Game 52 - Alien Isolation - Week 88 - Sep 21

lien Isolation is exactly the experience you'd expect going off the title alone. You play Amanda Ripley. The Company recruits Amanda to search for Ellen 15 years after she and the Nostromo went missing. Your hero journey brings you to Sevastopol Station, where you encounter a certain Xenomorph and uncover what happened. We all know what happens, even in Aliens set 57 years after the first movie, Ellen is told that her daughter has died of old age. Although this could full well be a lie told by the Company to manipulate her. Instead what makes it interesting is a story of survival, reminiscent of the first (and best) movie, an isolated experience with Amanda and the Alien. Sevastopol is enormous, the corporation has its own ideals and culture juxtaposed to the monolithic monopoly that is Weyland Yutani (The Company). It's a character in itself with its own caveats. The stories of the inhabitants and how they've lived, survived and perished on the station amongst the new Alien threat is a truly human story. Told through a combination of voices recorders, terminals and well... dead bodies. 

You'll see a lot of beautiful shots from Sevastopol...

Lets get one thing straight off the bat. The Xenomorph is truly terrifying in every sense of the word. I don't think there's ever been a more realised rendition or possibly ever will of that monster. Even looking at these screenshots now it gives me chills. The sound, the animation, the AI, the scripted scenes it's all perfect. It's a testament to the terrifying design by the original artist H. R. Giger, captivating the epitome of something Alien. Beyond this, the overall design is superb and I would say comes in three stages that correspond to the story overall. 

The Build-up 

After an accident in space while embarking on the Sevastopol you need to rendezvous with the crew of the Torrens (the spacecraft that brought you here). As you attempt to do so you'll wander the dimly lit halls as Amanda wonders where everyone is. Shadows move in the distances, spooking you. Eventually you get a full glimpse of them and realise they're humans, scurrying like terrified rats in the dark. After restoring power to part of the station you meet some of the more defensive inhabitants, they're best avoided. Axel Fielding is one of the first survivors you encounter and something has him spooked, a killer, not human. They agree to help each other for passage off the station. After giving her some essential lessons on survival, Axel perishes to an Alien in one of those very shafts he showed you how to use. No where is safe. Amanda panics and flees of course. Avoiding a few other survivors finds you at the medical facility. Dr. Kuhlman appears and wants to help you but you must activate something. After helping the good doctor alarms begin their siren call. As you hurry back to the Doctor a vent pops above you. I hid behind a nearby medical bed, peaking through the gaps available. A head, a tail and a body slink down from the vent. It hangs there before it drops down, extending all its limbs reveals a truly terrifying towering monster with an elongated head that towers well above any man. I shiver. It moves. I move. So begins the cat and mouse game that become your journey. 

The Xenomorph

The gameplay is reminiscent of Outlast. The Alien cannot be killed by mere civilian grade and conventional weapons. The best you can do is hide in lockers, cabinets, storage - distract the creature and move quietly through vents. The motion tracker is your best friend here, but don't get too comfortable with the machine as it can be heard if too close. Here presents why the Alien is truly terrifying, it's intelligent. It knows the layout, it stalks, looks in hiding areas, listens for breathing or any sign of life. I bought a unique proprietary Sony headset with 3D sound for this game. As you move the isolated halls you'll often hear scurrying around you. 3D sounds lets you hear above, below or beside you. The Alien is everywhere at all times. It's terrifying and so worth it. The gameplay is an addictive combination of salvage and craft. Materials can be used to craft various useful items. Pipe bombs and Molotov will both use blasting caps and ethanol; Androids don't like explosives and Aliens don't like fire - so choose wisely as you try to predict what you'll face and manage your supplies. I loved balancing the materials scavenged with the stock I have to survive encounters. Combine this with crawling through vents and you truly felt like a survivor, immersing you completely. Working Joe's are Sevastopol's answer to the Company androids. Cheap and effective for off world labour. Well a little too cheap as you'll soon find out that they malfunction and attempt to kill everything. I heard complaints about how numerous and hard these are to kill. Those people are just bad - a stun shock and a few wrench hits to the head and thing will be be spasming on the ground. The issues comes when they catch you unaware, there's an Alien nearby or both. At first it annoyed me that the two didn't fight, but it makes sense considering the Alien wouldn't sense a lifeform. The Working Joe looks at the creature as if it's an animal - asking robotically "what are you?" the code to provide that answer clearly missing from their software. Then there's the humans. I just avoided them wherever possible, only firing back in self defence when caught. Often they'd fire a few shots and draw the attention of the Alien, usually a good opportunity for a distraction. There's a few plans laid bare to trap the Alien. Unaware to you, there are a ton of oil barrels setup by the Marshal Waits, which explodes saving you from the Alien right in front of you but almost killing you. Then you attempt to lock it in part of the station and e-vac. Well Waits, a true utilitarian, sends you with the Xenomorph. So ungrateful, but you manage to get back with your thrusters. After fighting through some survivors and Joe's, just when you think you're safe, it reappears. What? How? This best describes the Alien Isolation experience. In the first movie the crew tried countless tactics to the very end and even when it was just Ellen left, it thwarted her plan to detonate the vessel, and join her when she used an escape vessel. Every time you feel like the Xenomorph has been thwarted, it returns. A relentless unstoppable killing machine, as if designed that way. A perfect recreation of the practical effects creature in the movie, made of 1s and 0s. 

The weapons all feel accurate to the world and only powerful enough to just keep the Alien at bay. The flamethrower of course feels perfect - spurting liquid fire just like you'd expect from the first movie.

Talk about a face lift...

The Ending

Henry Marlow is captain and owner of the Anesidora, and he treats you to an interesting story regarding your mother. They find the distress signal and this leads to a derelict ship on LV-426. For a fan of the series this was amazing. We get to void walk the surface of LV-426 exactly as it was in the first movie, we see the derelict from the distance, and even the Space Jockey up close. Wandering the halls of the Derelict culminates in a final scene in a room with dozens of eggs... 

As if this wasn't all bad enough we find out there are multiple Aliens. We realise this none too soon when Amanda finds herself in their Den. You better hope you have that flamethrower stocked up. Multiple Aliens wander these chitinous halls, face huggers crawl the floors, eggs dot the ground and humans have been harvested and tethered to the wall - their faces the picture of absolute shock and horror. This is the best sequence of the game. You're surrounded on all sides. Everything you've done so far has culminated in this moment. I love scavenging and inventory management games, so I was  thankfully stocked to the brim, preparing for this moment the entire game. I always love when a game requires me to use it all - instead of having a stockpile of weapons and items to take on vacation after the credits roll. You know you're against the clock here. Stealth is barely an option, especially considering your objective requires  you to activate power cells that will draw multiple Xenomorphs. But at least you know you can prepare traps. Molotoves, pipebombs, stun grenades are all your best friends. Crawling through narrow passage ways was already nerve-racking enough enough, but when you're met with several rushing face huggers it's hard not to feel a rush of panic. The pinnacle of tension in an already tense game. 

I think that best describes this game tense. You'll feel it the entire time you play, whether you're hiding in a locker holding your breath until your lungs give out, waiting for the Xenopmorph to pass. Using that precious molotov and hoping it'll be enough for now, or making a slow break for it while a foe has its head turned to avoid its line of sight. You're constantly pushed to your limits. After we're treated to a nice scene and not to the movies where Ripley finds a video of her mother, it's time to get off this death trap. The final scene has Ripley rejoin the Torrens. However in classic Alien fashion you've been joined by a guest so you space yourself and the creature with a well timed air lock release and the game ends with Ripley floating in space. 

I have one final things to say and that's how on point the presentation is. Even the basic stuff in between the lines that wasn't seen in the movies. Everything feels just as it was meant to be. The keyboards, the terminals, Ridley Scott's 80s vision of a Sci-Fi future. Throw in some absolutely superb environmental storytelling, and the game immerses you in its world of horror just as well as the movies. With a great personal story that ties into the lore nicely, it'd be a tragedy if this wasn't considered canon.

A great way to explain all the bizarre schematics found everywhere - survivors.