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.
2 Comments
@Shenobi I strongly agree, there's a sweet spot near the beginning of the game where they max out on that tension and edge and then it's just unfortunately all down hill from there - The repetition leading to expectation like you mentioned, followed by a large chunk of the game that's completely alien-free. The AI deep dive is cool for sure, the Menace mechanic in particular, but in my experience that I had over my 2 full playthroughs it just didn't seem to translate well. I may have played way too aggressively as opposed to cautiously, which seems like it may've really dampened the scare factor.
Shenobi
10 months ago
As for the AI, I think it's solid for trying to create tension, but your mileage is largely going to go by how much you can sustain feeling that intensity over way too many hours because it's mostly the same song and dance and it's kinda how I felt about necromorphs popping out of walls and ceilings -- after a point, you just kind of expect it, can generally feel when/where it's going to be, and just account for it with less unease than you should be having while experiencing it over and over.
In regards to design, I do think there's a lot of cool stuff going on under the hood even when it sometimes falls flat for me, and if you feel like checking out the actual AI structure, Tommy Thompson did a great breakdown of it (twice) on his AI & Games YT channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt1XmiDwxhY