When a game triggers a range of review scores as wide as ‘Alien: Isolation,” it’s usually a sign that there’s something interesting going on. The Creative Assembly’s new game is a curious beast indeed: a survival horror game that tries to recreate the terror of Ridley Scott and H.R. Geiger’s original Alien by making the player almost completely helpless against it’s overwhelming force. It’s quiet, tense, and in some cases, genuinely terrifying. You can read more about my initial impressions here.
Reviewers that have made it through the entire game, however, don’t seem to feel that the game was able to keep up the tension of its early moments. Alien: Isolation currently sits at an 80 on metacritic, but that number contains some highly negative scores.
At IGN, Ryan Mccaffrey gives the game a 5.9, and seems almost enraged that this original and interesting game couldn’t capitalize on its potential : “it is a great idea that, in practice, not only wears out its welcome, but drags on so long that it almost completely erases any trace of the fun I once had. Which is a whole different form of horror than I was expecting.”
Polygon feels similarly, awarding the game a 6.5 for largely similar reasons: that the initial terror just doesn’t stack up throughout the course of a long and tense game.
Others agree that the game is stressful and unforgiving, but see that as a positive given the genre. Here’s Ludwig Keitzmann, who gave the game 4 stars at Joystiq: “
Alien: Isolation is a trauma machine masquerading as a video game. Only in the realm of horror could this be seen as a compliment, and only with horror games in particular is this worthy of nervous applause. Say this about any other kind of game and you’d mistake praise for insults: it’s unpleasant, stressful and rarely merciful. Yay!”
In general, a lot of the reviews seem to come down on whether the constant fear, endless periods of hiding and unpredictability shake out to a good or a bad thing.
Kirk Hamilton at Kotaku liked the game overall, but acknowledges that it might not work for everyone: ”Regardless of how it happens, rest assured that the alien will kill you. Often. That is what the bulk of
Alien: Isolation consists of: Being mercilessly murdered, over and over again, by a horrifying, eight-foot-tall monster from outer space. If that’s your thing, though, it’s pretty good stuff.”
Quite frankly, I love to see scores and reviews like this: most AAA games are hard to pan because they play it so safe, but Alien Isolation is anything but. The choice to leave the majority of the action and rhythm up to an unscripted AI monster is unusual, but that’s sort of what’s fun about it. Look for more complete thoughts once I’ve made it through the game.
"Press A to open door" "Hold A to hide" "Press X to activate"
