Alien: Isolation
#11
PC - Steam
Beaten 5/21/23
Isolation is one of the most well realized horror games I've ever seen - it's a beautiful recreation of the vibe and aesthetic of the classic original 'Alien' film, in all of its late 1970's glory! Monitors are monochrome CRT, lights and computers are all analog, the architecture is stark and low on color... Visually, this game is a damn feast. On the audio side its no damn slouch either - each piece is either a direct lift from the movie or so in tune with it that you could swap it into the movie and if you didn't tell anyone, it'd probably fool most people. So yeah, presentation wise this is an easy 5/5. How's the gameplay though? Welllllllllllll about that..
The Good:
-As I said above - the visuals are ASTOUNDINGLY good. The game takes place on Sevastapol station, a space station controlled by a Not-Wayland-Yutani corp but keeping very much in the same vibe of what people in the 70's thought that the future might look like a century or two in the future. Lights glare, art deco is on full display, monitors are ugly green CRT... just perfect, honestly
-The Titular Alien is our main foe here - though it is joined by human and android enemies who will will unfortunately get to later. The Alien makes their debut roughly an entire hour into the game and it is suitably horrifying and wily a foe. You will learn its AI quite well as the game goes on - it HUNTS you in a way that is now-common in horror games (RE, Outlast) but remains your main obstacle for much of the game. As you continue getting more and more tools you figure out new ways around it and even a couple of ways to drive it off... though of course it is impossible to defeat with normal means.
-Our protagonist Amanda is a pretty dope stand in for her mom as protagonist. Got that No-Nonsense energy down
The Bad:
-This game is 12~ hours and boy it draaaaags in parts. The encounters are all pretty solid but honestly there's a lot that just shouldn't be here. Honestly cut out a whole quarter of the game and you're on your way.
The Meh:
-The Story - our premise is that the Nostromo's black box has been found and it's being held at a 2nd-rate space station, neat! Love it. The actual story itself is, beat for beat, an Alien story about a monster slowly knocking out systems as our trusty engineer goes section by section flipping the switches as the other characters drop like flies...
-The other enemies - Alien, awesome. Humans, interesting because at least you're never really sure what they're going to do and that's got some neat tension there. The Androids.... creepy the first time, kinda boring and annoying to sneak around the rest of the time. Nothing matches the Alien and it is noticeable.
-Animations - For a game that looks AMAZING, the animations look jarringly weird. Like the robots make it work, but everything that's not the Alien is pretty jarring.
The Hmm:
-Crafting system - normal difficulty had wayyyyy too much shit man, I was maxed out on toys most of the game and rarely used any of them.
Final Grade: B+
#11
PC - Steam
Beaten 5/21/23
Isolation is one of the most well realized horror games I've ever seen - it's a beautiful recreation of the vibe and aesthetic of the classic original 'Alien' film, in all of its late 1970's glory! Monitors are monochrome CRT, lights and computers are all analog, the architecture is stark and low on color... Visually, this game is a damn feast. On the audio side its no damn slouch either - each piece is either a direct lift from the movie or so in tune with it that you could swap it into the movie and if you didn't tell anyone, it'd probably fool most people. So yeah, presentation wise this is an easy 5/5. How's the gameplay though? Welllllllllllll about that..
The Good:
-As I said above - the visuals are ASTOUNDINGLY good. The game takes place on Sevastapol station, a space station controlled by a Not-Wayland-Yutani corp but keeping very much in the same vibe of what people in the 70's thought that the future might look like a century or two in the future. Lights glare, art deco is on full display, monitors are ugly green CRT... just perfect, honestly
-The Titular Alien is our main foe here - though it is joined by human and android enemies who will will unfortunately get to later. The Alien makes their debut roughly an entire hour into the game and it is suitably horrifying and wily a foe. You will learn its AI quite well as the game goes on - it HUNTS you in a way that is now-common in horror games (RE, Outlast) but remains your main obstacle for much of the game. As you continue getting more and more tools you figure out new ways around it and even a couple of ways to drive it off... though of course it is impossible to defeat with normal means.
-Our protagonist Amanda is a pretty dope stand in for her mom as protagonist. Got that No-Nonsense energy down
The Bad:
-This game is 12~ hours and boy it draaaaags in parts. The encounters are all pretty solid but honestly there's a lot that just shouldn't be here. Honestly cut out a whole quarter of the game and you're on your way.
The Meh:
-The Story - our premise is that the Nostromo's black box has been found and it's being held at a 2nd-rate space station, neat! Love it. The actual story itself is, beat for beat, an Alien story about a monster slowly knocking out systems as our trusty engineer goes section by section flipping the switches as the other characters drop like flies...
-The other enemies - Alien, awesome. Humans, interesting because at least you're never really sure what they're going to do and that's got some neat tension there. The Androids.... creepy the first time, kinda boring and annoying to sneak around the rest of the time. Nothing matches the Alien and it is noticeable.
-Animations - For a game that looks AMAZING, the animations look jarringly weird. Like the robots make it work, but everything that's not the Alien is pretty jarring.
The Hmm:
-Crafting system - normal difficulty had wayyyyy too much shit man, I was maxed out on toys most of the game and rarely used any of them.
Final Grade: B+