Alien Isolation…..

This game was an interesting experience for me. Not only do I love the first Alien movie I love the world of Alien altogether. This game is pretty much a direct sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic  “Alien” and has you playing As Amanda Ripley who is  Ellen Ripley’s daughter. We learn that even though this game is over a decade after the 1st Alien,Amanda is still looking for closure on what happened to her mother. As a result she tags along on a mission to retrieve the flight recorder from the Nostromo that’s currently on Sevastopol station as “the company” (Weyland) Need it so they can find out more about the Xenomorph that was aboard Ellen’s ship.

However once you get there the game quickly shows you how everything has pretty much gone to shit aboard Sevastopol station,dead bodies,people who turn hostile immediately and killer androids…oh and there’s an 8 ft tall Alien too.   Overall I had an absolute blast with the Story of This game,it’s fun but it can get mildly frustrating at times which I’ll get into soon.  You actually slowly begin to care about the characters And you’ll start to feel sympathy as the alien ans androids pick people off one by one as the game goes on. I don’t wanna say much else on the story cause it’s better to be surprised in this game.

 

The Gameplay.     I remember thinking I wasn’t gonna have enough patience for this game at times and I’ll admit,I didn’t but at it’s core the gameplay is near perfect. I’ll start off with the stealth considering that’s the main part of the game after all. From the second the Alien shows up you must make as little noise as possible,I’m not even kidding,you can’t run,you can’t engage in combat. NOTHING. And constantly trying to stay quiet really ups the tension and fear of the game and I’ll be honest…I LOVED IT. This game might just be the most intense game I’ve played,it potentially beats Outlast but that’s a game for another time. The androids,the alien,the humans..all of them are a threat and the alien itself is unstoppable and inescapable.

Gadgets/weapons. I’ll start off with your gadgets.  The Hacking decoder thing was an okay concept but the execution wasn’t done that well at all in my opinion. My issue is how you have to find where the entrance for the hack is for these mini games BUT as the game goes on these small windows get more and more hard to find and because you’re panicking cause of the Xenomorph you often miss the window and lose it which just makes it seem like a chore! Other gadgets are more or less distractions for your enemies,noisemakers and flares will draw an enemy to a certain location and these come in so handy when dealing with the Alien…just be careful not to make too much noise as you escape. The motion tracker makes you aware of the presence of living things and android but it somehow makes the game scarier! Mainly cause the closer something gets the faster it beeps! That was well done and it’s probably my favourite gadget in the game.

Weapons are actually one of the games weaknesses cause if you ask me they make the game less scary. There’s an android coming toward you? Just shoot him once with a bolt gun and he’ll die,shoot any humans once and they die,torch the Alien with the flamethrower and he’ll run away! It just takes all the fear and tension away I think,I wouldn’t remove it by any means but it just ruins the experience slightly. Even the stun baton makes it less frightening! It’s because you have a way of fighting..and winning,the alien may be invincible but you can still make it run for about 30 seconds.

The Alien:  I’m giving the Xenomorph it’s own section cause it deserves it! The build up to when the Alien is fully introduced is PERFECT. You see glimpses of it so you know what to maybe expect (at least if you don’t know what one looks like anyway) and then when it finally shows up it gives you this feeling of “oh shit it’s happening now!”  Plus I think it was an amazing idea to use the drone Xenomorph instead of the warrior breed,from what I’ve seen the drones are taller and they fit the tone of This game waaaay more anyway.  The A.I is extremely well done too! Unlike most monsters in horror games the alien AI is completely different with every encounter,he’s not on a track or nothing he just goes wherever He wants. Making him an instant death also raises the stakes a little,if you’re lucky you can damage him as he lunges for you and He will just run off after he knocks you done His hearing is on point! You should never run under any circumstances cause he will find you and you can’t  outrun him! He’ll find you just by you using the motion sensor too much,or if you hit your wrench of An object,just like how it’s described in the movie it is the “perfect organism”the way he moves just sells it too,the movement is humanoid like but he’s always hunched over and almost looks like he’s slithering,especially that razor tipped tail!! That’s all I wanna say about the Alien itself.

The problems: don’t get me wrong,this is not a perfect game and I’m gonna start with the elephant in the room..the games saving mechanic sucks.  This games auto saves only occur when you reach a new chapter of the story or whenever you go to a new level of Sevastopol. Instead you must look for saving phones scattered throughout the game. Now these aren’t as annoying as I thought they would be but still,I only had one issue with these stations but when that issue did happen I was piiiiiissed. I had to replay an entire half hour of the mission because of this! You’ll probably forget to save at times cause you’ll be busy trying not to die!

BUT…that’s not my biggest problem with game….the biggest problem is all the ridiculous and repetitive  backtracking this game has! It’s okay to backtrack once or twice in a game but after a while it just felt like the devs were just being Lazy! It gets boring and old real fast. Plus when you’re forced to go back to an area you explored an hour ago because the story requires it it can  get rather irritating And will likely make you go “ugh This again really?!” plus with the enemies in the way it may take longer!      Oh and Facehuggers are annoying little bastards too!

 

Verdict! Alien Isolation is a really good game ,hell it’s probably my second favourite horror game of all time…but those things I mentioned hold it back from being perfect,I’m giving Alien Isolation a solid 7.5 out of 10! And with that I also say you should definitely try it out,ESPECIALLY IF YOU LOVE THE HORROR GENRE LIKE ME! It’s worth the money and maybe even worth a replay or two!