Alien Isolation

[ZombieHorde]

Alien Isolation is available on PC, PS3, PS4, X360, and XOne. I played it on the PS4 on the Hard difficulty, which is the difficulty suggested by the game. It's a well named difficulty.

Genre: Horror Survival with a huge emphasis on stealth.

Story: Fifteen years after the first Alien movie, Ripley's daughter, Amanda, is told a salvage team found her mother's recording from the Nostromo. Amanda travels to the space station that has the recording to investigate, but when she arrives, the space station is littered with body bags and the few remaining inhabitants are scared, shooting at shadows (and each other), and raving about some killer monster in the vents. What could it be?

Gameplay: First person view. You sneak, loot, craft, perform missions, play minigames, and occasionally fight. There are three types of enemies, and they act very different from each other. There are humans, who are all too often quick to turn violent out of fear, and if they hear you, they may never become "unaltered." They will search you out seemingly indefinitely, but they're not very perceptive, and they don't have a lot of life. Humans can be frightened into retreating. There are androids (synthetics), who are either very peaceful and helpful or extremely violent. They are about as perceptive as humans, but they are significantly stronger. They will get tired of looking for you though, and will return to their regular duties if finding you takes too long. And then there is the Alien. It's basically immortal, extremely fast, extremely perceptive, tricky, and learns from how you play. For example, if it ever sees you hiding under something, and you somehow manage to get away, it might look under things the next time it's looking for you. Sometimes it will come into the room you are in, search it, leave, and then poke its head back in five seconds later just to see if you left your hiding place. It's fucking crazy. The best AI I have ever seen in a game. Fortunately, you can craft items to help you out, such as distractions to get it go somewhere else and Molotovs to keep it at bay for a short while. On the Hard difficulty, you have to sneak almost everywhere, because moving quickly makes noise, and noise summons the Alien, and that is very, very bad. The game is very slow, but very intense, which was an extremely fun combo for me.

Presentation: Excellent. The space station design was heavily influenced by the Nostromo from the first Alien movie. The tech you use looks like the tech from the movies, such as the monochrome computers in the first movie and the motion sensor from Aliens. Fans of the Alien movies will absolutely love the presentation.

Replay value: You unlock a new difficulty, and there are other missions you can play, especially if you have the Nostromo edition. There's not a ton, but the main game is long.

Overall: I love this game. It's very intense on the harder difficulties, and I got adrenalin rushes just sneaking down a hall while being stalked on some levels. I highly suggest this game to anyone who loves stealth horror and the Alien movies.

Some people had a very hard time with the Alien, since it's so smart, and they felt like it was cheating, but if you pay attention and mix up your tactics, understand how your equipment actually works, you can evade the Alien fairly successfully. Sneak, hide, read the descriptions for all of your items, conserve your loot for later in the game, look at your map, use noise strategically, learn from your mistakes, go slow but steady, and you'll do fine.


Tailer

Gameplay: fighting low tech androids.

Gameplay: dealing with freaked out humans sometimes makes noise, which is often bad.

Gameplay: she should have sneaked or hid.

[NuclearDem]

1. I was pleasantly surprised that movie franchise games have actually been good recently.

At least in the cases of Isolation and Shadow of Mordor.

Solid proof that movie franchise tie-ins don't have to be low-quality shovelware solely intended to make a quick buck.

[ZombieHorde]

2. I agree.

Most games based off movies and most movies based off games are absolutely terrible. Alien Isolation is a major exception to that trend.

[hibbing]

3. Movie games

Not sure how old you two are, but I remember back in the day the movie games just absolutely blew. I just got finished with Shadow of Mordor and that game was so fun to play. I loved the trash talking warchiefs and the play was good. The only time I felt like I was grinding was when I was finishing the last hunting challenges to get 100%

Was the Alien game scary? I thought Last of Us was pretty damn scary.

Peace

[NuclearDem]

4. I grew up during the N64 era.

There were a lot of stinkers back then. The two that stick out in my memory as good tie-ins were Goldeneye and Spider-Man 2, though the former was almost exclusively because of its multiplayer.

[ZombieHorde]

5. I just started playing Shadow of Mordor today.

I played for about two hours and I'm enjoying it.

I don't find very many horror games to be scary. The Fatal Frame games are the scariest games I have ever played. P.T. was pretty damn creepy. Daylight was creepy because the sound was so great. I absolutely love The Last of US, but I didn't think it was scary except for a little bit in a section later on in the game.

Alien Isolation wasn't scary for me, but it was very tense. The Alien is extremely intimidating. It's very smart, ridiculously fast, and it's basically immortal. You feel so fucked when you're in a small room and it comes in. Maneuvering around/under tables while trying to stay out of its line of sight is a rush. Throwing a flare to distract it and then sneaking into a vent to get away is a blast. But it's not scary for me. Some people found the androids to be very scary, but others thought they were dumb. I liked them, but I didn't find them scary. There were a few times I found them intimidating though, especially when they were in large numbers. They can be killed, but they are very tough. I got adrenaline rushes slowly creepy through a hall, which is unusual for me. I think Alien Isolation is much more tense than The Last of US, but I don't know what scares you, so I don't know if you'll find it scary. Both games are fantastic.

[hibbing]

6. Cool

Thanks for the additional info, I'll put Alien on my list. I tend to go one game at a time until I finish it and then get the next one. I do like the tenseness of some games. Last of Us got pretty tense for me at a point and a bit scary. But scary is fun. Sometimes in a real tense part of a game I can only play for so long then need a break. I'll tell you what though, the games are one of few things these days that I can get my mind lost into and other things are not in my mind for the time I'm playing.


Some of the trash talk in Mordor is funny because some of the warchiefs are just dumb. I think one said something like "I'll kill you until I can't kill you anymore", which cracked me up. Some others I found myself giving the finger to and swearing at multiple times listening to their trash talk.

Peace

[ZombieHorde]

7. Play it on hard if you want a really intense experience.

You'll die a bunch on about four or five of the levels, but the others you can manage if you go slow and pay attention. Like most horror games, sound is very important.

The orcs are pretty funny. I spend most of my time on that game just sneaking around and stealth killing orcs, so I hear a lot of their conversations. After about four hours of play, I finally started doing actual story missions.