Poll: Alien Isolation (spoilers)

What did you think of the game?

  • Liked

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • It was fairly average

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Disliked

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Can’t decide how I feel about it

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Haven’t played it, plan to in the future

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Haven’t played it, never plan to

    Votes: 5 50.0%

  • Total voters
    10

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,674
2,824
126
WARNING: spoilers follow

So I just finished playing Alien Isolation for the first time and wanted to talk about it


What I liked

The game has absolutely beautiful graphics especially lighting and flames. Also painted metal surfaces look incredibly realistic. It runs extremely well with very fast performance. I ran it maxed on a 2060S @ 2560x1440 capped to 63FPS and it never dropped below this the entire game, with pretty low GPU load too. Also the mouse feels incredibly smooth and responsive.

The set pieces/environments/vistas are very atmospheric. Like looking outside over the station while the sun/planet drenched it with light. Or walking outside the station in space. The level design feels very Doom 3-esque in many places. Also the 1970s tech vibe was nostalgic to the movies.

Scavenging parts encouraged exploring every nook & cranny which I like in a game. Makes it worthwhile for the player to visit the darkest corners which increases map immersion. Crafted items were fun to use like throwing an EMP into several Joes and then whacking them dead with the wrench. Also the guns have a decent feel to them, as does the hacking symbol mini-game.

The sound effects are good, especially the spatial positioning of the Alien in the ducts to make it easier to tell where it is.

$2 was an absolute scream of a deal for the 12-15 hours content. It’s nice whenever this happens because it makes up for some of the overpriced games I’ve purchased in the past.


What I didn’t like

I played it on “novice” and found the experience ranged from challenging to very hard to unfair. If any game (not just this one) chooses to be difficult that’s absolutely fine, but if it also includes an “easy” option or equivalent, said option needs to accurately reflect that.

Stealth was hit & miss and it’s still not clear if light even makes a difference, or whether line of site is all that matters. That and what the game constitutes as “noise”. The motion sensor makes noise because the load screen told me, but apparently loudly banging a locker door doesn’t. It really needs a stealth indicator to give player feedback.

The length seemed really padded in some cases due to backtracking of station regions. They should’ve only had one transport hub and made better level pathing so you bypassed more previous content, and didn’t need to revisit areas as much. And the save system really needs normal checkpoints added, if only for lower difficulties.

Dat ending. After 12-15 hours all we got was a few-second cutscene of Ripley floating in space with a light on her visor. At least confirm it was a Weiland-Yutani ship that picked her up, which we all suspect happened.


Conclusion

This is an extremely hot & cold game that’s never boring as a result. I still don’t know if I actually liked it or not. All I know is that I wanted to keep playing for hours at a time despite rage-quitting several times, including completely uninstalling it once. I was saved from myself by a robust backup system which restored everything completely within minutes.

How about you?
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
well, i'll be honest, i like the film Alien, i liked a few of the franchise, and i thought the bundle was really great, but .. im not playing it. It's just not my kind of game. Stealth annoys me, i like to boom bang splat stuff.
 

rstrohkirch

Platinum Member
May 31, 2005
2,423
367
126
I liked the game but I felt that the mechanic was over used by about 3/4 of the way in. They just needed to introduce a few more game play mechanics or swap off the alien a bit more.