Alien Isolation wasn’t a terrible game by any means. As a horror game it delivered a claustrophobic setting, inanimate objects that like to jump scare the player at random, areas that provide little to no light and a horrifying 7 foot tall monster that kills people. However no game is perfect and gaming fans of the Alien franchise are well aware of this fact “cough cough” Colonial Marines. Anyway here are some of the issues I saw with this particular game…
The alien
Let’s start off with an easy one. While the creature from this game does adhere to some of the established physical traits and behaviours of the original alien from 1979 it didn’t take long before I was already seeing problems.
Some can be forgiven, such as the fact that the alien is faster and more agile in the game. While a slower moving creature worked well in the movie it worked because the viewers have no control over the situation and can only watch as the helpless victims are killed off. In a videogame a slow moving creature isn’t very intimidating, especially if all you need to do to survive is hold down the run button…
However some problems can’t be overlooked. Such as the creatures complete lack of understanding of the concept of stealth. Yes, it helps the player to know where the alien is but that spoils the point of being “hunted” A hunter doesn’t stomp about the forest, growling at everything that moves and not even trying to hide or blend in with the environment when searching for prey. Why, you might ask? Because the hunter doesn’t want the prey to run for it’s life in the opposite direction! I can’t invest in the alien when it goes out of its way to let me know that it’s in the area. They may as well have programmed the creature to send me an e-mail saying “I’m gonna catch u lol” whenever it was nearby! (takes a moment to calm) There were instances when the aliens appearance would surprise me and it would seemingly appear out of nowhere, those were my favourite moments of the game, but these instances were few and far between. Most instances left me dealing with a retarded, blind alien.
Next there’s
