What happens when the only thing you can do is hide? In space, no one can hear you scream.
Alien: Isolation
takes us back to Ridley Scott’s iconic franchise,
Alien
. Yes, that includes the retro screens and the radars that look like geiger counters straight from the Cold War.
Alien: Isolation
is a first-person survival horror game taking fifteen years after the events of the first
Alien
movie. The player takes control of Amanda Ripley, icon Ellen Ripley’s daughter. In the sequel to
Alien
, James Cameron reveals Amanda Ripley’s existence and ultimate death just as Ellen Ripley falls into a cryogenic sleep after the destruction of the Nostromo ship.
Alien: Isolation
gives the audience more to Amanda Ripley’s character, revealing what happened to her between the events of
Alien
and
Aliens
.
In space, Amanda is an adult working as an engineer for Weyland-Yutani, the corporation that owned her mother’s ship,
The Nostromo
. After years of searching for her mother, Amanda has finally hit the jackpot.
The Nostromo
’s flight receiver has just been located and is being held at a space station called Sevastopol. Amanda and a few of her crew members head to the station only to find out that all hell has broken loose. Like Ridley Scott’s film, characters are slowly picked off one by one. Androids are malfunctioning and attacking survivors; a rogue operations group is poised to kill; and of course, the Xenomorph Alien is out for blood. Amanda Ripley’s mission: find out what is going on and escape.
Alien: Isolation
is a very difficult game — stressful, even. The point of the game is to survive; but how can you do that when every moment feels like
the enemy can see you but you can’t see it
? The horror exists both in real life and in your imagination. Quiet moments can be eerie themselves.
Something is up in the vents. What just fell over there? Is someone there?
It is all in the player’s inner psyche. The sense of paranoia, the fear that the Xenomorph Alien is coming, and the knowledge that all you can do is run and hide.
Alien: Isolation
is known for its notoriously terrifying, intelligent, but rather annoying AI that takes the form of a 9–10 foot alien. With unscripted jumpscares, you don’t know when or where the Xenomorph will jump out to kill you. Rather than acting as a narrative-heavy game, the developers intentionally modeled this simulation after Ridley Scott’s original
Alien
landscape. Like the film, the Alien stalks you, listens to your movements, waits for the perfect opportunity to strike. Although other threats exist, the Alien allows you the slimmest chance of survival. It doesn’t deplete your health with a strike; no, it will literally kill you. Unfortunately, even changing the difficulty down a couple notches will not make it any easier.
The AI of the Alien is notoriously intelligent: it will learn from your actions, your movements, patterns, and it will never repeat the same pattern twice. This makes the game unpredictably terrifying. Almost every Alien encounter is a surprise. If you know something is going to happen, it becomes less terrifying. When you habituate yourself to a jumpscare, the horror is gone. What if there’s no habituation? The Alien will learn only if you teach it, so don’t rely on using the same methods twice.
The Alien can sense the player’s footsteps, gunshots, and the motion tracker that players use to track the Alien when it is close. Even when you are “out of its sights,” the eyes that lie in the back of its head will ensure that players will never truly be out of its sight. Do not bother trying to sneak behind it. Additionally, when players are sneaking around or hiding, just know the Alien likes to pace around the environment. It is out for blood and it is searching for you. Everywhere the player goes, the Alien will investigate. How terrifying is that?
As a result, players spend a lot of time hiding under desks, around corners, or in lockers waiting for the opportunity to escape. The game doesn’t leave you completely stranded. Despite being an almost invincible enemy, there are ways to exploit and confuse the AI’s mechanics. Ripley has various tools to distract the Alien, such as a flare or noisemaker, which can distract the Alien for a short period of time. The player can also devise an ingenious plan as well, like hurling a noisemaker in the direction of the human enemies as a distraction. Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
Considering this mechanic where the Alien searches for the player, you’d think the Alien could teleport across the map. However, the developers claim that the Alien simply slithers and walks to these locations, only teleporting to the player to appear in certain cutscenes. Talk about a highly ingenious artificial intelligence.
But enough about the Alien and the fact that it is almost impossible to kill; this game also has missions and objectives players must fulfill in order to continue the story. A typical mission begins with Ripley unlocking a new location on the Sevastopol and receiving instructions to fix the communications on the other side of the ship. Don’t forget, the Alien is still around — so do not get killed, and good luck! Honestly, these missions can feel redundant. If it were not for the Alien keeping the players on the edge of their seats, the missions would honestly be boring. The longer the campaign drags on, the more tedious it becomes. By tedious, I mean you are going to have to backtrack a lot.
There is a crafting mechanic in which players can craft tools and improvised weapons to fight off enemies. Objects include a makeshift noise maker, molotov, medkit, or flashbang. However, the weapons crafted in the game are essentially useless to fend off the Alien. They serve as good distractors, but not as defense mechanisms. Do not rely on them to fight the Alien head on. In fact, most weapons you find will be essentially useless. Yeah, a shotgun is cool, but good luck fighting the bulletproof Alien with that. Eventually, Amanda will find a flamethrower which will be useful in scaring the Alien away temporarily enough for you to escape.
The other enemies in the game consist of humans and rogue androids. Some humans are friendly towards the players, but others are not. The humans appear poorly animated with weak character models. As a result, if it were not for the Alien, it would be hard to see the world of
Alien: Isolation
come to life. Androids, on the other hand, are far creepier enemies to deal with. The character models of the androids just look strange. Unlike the Alien, fortunately, these bots can be killed. However, it is not a first-person shooter, so if I were you, I would just run the opposite direction rather than face these droids head on.
Alien: Isolation
’s graphics are absolutely phenomenal. There is a sense of both dated but futuristic aspects to the game. Obviously, since the game relates heavily to Ridley Scott’s
Alien
, the world is built with what seems like 1979 technology, including clunky keyboards, distorted CRT monitors, retro lights, and phone receivers. It feels more utilitarian than minimalistic. The audio design, aside from the Alien itself, feels extremely dated. Personally, I find that aspect extremely immersive. You are literally living in a dream-like world of the late 70s. The developers recycle many similar effects from the original film, like sound effects you would hear from the computer. Additionally, the audio design is crucial to the stealth mechanic of the game. Players can often deduce where the Alien is based on sound alone. You could hear it crawl in the vents and estimate how far away it is based on the noise it makes with respect to your location. If not for the looming threat of the Xenomorph Alien, I would take a lot of time to just sit and explore the game’s incredible ambience.
When it comes to plot, the story is sort of lackluster. By that, I mean that if you’ve seen the first
Alien
film, you could honestly deduce the plot. You are dropped off at a station, the Xenomorph Alien kills everyone, and you have to escape along with your crew. Of course, there are evil corporations and rogue androids, just like every film in the
Alien
series. I honestly forgot we were looking for Ellen Ripley.
The voice acting and character development is straight up sad. It is extremely disappointing compared to other games nowadays that focus heavily on narrative and character intimacy. During my playthrough of the game, I felt little emotional connection to these characters. I could honestly care less if something happened to them, just because of how dry they were. However, the story is not important with
Alien: Isolation
. We are here to explore Ridley Scott’s
Alien
.
This game takes patience. I mean, lots and lots of patience. Expect a lot of frustration and “game-over” scenes. But trust me, the horror and experience pays off when you beat the game. If you are looking for a good scare this Halloween but you prefer science fiction to psychological surrealist horror, you will enjoy
Alien: Isolation
. If you are a fan of Ridley Scott’s original film, this is the perfect game for you.
