Make sure your kinect is set to mute.
You need to be ready to do this without the prompt.Trying to do it just as the space kitty checks out the locker is a dice roll. You will figure out when to start leaning.
And for gawds sakes, people : play on easy! Bateau is right on the money about frustration.
I’m trying to be better about not sticking with a game for too long after my enjoyment gets too low, so I’m going to pull the plug on this one. It’s especially hard to do after reading the enthusiasm with the game. The atmosphere kept me going until mission 10, but too often I have to replay a section because I either missed the save location or Mr. Alien pops into a room before I have a chance to hide. I already have it on easy. I’m probably pretty bad at the game, but sometimes death feels a bit arbitrary to me. I think I prefer stealth in games where I have options after I get spotted. I can see why people like the game, but it’s not for me. It sure feels like creeping around an abandoned ship. I don’t regret the purchase to experience what I did, but it is enough for me.
It’s funny because I don’t mind dying a dozen times in Dark Souls.
Don’t feel bad. I abandoned this when I got to medical. Instead of a challenge, it just became tedious and dying so much is just not fun.
The visuals, the environment were awesome. The mechanic with the alien not so. It’s really unfortunate because this game was so close to being so great.
I played the game all the way through to the end, and I normally get bored somewhere in the third act of a game and never finish.
Don’t forget to use the tools you are given. You don’t need to just sneak and pray for luck. Those flares you have, they aren’t for light, they are for distraction. As long as you don’t blow your cover by lighting one while the alien is looking at your hiding spot, you can throw it somewhere out of your way and the alien will often get distracted and stare at it for a while, allowing you to sneak around in the meantime. That’s something you can do from early on. Later you have pipe bombs and flamethrowers and other ways to not only distract but to drive off the alien. Toward the end I did a lot of giving the alien a few short puffs of flame to the face to drive him off and high tailing it to where I needed to go before it came back rather than slowly sneaking, failing, dying, and reloading.
My friend at work bought the Alien Isolation bundlestar bundle on my recommendation since he’s eager to use his new GTX 1070 for good looking games on the cheap. So I agreed to also re-install this game along with him so we can talk about it.
Last time I stopped because I was stuck early on, and the game was boring. But when I restarted, I wandered around for about an hour before finally figuring out that I was in the right place, I just needed to look downward at a hatch I could open in the ground. Now that I know hatches are a thing in this game, I made lots of progress.
I came across a character called Alex. He’s a hoot. I have to admit, the first character I expected to encounter in a game called Alien: Isolation was the alien, so this was a nice unexpected thing. And then to encounter even more humans after that? Also unexpected, and actually quite enjoyable so far. Now that it’s not just a game of “find out where to go next with nothing threatening you”, it’s an enjoyable game. So I’ll keep playing.
I’ve been meaning to get back to this but it actually inspires a fear response in me. Guess I’ve internalized the movies a bit much. But when I played on the 360, I got through a kind of flashback mission, then was supposed to guide Amanda back out from safety to do another mission. This kind of thing, where you got out and have to go back in, to face danger again, is oddly resonant with me. It’s like in “The African Queen” when Bogart is tugging the boat through brush and chest deep water, and climbs out to rest and finds he’s covered in leeches. No way I’m getting back in that water! he protests but of course he must and he does. I know it’s just a game, but I feel like I’m putting myself in danger intentionally, and I find it oddly difficult.
The atmosphere is so brilliant that it overcomes the game’s significant flaws, IMO. I keep coming back to it, getting annoyed at some of the design choices, oogling the setting, and so on. Every now and then you get to a point where it’s like “grim death march to the next save point,” which sucks, but to an Alien fan it’s just such a great world to be inhabiting.
The game was a great homage to Ridley Scott’s awesome visual design, but I didn’t actually have that much fun playing it.
Rumors got started last week that Relic was working on Alien Isolation 2, thanks to the UK’s Official PlayStation Magazine.
Of course, this is categorically untrue. OPM was talking out of their ass.
[quote]
Although the Halo Wars 2 team has already started prototyping its next project, likely to be a couple of years away from completion, this won’t be an Alien title.
More than that, we’re told the majority of the Alien: Isolation design team no longer works at Creative Assembly. Cross-referencing the more recent Halo Wars 2 credits with the credits for Alien: Isolation certainly suggests this is the case. In fact, most of the names that do reappear only do so in the ‘Special Thanks’ section and belong to designers that now work elsewhere.[/quote]
Remember, this is what SEGA said in 2015:
[quote]
“2.1 million sales? It just didn’t break out,” Heaton explains. "Am I happy about that? I’m not happy about that, right. I think it did under-index in America. I think the genre just didn’t shine with an audience that would let us break out. 2 million is fine, right - let’s be clear - but we were unsure right till the very end about whether we would hit that break out space or not.
"Making a AAA console game is bloody hard. We absolutely sweated blood for that game, we came through, and felt really happy at the end of it.
“Alien: Isolation 2 is not out of the question, because we’re so proud of it and there’s possibly more to be said. But do we really want to be spending very significant amounts of money, and getting close to break-even or just about in the black? That’s not where Sega wants to be, when we have a brilliant portfolio of other games that do great business.”[/quote]
To sum up: Despite the critical and audience love for this game, it’s not getting a sequel anytime soon. The sales just didn’t match up to expectations. According to SEGA’s reporting, Alien Isolation fell short of the mark by about 15%.
I loved exploring the environs of AI and while initially enjoyed the hide and seek aspect of the game it ultimately dragged on for too long and felt too isolating. Everyone you encountered died and every human NPC was hostile towards you which made for a very lonely and stressful experience. I think co-op would have been a nice addition for a game like this given the emphasis on avoidance and survival versus run and gun. If they ever do make a sequel I hope they’re able to find a balance between survival and being able to kill xeno’s and not just simply ward them off with flash bangs and non lethal flame throwers. Don’t give me DOOM but don’t give me just survival only please.
I understand they’re going to make AI VR compatible one of these days. Holy shit I can’t imagine being able to play that entire game from start to finish with a VR set. I was a scaredy cat throughout my playthrough with just a monitor and a dark room but AI with VR? Well you can’t count me out man!
I could not handle this game in VR. Pretty sure I would have an actual heart attack.
Oh, man, I might just finish AI if they Oculus it up.
Why the gaming industry absolutely sucks these days, in a few simple statements.
Yeah, that’s a bummer.
A:I had some of the best production design of any videogame, full stop. I had some real issues with the gameplay, but I still keep coming back to it.
That’s part of the problem. It had insanely great production values coupled with a presumably expensive license.
This game nailed the atmosphere of the original Alien movie, but then the gameplay itself just got kind of meh.
All right, somebody (think it was @Rock8man) put the idea in my head of playing this game during October, kind of do a little month-long Halloween thing. I played this when it was released on 360, probably mentioned that upthread. But, and I realize this will probably seem silly, I got stressed out and set it aside, then never came back. I bought the Xbone version during a sale just to kind of force myself to get back in. And here I am.
I do really love the atmosphere they’ve set up, and the idea of an alien roaming a space station picking off its inhabitants is, well, perfect. I got up to the point the alien makes its first appearance last night then decided I need to stop and take a break. It’s kind of mind blowing to me how well this game pushes my buttons, I haven’t been this freaked out by a movie in I don’t know how long. Just doesn’t happen anymore. But being in it, responsible for the life of my little avatar when she’s surrounded and stalked by death, it really gets my blood going. Hopefully can bear the game taking a level or so at a time.
Side note: I mistyped “bear” in that last sentence, meant “beat” but after rereading I think bear is closer to what I was trying to say.
The environment and atmosphere is awesome in the game. I just found the alien’s locating ability to be too frustrating to keep playing.
Agreed on the atmosphere. I can’t speak to the Alien that Rob is talking about since I only played the game for a few hours, and there’s no alien in it, as far as I know. (Spoiler alert Rob! :P)