After the past two Alien games, I could not fault anyone for being cautious about the newest release, Alien: Isolation. However, by bringing the franchise's focus away from purely action-based gameplay, Creative Assembly has created an entertaining and challenging survival horror experience that ALMOST washes away the taste of the past two turkeys. Using the setup of Ridley Scott's original film Alien, Isolation places gamers in control of Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Ellen Ripley, over fifteen years after the ending of the first movie, instantly creating an intriguing premise especially for fans of the film series. Amanda wants to figure out what exactly happened to her mother all those years ago, and ends up heading to a space station called Sevastopol, which is being decommissioned. Unsurprisingly, the derelict station is not what it seems...it's actually the inaugural version of the Death Star, and a poor one at that (if only!). The game pretty much wastes all of its wooden characters on a barebones story structure built to accommodate set piece encounters and scares with the titular alien. Almost anyone can guess the beats the story hits, and it truly is a missed opportunity, as Amanda could have been an interesting character if not for the flat dialogue delivery and being relegated to errand girl every half hour. If perchance you have not seen any of the Alien series, it may surprise you a little bit, so I'll leave out any spoilers. Where the story fails, though, the atmosphere prevails!
Graphics and Sound
Having played through the game on the Xbox 360, I was impressed by the lighting and detailed environments, and unimpressed by the sometimes wonky animations of the alien and the even more robotic humans! And androids, I suppose, though I can't criticize them for being robotic. The game certainly looks superior on the Xbox One and PS4, but the 360 is still able to convey a fantastic sci-fi aesthetic through Sevastopol's design. In fact, the atmosphere is by far my favorite part of the game. It absolutely nails the vibe and look of Ridley Scott's film, with the art design relying on a sort of "future-re-imagined-through-retro-80s-technology." Fans of the color green will enjoy the creepy glow permeating the environment and lighting up the dark corners of the station, and excellent recreation of the film series' technology adds to the immersion. The human characters are modeled okay, but their movements and voice acting are as wooden as the Deku Tree. There were a few occasions where survivors did not react to my gunfire, but they were few and far between.
The sound provides an atmospheric accompaniment to the bleak environments. Hearing the alien shuffle through the vents with my motion tracker beeping constantly made me treat every noise behind me as a threat. The use of the motion tracker was especially well-done, a mechanic that creates a feeling of helplessness as you can see dangerous dots close in on your position. The weapons, useless against the alien, sound average, but the rest of the tech, emitting VHS-esque static noises upon activation, is well-done. The music appears at the most tense moments, accentuating the jump scares and surprise alien appearances. It's perfectly serviceable, whereas the underwhelming dialogue and delivery are a step below serviceable. The alien's hisses and screams never failed to fill me with fear (or more frequently annoyance, more on that later!), and the Working Joes' calm voices offset their pent-up robo-rage perfectly. The lack of sound in the spacewalk sections were also pleasing to me, as the vacuum of space was well-represented. For the most part, the sound package is real solid, though the voice acting could have used a shot in the arm.
Gameplay
For the first seven or so hours of Isolation, I felt on edge, with the alien's appearance always a motion tracker blip away. Sevastopol, oozing with atmosphere, beckoned me to check every nook and cranny for useless revolver ammo and interesting backstory tidbits on the computers. I even admit there were a few times I jumped when surprised by the creeping bastard's fatal appearance, as unpredictable as it could be. This works for and against the game. For the first half of the game, the alien is a menace, and you spend most of your time hiding in lockers and hoping it doesn't see you powerwalk through the doors that, conveniently for the hungry alien, ALWAYS TAKE TOO LONG TO OPEN. When slinking through the shadows and avoiding conflict at all turns, the game is tense and well-paced. The rare encounters that involve other humans on Sevastopol are also tense, as you hope no one fires their gun and alerts the alien to your presence. To be honest, I shot pretty much everyone I ran across, as I got tired of hiding all the time from the alien. TAKE ME NOW! The first few run-ins with the violent androids also work well, as I crept around and hoped not to engage with their powerful, red-eyed gaze and vice-like grip. One laugh out loud moment I had (seriously!) was when I was attempting to avoid being detected by the prowling alien by powerwalking away from a powerwalking android in pursuit whilst the alien undoubtedly stifled a chuckle in the room across from me.
After the first half of the game has passed, the repetition not so suffocating earlier comes in and rears its ugly head. The seemingly omniscient alien pops up at the worst times, and waiting under a table for four minutes only to have the alien suddenly turn on a dime and run back to your position and snack on you gets old by the 30th time (for the record, I did not die too much, though if you play on hard difficulty, you certainly will have your share of frequent, unavoidable instant deaths). Every time I bravely turned tail and fled like brave, brave Sir Robin, I found myself wishing upon a star that I could dive or vault over a small counter or box in front of me. At least let me feel like I can flee, dammit! Once I got the flamethrower, the alien became an annoyance more than anything, and the larger number of android fights later on also do nothing other than sometimes force you to use the weak crafting system to combat them. The first head-bashing milk fest was cool, but after my first few boltgun-to- android-noggin kills near the end of the game, they just became bland obstacles in my quest to turn on the power. AGAIN. Because everyone that talks to you through your earpiece is pretty much useless, and you spend almost the whole game listening to various characters tell you to turn on this, turn on that, or "oh no come back we need you--oh wait nevermind, go backtrack across the station and take two elevators to get me the object I need." Bleh.
The backtracking makes Sevastopol seem more familiar and less engaging as the so-so story proceeds, and at the end of the game, I found myself relieved to be rid of the repetition of running through a previous area, hiding from the alien and/or using my flamethrower to scare it off for ten seconds only for it to reappear soon after right in front of me (wash, rinse, repeat). After playing through this for yourself, you will agree that Amanda Ripley has some of the worst luck ever, and you, the gamer, will feel her frustration as you repeat similar tasks and fall victim to the alien's (and insta-kill facehuggers) pointy tail. The rare firefight you may or may not engage in often awakens the alien from naptime (or ruins teatime, perhaps? aliens get thirsty too), rendering these gunbattles with inaccurate (though not for the crackshot survivors, oddly enough) weapons annoying as hell AS WELL, though using the shotgun to surprise three pompous human survivors on two occasions was quite satisfying. For the most part, Amanda controls well, though whenever you engage in an activity with a gadget or some other piece of tech, you can't break free from the animation or it takes too long, meaning the alien jumped down behind my back and tagged me a few times while I was happily wielding a welding tool or sifting through people's emails even as I tried to step away and escape. Once in a while I would attempt to foolishly save with the beast nearby and was impaled for my ignorance, losing many minutes of slow progress.
Overall, the game makes up for its weak story and repetition with a fantastic atmosphere and mostly scary and unpredictable alien encounters (for the first half of the game, at least). The set piece space walk moments were quite cool, and the reveal of a larger threat on Sevastopol was a welcome but predictable twist. The audio logs pertaining to Alien and voiced by most of the main cast from the film are also a treat, particularly for fans, and I also enjoyed the DLC mission that includes gameplay onboard the original Alien ship, the Nostromo, if only for the religious recreation of the interior. The game also comes with a survivor mode which tasks players with escaping from the alien in a small area for a scored time and with scored, optional objectives. Note that without DLC, you can only access one survivor map, which is pretty bogus, seeing as it was hyped as a cool addition to the story. I didn't enjoy survivor mode enough on my lone basement map to spring $7.99 plus tax for the map pack, though mayhap it would be worth it with a price drop (of $6.99, so $.99 for the whole pack! Maniacal laugh!). I don't see myself playing through it again, but Isolation does offer a solid 15-20 hours of gameplay or more if you perish innumerable times. As much as I was frustrated by this game, I could not ignore that fans looking to revisit the gaming franchise owe it to themselves to at least try the game as it is a far superior experience compared to Colonial Marines and Alien vs. Predator. Non-fans will certainly enjoy this as an entry point into what could be a new and improved Alien game universe, but fans will get more out of it with the references to the films. Just be prepared for a lot of sneaking and probably a lot of dying and reloading.
7.5 out of 10
Graphics: Solid lighting effects and stellar art design, though some of the human movements aren't very fluid and the alien wasn't always so gracefully animated.
Sound: Sparse music, but cues work well to heighten tension. The alien and the technology sound great; the voice actors, ehhhhh...not so much.
Replay Value: Long main story around 15-20 hours with a survivor game mode tacked on, but one playthrough was enough for me.
Entertainment Value: I enjoyed the game in spite of all of its shortcomings, and Alien or horror fans (or even newcomers) should definitely give this survivor horror title a shot.
Android and Alien Selfies!!
No comments:
Post a Comment