Alien: Isolation

[JayDeath]

The system specifications were released!

Minimum PC Specifications are:

Operating System: Windows 7 (32bit)
Processor: 3.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
RAM: 4GB RAM
Hard Drive: 35GB required for installation
Video Card: 1GB DirectX® 11 (AMD Radeon HD 5550 or Nvidia GeForce GT 430)
Broadband Internet Connection

Recommended PC Specifications are:

Operating System: Windows 7 (64bit)
Processor: AMD: Phenom II X4 955 – 4 Core, 3.2 GHz or INTEL: Core 2 Quad Q9650 – 4 Core, 3.0 Ghz
RAM: 8GB RAM
Hard Drive: 35GB required for installation
Video Card: 2GB DirectX® 11 (AMD GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series or Nvidia gpu: GeForce GTX660)
Broadband Internet Connection

I preordered yesterday. The game looks pretty good from what I watched on YouTube. I'm excited!

[Turtle]

I played it at PAX, pretty sure it was the same as the E3 demo.

It's pretty good, although it could use a lot of tweaking, they did get a lot of things right. The atmosphere is great, could be a little darker. The Alien is definitely scary and all the effects associated with it are perfect. A nice rumble as it walks, great sounds.

One problem was that it's actually very easy to hide from the alien. You can literally be on the other side of a bench or desk and constantly peek over at it, moving to the other side as it walks around.

It's also impossible to get away once spotted, although I heard that they have a crafting system that lets you build and use distractions and deterrents to help with that. But none of that was shown.

So right now, the game can be exactly what we wanted, but I also see a lot of room where it can utterly fail.

[Chaz]

This is it. This is the first game in my career as a PC gamer that I have been unable to meet the minimum system requirements on. My poor old computer's finally ready to be put out to pasture.

Figures that the one that did it was the first Alien game that looks like it might get it right.

[Vorret]

This is it. This is the first game in my career as a PC gamer that I have been unable to meet the minimum system requirements on. My poor old computer's finally ready to be put out to pasture.

Figures that the one that did it was the first Alien game that looks like it might get it right.

Those minimum requirements are actually.... quite low. Your computer must be at least 7-8 years old and must have problem playing most modern games !

[Chaz]

It's mostly the video card. I've got:

-Q6600 @2.4 ghz
-GTS 250 1gb
-3gb RAM

I know it's due for an upgrade, and that's hopefully in the cards in the next year, but not yet. Surprisingly, it's been doing really well. Before this, I've been able to run everything I've wanted to at pretty high settings and mostly reasonable frame rates. Granted, I haven't tried Battlefield 4 or Skyrim yet, but it cranked through Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite pretty well.

[GreenGoo]

This is the team of 3 vs the evolving monster alien, is that right?

[Scoop20906]

This is the team of 3 vs the evolving monster alien, is that right?

Nope, thats Evolve which isn't coming out until Spring. That game looks fun too.

[Scoop20906]

I played it at PAX, pretty sure it was the same as the E3 demo.

It's pretty good, although it could use a lot of tweaking, they did get a lot of things right. The atmosphere is great, could be a little darker. The Alien is definitely scary and all the effects associated with it are perfect. A nice rumble as it walks, great sounds.

One problem was that it's actually very easy to hide from the alien. You can literally be on the other side of a bench or desk and constantly peek over at it, moving to the other side as it walks around.

It's also impossible to get away once spotted, although I heard that they have a crafting system that lets you build and use distractions and deterrents to help with that. But none of that was shown.

So right now, the game can be exactly what we wanted, but I also see a lot of room where it can utterly fail.

Turtle, thanks for posting your thoughts. I'm trying to temper my expectations because I agree that in the videos it did looks fairly easy to hide from the Alien. I hope they have a difficulty slider to ramp things up a bit from console newbie to handcore pc gamer. I'm worried that they are over promising but I'm buying it no matter what. Playing this in the dark is going to be awesome!

[GreenGoo]

This is the team of 3 vs the evolving monster alien, is that right?

Nope, thats Evolve which isn't coming out until Spring. That game looks fun too.

Right, I thought the name changed again.

So is this an Aliens brand game then? I'm not familiar with the name/game.

[Scoop20906]

This is the team of 3 vs the evolving monster alien, is that right?

Nope, thats Evolve which isn't coming out until Spring. That game looks fun too.

Right, I thought the name changed again.

So is this an Aliens brand game then? I'm not familiar with the name/game.

Not Aliens, but Alien.

If you enjoyed the atmosphere of the original classic Alien, then you might enjoy this game. The developer is dedicated to trying to capture that tension in a game. Here's a play through video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGpwonNgFSY

To show how serious they are, there is a pre-order DLC that brings back the voice talents from the original movie including sigourney weaver. Pretty neat stuff.

[Holman]

Very positive RPS review here.

I'm so tempted, but it's so expensive.

For the sake of "balance" (or something), here's the more negative Ars Technica review.

[Scoop20906]

I got the version with the season pass. I liked that they would have DLC with different maps you must escape from with different objectives. Kind of like the end of Alien. I used the discount from green man gaming that got it down to $64.99. This game seems like a unique experience so I'm going all in on it.

[Holman]

I took the plunge because I had some game money burning a hole in my Paypal. Also, I re-watched a big chunk of Alien last night, and I simply couldn't not buy this game after that.

I hope the positive reviews have it. Please be good and scary, solitary alien!

[JayDeath]

Very positive RPS review here.

I'm so tempted, but it's so expensive.

For the sake of "balance" (or something), here's the more negative Ars Technica review.

Kinguin.net has a killer deal for keys for Alien:Isolation. The site is totally legit. Are we allowed to advertise sites that sell Steam keys? I'm not looking to break any rules here.

[JayDeath]

Apparently the game is available now. Anyone playing yet? I'm stuck at work and I have to preload when I get home.

[Scoop20906]

UGH! Im stuck on vacation. Actually I'm okay with that. Love to hear what you guys think playing tonight. I'll get to check it out tomorrow night.

[Holman]

I've had about an hour with it, although I won't be able to play much more today.

It's very atmospheric, starting with a long rendered intro that's actually similar in tone to the opening of Aliens before we ever meet the marines. Eventually you find yourself on the Sevastopol station, where things are not going well. I'm still so early in the game that I haven't met any people yet. I'm just seeing signs of mess and dysfunction.

The setting details (especially light and sound) are spot-on. There are a few interface issues that require some getting used to (such as the crafting menu, or when you use a terminal), but I haven't encountered anything truly annoying. I definitely like walking around in this world, but I can't speak to actual gameplay because I haven't encountered any threats yet. It's all still moody mystery.

[Holman]

I stole some time to play a bit further, and I talked to my first human on the station. Eventually we encountered some violence. I continue to love the atmosphere and the scenario.

I've got three negative impressions as well:

1) The voice acting is kind of lackluster. It's not terrible, but it's not inspired writing, and the delivery is sometimes meh.

2) You don't really have full freedom of movement. There's no jumping or climbing over obstacles, so sometimes you find the way forward blocked by a chest-high pile of equipment that any real human could easily manage to cross.

3) Your progress is very restricted and linear in the early game. I don't know whether it opens up later, but I assume it must.

These are low-level objections, though, and they're pretty normal for the genre. My overall impression so far is that this is a very slick engine for getting hunted by a xenomorph. The claustrophobia is real--I'm already glancing into every dark corner and watching the vents. There are lots of places to hide, but there are also dangerously wide rooms where you can feel exposure creeping up the back of your neck.

It definitely feels like Alien, not Aliens, although (given the humans around) with some elements of Alien 3 mixed in.

[Holman]

I keep peeking away from my grading to play more. This game is really good in the dark.

The levels have opened up more, and I've met the beast. Right now I feel like I'm being casually hunted as one bit of prey among many. The alien is around. It's very creepy, scary fun. I'm not feeling let down by this one, or at least not yet.

[Scoop20906]

Has the Alien killed you yet and if so how did it get you?

[Holman]

Has the Alien killed you yet and if so how did it get you?

I don't think this will be a real spoiler, but I'll tag it anyway:

Spoiler:

There's a dramatic moment when you first see the alien up close. It's well done, all the more so because it's kept in first person rather than run as a cut scene.

Well before that moment, however, you do see the alien make its first kill in the game. It's very fast, and you don't get a good look at the creature. You're expected to run away, and you quickly come to a transition point that moves you to a new part of the story. I imagine most people will do just that and not do what I did.

...Which was to dick around looking for supplies in the room where the kill occurred. Because that particular kill had obviously been scripted, I figured there wasn't actually a live threat. Apparently I took too long, however, and in a couple of minutes I heard a noise behind me. I turned and then got knocked bodily to floor, looking up just in time to see the alien rear up in front of me and tear open my head. It was genuinely scary.

When I reloaded, I of course made for the appropriate exit without dawdling and started a new chapter of the story, not seeing the alien at all. But that first death was unexpected and apparently dynamic. I thought this was pretty cool.

[Scoop20906]

That's so cool.

[Turtle]

Yeah, I'm watching some early sponsored videos of the gameplay, and it's looking pretty good.

And don't you love it when devs play off gamer expectations in a good way?

The voice acting from the lead female, Amanda, is pretty bad to start. However, I suspect that's from poor directing from the voice director during a closed box session, since her responses seem to have poor volume control, like she doesn't know the context of what she's saying. Haven't seen any other points where she talks to people to get a better read. What I do know is that no actor is that bad when on set.

At this point, I'm definitely picking this up, even if it falls apart a bit later. I suspect the negative reviews are accurate as well, but the horror and just how well they nail the aestethetics and style combined with the alien makes up for that for many horror fans. It also helps that I got hands on of the early build at PAX.

Creative Assembly has done a great job, there's things like the way the movement speed feels, even if that also means you can't jump over boxes.

[JayDeath]

This game has some of the sexiest light effects I've ever seen. The game is so pretty. I'm only about an hour in but I'm impressed with the beautiful graphics. Good stuff.

[Holman]

This game has some of the sexiest light effects I've ever seen. The game is so pretty. I'm only about an hour in but I'm impressed with the beautiful graphics. Good stuff.

Sound as well. Sound is everything in this game, and I find myself turning it up so I can listen for the alien possibly slithering through the vents above.

I've just saved in the middle of a tense cat-and-mouse sequence with the alien. I've been hiding in lockers to keep out of site, and I've realized that everything is tracked--you can't let yourself idly play around with the mouse view when the alien is padding around the room where you're hiding; every now and then a body movement will make noise, and that might get its attention.

If you're hiding in a locker or cabinet and the alien is searching nearby, the game might tell you to "press [a key] to hold your breath." However, it's not always the same key, so you have to pay attention; you can't do it by rote. [Actually I was wrong here. You hold your breath with the right button and lean away with another. If you hold your breath too long, you might take damage, and you loudly huff and puff when you're done.]

Being hunted in this game is very tense. It's pretty original that way.

[Scoop20906]

Just started the game. I haven't run into the Alien yet but this game has a very Bioshock feel to it.

[AjD]

Just started the game. I haven't run into the Alien yet but this game has a very Bioshock feel to it.

So... would a System Shock fan like this game?

I don't mind survival horror, but what really intrigues me is unimpeded exploration of the ship (like in the original System Shocks - Bioshock was too on-rails for my taste).

[Turtle]

This is probably too on rails. There is exploration and such, but there's also a lot more hiding. It's not all tension all the time though.

But, I'd give a demo, or preview videos a look to make sure.

Also, in response to my earlier discussion about the Alien. They've added a lot of fun new behaviors to the alien. Sometimes just movement noise will trigger it, sometimes it will dart forward a bit while on the other side of a table or bench, like a predator testing to make sure if you're not hiding just on the other side. It's great lifelike behavior that can get you killed, and makes playing ring around the rosie with the Alien very dangerous.

The deterrents of the revolver and the flamethrower work great, as deterrents. Great reactions from the alien to it, and it'll do these wonderful escape moves to get away, but you can't kill it.

The other distractions are interesting as well.

I would love to see a Colonial Marines game made by Creative Assembly where the aliens are always like this, tough to kill and they don't suicidally charge and leap at you every time. It's so much scarier when you nail an alien with a shot, only to see it dart into a nearby vent or around a corner, and now you've got this thing out there that can easily kill you waiting for you to make a move. Kind of like the Deadspace raptor necromorphs, but less likely to charge.

[Holman]

The game opens up more later, or at least the levels get bigger.

The feeling is very different from the typical exploration shooter where you clear rooms as you go--in this game you never "clear a room" because the alien might be moving around behind you. The feeling of being hunted is very much there. The levels are unified environments where you might backtrack simply because you feel safer and have some hiding places picked out.

[Turtle]

Well, I learned the hard way that the revolver is no deterrent to the Alien at all.

But, flashbangs will work to stun him for a very, very short duration, but enough to hide.

Take the time to plant a flashbang trap near entrances to save spots, but not too close to main pathways as you don't want them to trigger if it's not after you. Save spots usually have hiding spots nearby. So if you're spotted while backtracking to a save spot, you can jump into a hiding spot while it's stunned, wait for it to leave, then save. You can always pick them up later.

[Holman]

I'm still definitely enjoying this. It's tense and serious, and so far it has not felt repetitive. I'm in mission 10 (of 18 if the Steam Achievements tell the truth) and I've played almost 15 hours. I've been careful, but I'm playing on Hard, so of course there has been some reloading involved.

The whole feeling is Alien through and through. Levels do open up later on, and there's a good deal of cat and mouse in complex surroundings; Sevastopol Station is a great setting for this. The plot is a bit predictable, but it sets up the gameplay well. As far into the game as I am, I still feel weak and vulnerable, and I cringe every time I hear the creature moving around above or below me.

It's a tough call whether to recommend it at full price, but that's just because full price is so temporary on Steam. If you have any interest in survival horror or in the Alien saga, you should definitely pick this up when the price suits you. It's not 100% perfect, but this is an Alien game as Alien games were meant to be.

[JayDeath]

I don't know how to feel about this game. I'm on mission 17 now so the game is entertaining enough that I keep going back to it and I did have one of my greatest gaming moments ever with this game but I feel the game is a bit too long and it does get way repetitive towards the end. Opening doors, imputing codes and climbing ladders just gets real tiresome after a while. Now I'm just playing to finish but I think the game should have ended like 4 missions ago. Kudos to Sega for trying something different in a AAA game but I do feel there is room for improvement. It's a fun albeit a bit too long experience.

[Holman]

I finished it on Hard (apart from dropping to Easy for five minutes in one moment of weakness), and Steam tells me I got about 32 hours out of it. That's far more gameplay than I expected when it was released. There was a lot of save-reloading involved, but there were really only two or three points where irritation at the save system fully got to me. (One was when I dropped the difficulty.)

A lot of reviewers have complained about the multiple plot-reversal non-endings and that the game goes on too long. I guess I can see their point. The pseudo-endings never felt that way to me, though, since I had already seen them mentioned and I was aware of the number of missions in the game. I knew Ripley wasn't going to be allowed to save the day in mission 12 when there were 6 more long missions to go.

As for the game going on too long, I can't agree. I really enjoyed the stealth-and-procedure mechanics, and I was happy to have more. It felt like inhabiting a genuinely dangerous world, something unlike most FPS's where the player is overpowered and immune to every threat in the game by the time you're halfway through. I was happy to reach the end of the game, but only because playing was so tense that a couple of times I actually had to walk away from the computer and relax.

Most of all I enjoyed having lots of Ridley Scott's Alien world to play in. Even if there was a certain sameness to the environments, it didn't feel generic: different areas had roles and purposes on the station, and the gaminess of their design was hidden behind a strong sense that people actually lived and worked there. Once I got into it, I felt like I was somewhere that wasn't just contrived for my benefit.

Some things could certainly have been better:

-The Alien's movements were unpredictable, but I wish it had gone farther away when I successfully lost it. The most frustrating moments meant knowing that, even if I hid and stealthed like pro, the creature would never really be more than two or three rooms away, no matter what.
-I also kept wishing for more ability to affect my environment. For example, being able to manually bolt doors (maybe delaying the creature for a few important seconds while it broke through) would have been a cool mechanic, and it would have fit completely with everything else you're doing.
-The plot was 90% predictable. In a way this doesn't matter, but it would have nice to see some originality within world limits.

A few further impressions. Some true game spoilers here:

Spoiler:

I felt such a real sense of relief after we jettisoned the first alien from the station. It felt like getting the job done. The discovery of more aliens later was genuinely creepy. I did not want to see that nest.

Although it was kind of cheesily done at the end, I liked that Samuels was a good-guy synthetic. I fully expected the Weyland-Yutani android to be evil. It was satisfying to see his handiwork littered all over the level.

I was hunted by two aliens simultaneously in mission 18 (after extending the umbilical or the maintenance rig or whatever to the Torrens). There were two blips on my tracker, and at one point I could see one stalking around while the other dropped from a vent nearby. That was the worst. Are there other points where two or more aliens hunt together?

I definitely did not like the ending twist. It was only the final moments of the game, but it seemed to cheapen everything that went before. The designers generated tension and fear through play mechanics all along, only to toss in a jump scare at the end?

[JayDeath]

Well I finished it, finally. I say finally because the game is just way too long. Mission 17 was a real bitch too but then Mission 18 made up for it as I really liked the ending. Good game but SoM will get GotY, I think.

Spoiler:

Is Ripley dead or does she get picked up or something? The ending is ambiguous.

[Holman]

Spoiler:

Is Ripley dead or does she get picked up or something? The ending is ambiguous.

Spoiler:

She seems alive. She twitches her eyebrow (IIRC), and the beam falling on her face is probably from a ship's searchlight.

Canonically, she has to live. In a restored scene in Aliens, Ellen Ripley is told that Amanda died at the age of 66.

[Turtle]

After finishing the game:

Spoiler:

Didn't like the ending either. I would have preferred quieter ending than the shock scare. Although I know one was going to make it onto the Torrens, I would have drastically preferred it if Ripley had helped save Verlaine and crew, at least saving someone since the entire game is you failing to help anyone at all.

And yeah, Amanda gets picked up. It's not really that ambiguous. That white light could only come from a ship. I'd assume it'll be a Wayland Yutani ship. Basically, setting it up for a sequel.

There were a lot of problems with the game, but how well it was made overall helped overcome those issues for me. One stupid thing I noticed them doing towards the end of the game wee autosaves. Where the heck were those throughout the rest of the game?

I played on normal difficulty, and ended up having way too much equipment by the half-way point. So I felt quite empowered at the 3/4 mark to just walk/run everywhere, firing the flamethrower or throwing molotovs and pipe bombs. Even with two aliens nearby I didn't have to sneak.

The game ranks as around an 88 if I had to give it a score. It would be a low 80s if they just hadn't nailed the Alien ambiance so damn well. Creative Assembly deserves any accolades they have for their production values, while at the same time someone needs to slap their designers in the face for at least not including the option for quicksaves or auto saves, and a host of other problems.

I also don't like how Ripley's message to her daughter near the end was used as a setup and rationale for destroying everything. It destroyed the heartfelt moment when you hear Ripley's message to Amanda turned into her contantly talking about the Alien. I think they should have had Amanda find that message to her elsewhere, later on, right near the end.

But overall, not bad for CA's first big AAA game. Looking forward to what they do next.

[JayDeath]

Spoiler:

Is Ripley dead or does she get picked up or something? The ending is ambiguous.

Spoiler:

She seems alive. She twitches her eyebrow (IIRC), and the beam falling on her face is probably from a ship's searchlight.

Canonically, she has to live. In a restored scene in Aliens, Ellen Ripley is told that Amanda died at the age of 66.

Oh yeah. Duh on my part. I've seen that flick at least 900 times and I know that fact. I forgot.
And I agree about the auto saving in Mission 18. Where the hell was that feature the entire game? I almost broke my monitor out of frustration with Mission 17!

[Holman]

FYI, Alien Isolation is 50% off on Steam until tomorrow.

This game nails it on atmosphere and survival anxiety. It's not perfection, but it's definitely how an Alien game should be done.

[jztemple2]

Need some guidance... I see that Alien: Isolation is on sale at 75% off on the Steam Summer Sale and while I normally stay away from this genre, Isolation is supposedly one of the better games. Now I'm wondering, do I bother with the Season Pass? And what's the difference between the Season Pass, which is $7.49, versus getting all the DLC, which is $11.93? Is it just because of the discount you get by getting the Season Pass, or does the Season Pass not include all the DLC? Don't mean to make someone do all the grunt work I could do to find this out, just wondering if someone knows off the top of their head.

Also, is all that DLC really worth it? I've been burned before by Season Pass content that seemed to be churned out just to satisfy the requirement of having Season Pass content. Thanks for any help!

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Dude, jump on it; I haven't even reached the alien yet, and its still tense.