Alien Isolation, developed by The Creative Assembly, published by Sega, distributed by 20th Century Fox in 2014. All game logos, imagery and audio used in this review is copyrighted by the aforementioned right holders. Alien: Isolation is trademarked by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
Introduction
I didn't really follow the advertisments that usually preceed releases of the magnitude of Alien: Isolation. So it kind of hit me as a suprise when I saw it on Steam's frontpage. As an avid lover of Alien and even Aliens I was intrigued by the idea of a surival horror game in that universe - it seemed to be a logical choice. Now that I've finished the campaign on hard difficulty I'd like to share my thoughts on this game and my experience playing it.
Regarding spoilers: In this review I will only mention things occuring during the intro. Of course I have to talk about the Alien a bit, but I avoid plot points and only talk about the gameplay. If you want to be extra careful maybe avoid the Game&Movie section.
How does it play? Is it scary? And finally - would I recommend it?
Basic Setting
The game is set chronologically between Alien and Aliens. You play the character Amanda Ripley - Ellen Ripley's daughter. She's sent on a mission to recover the Nostromo's flight recorder which was dropped off at Sevastopol, a station in deep space orbiting a Gas giant. As you can imagine, things start to go downhill soon.
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| Sevastopol - A deep space station |
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| The main character - Amanda Ripley |
The Game
From there on out the game is survival horror, reminiscent in some ways of Amnesia - The Dark Descent. On Hard mode enemies are much tougher than you are - fighting usually isn't your best option. Even though you can be armed quite heavily don't expect Resident Evil gameplay with enemies falling left and right.
Gameplay
You make your way around the station and sometimes even outside of it, saving at regularly positioned check points. On your journey you collect ammo, scrap, sensors and other parts with which you'll be able to craft more complex devices. The game features a crafting system which is very basic - you select an item to build and comit parts to it, and when you got everything you craft it. A medikit, for instance, is built from 10 x scrap, 1 x SCJ Injector, 1 x Compound B and 1 x Bonding Agent. However, as soon as you comit a part to one item, you won't be able to use it for something else.
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| Crafting - Not the cleanest interface but it works. |
When you encounter enemies, you either sneak around them, hide from them, find an alternative route or confront them. However I only need one hand to count the amount of times where I found myself doing the latter. I usually fought only when one of the enemy types I was able to defeat suprised me.
You will start generators, hack doors and terminals with a variety of mini games of increasing difficulty.
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| The stealthy gameplay get's spiced up by minigames and other tasks. |
The fact that opening/hacking doors or performing other tasks require more user input than just pushing a button on the controller/keyboard lead to some tense situations. In my case I spotted the Alien on a gallery overlooking a room with stairs leading down to the place where I was about to start hacking a door.
Your motivation for running around Sevastopol stems from the kind of quests you would expect. Fetch this, activate that, reroute those. It didn't get boring though, the plot that unfolds via cutscenes keeps you going and is well paced. Variation in the environment and the type of enemies you encounter is also a great help. It keeps the tension up. There's always a good reason why X has to be done right now and fast. That being said, you'll be doing a lot of backtracking. You'll be running through the same locations a lot. Even though they change over time and new parts become accessible it's noticeable. But it fits in the story and so it did not bother me. If your the kind of person that looks out for collectibles this even benefits you. When returning to already known locations you might go exploring again, some new parts might be accessible and you might even find the hidden Nostromo Logs.
In general exploration is rewarded. Be it with parts for crafting or blueprints for items to craft, or the computer terminals and audio tapes which tell the story of what happened on Sevastopol.
What got me a bit impatient by the end is something else. If you have, lets say, a U shaped corridor where you start on the top left, and your objective is on the other end of the U (maybe even farther away) it will happen a lot that after completing that object, your next objective will be at the top left again. And I'm kidding you not, sometimes you might even have to go back to the other end again. Yeah. That happens and especially during later stages of the game it felt a bit like stretching the playing time. It even seems forced sometimes. Imagine a table lying on it's side blocking the lower half of the entrance to a room you got to get in. Probably not higher then you thighs when you stand up. But you cannot just jump over it. Noooo. You have to follow the goddamn corridor until you get to the unobstructed doorway.
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| I heared you like scripted events... well, here's some and more! |
That is probably the biggest issue I have with the game. The basic layout of the maps is very linear. While you can just stroll of the path and go around exploring to other areas there's usually one particular path that you have to take if you want to complete a mission. Sometimes there are ventilation shafts or alternative routes but not in general. This I think is due to the fact that the game relies heaviliy on scripted events to give you these sweet horrific moments you are all looking for in a survival horror game. And of course, to make it harder to bypass the fucking Alien roaming through said corridor you have to pass through. Yes it allows for really great and tense situations like hiding in a locker in the last second or hearing the Alien closing in from behind while knowing that there's sooooo much of that corridor left before there's a place to hide. But I'm not too sure how much I'd like to replay the game. I tried and watched some let's plays on youtube, especially the parts where tension is high and I still feel that tension. So that's a plus (the soundtrack greatly benefits this). But I can't really be bothered to do all that backtracking again. Maybe on easy to find the Nostromo logs. Or just watch my favorite moments in Let's plays on youtube.
But the game never got boring despite of this.
Frustration?
One thing that seems to have frustrated many people is the Alien. It gets a bit tedious, having to pass corridors where it's just running up and down. Waiting until it leaves, which sometimes probably took a minute. Sneaking through the corridor. Then having it drop down from a ventilation shaft in the same room and instakill you because you couldn't hide somewhere fast enough. Yes, the Alien immediately kills you. If it spots your from a distance it charges up to you - and you're gone. There were sections in the game I probably had to do 20 times or more to get from one checkpoint to the next. Yes this can be frustrating, but it felt more rewarding to me than anything else. However, finally having gotten through feels good. I think a lot of the "frustration criticism" stems from reviewers getting in gun fights with other enemies, or trying to do a section fast (walking/running, not using places to hide). The noise attracts the Alien, making certain passages even harder than they already are. I avoided that kind of behaviour and it was still challenging.
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| You'll see that smile a lot. And I mean a LOT. |
The Alien and other enemies
So the alien isn't your only enemy you might ask? No it is not, you will be fighting, or rather sneaking by, different types. They all tie neatly into the overall story, it does not seem forced. Of course the Alien is one of your enemies - The Creative Assembly seems to have realised that it's biggest selling point would be lost if it were your only adversary. It is a scary creature, but why do we think of it as that? Sure it looks terrifying but that's not enough. In the movies it is almost undefeatable, lurking in the dark and always a menace - even if it's not on screen. That's the feeling I got from playing Alien: Isolation, and it remained like this during most of the campaign. This is one of the many mistakes that Aliens: Colonial Marines has made. By mowing down one after another even the most terrible creature loses it's terror. However, in Alien: Isolation it is used in a way that keeps the atmosphere of horror alive until late in the game. There's some oversaturation, but it was fine for me.
How Did They Accomplish That?
The Alien is, for instance, attracted by loud noises such as gunshots or even running. During sections of the game it is always nearby, preying on you, searching for you, maybe even playing with you. You can hear it crawling through the maintenance tunnels or walking through the corridors. You're usually able to tell where (and how close) it is by sound alone. While you're in a room it might drop out of the ventilation system. Your best bet to avoid a confrontation is to find a place to hide and wait until it has moved on. You'll be standing in lockers a lot, watching the beast as it tries to find your hiding place. You might even have to hold your breath. All that is supported by a dynamic music system, increasing the volume and tension of the music according to the things happening. Of course at some point you realise how the basic idea behind the AI works. That doesn't change the fact, that the way it is done produces tense moments. Even after that realisation I still found myself reluctant to leave a good hiding-place.
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| Hiding in lockers - something you will do a lot. You might even have to hold your breath. |
Time For Completion
On hard it took me 28 hours to finish the game. That seems like a lot, at least to me. People have done it in under 20 on medium. So where does all this time come from? Well the plot is really pretty extensive. At some point in the game I thought - wow this is cool, this is a great finale! And then it went on for another 14 hours. Yeah, didn't expect that. There's a lot happening, there's a lot of plot. That motivates a lot of the backtracking, sure, but the story kept me going. However, I'd say that at least 5 hours come from redoing certain passages over and over again. Maybe even more, hard to say. So if you're a better gamer then me you can probably get the game done on hard in about 20 hours.
What Is Survival Mode?
I'd heavily recommend not playing this mode before you've finished the campaign. Not because of plot spoilers but rather because you'll face the Alien again and again. If you want the campaign to be exciting this is the wrong start. It might numb your experience if you get too used to the Alien.
In this game mode you basically are presented with certain challenges and can compare your performance with an online leaderboard (who's finished them the quickest). You start from a safe room where you can gear up. As soon as you push a button, the timer starts and the Alien is out to hunt you.
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| The survival mode leaderboard. I failed hard. |
Controls
Gamepad
I've played the whole game with an xbox gamepad. Since I was sitting in front of a 50" TV with my headphones on this is my preferred method of control. The controls are nice and responsive, and the standard layout worked well. There were no problems with the assignment of multiple actions to the same button, because these actions correspond to entirely different situations. The left trigger, for instance, is used for aiming or to accomplish certain actions with levers - no overlap there. As far as I can tell it's the same for the rest of the buttons.
The usual problem of gamepads, the aiming precision, wasn't that much of an issue because Alien: Isolation is no first person shooter. When I had to aim though there were some shots I wouldn't have missed with a mouse.
Keyboard and Mouse
The keys are fully rebindable and on PC - if you want precision - this is the preferred method of control. As a nice touch all the terminals you encounter in the game require you to use buttons all around the keyboard (e.g. page up/page down for scrolling text). Very fitting for these mostly text only interfaces.
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| One of the terminals you encounter. This one is from the very beginning of the game. |
Graphics
The graphics on PC are top notch, and the game runs smoothly at 60fps with highest settings in 1080p on my system (see below). The game gives you a lot of configuration options to optimize your experience. The dynamic lights are especially impressive, however, I wonder why the player character does not cast a shadow. Same for other characters. A missed chance in my opinion, and immersion breaker to some.
my system
chip: AMD FX-6300, 6x3.5GHz (overclocked to 3.8GHz)
graphic: NVIDIA GeForce GTX660 Ti, 2GB dual SLI
mbo: ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
ram: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600
disc: game run from 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200
Bugs
During my play-through the game crashed only once on me. However, sometimes there seemed to have been an issue with scripted dialogue. It should have started at a certain point but did not. This didn't happen very often and I only noticed it while redoing parts of a mission.
Game and Movie?
"Spoiler" Warning: I don't talk about plot points here, but in the middle of the paragraph I refer to plot devices - so you might want to skip this section. To me Alien: Isolation is a perfect video game sequel to the movie Alien. It stays true to the latter's overall atmosphere and feeling but tells its own story. Of course there are plot devices that are inherent to the Alien movieverse, so central to the tale that you couldn't make a game without them. You'll find those here. All in all I'd say that the game's plot stands on it's own and is a nice addition to the existing lore. I feel that gamers who like the movie will not be offended by Alien: Isolation.
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| Some locations are reminiscent of the movies. |
Conclusion and Recommendation
I'd recommend Alien: Isolation to gamers who
...like survival horror games where you are weak and your enemies are strong
...have no issues with backtracking
...have no issues with a lot of scripted events
I enjoyed the experience. After playing my first 7 hours I finished the rest of the game in 2 sessions รก 10.5 hours. I would have wished for a little less obvious backtracking (or play-time stretching) and more alternative routes. I played with my headphones on in front of a large TV. I was immersed in the atmosphere of terror and fear the game created and could not stop playing. And while it was not jump-scary to me, it certainly had me on the edge of my seat at many times throughout the game. Even in the later stages there was still an uneasy feeling when hidden in a locker with the Alien directly in front. Yes, I definetly liked this game.
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