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RTTP: Alien: Isolation - Ten Years On

I finished it on Nightmare mode back in 2019 and on Hard this time around. I don't think having a working motion tracker is that much of an edge; its beeping will give you away, so you end up using it rarely anyway. And as for taking more damage from enemies, it's not that big of a difference, since you should be mostly avoiding all damage anyway.

I am curious to check out the alien Untethered/Realistic Mods. The AI in my latest playthrough was awesome. It seemed to figure out that I would immediately make moves after it jumped back in the vents, so it started jumping up only to jump right back down, knowing it'd draw me out!
The most annoying and difficult aspects for me were the complete lack of resources and how much more aggressive the alien was. Nightmare just barely gives you what you need to survive. I remember there were a few select sections of the game where the alien would not fuck off and give me some breathing room.
 
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Amazing atmosphere and art direction but absolutely hate Hide & Seek gameplay. The alien AI often got stuck in silly loops while I sat in a locker, then got OHKO'd and had to re-do 20 minutes of painstaking gameplay.

I admire it on many levels but absolutely "not for me" gameplay wise as they say.
 

Grildon Tundy

Gold Member
A lot of people had issues with the hide-and-seek-and-fail gameplay (myself included), but the tools are there to be more proactive. Granted, if enough people have the same complaint, the game likely could've communicated and encouraged the options better. It's one of the pros and cons inherent in immersive sims, imo.
 
A lot of people had issues with the hide-and-seek-and-fail gameplay (myself included), but the tools are there to be more proactive. Granted, if enough people have the same complaint, the game likely could've communicated and encouraged the options better. It's one of the pros and cons inherent in immersive sims, imo.
I feel like I gave the tools available a fair shot but I loathe "unreliable" scenarios in games. I guess it's more horror that action x does not always yield outcome y but from a pure game perspective, I just thought it was frustrating and ultimately boring because the AI so transparently does its "nope lol" thing. I'm in the minority there I think but I tried several times because goddamn the world is gorgeous and the whole intro sections is cool.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Alien: Isolation is simply a magnificent game. Not only gameplay wise, but technically it is also a incredible tour de force, thanks to the Cathode Engine:
  • One of only two (?) games on PS360 to employ PBR
  • The only first person game to do so on these platforms
  • Runs like a dream on most hardware whilst looking this good
  • Multiplatform - Initially PC, PS4/XBO, PS3/360, it also got ported to Switch, IOS, Android.
Its 10 years old but it still looks baller. Such a shame the engine wasn't used more often.
 

Grildon Tundy

Gold Member
An absolutely fabulous game... that would never get made in a million years in the creatively bankrupt, greed obsessed gaming industry as it stands today.
A game based on a movie franchise in most other cases is a prime example of the industry's creative bankruptcy. That Alien:Isolation isn't is further evidence of the love that went into making it.
 

Tazzu

Member
I'm still in shock that a game like that was even made. We are truly blessed.

Edit: Interesting what you say about the AI, I really felt that it was the weakest part of the game. Precisely because it felt really gamey. I hear the AI mod on PC completely changes how it plays. I know there is a story explanation for why it acts the way it does, but it still made the encounters feel staged.
 
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I'm still in shock that a game like that was even made. We are truly blessed.

Edit: Interesting what you say about the AI, I really felt that it was the weakest part of the game. Precisely because it felt really gamey. I hear the AI mod on PC completely changes how it plays. I know there is a story explanation for why it acts the way it does, but it still made the encounters feel staged.
I actually tried the AI mods on PC as well when trying to give it another shot. It plays differently but still mostly results in that corny haunted house feeling where, at least to me, ultimately most player decisions and use of consumables feels superficial because there's always an actor behind thevset waiting to go BOO! GOTCHA! arbitrarily.

I remember a specific sections where I hid in several lockers for minutes at a time, crouch walking, using consumables etc. and it all always ended in the same cheesy vent pop even though the alien had clearly "gone to search elsewhere". Uninstalled lol.
 
My god I loved this game. My only annoyance was that the Alien would survive point blank shots with the shotgun.
Disagree. It would defuse a lot of the tension and "flight-or-fight" mode. Imo your weapons inventory acting more as a temporary "repellent" was a good design choice.

Otherwise you wouldn't be feeling nearly as much dread and threat whenever you encountered it.
 
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Grildon Tundy

Gold Member
I would've loved if Creative Assembly made an Aliens-themed game as a sequel to this one. Following the movies' and Resident Evil series' trajectory of starting off survival horror and moving naturally to action horror. If they could nail Alien, they could nail Aliens.

Too bad Sega entrusted Gearbox with Aliens: Colonial Marines a year prior in 2013, and we all know how that turned out.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Disagree. It would defuse a lot of the tension and "flight-or-fight" mode. Imo your weapons inventory acting more as a temporary "repellent" was a good design choice.

Otherwise you wouldn't be feeling nearly as much dread and threat whenever you encountered it.
Yeah but it comes at the cost of continuity with the movies where the alien is not gun and shotgun proof.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Arguably the best game based on a movie franchise. I can’t believe it’s been a decade. I really want to reinstall and revisit but goddamn I just have too much on my plate already.

And I found the Working Joes to be way scarier than the Xenomorph. They’re fucking relentless with that fast walk and their dead ass crash test dummy eyes.
 

Perrott

Gold Member
I would've loved if Creative Assembly made an Aliens-themed game as a sequel to this one. Following the movies' and Resident Evil series' trajectory of starting off survival horror and moving naturally to action horror. If they could nail Alien, they could nail Aliens.

Too bad Sega entrusted Gearbox with Aliens: Colonial Marines a year prior in 2013, and we all know how that turned out.
Yeah, it would have been amazing...

... to bad that 20th Century Games seems so focused on licensing the IP to mediocre, no-name studios, particularly this one that it is going to blow the opportunity for an Aliens survival horror game:

 

Grildon Tundy

Gold Member
Yeah, it would have been amazing...

... to bad that 20th Century Games seems so focused on licensing the IP to mediocre, no-name studios, particularly this one that it is going to blow the opportunity for an Aliens survival horror game:

That team (Survios) made Creed: Rise to Glory for VR, which is one of the better-regarded VR games, and took steps to give you the experience of being "Rocky". There's hope! Time will tell.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Disagree. It would defuse a lot of the tension and "flight-or-fight" mode. Imo your weapons inventory acting more as a temporary "repellent" was a good design choice.

Otherwise you wouldn't be feeling nearly as much dread and threat whenever you encountered it.
You’re thinking of the flamethrower. That repelled the alien away.

I’m talking about the shotgun. If you were shooting with the shotgun you were dead once it recovered.
 
You’re thinking of the flamethrower. That repelled the alien away.

I’m talking about the shotgun. If you were shooting with the shotgun you were dead once it recovered.
I'm thinking of both. Yeah, the flamethrower would effectively ward it off while the shotgun was useless. It made you feel vulnerable.
 
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Perrott

Gold Member
That team (Survios) made Creed: Rise to Glory for VR, which is one of the better-regarded VR games, and took steps to give you the experience of being "Rocky". There's hope! Time will tell.
Sure, it's one decent VR game, but you know, virtual reality games today are kind of the equivalent to the handheld console adaptations of the 2000s and early 2010s - where you could kinda get away with making what in a home console environment would be a very barebones experience because "hey, it's a handheld game".

I'm also salty because I have this incredible pitch & design for a horror Aliens immersive sim that it's never going to see the light of day now that Survios got the contract for making an Aliens horror game already.
 
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Chuck Berry

Gold Member
fuck you OP

vkqZrNV.jpg
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Must redownload this, as a massive Alien fan and who the fuck isn't tbf, I was loving it up until a certain section with a load of Androids that kept fucking me up over and over, uninstalled it and never went back... (Pretty much what I'm about to do on RE4 FFS, fucking horde waves in a shack is doing my head in), you'd think this would be an easy shoe-in for VR from Sony or is the studio no longer around
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
I think with mods that tweak a few things. its quite possibly one of the greatest video games ever made.
Speaking of mods, is there any sort of checkpoint mod or anything? I know it sort of defeats what they’re trying to do, but one thing that still puts me off of this game is how brutal the checkpoints are, and how much progress you can lose when you die. I’d be much more willing to play through it if I could lose less progress after each failure.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Bumping this thread.

The game is currently on sale on Xbox for just $9.99. Runs at a flawless 60 FPS with FPS boot.

The complete edition with the DLC is $12.99.

 

Phobos Base

Member
Alien Isolation is a perfect 10 hour game. My biggest issue was that you reach the logical conclusion at the 10 hour mark but then find you're still only halfway through the game. Towards the end, the reach the lift/oh it needs power/oh the door to the switch is locked/oh the bridge that leads to the key is down gameplay loop gets rather tedious.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
I must be one of the few people that loved Alien and hated Aliens. Alien was serious psychological horror. Aliens was just a goofy Hollywood action movie.
Those movies are like two different universes to me, in one universe I love Alien the most, the other I love Aliens the most, and for other reasons.

..and, in both universes I enjoyed Alien 3 as an isolated experience, while denying the existence of all other Alien moves..
 
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Ulysses 31

Member
In Alien 1 it's stated that nothing could kill it. They changed this for Aliens to get shooting action in there. It was originally never intended to be killed easy with gunfire.
What was Ash basing it on that it can't be killed? He also called it a perfect organism which is obviously questionable. I think Ash's admiration for the Alien clouded its judgement.
 

Grildon Tundy

Gold Member
In the original Alien, do they say it can't be killed under any circumstances? Or that they can't kill it given their current situation (lack of weapons, and/or the acid would create a hull breach)? I thought it was the latter--not that it was invincible.
 
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