Is this on hard difficulty level?
Anyway, this definitely doesn’t sound like my kind of game anymore.
Reading about the timer in that “alien rules” guide made it clear I’d hate this game.
Also, Jebus, the comments by that Alberto Balsalm guy. There’s always one, isn’t there?
It’s mechanical enough that you’d think some cross-section of players is bound to get pissed off by it.
It’s not the mechanical nature of the rules that troubles me, it’s the idea that you’re under constant time pressure because the Alien will show up in X seconds. That’s how I read the guide, anyway.
Sounds pretty mechanical.
Any time a game has an insta-kill stealth section it’d better have genius-level balancing and design or people are going to be frustrated. I’m curious to hear from the people who weren’t annoyed by it.
Well, sure. My point is that I hate time pressure. I like mechanical just fine.
At least it’s staying true to its roots. If memory serves, the xenos in the 1999 AvP would teleport to near the player if they couldn’t pathfind to you.
Just finished mission 10 and it was the best so far. So good.
This hasn’t really been my experience at all on medium difficulty, other than the mission in Medical where the alien first shows up properly and might be scripted that way. Usually the alien only comes out of the vents if I make too much noise or something happens to make a lot of noise. Then he comes out and searches the room for a short time before jumping back up into vents until the next time.
It might help that I rarely hang around hiding and I never crouch unless I can actually see the alien or another threat - at which point I’m actively trying to sneak away. I’m always moving and don’t get myself stuck in one place.
It also seems to me that save stations have been more plentiful past Medical and that the level design has been better suited to stealth. Either that or I’ve just got better at evading the alien.
I wrote that after dying 8 times in a row. When I finally managed to progress past the Medical mission, I dropped the difficulty down to medium, and I think you’re right. The game does get better after that and the save stations are more generous. I’m around 3/4 of the way through chapter 10, and I’m having a decent, if erratic time.
Back in medical, it was getting to the stage where I had every movement planned out. Walk behind the android, prep the stun baton and whack it. Then hit it six times with the wrench until it croaks. Crouch. Move to the terminal. Get the signal. Match 3 symbols in the hacking game. Wait for the door to open. Now, lets see if I can make it to the objective this time. Sneak down the hall, but be sure not to walk under any vent. Take the first left. I hope I can make to the other side of the room this time. Jump into the locker. Wait while the alien slowly moves in front of the locker, which it seemingly never does when you’re not in there. Sit still. Okay, coast is clear. Out through the door and under the gurney. Uh, it’s back again. Wait until I can move to the locker at the end of the hall. Made it but it’s back again, this time erratically marching back in forth in front the locker. It’s closing in. Quick time event! RMB and S. My health is slowly depleting. Okay, it’s leaving. Phew. Time to round the corner since it’s the only way to make it to my objective. Last time, I threw a noise-maker in the opposite direction but the alien knew whoever used a distraction like would have be moving towards the reception area for some reason. I won’t make that mistake a third time. Okay, made it to a gurney. Uh, it’s investigating again. It’s spotted me. Dead. Alright, walk behind the android, prep the stun baton…
When I finally stumbled my way through that section, which had lost any sense of tension, I was faced with a time-sensitive situation. The game doesn’t autosave and I barely made it through alive. If I had failed, I would’ve uninstalled it.
I still think the alien cheats in the later chapters, and isn’t a particularly enjoyable enemy to encounter, but at least you gain the ability to make it disappear for a while when it corners you. Someone a page back described it perfectly. The alien is tethered to you.
Oh yeah, the alien is definitely tethered to you, it’s just it mostly stays up in the vents above your location until given cause to drop down. And difficulty level seems to have a big role in how tightly he tethers and how frequently he comes out of (and stays out of) the vents for stompy time. Hard difficulty sounds like a whole other game sometimes.
I’ve been enjoying my alien encounters a lot so far, especially the times it showed up during mission 10 (and I forgot about using the ability to make it disappear until right at the very end of that mission).
So, on medium, the alien is kinda like Berzerk’s “Evil Otto” huh? Spend too much time in the maze and he shows up to make you run for it. I played the DLC stuff on hard… super tense, way scared. I didn’t know how the alien AI worked, so I was trying to be absolutely silent but progressing as fast as possible. I think understanding the AI more means perhaps being invested in the experience less, because it’s better when you have no idea what you can get away with. I kept wishing for a “hold your breath” button, in case it could hear that.
Does the alien cheat by teleporting around to get ahead of you? I’d be happiest if it had to take a legitimate pathway to get anywhere. If it prefers to be in the vents, walking in front of those iris doors is a sucker’s gamble in my mental version of the game. Reality may vary.
Time may be a factor, but it’s also how much noise you make and certain scripted events too. Trying to be quiet while also moving as fast as possible seems to be key to surviving, with normal walking speed being a good balance (running is a good way to get killed). That’s my experience on medium anyway, hard is probably different. Of course it’s when the alien actually comes out (and he will) that this can get more interesting/challenging.
The alien travels around the station by using the vents in the ceiling that you don’t have access to. You can hear it running around up there and see it moving on the motion tracker. Whether those vents actually physically exist and the alien really moves through them, or it’s just smoke and mirrors, I can’t say. I suspect it’s probably the latter but I’m not sure it ultimately matters; it can move so fast in those vents that even if not teleporting, it might as well be.
This design aesthetic was so powerful to me as a kid, that this is essentially the environment (minus the Alien, thanks) that I’d ideally want to exist in. The CRT monitors, clacky keyboards, ambient rumble of space station. It’s not the dystopian setting, nobody idealizes that, but it’s the vision of the future that was burnt into my brain as a kid. Kinda like I resent not having a robot maid and flying car, thanks to the Jetsons making that promise. I just love walking around in the Nostromo. Love seeing what they created on the station, and imagining it when it was pristine and filled with people doing their daily.
That’s one of the things that made Alien’s future so believable… scenes like Parker and Brett down in the guts of the ship, banging on it with wrenches and bitching about the company and their coworkers. Alien brought blue-collar to space.
If I could choose a “current vision of the future” to immerse myself in, I’d live in that skytower from Oblivion. Don’t even need the bubble ship, just that apartment thanks.
When the alien investigates a locker you’re hidden in, you’ll get a hold your breath button, and man, you better press it quick.
Oh good, a QTE-based stealth mechanic.
Uhh. I was in that situation twice, and I didn’t see any button prompt.
More details about the alien and level design:
So truly, there are three types of levels in A:I.
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Levels without the alien. Pretty self-explanatory. You can sprint to your hearts content that he won’t show up. The focus is on synths or enemy humans, or just “peaceful” levels.
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Levels with the alien. The alien may appear from time to time, he won’t stay for long, he is kind of unpredictable. Tense, but not artificial or over bearing. I had 3 levels of this type. The comments saying the alien isn’t that bad actually are speaking of this type of level.
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Special levels of you vs the alien. Like the already famous medical lab, which is the cause of my initial complaints and MrTibb’s. Comments saying the alien is horrible comes from this type. They are all about you having to advance through the entire level doing objectives with the alien on your back, kind of constantly. These are the worst ones, but for now there has been a single level like this. Still, I put it in a proper category because I suspect the game may have one or two more later. In any case, they seem to be the minority, though I still haven’t finished the game.
Play the Nostromo DLC… the alien is friggin relentless, yet sneaky. Ya know, if you need full time Medlab.
Though the alien is clearly scripted to stay out of the vents in Medical, I still had a good time with it on Medium. I do think it’s the weakest of the levels so far due to the layout (not enough cover or ways to bypass certain corridors), but there’s not been any level I haven’t overall enjoyed. Though the set piece at the very end of Medical was frustratingly designed.
It’s an odd one for me as I can see the flaws that are bugging other people and I think they’re valid complaints, but at the same time I think this is turning out to be my favourite gaming experience in a long time. I really quite adore it.