.
The enemies both the Alien and the Androids, always kept me on edge, and a lot of it was due to the sounds they made. The Androids also look creepy as fuck.
The station was already fucked, the Alien was still the worst thing that could happen to it
The overall atmosphere is enhanced by everything surrounding the presentation, Sevstapol and Seegson are no Weyland Yutani, with constant cost management and corner cuttings, they are much less the inhumane evil of Weyland Yutani, but when shit goes fucky there’s a more mundane reason to it all, it's clear humans are working on this ship, greedy humans always looking to one up one another but humans nonetheless. But this has caused the ship which was already in an awful condition before the arrival of the Alien to become hostile even without its presence, the humans have formed groups attacking and warning anyone they see, everyone is on edge. The androids which have some awful programming due to the mentioned cost cutting are quick to attack humans due to just about anything, a problem known much before the alien threat materialized. Things were so bad the whole station was decommissioned days before we arrive.
Too long, Too one note
But I will stop my praise there. By the time I was done with the game I was exhausted, annoyed and bored with the game. This game is too frustratingly linear progression wise and lacking in depth gameplay wise to carry a game for this long. For exactly half of the game I kept thinking “I should be near the end now”, let's get the Alien praise out of the way, the AI of the Alien is great for a large part of the game I was always on edge thinking where the Alien could be, its erratic way of moving around the areas, its patience in sniffing out it’s Prey, and the way it tries to fool the player into thinking its leaving before jumping back down, all of its activities , its heightened senses and its ability to learn makes this a game of nerves and outwitting the opponent.
There’s basically nothing to interact with in the environment that won't progress the story, yes there are vents and and some panels controlling minor parts of the environment. But that’s it you can't turn off lights, you can’t hack anything the environment to work differently, pick up and throw items, move anything in the levels, or even fucking jump. Sneaking around in locations already decided for you, for over two dozen hours got boring in less than half that time, also the Alien being that hard of an opponent while being great at the start slowly got annoying. While hiding in a locker you can't do anything, if I could check the map, listen to voices or anything that would have made parts of the game significantly less dull. As the game went on I got more and more frustrated with this awful shallow stealth system and as my frustration grew I got caught by the Alien more and more and I wasn't scared of the Alien any longer, only annoyed at losing a few minutes of progress and then the game went on for several hours more. And when this game loses its ability to scare it loses its gameplay hook.
The gameplay loop is simple and the only thing separating it from being a chore is the fear of the Alien lurking (and the tactile feel of working the machinery do be kinda satisfying), explore, hide, do minigames and qte’s for 25 Hours while nothing happens to shake up the gameplay vast majority of the time, like new more fun things are there in later parts, combat and more enemies different environments but its too little too late.
The robots are creepy for a bit but they are even less engaging than the Alien, and even when they felt like a breath of fresh air after so many Alien encounters, but even this section went on for too long.
This might be the single worst paced game I have completed, it's almost twice as long as it needs to be and there’s multiple sections of this game that I thought the game would be better off just getting rid of.
And the story itself takes all the way to the last parts of the game to get going fully which is a shame cause I actually like it a lot, I feel like MArlow the game’s antagonist is a really well written character, the whole thing is well written but stretched too thin.
There’s a good well paced game in here somewhere, that game is not this, it's always disappointing to see a game that has so much going for it just completely fail at parts to the point of getting in the way of what is clearly good about it. Its a marvel that Alien Isolation exists, I will never give this game the time of day ever again.
Being hunted by a predator, through the width of an unknown and hostile space station, where the only way to progress is to come out and enter the very area it stalks makes for one hell of a horror game sell. Especially since I have heard for years how intelligent the Alien in this game was.
I was one of the rare existence who played the game before watching the movie(s) , but I didn’t finish it back then, I didn’t even make it past the first quarter of the game at that time, I didn’t drop it for any particular reason, just got distracted by something else.
But this time I was ready, watched Alien and Aliens to prepare, (Alien is pretty great) and now with enough context and excitement I headed in again.
Games dont really need to look better than this
The game started and I was hooked, the Nostromo-like ship I was in at the start I just loved looking around it. It was the ship I just saw in the movie, the game does a fantastic job of translating the movie’s feel into the game itself. Even after landing on the Sevastopol Station , the game did a great job of expanding on the already fantastic aesthetics of the movie. CRT’s everywhere and all the tech has a solid, cube like look to it, with blinking lights everywhere, 80s vision of the future. They had access to the original art for the movie and made something amazing out of it, the art direction is both unique and having such a strong backbone for the graphics and being technically one of the best looking if not the best looking game of its time means this game has aged phenomenally well visuals wise. The station feels like it's active and has been active, the smoke coming out of the pipes, something in the station is always in motion, no part of the station lacks detail, even in the lockers to hide in, there’s variety in what you find stuck inside the locker wall. The lighting that moves between clinical looking hospital like and the yellow hue of the star. The effects are another part of the game that stands out to me, the thick smoke, the fire, and even the dust particles moving around inside this station is what completes Alien Isolation’s visuals. Moving through the numerous dark corridors and hallways of the stations as the light of my flamethrower turns the environment, a shade of orange I thought “ Do games really need to look better than this ?” . I mean the game does use some tricks, turning off all the post processing can show the game’s age a bit, it uses both film grain and chromatic aberration heavily, but why would you when it’s so tastefully implemented. The game uses a lot of fog everywhere dunno if it's a thing to hide rendering or just a choice on the designer’s part and its Anti Aliasing is kinda awful and these 2 are the only technical complaints I have about it.
The real shortcomings in this department are 2 things, the human characters aren’t that well done, not bad for their time but definitely not on par with the rest, there is a stiffness with the character animation, poor lip syncing and animations.
But that’s not my main problem with the visuals, that would be the lack of variety, after a point the environments of the game started to blend together for me, they didn’t really switch it up with different styles to different floors, I mean it does have variety but that comes too late in the game, when you have already backtracked through the station once.
Sevastapol is never quiet
But the sound design, that’s one thing that never got old, the station is always filled with sounds of machinery and the systems running, every area is filled with hum and buzz. And when there are weird noises around you it's hard to tell if it’s because the Alien’s nearby or because this station is falling apart. Everything has a nice tactile feel to it, the machines work loudly which makes the interactions both satisfying and nerve wracking as you know the alien will hear the sound and come to investigate. The sound effects are layered and immersive and the music reminds me of the movie in bits and builds up tension in other parts but never overtakes ambience. It can get scary enough in the right conditions that I hid even when there was no actual threat present in the area.
The enemies both the Alien and the Androids, always kept me on edge, and a lot of it was due to the sounds they made. The Androids also look creepy as fuck.
The station was already fucked, the Alien was still the worst thing that could happen to it
The overall atmosphere is enhanced by everything surrounding the presentation, Sevstapol and Seegson are no Weyland Yutani, with constant cost management and corner cuttings, they are much less the inhumane evil of Weyland Yutani, but when shit goes fucky there’s a more mundane reason to it all, it's clear humans are working on this ship, greedy humans always looking to one up one another but humans nonetheless. But this has caused the ship which was already in an awful condition before the arrival of the Alien to become hostile even without its presence, the humans have formed groups attacking and warning anyone they see, everyone is on edge. The androids which have some awful programming due to the mentioned cost cutting are quick to attack humans due to just about anything, a problem known much before the alien threat materialized. Things were so bad the whole station was decommissioned days before we arrive.
Too long, Too one note
But I will stop my praise there. By the time I was done with the game I was exhausted, annoyed and bored with the game. This game is too frustratingly linear progression wise and lacking in depth gameplay wise to carry a game for this long. For exactly half of the game I kept thinking “I should be near the end now”, let's get the Alien praise out of the way, the AI of the Alien is great for a large part of the game I was always on edge thinking where the Alien could be, its erratic way of moving around the areas, its patience in sniffing out it’s Prey, and the way it tries to fool the player into thinking its leaving before jumping back down, all of its activities , its heightened senses and its ability to learn makes this a game of nerves and outwitting the opponent.
There’s basically nothing to interact with in the environment that won't progress the story, yes there are vents and and some panels controlling minor parts of the environment. But that’s it you can't turn off lights, you can’t hack anything the environment to work differently, pick up and throw items, move anything in the levels, or even fucking jump. Sneaking around in locations already decided for you, for over two dozen hours got boring in less than half that time, also the Alien being that hard of an opponent while being great at the start slowly got annoying. While hiding in a locker you can't do anything, if I could check the map, listen to voices or anything that would have made parts of the game significantly less dull. As the game went on I got more and more frustrated with this awful shallow stealth system and as my frustration grew I got caught by the Alien more and more and I wasn't scared of the Alien any longer, only annoyed at losing a few minutes of progress and then the game went on for several hours more. And when this game loses its ability to scare it loses its gameplay hook.
The gameplay loop is simple and the only thing separating it from being a chore is the fear of the Alien lurking (and the tactile feel of working the machinery do be kinda satisfying), explore, hide, do minigames and qte’s for 25 Hours while nothing happens to shake up the gameplay vast majority of the time, like new more fun things are there in later parts, combat and more enemies different environments but its too little too late.
The robots are creepy for a bit but they are even less engaging than the Alien, and even when they felt like a breath of fresh air after so many Alien encounters, but even this section went on for too long.
This might be the single worst paced game I have completed, it's almost twice as long as it needs to be and there’s multiple sections of this game that I thought the game would be better off just getting rid of.
And the story itself takes all the way to the last parts of the game to get going fully which is a shame cause I actually like it a lot, I feel like MArlow the game’s antagonist is a really well written character, the whole thing is well written but stretched too thin.
There’s a good well paced game in here somewhere, that game is not this, it's always disappointing to see a game that has so much going for it just completely fail at parts to the point of getting in the way of what is clearly good about it. Its a marvel that Alien Isolation exists, I will never give this game the time of day ever again.
The Xenomorph knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, by subtracting where it is, from where it isn't, or where it isn't, from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The Director AI uses deviations to generate corrective commands to send the Xenomorph from a position where it is, to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is ripping your face off.
I love the alien franchise and this game did it justice.
8.8/10
8.8/10
maravilhoso! 100% no PS3 e PS4.
ich kack mir in die hos
For all intents and purposes, Alien: Isolation is as close to a retelling of the original Alien as legally allowed while still adhering to the universe’s canon, hallow be thy name. And full disclosure, I kind of wish they had just retold Alien (1979), and just added a few sections for gameplay’s sake. I say that because the story here is.. eh. You play as Ripley’s daughter whom, while looking for her missing mother, boards the Sevastopol space station with a few colleagues who claim information about Ripley’s disappearance is onboard the station. Fast forward through a botched boarding attempt and a few minutes spent walking through an excessively unlit station and you find out you have more in common with your mom than you realize: there be aliens afoot. More than just that the androids, or “Working Joes”, throughout the station have gone haywire and started attacking all humans they encounter. And before you ask let me just say no, the family fun doesn’t end there. There’s a good few batches of human threats scattered around as well, just for fun.
To account for this dizzying array of scoundrels the game uses a crafting system for creating tools to distract or eliminate threats. I’m gonna level with you, this whole system feels quite unnecessary. Both from a practically standpoint and just from a gameplay perspective. I’m usually very forgiving when it comes to games adding miscellaneous mechanics that don’t fit the genre or enhance the experience. It artificially inflates time and complexity, but rarely is it invasive or annoying to me. Unfortunately, Alien: Isolation doesn’t skate by that excuse. I mean, need EVERY game be a scavenge simulator? I’m a wayward astronaut adventure, not a reject from Hoarders. This is made more obvious when you actually use the tools too and see how pointless most of them are, creating a resource scarcity/overabundance that incenses me to no end. The Medikit, Molotov, Flamethrower, and Noisemakers are the only items you should ever be making or using. Everything else is too clunky, too slow, and too costly. I’d take it a step further and say Noisemakers are 100% necessary. As it turns out patience can only get you so far. More on that further down.
Before we do though let’s wrap up the story first to the best of my ability. Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to be moderately spoiled. After a lot of meandering back and forth, meeting new folks you couldn’t pay me to remember the names or faces of, you finally find out this was all a bad case of the narrative acrobatics and you were actually unwittingly sent on a mission to retrieve the alien itself. I guess Weyland-Yutani had learned nothing from the first movie. It was at this point I fully checked out. There were genuinely parts where I forgot who I was cool with and who had betrayed me. Not because it was so complex but because it felt so textbook and safe. Which is a shame considering how much I admire everything else. From its gorgeous glossy cassette futurism aesthetic to the crisp sound design in every corner of the game it really is one of the most well-designed titles I can think of, with the exception of a bad case of the uncanny-faces syndrome. For goodness sake, the original Alien callback sequence where you played as the guy who found the alien nest is almost worth the price of admission alone. No, it’s the heart, at least in the story, that’s missing for me. Anyway, after just about everyone else is dead or forgotten you’re finally able to get the hell out of dodge after an EXTREMELY drawn out end-sequence. One fakeout is good form. When you do three fakeout endings with no end in sight is when I start to get annoyed in a way that no cinematic sequences can lessen the blow of. Yet finally it does end, and on a cliffhanger no less. One I doubt we’ll ever get closure on, but never say never. In terms of story I’d give the game a firm 4/10. Terribly boring and quite drawn out. Shave off a couple hours and characters and pull back on the wild goose chases and we’d be in business.
Now let’s get into the real meat of the meal. What everyone raves about without end. The Alien, and by extension, its AI. I feel a touch more lukewarm about this than a lot of other folks it seems. Technically speaking, everything about the Alien is impressive. The sound, the animations, the reliance on sound and your radar to know where the Alien is, the fact that if you’re caught, you’re dead. It has all the hallmarks of a fully realized horror experience, no ifs, ands, or buts. In practice though, the lines between scary and tedious become far too blurred. This frustration comes from two elements: your utter helplessness and the overreliance on the illusion of realism. The first one is more straightforward, so let’s knock that one out. While I’d say this aspect is largely exacerbated by the second element, it’s annoying on its own. When I say helplessness I don’t only mean the fact that you’re a one-hit kill. As I said, it’s a neat twist on the tag-like horror games that already inundate the genre. The issue is that your tools to hide and fight back also suck. They give you a rotunda of tools and gadgets to supposedly fight back. Not kill the creature of course, but slow them down. This is mostly untrue. Of the tools you have, only half of them are polished enough to actually use. Even then, they last about 5 seconds and give you about twice that time to haul your butt to timbuktu.
The reason this is so devastating is because of the illusion of realism I talked about earlier. The general philosophy the game takes is trying to make the Alien as responsive and dangerous as possible. Given that it’s you know, an Alien, it also has enhanced hearing. What this means is you’ll spend a lot of time running and hiding from it. Mostly hiding, as it is much faster than you. That’s not all though, If you hide too close to when the Alien gets in the same room as you, there’s a good chance it will find you anyway. Best case scenario, you’ll have to spend two minutes pre-hiding under a desk while it meticulously walks back and forth across the room as it searches for you. On its own this just encourages a more careful method of playing, but we’re STILL not done. As annoying as it can be to have to wait around on account of the architecture disallowing me to make a distraction, that can be forgiven. What can’t be is the obvious instances where the Alien sticks around FOREVER, because under all the realism is a perfect knowledge of where your player character is at all times. I suppose it’s to make sure you’ll still see the Alien even if you optimize for sneaky gameplay. It simply goes on too long, and little recourse from my crappy tools, I’m frequently left sitting still for 5 minutes, going out for 1 minute, randomly triggering the Alien 100 feet away, then having to go back to hiding. When I could I just doused the clown in flames and speedran through the section, but with limited flame ammo that was fewer than half of my interactions.
Don’t misunderstand me, it was visceral, it was cinematic, and it perfectly portrayed what the Alien should be on a realism level. Yet as a horror veteran, the waiting around in lockers and under desks, with the knowledge that it shouldn’t have found me when it did, left me bored in a way only remedied by sitting still for multiple minutes while I prayed for the Alien to dip. I’m glad they spaced out the Alien so it wasn’t constantly stalking you the entire game, however I think making it less obvious and frequent when the game forced interactions would not only add to the realism, but would further lessen the tedium that came with prolonged exposure.
Long-winded as it may have been, I feel a differing perspective is never unhealthy to flesh out. And don’t mistake my rant for hatred. My peak of agitation with this game never came close to tempting me to quit early. Not every interaction was hell. Only about a quarter of them ;) Holistically, this game has a fantastic presentation with a weak story, mediocre combat, and a should-be-better gameplay loop.
To account for this dizzying array of scoundrels the game uses a crafting system for creating tools to distract or eliminate threats. I’m gonna level with you, this whole system feels quite unnecessary. Both from a practically standpoint and just from a gameplay perspective. I’m usually very forgiving when it comes to games adding miscellaneous mechanics that don’t fit the genre or enhance the experience. It artificially inflates time and complexity, but rarely is it invasive or annoying to me. Unfortunately, Alien: Isolation doesn’t skate by that excuse. I mean, need EVERY game be a scavenge simulator? I’m a wayward astronaut adventure, not a reject from Hoarders. This is made more obvious when you actually use the tools too and see how pointless most of them are, creating a resource scarcity/overabundance that incenses me to no end. The Medikit, Molotov, Flamethrower, and Noisemakers are the only items you should ever be making or using. Everything else is too clunky, too slow, and too costly. I’d take it a step further and say Noisemakers are 100% necessary. As it turns out patience can only get you so far. More on that further down.
Before we do though let’s wrap up the story first to the best of my ability. Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to be moderately spoiled. After a lot of meandering back and forth, meeting new folks you couldn’t pay me to remember the names or faces of, you finally find out this was all a bad case of the narrative acrobatics and you were actually unwittingly sent on a mission to retrieve the alien itself. I guess Weyland-Yutani had learned nothing from the first movie. It was at this point I fully checked out. There were genuinely parts where I forgot who I was cool with and who had betrayed me. Not because it was so complex but because it felt so textbook and safe. Which is a shame considering how much I admire everything else. From its gorgeous glossy cassette futurism aesthetic to the crisp sound design in every corner of the game it really is one of the most well-designed titles I can think of, with the exception of a bad case of the uncanny-faces syndrome. For goodness sake, the original Alien callback sequence where you played as the guy who found the alien nest is almost worth the price of admission alone. No, it’s the heart, at least in the story, that’s missing for me. Anyway, after just about everyone else is dead or forgotten you’re finally able to get the hell out of dodge after an EXTREMELY drawn out end-sequence. One fakeout is good form. When you do three fakeout endings with no end in sight is when I start to get annoyed in a way that no cinematic sequences can lessen the blow of. Yet finally it does end, and on a cliffhanger no less. One I doubt we’ll ever get closure on, but never say never. In terms of story I’d give the game a firm 4/10. Terribly boring and quite drawn out. Shave off a couple hours and characters and pull back on the wild goose chases and we’d be in business.
Now let’s get into the real meat of the meal. What everyone raves about without end. The Alien, and by extension, its AI. I feel a touch more lukewarm about this than a lot of other folks it seems. Technically speaking, everything about the Alien is impressive. The sound, the animations, the reliance on sound and your radar to know where the Alien is, the fact that if you’re caught, you’re dead. It has all the hallmarks of a fully realized horror experience, no ifs, ands, or buts. In practice though, the lines between scary and tedious become far too blurred. This frustration comes from two elements: your utter helplessness and the overreliance on the illusion of realism. The first one is more straightforward, so let’s knock that one out. While I’d say this aspect is largely exacerbated by the second element, it’s annoying on its own. When I say helplessness I don’t only mean the fact that you’re a one-hit kill. As I said, it’s a neat twist on the tag-like horror games that already inundate the genre. The issue is that your tools to hide and fight back also suck. They give you a rotunda of tools and gadgets to supposedly fight back. Not kill the creature of course, but slow them down. This is mostly untrue. Of the tools you have, only half of them are polished enough to actually use. Even then, they last about 5 seconds and give you about twice that time to haul your butt to timbuktu.
The reason this is so devastating is because of the illusion of realism I talked about earlier. The general philosophy the game takes is trying to make the Alien as responsive and dangerous as possible. Given that it’s you know, an Alien, it also has enhanced hearing. What this means is you’ll spend a lot of time running and hiding from it. Mostly hiding, as it is much faster than you. That’s not all though, If you hide too close to when the Alien gets in the same room as you, there’s a good chance it will find you anyway. Best case scenario, you’ll have to spend two minutes pre-hiding under a desk while it meticulously walks back and forth across the room as it searches for you. On its own this just encourages a more careful method of playing, but we’re STILL not done. As annoying as it can be to have to wait around on account of the architecture disallowing me to make a distraction, that can be forgiven. What can’t be is the obvious instances where the Alien sticks around FOREVER, because under all the realism is a perfect knowledge of where your player character is at all times. I suppose it’s to make sure you’ll still see the Alien even if you optimize for sneaky gameplay. It simply goes on too long, and little recourse from my crappy tools, I’m frequently left sitting still for 5 minutes, going out for 1 minute, randomly triggering the Alien 100 feet away, then having to go back to hiding. When I could I just doused the clown in flames and speedran through the section, but with limited flame ammo that was fewer than half of my interactions.
Don’t misunderstand me, it was visceral, it was cinematic, and it perfectly portrayed what the Alien should be on a realism level. Yet as a horror veteran, the waiting around in lockers and under desks, with the knowledge that it shouldn’t have found me when it did, left me bored in a way only remedied by sitting still for multiple minutes while I prayed for the Alien to dip. I’m glad they spaced out the Alien so it wasn’t constantly stalking you the entire game, however I think making it less obvious and frequent when the game forced interactions would not only add to the realism, but would further lessen the tedium that came with prolonged exposure.
Long-winded as it may have been, I feel a differing perspective is never unhealthy to flesh out. And don’t mistake my rant for hatred. My peak of agitation with this game never came close to tempting me to quit early. Not every interaction was hell. Only about a quarter of them ;) Holistically, this game has a fantastic presentation with a weak story, mediocre combat, and a should-be-better gameplay loop.
Confuso, chato e tem um pacing insuportável. A única qualidade notável é a IA do xenomorfo, que obviamente não salva o jogo.
Yo this game is ugly as hell. This game was so tedious, painful to play, painful to look at, I don't have any desire to see it through.
Good lord, talk about overstaying your welcome. Revisiting the sights and sounds of Alien in a modern video game is neat, but unfortunately it's all in service of mediocre gameplay and a completely pointless and overwrought rehash of the movie's plot.
It's clear that the developers had a lot of love for the source material, and what's there is extremely faithful, but they just don't bring anything new to the table. Early on I enjoyed exploring the accurate recreations of the Alien sets, but by the end I was rolling my eyes as the game repeatedly recycled visuals and plot beats from the movie in their original order. What isn't pulled from the movie is a mishmash of objectives like "turn on the generator", "find a way to open the door", "fix this broken thing", and lots of backtracking.
Combine that with painfully tedious and dated hide-and-seek stealth gameplay, boilerplate immersive sim elements (lots of audio logs, and you punch 0451 into a keypad!), and you've got one of the more disappointing licensed games in a long time. If this had been a focused experience delivering an original story vignette over a few hours, it could've been something much better.
It's clear that the developers had a lot of love for the source material, and what's there is extremely faithful, but they just don't bring anything new to the table. Early on I enjoyed exploring the accurate recreations of the Alien sets, but by the end I was rolling my eyes as the game repeatedly recycled visuals and plot beats from the movie in their original order. What isn't pulled from the movie is a mishmash of objectives like "turn on the generator", "find a way to open the door", "fix this broken thing", and lots of backtracking.
Combine that with painfully tedious and dated hide-and-seek stealth gameplay, boilerplate immersive sim elements (lots of audio logs, and you punch 0451 into a keypad!), and you've got one of the more disappointing licensed games in a long time. If this had been a focused experience delivering an original story vignette over a few hours, it could've been something much better.
This is easily one of the best horror games to come out in the last 10 years. The feeling of dread even though on some level you knew the alien wasn't anywhere near by or in some cases it's hiding nearby.
At one point I was rather carelessly walking down a corridor when out of the vent above the alien popped out and dragged me through it. The second time around in a different corridor I clocked the vent and the saliva dripping out of it and slowly went around it.
Nothing quite beats the moment when I finally got the flamethrower. The alien popped out of a vent, stood tall and intimidating... Right up until I brandished the flamethrower. After the first burst of flame it about turned and leapt back into the vent. I repeated this on numerous occasions. It's moments like this that made the game.
The story is a surprisingly strong offering as well given how up and down a narrative for anything Alien related can be. You can get a good sense of the characters and their motivations, some of which can be surprising.
I'd also like to include a shout out to the Dev team and the ridiculous but much appreciated level of detail this game has. Even to the extent of the CRT monitors of the time being copied and studied so that the monitors in game were as accurate as possible. The AI is also just amazing and so complex to the point I don't think I know of a game AI that rivals it.
At one point I was rather carelessly walking down a corridor when out of the vent above the alien popped out and dragged me through it. The second time around in a different corridor I clocked the vent and the saliva dripping out of it and slowly went around it.
Nothing quite beats the moment when I finally got the flamethrower. The alien popped out of a vent, stood tall and intimidating... Right up until I brandished the flamethrower. After the first burst of flame it about turned and leapt back into the vent. I repeated this on numerous occasions. It's moments like this that made the game.
The story is a surprisingly strong offering as well given how up and down a narrative for anything Alien related can be. You can get a good sense of the characters and their motivations, some of which can be surprising.
I'd also like to include a shout out to the Dev team and the ridiculous but much appreciated level of detail this game has. Even to the extent of the CRT monitors of the time being copied and studied so that the monitors in game were as accurate as possible. The AI is also just amazing and so complex to the point I don't think I know of a game AI that rivals it.
No embalo e hype de Starfield, pegueI pra rejogar um dos meus jogos favoritos da ultima geração e um dos que mais criou bem a sensação de mistério, solidão, perigo e estranheza de estar em um lugar isolado nos confins do Universo. Uma experiência imersiva, esmagadora e cruel. Daquelas que marcou profundamente e fiquei pensando por dias e dias. Ainda quero fazer um vídeo sobre esse pedaço de ouro da CA/Sega.
There's some good stuff going on here but it's just stretched so thin. It's overlong, it's janky, the plot is nonsense, all of the characters are useless. But whatever, what people really praise this game for is the Alien AI.
I don't get the hype. Not sure what's so impressive about the Alien inexplicably always knowing where you are and showing up nearby. Not trying to sound cool, plenty of games scare the hell out of me, but I don't think I found it scary once. There are plenty of tense moments for sure, but all that tension is gone once you get the flamethrower and are then no longer helpless. Not to mention I played on hard difficulty and still always had near maxed out supplies and ammo at all times.
I don't get the hype. Not sure what's so impressive about the Alien inexplicably always knowing where you are and showing up nearby. Not trying to sound cool, plenty of games scare the hell out of me, but I don't think I found it scary once. There are plenty of tense moments for sure, but all that tension is gone once you get the flamethrower and are then no longer helpless. Not to mention I played on hard difficulty and still always had near maxed out supplies and ammo at all times.
This game is an amazing recreation of the atmosphere of the first movie, in a certain manner, but other than that it doesn't have much to offer unfortunately. It's a fun visit for maybe the first hour, then the environments just repeat themselves.
The gameplay part is horrendous. Stealth games like Thief, Dishonored or Sekiro are fun because they offer interesting and rewarding mechanics while a game like this only has you crawling slowly or hiding in a shelf to avoid enemies while waiting for them to move away. It's just tedious, especially considering the long stretches of stealth you need to do and the save system with no checkpoint, forcing you to restart entire sections if you die. Even Outlast understands this is not very fun, hence why you only have to hide or slow down a few times and why it has regular checkpoints.
Yes, the alien has advanced AI, but did we really need it and does it do anything in this context? Rather than the enemy AI, what can I as a player do other than hide in a cabinet, crawl slowly behind NPCs who follow boring patterns and use a few weapons from to time to time, in an endlessly repetitive loop.
Aside from the stealth, all you do is gather things for a very basic and generic craft system as well as opening doors, repairing things... perhaps the most generic game objectives possible. You arrive somewhere new, you need to repair a door, some machines, that's it, that's the game.
Perhaps these mechanics could have worked if the game was more sandbox and open. Go in any direction you want, find some audio log or something like Outer Wilds while avoiding environmental danger. And cut the length of the game: it would have been a fine 5 hours long game, it's a stretchy and boring 20 hours adventure.
The gameplay part is horrendous. Stealth games like Thief, Dishonored or Sekiro are fun because they offer interesting and rewarding mechanics while a game like this only has you crawling slowly or hiding in a shelf to avoid enemies while waiting for them to move away. It's just tedious, especially considering the long stretches of stealth you need to do and the save system with no checkpoint, forcing you to restart entire sections if you die. Even Outlast understands this is not very fun, hence why you only have to hide or slow down a few times and why it has regular checkpoints.
Yes, the alien has advanced AI, but did we really need it and does it do anything in this context? Rather than the enemy AI, what can I as a player do other than hide in a cabinet, crawl slowly behind NPCs who follow boring patterns and use a few weapons from to time to time, in an endlessly repetitive loop.
Aside from the stealth, all you do is gather things for a very basic and generic craft system as well as opening doors, repairing things... perhaps the most generic game objectives possible. You arrive somewhere new, you need to repair a door, some machines, that's it, that's the game.
Perhaps these mechanics could have worked if the game was more sandbox and open. Go in any direction you want, find some audio log or something like Outer Wilds while avoiding environmental danger. And cut the length of the game: it would have been a fine 5 hours long game, it's a stretchy and boring 20 hours adventure.
I tried really hard to see this game as the horror masterpiece that everyone claims it is but I just don't get it. I don't find it scary being instantly killed by an Alien that just never leaves me alone and always knows where I am and sends my progress back by 20-30 minutes thanks to the horrid save point system. Where this game gets it right is its atmosphere and faithfulness to the films so maybe my Alien bias is kicking in a bit with this rating.
I don't understand why this game's AI for the Alien gets lauded to high heavens. The Alien just always homes in to the area of your vicinity and just mindlessly roams around until it stumbles across your hiding spot. What annoyed me more is that during levels where there's survivors the Alien barely reacted to them and beelined straight to me for no reason. Other annoyances include losing the Alien only for it to pop out of a vent in front of your face two seconds later. I get that the Alien always being on your trail is meant to contribute to the stress but for me it just got obnoxious and frustrating. Compare this to a similar game Monstrum, if you lost the monster, it'll take a few minutes for it to make its way back to you. In this game the Alien practically teleports between vents and reappears even if you're as quiet as a mouse.
The game's story is passable but my god this game lasts way too long for its own good. Maybe it's because I really had no choice but to crawl everywhere but every time I thought this game would end, it would just keep going and dragging on for a few more hours.
On more positive notes, the weapons feel nice. Scaring off the Alien with a flamethrower will always feel satisfying to pull off. Since I enjoy the occasional stealth game, it feels awesome to ghost an area full of survivors, androids or even a tense stealth section against the Alien itself, manipulating it with noisemakers and when it works, baiting the alien to attack a group of survivors so your path becomes a lot clearer. As excessively punishing as this game is, if you have a clear plan on how to tackle a difficult stealth segment, you can definitely pull it off with the right amount of patience.
Even if I said before that the Alien appearing so frequently made it more frustrating than scary, the most stressful aspect of the Alien is wondering when in a new level it will show itself and begin hunting. Even in levels where the Alien never shows up, the intense atmosphere always had me on edge guessing where the Alien may come from if it is here.
Lastly, while the puzzles and button prompt interactables (locked doors, hacking, starting generators etc) seemed repetitive, they simply work as a way to divert your focus from the Alien which is likely still roaming the map as you complete them which adds to the anxiety I wish the game aimed towards a lot more than just spawning in the Alien right on top of you when you breathed a little too loudly.
Overall, I did enjoy this game, maybe not as much as I expected, but that was just me going in with high expectations. I will say again that this game is not easy and the developers of this game almost sadistically punish the player for mistakes whenever the Alien is around. If you DON'T enjoy punishing horror games where the monster is always on you and can instantly kill you on sight, where you'll be set back about 20 minutes of your hard earned progress with one fuck-up, then I would be weary of this game. If you are an Alien fan or enjoy punishing experiences, then this game is an easy recommendation.
I don't understand why this game's AI for the Alien gets lauded to high heavens. The Alien just always homes in to the area of your vicinity and just mindlessly roams around until it stumbles across your hiding spot. What annoyed me more is that during levels where there's survivors the Alien barely reacted to them and beelined straight to me for no reason. Other annoyances include losing the Alien only for it to pop out of a vent in front of your face two seconds later. I get that the Alien always being on your trail is meant to contribute to the stress but for me it just got obnoxious and frustrating. Compare this to a similar game Monstrum, if you lost the monster, it'll take a few minutes for it to make its way back to you. In this game the Alien practically teleports between vents and reappears even if you're as quiet as a mouse.
The game's story is passable but my god this game lasts way too long for its own good. Maybe it's because I really had no choice but to crawl everywhere but every time I thought this game would end, it would just keep going and dragging on for a few more hours.
On more positive notes, the weapons feel nice. Scaring off the Alien with a flamethrower will always feel satisfying to pull off. Since I enjoy the occasional stealth game, it feels awesome to ghost an area full of survivors, androids or even a tense stealth section against the Alien itself, manipulating it with noisemakers and when it works, baiting the alien to attack a group of survivors so your path becomes a lot clearer. As excessively punishing as this game is, if you have a clear plan on how to tackle a difficult stealth segment, you can definitely pull it off with the right amount of patience.
Even if I said before that the Alien appearing so frequently made it more frustrating than scary, the most stressful aspect of the Alien is wondering when in a new level it will show itself and begin hunting. Even in levels where the Alien never shows up, the intense atmosphere always had me on edge guessing where the Alien may come from if it is here.
Lastly, while the puzzles and button prompt interactables (locked doors, hacking, starting generators etc) seemed repetitive, they simply work as a way to divert your focus from the Alien which is likely still roaming the map as you complete them which adds to the anxiety I wish the game aimed towards a lot more than just spawning in the Alien right on top of you when you breathed a little too loudly.
Overall, I did enjoy this game, maybe not as much as I expected, but that was just me going in with high expectations. I will say again that this game is not easy and the developers of this game almost sadistically punish the player for mistakes whenever the Alien is around. If you DON'T enjoy punishing horror games where the monster is always on you and can instantly kill you on sight, where you'll be set back about 20 minutes of your hard earned progress with one fuck-up, then I would be weary of this game. If you are an Alien fan or enjoy punishing experiences, then this game is an easy recommendation.
Alien: Isolation - це напружений та на рідкість атмосферний stealth/horror, який вражає фанатично перенесеним незабутнім візуальним стилем фільму у віртуальний простір, та дає можливість відчути себе людиною, яка бореться за своє життя в ізоляції віддаленого космосу, де “ніхто не почує твоїх криків”. Гра обов’язкова до покупки фанатам фільмів і всесвіту “Чужого” в цілому, любителям якісних горор ігор, а також цінителям виключного левел-дизайну та аудіо супроводу. До якої категорії ви б не відносились, за умови міцних нервів та здорового серця, певен ви отримаєте купу емоцій: аудіовізуальних, геймплейних, інколи фруструючих, але здебільшого задовільних і точно незабутніх!
Повний огляд: https://drukarnia.com.ua/articles/alien-isolation-chomu-ce-unikalna-gorror-gra-yaka-zaslugovuye-na-bilshu-uvagu-6atHi
Повний огляд: https://drukarnia.com.ua/articles/alien-isolation-chomu-ce-unikalna-gorror-gra-yaka-zaslugovuye-na-bilshu-uvagu-6atHi
A good game. But you're out of your fucking mind if you think I'm gonna play 20+ hours of it
gud game got scared 10/10
i think if the alien just gave me a chance we'd be good friends
I'm a scared little baby!!!
alien has the best, smartest and scariest AI systems like ever lol. Great atmosphere and such a repayable experience, the amount of fun scenarios you can have with the alien cannot be understated
i actually never played this game my best friend told me something about it one time and i forgot
the ideal horror game, really. what they don't want you to hear is that the pacing of this game is good, actually
This 2014 masterpiece, a chilling homage to the Alien film franchise, plunges players into the depths of paranoia and dread, where the relentless pursuit of one of cinema's most iconic creatures will send shivers down your spine.
One of the most interesting aspects of the game is the xenomorph's artificial intelligence and its ability to learn. The xenomorph will learn from its experiences and adapt its behavior accordingly. For example, if the player repeatedly escapes from the xenomorph by hiding in a vent, the xenomorph will learn to check the vents more often.
This makes Alien Isolation a truly terrifying and suspenseful experience.
The sound design also plays a significant role in creating Alien Isolation's terrifying atmosphere. The game's soundtrack is full of suspenseful music and unsettling sound effects that heighten the tension. The creaking of pipes, the distant sounds of machinery, and the eerie silence broken by sudden noises all add to the feeling of being alone and vulnerable in a dangerous environment.
Alien: Isolation is a landmark achievement in the survival horror genre, a game that redefines the power of video games to evoke fear and immerse players in a terrifying experience. Its captivating story, ingenious gameplay mechanics, and haunting atmosphere make it an absolute must-play for fans of the Alien franchise and anyone who appreciates the finer points of psychological horror.
One of the most interesting aspects of the game is the xenomorph's artificial intelligence and its ability to learn. The xenomorph will learn from its experiences and adapt its behavior accordingly. For example, if the player repeatedly escapes from the xenomorph by hiding in a vent, the xenomorph will learn to check the vents more often.
This makes Alien Isolation a truly terrifying and suspenseful experience.
The sound design also plays a significant role in creating Alien Isolation's terrifying atmosphere. The game's soundtrack is full of suspenseful music and unsettling sound effects that heighten the tension. The creaking of pipes, the distant sounds of machinery, and the eerie silence broken by sudden noises all add to the feeling of being alone and vulnerable in a dangerous environment.
Alien: Isolation is a landmark achievement in the survival horror genre, a game that redefines the power of video games to evoke fear and immerse players in a terrifying experience. Its captivating story, ingenious gameplay mechanics, and haunting atmosphere make it an absolute must-play for fans of the Alien franchise and anyone who appreciates the finer points of psychological horror.