In space, no one can hear you scream… Which, in the case of Alien: Isolation, is good because one thing you’re going to be doing is screaming and dying… A LOT!
For nostalgic purposes alone, Alien: Isolation is an amazing and beautiful game. For those who are hardcore fans of the original 1979 Alien, you are in for an absolute treat. Not only does the opening sequence and walk-through feel like you’re right back in the theater, watching it on the big screen – heck, the sounds alone are enough to put you right into the mood that this is a serious Alien game that had a lot of dedication and love behind it. If there were to ever be an unreleased, secret storyline set in with the Alien franchise, you could do a metric ton worse than Alien: Isolation.
Getting into the game play, Alien: Isolation handles very smoothly, transitioning well and making control of the Amanda Ripley character incredibly fluid. Still, one type of game Alien: Isolation is not is a First-Person Shooter, or anywhere near it. You’re not going to be picking up fully loaded grenade launchers, pulse rifles, drop-ship nukes, or any other massive arsenal weapon (sure, there are some firearms but don’t expect many). If you’re like me and are still hoping for the worthy Alien FPS license after the absolute abortions that were Aliens vs Predator and the even worse Colonial Marines, this isn’t the Xenomorph you’re looking for (Ed. Note: Can someone please make a game worthy of the Aliens movie?).
Get used to this perspective.
Unfortunately, the game play in Alien: Isolation can become rather tedious. With a fairly linear storyline, it often seemed that the amount of exploration that COULD be done throughout the ship is cut way short due to various points in the story which which basically act as a timer, albeit sans a ticking clock at the top of the screen. Along with that, it seems that the titular character is absent for a big chunk of Alien: Isolation when your main threat aboard the ship isn’t the xenomorph but more of the synthetic kind when the droids (think lots of Ash and Bishop for you movie franchise fans) “malfunction” and begin a human massacre, tearing through any human survivors aboard the ships, turning the game from an Alien title to pretty much any sci-fi / survival game out there. Robots on a space ship… Yup, nothing new there! Now while a timed game isn’t always a bad thing, one that sets you on a constant path such as Alien: Isolation isn’t going to have much replay value aside from future downloadable content. When all games nowadays run the $60 mark (not including the price of whatever future DLCs may cost), you hope that you can get more than speed runs out of a title after your first trip through it.
Creepy synthetic… I mean artificial person…
While Alien: Isolation does recommend the hardest setting as the one for the hardcore Alien fans, I would not recommend it. It’s an act of extreme frustration and this is exactly where you will die a lot. Seriously, playing this mode is pretty much like saying in your head “Alive, alive, alive, DEAD!” over and over. If there is any replay value to Alien: Isolation, it resides in this difficulty mode. Even then, the straight-down-the-line story limits what could have been an amazing exploratory journey throughout a massive space ship with the looming threat of an alien around every corner. Instead it’s more of a connect-the-dots type journey that loses track after the first few hours of game play. Once you’ve hidden in a locker for the 20th time, you start to get that feeling that you’re simply jumping through the hoops that are going to be, for the most part, set up in the same fashion for every go-around (just with a lot more death when you crank up the difficulty). While it’s a fun game for a little while, Alien: Isolation could definitely have been so much more.
[easyreview title=”Alien: Isolation Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]
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