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(Alien:
Isolation Peer Review)
[Caution! This article contains spoilers]
Alien Isolation marks Sega's next attempt at creating a game within the beloved Alien
universe. Unlike the first person shooter Colonial Marines that came before it, Alien: Isolation
takes up the mantle of the survival horror genre, allowing fans of the multi-mouthed xenomorph
to interact with their favorite killing machine in a way previously untouched by past games.
Isolation places the player in the shoes of Amanda Ripley, daughter to Ellen Ripley from the
original Ridley Scott film, as she hunts for answers to her mother's disappearance while aboard
the chaotic space docking-station named the Sevastopol. Once aboard the station, all hell breaks
loose, and Alien: Isolation hits full stride. Despite all of the positive remarks surrounding the
game up to its debut, the recent release of Alien: Isolation was met with more mixed reviews
than most had anticipated. Scores on the game where either very low or very high, with many
remarks on what made or broke the game's success. To better understand both sides of the
spectrum, I decided to conduct my own review, taking into account the points made by other
reviewers, while being sure to mix in my own analysis.
In reading the many reviews on this game, I noticed several repeated remarks, and after
awhile a clear list of pro's and con's started to emerge. The con's of this game have centered
mainly around the mechanics and style, complaining that the game drags on for too long, that
certain instances come off as inconsistent or illogical, and that the Alien AI is overly difficult to
the point of frustration. Pro's, on the other hand, seem to marvel at the design and feel of the
game, applauding the way Isolation mimics the same feel presented by Scott's original film, and
even counteract many of the con's, praising the game for its length and the relentlessness of the
Alien AI. With so many conflicting ideas, the question remains, "what is the deal with Alien:
Isolation?"
As the game begins, players get a definite feel for the dreary confines of life in space,
receiving a clear representation of the time and detail put into recreating that classic alien
atmosphere. Every thing from the box-bodied computer monitors and the cosset friendly
recording devises, to the terror beeping of the motion tracker are presented in pristine resolution,
leaving fans of the classic film with much to be excited about. As the gameplay continues,
gamers start to get a better since of Isolation style, showing definite inspiration from previous
survival horror titles while also establishing itself among the pack. Many times during game play
I found myself making comparisons between Isolation and horror success like Amnesia and the
original Dead Space. This being said, Isolation takes on its own unique fingerprint, forcing a
player to consistently think about how he/she can use the surrounding environment to survive.
This brings us to the first topic of debate, the games inconsistent and illogical style. While
playing this game, I can very well state that yes, there is a lot of inconsistency within the
campaign. However, yet have I come to determine that this is a bad thing. The inconsistency that
I noticed came from how the enemy AIs react to the environment as well as the player. Enemies,
whether they be Alien, human, or otherwise, often do not follow a linear progression of
movements that one might come to expect from other games. Instead, I found that each variation
of enemy had its own level of unpredictable behavior. I will note, that the humans and synthetics
are much more easy to figure out than the Alien is. Often time, humans will actually avoid
confrontation with you if you happen to draw a weapon that out fires theirs. Synthetics, while
hard to kill, do follow some patterns that bring to life the idea of them as programed robots,
allowing for a bit more flexibility when it comes to stealth. The Alien, however, is a true
nightmare. Playing this game on the hardest difficulty gave me the clearest perception of this.
There is no, solid, trial by error method to getting past it. Often times the alien will follow
different patterns than previously seen, sometimes mixing a few together much to the player's
dismay. This became the most apparent to me while attempting to evade the vent crawling devil
during the medical bay part of the game. After several deaths, I thought I had figured out a way
to slip past the alien. After hiding in a set of cabinets, I made my way slowly down a hall, and
into a room with no door. Hiding off to the side of the room's entrance, I patiently waited for the
alien to walk past and down the hall, as it had done previously, so that I might sneak past him
undetected. It passed by, so I began to make my move, only to be met with a horrific since of
panic as I watched the creature suddenly turn around and head back my way. Though I was able
to survive that particular instance with some quick thinking, later encounters of a similar nature
plagued me with many gruesome deaths. I also found that just because the alien didn't find you
in a hiding spot the first time around, doesn't mean it won't double back and sniff you out. The
longer you stay in a spot, the more dangerous it becomes. The name of the game is keep moving.
For these reasons, I never felt that the inconsistencies that some had complained about were a
problem, but instead only served to add to that horror feeling the game was trying to capitalize
on. That's, what I thought, made the game so great. The idea that you can't just run through
"baptism by fire" style, and hope to find some kind of pattern to take advantage of. It requires
thought. Now, obviously, the alien isn't a real AI by stretch of the meaning, but the mechanics of
this particular NPC are very note-worthy. No other times in the game did I feel like things were
in a negative form of inconsistency, and I certainly didn't feel like most situations were
"illogical." If you are arguing things are illogical based on anything other than gameplay, like for
example "the artificial gravity was too unbelievable," then you have lost my attention. As for
aspects relating directly to gameplay, I never really saw anything to the contrary. There were,
however, a few issues worth making comments on. While the graphics of this game were
beautiful, the portrayal of the characters in most all the cuts scenes were not. The character
model's motions lacked a human element, and their faces bore a striking resemblance to the
emotionless androids on board the Sevastopol. I thought this was a real shame, in part because
the rest of the game looked so good, but also because of how amazing the voice acting was.
Another issue was the animations, such as equipment interaction and death sequences. On almost
all of them, I noticed that the audio was slightly out of sync with the animation. At first I thought
this might be because I was running the game on minimal pc settings on a mid-grade gaming
laptop, but I later found out that others had experience this issue, even on consoles. Once I
realized this, it was like "once you see it you can never unsee it," and I found myself annoyed the
whole rest of the game. There were a few other minor bugs and glitches; levers lagging behind
after being pulled, the alien's head phasing through the locker door as it sniffed around (that one
scared me half to death), and a few others. While small mistakes in the grand scheme of things, it
would be nice if future updates fixed these problems.
Next up is the game's length. I will admit, this game is very long, longer than many others of a
similar genre that I have encountered, but given the nature of how the game is supposed to be
played, I'm not convinced this is a problem either. You can not run and gun in Alien: Isolation,
and no amount of memorization is going to help you either. We are a long ways off from the
days of sneaking around as solid snake, and as I said before, you will quickly learn that enemies
in this game do not follow a linear patrol path. This will inevitably lead to much frustration,
especially on hard mod, and ultimately is the main contributor to the length of the game. Where
you able to simply sprint through most areas like a Halo Reach Speed Run, then I think you'd
find this game to be much shorter, but thankfully the game forces players to step out of that
comfort zone. Of the reasons stated why this game suffered from a lengthy campaign, many
reviews claimed the final stretch left much to be desired. Gamespot's Kevin VanOrd complained
that there were too many points at which the story could have ended, stating, "it's an endless
meandering in between that proves troublesome... Alien Isolation limps to its frustrating ending
after many hours more than it can support." While I will admit that the back nine of Isolation
gets a little taxing, never did I feel as if I was about to see the final scenes of the game during the
instances he was referring to. Instead I thought it successfully lead me into a feeling of "the
worst is behind you" only to replace that feeling with the unsettling reality that there was much
to be done before Amanda gets to escape. During the reactor levels in particular, I actually felt
physically uneasy when I descended into the nest. Something about there being more than one
unstoppable, freakish killing machine, made my heart sink a little. Now the final few missions
did get a little frustrating because they had you walk through a few areas twice to complete some
aggravating objectives. I never want to activate another generator in a game so long as I live, but
I found that most of my frustration had stemmed out of my desire to finally beat the game rather
than from the level's design. You want to win!! By the end of this game, after besting every
crazy obstacle and watching most everyone die, you really get that desire to win. This adds a
new level of tension to the final objectives that, I personally believe, produces the opposite effect
of what other reviewers described. Looking back at it, the length really wasn't all that unfamiliar,
nor was the frustration at some of the missions. Dead Space 2 was crazy long, and I can't tell you
how many times I had to rage quit, especially while playing on some of the higher difficulties,
but in the end I enjoyed the overall game extremely. This is the same with Isolation. It doesn't
"drag on" or "struggle forward," but instead enlightens players to the reality that "things are
never that easy." This concept and game style is not an issue, but instead an expansion on ideas
that have been continually progressing forward since the days of the first horror games.
This leads us finally to the last topic of debate, the Alien itself. Spoiler, there isn't just one. Of
the reviews that didn't favor this game, most all of them agreed that the alien was quote "too
difficult." The fact that it could only be dispatched by a few items in the game was commented
as being an issue alone, but paired with the unrelenting nature of the beast, critics of this game
found more frustration in the creature's design than enjoyment. IGN's own Ryan McCaffery
highlighted this in his review, commenting on alien by stating, "And in hindsight, playing on
Hard difficulty which I only did because Isolation actually describes it as 'the recommended
way to experience the game' was a terrible decision. It means the Xenomorph can get you
anywhere at any time, giving you no opportunity to avoid death, and run you down if it hears so
much as a pin drop. Sure, a flamethrower blast or Molotov cocktail can ward it off for a moment,
but alien-repelling resources are extremely scarce. Dont make the same mistake I did." Here,
while commenting on the alien itself, Ryan also paints a picture of a game too hard to enjoy. this
is anything but the case. I have already elaborated some on the mechanics of the alien, and
despite the aggravation that it can create, and trust me it does, the alien of this game definitely
stands out among horror titles. It truly is as "artificially intelligent" as a NPC can get, proving to
be a worthy advisory for any gamer hardcore or otherwise. Many times I died at the hands of this
thing, and I mean many, causing me on numerous occasion to back away from my keyboard in
order to regain my wits. The alien sensory in this game, especially on hard mode, its very
sensitive, allowing for the menace to spot you a lot faster than other enemies. It is very fast as
well. If you are not close enough to an escape route, don't even bother running, because it will
catch you every time, and that's coming from experience. What actually intrigued me the most
about the alien was not just how it reacted with the player, but how it reacted with the
surrounding environment and additional NPCs. I quickly found that the best way to clear an area
of pesky enemies was to actually summon the alien via some commotion, and sit back in a locker
or storage box as it slaughtered everyone around. The only thing harder than trying to avoid the
alien, is trying to avoid it along with everyone else, so this method actually came in handy many
times. Watching the alien skulk about, sniffing and searching for its prey was also a sight to see.
This gave me chills on several occasions, especially when I found my hiding spots didn't always
hid me as well as I thought. All of this being said, the Isolation "Alien" is far from a "perfect
creature." After playing through the entirety of the game, I was a little let down at the limited
number of death animations that one could endure. When you die as much as I did, you see them
all pretty quickly, and with how merciless the thing was in the movies, I thought they could have
fit in a few more bad ass death scenes with the mix. Also there were a few time were the alien
reacted "irregularly" to the weapons intended for its dispatch, e.i. the shotgun and flamethrower.
Confusion and anger filled my face on several occasions after watching the alien shake off a
direct flame or shotgun blast and proceed to tear into me despite the fact that in all previous
encounters the attacks had successfully scared it off. Other times it would simply pause in place,
requiring an additional blast in order to send it scurrying up into a vent. At first I thought this
might be another unpredictable mechanic of the game, but the way in which they happened each
time eventually led me to believe a minor bug might be the real culprit. While these were issues I
noted, they did not happen often, did not hinder the gameplay or the title's feel, and can probably
be easily fixed with updates.
The reality of this game is, for lack of a better explanation, it simply isn't for everyone. The
game is well constructed. It provides unique gameplay and a challenge for all gamers... its a good
game, but if you aren't up for the intensity it brings, then you may not find yourself enjoying this
title. Players unfamiliar with the horror genre may not want to start with this Isolation, while
veterans of these games who are used to the classics like Resident Evil and Fear may not be
ready for the newish style this game provides. I believe it is for this reason, many were not able
to grant Isolation a high score. It wasn't that the game lacked qualities of a good title, it simply
just wasn't for them. That's fine in theory, but I don't want to confuse the people out there
wondering about this game, it really is amazing. Fans of the Alien franchise will find a fitting
story to the saga that brings to life everything they have come to love, while others will simply
find a thrilling game with plenty of enjoyable gameplay to keep them hooked. While there are
several things it could improve upon, Alien: Isolation brings revival and a fresh take on terror to
the survival horror genre and is guaranteed to scare the lights back on. I give it an 8 out of 10;
Great!