Played maybe 4-5 hours into it now, with the alien a constant threat. I find that the large breaks between saves is not adding to the game, but rather detracting it. At one point I had searched an area, gotten some items, opened up the map, then the alien got me, so I got to restart again. Even knowing where to go it was 10 minutes down the drain. Not sure I'll bother continuing on, as I find that so annoying because unlike, say, a combat game, there's nothing I learned when the alien killed me. I simply died, and get to randomly try again, so when I do so I end up just skipping the map and what I find and going straight to the goal and back.
If you didn't learn anything, that's on you, not the game. It has very specific rules to play by, if you don't follow them, you die. You know..kinda like the movie ;p
The saves were actually too many if you ask me. If you could save where ever you wanted, it would greatly diminish the hide and seek aspect of the game. The whole point is NOT to die, and or save when an enemy is close, it has the potential to ruin your game. Saving isn't necessarily the goal, getting to your goal is -- but if you are ever near an elevator, you can use that as a quick 'save' as well.
That being said, it was stated over and over that if you aren't into hiding and non confronting and slowly going through the game it probably wasn't for you.
Here's a hint though.
Unless you have the flamethrower handy, if the Alien is looking AT you, you are dead. No amount of running and hiding will help. If you are hiding behind something, in 'most' cases the alien will not see you, but will sense you and try to look for you, however he can be juked (even behind like tables/pool tables etc). Just don't walk or run and he won't hear you. It is all about hiding.
If you didn't learn anything, that's on you, not the game. It has very specific rules to play by, if you don't follow them, you die. You know..kinda like the movie ;p
The saves were actually too many if you ask me. If you could save where ever you wanted, it would greatly diminish the hide and seek aspect of the game. The whole point is NOT to die, and if you die and/or save when an enemy is close, it has the potential to ruin your game. Saving isn't necessarily the goal, getting to your goal is -- but if you are ever near an elevator, you can use that as a quick 'save' as well.
That being said, it was stated over and over that if you aren't into hiding and non confronting and slowly going through the game it probably wasn't for you.
Here's a hint though.
Unless you have the flamethrower handy, if the Alien is looking AT you, you are dead. No amount of running and hiding will help. If you are hiding behind something, in 'most' cases the alien will not see you, but will sense you and try to look for you, however he can be juked (even behind like tables/pool tables etc). Just don't walk or run and he won't hear you. It is all about hiding.
It will look there too..and it is much harder to tell. More than once it scared the sh!t out of me coming up behind me in them But yes using them to your advantage is key.
I don't feel particularly ashamed of my complaints with the game, as they are echoed precisely by ign and gamespot in their 5.9 and 6 reviews, respectively.
I finished The Last of Us on the grounded difficulty and when I got to the end had basically maxed out supplies. I'm not terrible at stealth games, but I simply don't find it fun to have 20 minutes of exploration and item picks up and map uncovering erased because of an alien that forces you to run from locker to locker. That's why avclub called it a stunningly realistic locker simulator. I enjoyed the game before the alien. The humans and droids I was totally fine with
The baffling thing is that the saves up until the alien were so frequent--and the game was easier, but when the alien is around it ramps up difficulty and ratchets down the save points.
EDIT: I decided to give this a final shot on easy, which is shameful. First time I've done a game on easy in like, forever. But honestly it's a lot more fun now!
After a 2 months hiatus, I decided to finish the game (was half way through, it seems).
Just finished and Steam now has 23 hs logged in (played on normal).
It's a good game, but you must like the genre.
This is not a shooter (except for a few parts against humans, droids). It gets a bit frustrating at times.
It's 25% off on Steam right now, if anybody wants to give it a try.
- (LIGHT SPOILERS) Through most of the game, the alien AI felt very realistic and believable. But, toward the end, when the difficulty was really ramping up, I felt like the alien knew "too much" about where I was hiding. It became incredibly frustrating. I wanted to pull my hair out once I realized that the alien pretty much insisted on being inside of whichever room I was in, even though he never actually saw me enter said room. If I was being tactful, he still never pinpointed me; but it was like he managed to "follow" me anyway when I changed rooms, if that makes any sense. It became PAINFULLY obvious when I was sitting inside a vent, and I watched the alien simply pace back and forth right in front of the vent for a couple minutes. It was so damn obvious that my illusion of the alien's intelligence basically broke down and the AI just felt plain unfair.
I avoided this one because it did look frustrating. A friend brought his PS4 over and fired this up on my projector and I think we had something like a 10-12 hour session of it, he played. We managed to completely ghost the game
right up until you're betrayed and you're flushed into space with the alien on board, escaping and getting back to the space station
without really using any of the gadgets at all, i think we had to use a single audio distraction to get past the first vent you have to blowtorch open, since it takes so damn long.
The AI does become very unforgiving even on just normal mode to the extent the alien feels like its cheating, the map and the objectives also start becoming a nightmare to work with, getting stuck several times trying to complete objectives.
Otherwise it's a fun game, at least to watch, I think I'd get too frustrated playing it honestly, and I quite like stealth games and try and ghost any that allow it. It sure is tense though, if you manage to suspend disbelief then it's one of the scariest games of recent times.
I think that they kinda ruined the tension when they introduced the flame thrower however, it became about mad dashes in the open and just spraying the damn thing every time it appeared, you had enough ammo to keep it at bay and leg it between cover which really turned the tables and for any competent gamer kinda makes the game lose its edge.
Will finish the last few chapters we have left some time soon, no real rush though.
I ended up finishing it on Easy and I MUCH preferred it on Easy. The thing is, once I got the flame thrower the game became far more enjoyable. On easy, using flamethrower sparingly, I still had tons and tons of ammo left. I only used a noise maker once in the game and it worked very badly, so never again.
The game wasn't scary, but it was tense.
A massive complaint I have and one others have had is that the mother f**ker doesn't stop. The game goes on. And on. And on. AND ON AND ON AND ON at the end, it's like when in hell is this game going to end? They keep tagging stuff onto the end
I think most peoples problems with this game is that 99% of games you can rush through if you want. This game you can't and it really pisses people off. My end game was around 40 hours on normal because I took my time and tried different strategies and hid and waited (A LOT), most peoples are 16-20. I LOVED this game. Frustrating? Yes. The whole point is, this thing is unstoppable creature with heightened senses. You spend a LOT of time learning it's movements and hiding before risking making a move. While it may seem random, it isn't.
People try to say the AI is cheating, but think about it, it's a computer, it always knows where you are. Rather than it know where you are though, they wrote it that it can hear noises with very good accuracy from far away. It also learns over the course of the game. If it catches you say in a locker a few times, it will start checking lockers if it senses you nearby (it won't always. )
Those that think it wasn't scary, then you were playing it wrong. (And pretty sure putting it on easy didn't help with that, that just meant you wanted to rush through it with the least amount of worry....). Tense and scary are exactly what this game is. The moments where it comes out of nowhere and impales you, the times where you are hiding in ducts and suddenly it's behind you and grabs you are 'holy sh!t" moments.
I will also say, there were multiple times I thought the game was over and there was more. I agree, at about the 3rd time I was like..holy hell, when does this end, but at the same time....aren't we always complaining games are too short? It's isn't THAT long of a game over all, I think it's just due to the type of game it is (+ the frustration of some areas) that you'd rather it end. I can definitely see where this game would not be enjoyable for some.
TL;DR - the game is about a highly sensed lifeform that you can't kill hunting you, and everyone wants it to be easy. People complain about bad AI all the time, this is one of the best AI ever created in a game w/o being OP. You just have to have patience, which most people simply don't have in games these days. (end fanboi)
Just thought I'd let people know that this game is on sale for only $10 on GetGames right now, cheaper than it's ever been. Totally worth it. http://getgamesgo.com/product/aliens-isolation
I think most peoples problems with this game is that 99% of games you can rush through if you want. This game you can't and it really pisses people off. My end game was around 40 hours on normal because I took my time and tried different strategies and hid and waited (A LOT), most peoples are 16-20. I LOVED this game. Frustrating? Yes. The whole point is, this thing is unstoppable creature with heightened senses. You spend a LOT of time learning it's movements and hiding before risking making a move. While it may seem random, it isn't.
People try to say the AI is cheating, but think about it, it's a computer, it always knows where you are. Rather than it know where you are though, they wrote it that it can hear noises with very good accuracy from far away. It also learns over the course of the game. If it catches you say in a locker a few times, it will start checking lockers if it senses you nearby (it won't always. )
Those that think it wasn't scary, then you were playing it wrong. (And pretty sure putting it on easy didn't help with that, that just meant you wanted to rush through it with the least amount of worry....). Tense and scary are exactly what this game is. The moments where it comes out of nowhere and impales you, the times where you are hiding in ducts and suddenly it's behind you and grabs you are 'holy sh!t" moments.
I will also say, there were multiple times I thought the game was over and there was more. I agree, at about the 3rd time I was like..holy hell, when does this end, but at the same time....aren't we always complaining games are too short? It's isn't THAT long of a game over all, I think it's just due to the type of game it is (+ the frustration of some areas) that you'd rather it end. I can definitely see where this game would not be enjoyable for some.
TL;DR - the game is about a highly sensed lifeform that you can't kill hunting you, and everyone wants it to be easy. People complain about bad AI all the time, this is one of the best AI ever created in a game w/o being OP. You just have to have patience, which most people simply don't have in games these days. (end fanboi)
Agreed. And im one of the impatient mofos who runs and guns things sometimes, gamers have to adapt to this game and for those who want a scare its well worth it.
Just thought I'd let people know that this game is on sale for only $10 on GetGames right now, cheaper than it's ever been. Totally worth it. http://getgamesgo.com/product/aliens-isolation
Honestly the DLC's aren't worth or add much to the game. Crew expendable is cool, but otherwise they are all pretty much the same thing and don't add any story to the game itself.
I'd just like to add that I love this game. Maybe ties shadow of mordor for the best new game I played in 2014. You really do have to learn to be patient with it though. It's not going to be fair at times, but then again the situation itself isn't supposed to be fair. Making it through Sevastopol alive is nothing short of miraculous considering the obstacles placed in front of you. That coupled with the absolutely incredible art direction in this game makes for a genuinely engrossing experience, which is something you don't get on this level very often anymore. They actually nailed the feel of the movie so perfectly that you just buy into the whole world almost immediately, which helps immensely in making you buy the alien as a credible adversary.
And the alien AI is brilliant. Not seeing it, but hearing it moving around you is an incredibly tense experience. Seeing it when you aren't ready can be outright terrifying. Sure, you can tell it's cheating sometimes, but for the most part it's pretty convincing as a menacing stalker. I loved how sometimes it would let you go through long segments of the game without making an appearance, but only making noises in the walls. I thought these segments were scripted, but some experimentation seems to indicate that this wasn't so. The game creators understood that not seeing the alien for a long time could be even more frightening than having it pop out of every vent, but that these lulls should happen randomly for best effect. Pretty awesome.
The game does get frustrating at times though, and it feels like it overstays it's welcome a bit toward the end. I played through 95% of the game and then stopped for like 2 months because I just couldn't care about what was going on anymore. This past weekend I picked it back up and discovered I only have about an hour of play time left before I beat it anyway. I really only beat it for the sake of saying I had done it though. I much prefer the more measured pace of the first two thirds of the game to the end. I liked it so much in fact that I may just play through the first parts of it again.
I know I'm late to the party, but I just finished this game, despite getting it back around Christmas.
Put about 40 hours into all told, taking my time, hiding for long stretches early on when I'm piss scared of the Alien , and replaying a few sections.
Hard Difficulty (or whichever difficulty they claim is the "Truest" experience)
---
I won't launch into a lengthy review since, well, it's not exactly a new game anymore.
But I will say that unequivocally, hands-down, this is the single BEST TRUE Survival Horror game I've played since the original Dead Space.
It's entirely different kind of game. It's not for everyone. Heck, it's almost more for stealth fans than survival horror fans. But if you happen to be the rare breed that loves stealth, horror, and of course, the Alien franchise (Alien and Aliens, specifically), it's a love letter to you.
I made the incredibly HUGE mistake of buying The Evil Within on release night instead of this.
The fact that that thoroughly mediocre mess scored such high marks while this was panned by the major media here is just laughable. 8.7 from IGN? GTFO with that. I guess Sega didn't initiate the proper marketing dollar sign handshake.
Hats off to PC Gamer for naming this 2014 GotY.
It's not perfect. The game can too often feel somewhat 'manufactured' in the fetching approach:
Go here, unlatch doo-hickey X. Oops, can't unlatch doo-hickey X until thingamajig Y is powered on. BUT, Thingamajig Y can't be powered on until Whatchamacallit Z has been zapped. Et cetera. It's not horrible, but during moments of extreme tension or when you have to backtrack through an area, sometimes it just seems artificially manufactured to lengthen gameplay.
The AI also has some wonky issues. The Alien AI is generally quite good, not overpowered, not dumb as rocks, but once you figure out his methods, you can hide behind almost anything, and unless he freezes right next to you, he likely won't spot you.
But again, other times, he's essentially glued to your ass. Not because you're making noise or there's any organic reason for him to patrol THAT EXACT section of the station you're on that you just arrived at, but because I suppose they wanted to up the "challenge", so instead of roaming the entire section of the station you were last in, he magically hovers around your 100x100 area at all times.
I'm also not a huge fan of checkpoint systems. And while A:I didn't exactly change that, I felt overall they were pretty fairly spaced and I never once was killed while waiting for one to save my game.
But as far as the good goes, pretty much everything else. The atmosphere is so meticulously and lovingly crafted it's a work of art unto itself. And that is probably THE single greatest, most important accomplishment in ANY HORROR EXPERIENCE. The Creative Assembly team was smart enough to know....it's not WHEN the Alien pops out at you that's the scariest....it's that feeling of dread when he doesn't! Knowing he could....and might....and will.......and theeeeeeeeen...doesn't. It's the bomb under the table not going off. It's fantastic. Finally a horror experience for adults. So refreshing.
One thing that kind of bothers me, that I'm not sure how I feel about, the ending. Basically:
The ending seemed unnecessarily vague. I mean, floating in space, and then a light on her face, and that's it? We KNOW Amanda Ripley-McLaren survives, and lives to be 'Age 66...and that was at the time of her death...' I hate to geek out about it, but it's pretty clear "Amy" lived to an older age. Unless they're retcon-ing the established plot from the films? But it's mentioned within the first 20 minutes of Aliens.
The ONLY other reason I can think for the "cliffhangar" ending is perhaps a jump off point for a sequel? Or is this addressed in DLC? Because otherwise, again, unless they're pretending the films didn't happen (which seems silly for a game that pretty much bases everything it is ON said films), it doesn't quite fit.
Anyway, loved, loved, loved the game. Not perfect. Some flaws here and there. And it's a style that simply won't do it for everyone. But I'm so happy games like this are still made. Such a relief after experiencing Colonial Marines and mediocre AvP games.
As an aside, although I know it will never happen, I'd love to see a "The Thing" game in the same style. Limited weaponry, great atmosphere, heavy emphasis on hiding, running, and trust. I think it could work, but it would have to be done right.
The ending seemed unnecessarily vague. I mean, floating in space, and then a light on her face, and that's it? We KNOW Amanda Ripley-McLaren survives, and lives to be 'Age 66...and that was at the time of her death...' I hate to geek out about it, but it's pretty clear "Amy" lived to an older age. Unless they're retcon-ing the established plot from the films? But it's mentioned within the first 20 minutes of Aliens.
The ONLY other reason I can think for the "cliffhangar" ending is perhaps a jump off point for a sequel? Or is this addressed in DLC? Because otherwise, again, unless they're pretending the films didn't happen (which seems silly for a game that pretty much bases everything it is ON said films), it doesn't quite fit.
It was clearly meant to leave it open for a sequel (and if they didn't have one, it doesn't hurt canon. The DLC do not have any more story, they are all basically 'point runs' (Think MGS VR Missions)that have their own story lines...but I say that loosely. I didn't really play through them except for Crew Expendable - but in none of them do you play Amanda
It was clearly meant to leave it open for a sequel (and if they didn't have one, it doesn't hurt canon. The DLC do not have any more story, they are all basically 'point runs' (Think MGS VR Missions)that have their own story lines...but I say that loosely. I didn't really play through them except for Crew Expendable - but in none of them do you play Amanda
Yes, my initial impression was "Well I hope there's a sequel!", but I was hoping that anyway honestly.
My only fear is they'll cave to the kiddies and try and make the next one more action oriented. Which wouldn't be horrible I guess, and I think could actually be done very well. Just keep the ammo limited and the feeling of tension and being outnumbered/overpowered and it would be as compelling as Aliens was to Alien.
I'm glad to know the DLC doesn't further the story any more, though.
Picked this up on steam last week for cheap. Not really digging it. Saves are too far from each other. I hate having to waste 10-15 minutes only to end up dying and then having to redo 10-15 minutes. This is the main reason I stopped playing RE games. Seems decent tho. Just need quicker/loser saves.
Picked this up on steam last week for cheap. Not really digging it. Saves are too far from each other. I hate having to waste 10-15 minutes only to end up dying and then having to redo 10-15 minutes. This is the main reason I stopped playing RE games. Seems decent tho. Just need quicker/loser saves.
Not to mention they appear on your map as big green diskette looking things.
Honestly I went into A:I expecting to hate the save point system because of all I'd read.
Playing the game on "Hard", outside of a small handful of tough parts (medical!), I never felt like there weren't enough or I had to backtrack way too far after dying.
In my opinion, it was actually very well implemented.
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