Alien: Isolation

[Jick Magger]

I'm in mission 10. What I noticed is that i can freely walk around and unless I make significant noise (or reach a certain scripted point), the creature won't even drop from the vents. I had same situation in previous mission, I dont remember exactly which. Medical was the hardest part so far. Is this a bug or is it supposed to be like that? I'm unsure.

Just the way the level is designed. Lots of long, windy, tight corridors without much room to hide, and all the lockers/desks to hide under are in the offices scattered between, not to mention the fact that they're packed densely together to make it easier for the alien to roam through them. Most of the other areas are big rooms with tons of shit to hide under, with only a few hallways where the alien could potentially trap you.

 

[MapMan]

Well right now I have to do the sealing off and the alien randomly dropped on me (even if I didn't make any noise), creating some really tense situations. This is much more interesting.

 

[Sodafish]

Well right now I have to do the sealing off and the alien randomly dropped on me (even if I didn't make any noise), creating some really tense situations. This is much more interesting.

Yeah, that bit is similar to medical in terms of how aggressive the alien is. The difference though is you have the flamer at that point. This is why I said you must have been quite lucky to not die at all in medical.

 

[chestburster]

Finally finished the game, 24 hours in total on hard. The game definitely peaks at medical bay. After you get the flamethrower, the Alien just turns into RE3's Nemesis or Dead Space's unkillable Ubermorph.

 

[barker_s]

I don't know, I've been playing with the flamethrower yesterday and while it got less tense (the experience in the medical part was the first time a game made my hands shake from stress, seriously), it still provides you with some nice gameplay options. It gives you a false sense of security - you might torch the Alien to get out of a tight situation, but it'll be back soon, just more pissed this time. And the fuel runs out way too quickly, so you need to manage it pretty closely.

Also, I love how the Alien reacts to the flamethrower. While I was playing yesterday, I got spotted by the server farm. The monster rushed me and I shot at it a little bit too quickly, so the flame didn't connect. Still, it got scared and stopped, but as I was backing away, it started to follow me slowly as if it was trying to figure out if I've got any more fuel. Clever girl.

 

[chestburster]

My late game strategy basically becomes: flame the Alien a little, sprint to the objective with that ten seconds when the Alien was away, hide in a closet/under a table and wait; Alien comes back, can't find me, searches for 5 minutes then leaves for another 2 minutes. I eat some chips while I wait for the Alien to leave. The game becomes quite stress free. The only tense part after medical bay was

Spoiler

when your weapons were taken away and the indestructible industrial "artificial persons" showed up

.

 

[WhiteGuts]

The android are actually more scary than the alien. They don't run, they don't have weapons, but they are fucking creepy, with that emotionless face and artificial voice. The worst thing is when you flame them, they keep walking like fucking terminators.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The android are actually more scary than the alien. They don't run, they don't have weapons, but they are fucking creepy, with that emotionless face and artificial voice. The worst thing is when you flame them, they keep walking like fucking terminators.

Alien for tension, Androids for creepy/scare, Humans for comic relief.

All the elements of a good horror story.

 

[Sodafish]

The android are actually more scary than the alien. They don't run, they don't have weapons, but they are fucking creepy, with that emotionless face and artificial voice. The worst thing is when you flame them, they keep walking like fucking terminators.

Yeah and they are much harder to fool by hiding in lockers.

 

[chestburster]

But androids are so easy to kill. One stun baton hit and you can whack them all you want. Also, in the room after

Spoiler

the synthetic exhibition

, the game gave you so much ammo and supplies I thought I was going to fight some uber android in a boss fight. But no, just some regular androids that come through a choke point, which I destroyed in two seconds with an EMP and a pipe bomb. Very disappointed.

 

[Sodafish]

But androids are so easy to kill.

Sure, but try to do it without immediately attracting the alien who gets you whilst you're busy pummeling the android's head in.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

The best thing about the androids is their fighting animations. They really do try their best to beat and kick the shit out of you. I've never seen melee combat like it.

 

[shihonage]

Got this game for $20 by relocating to Russia for 30 seconds. Wanted to see the ship. The texture detail is really great, it's almost like being in the movie... except for crappy antialiasing workaround.

Shortly after intro, lost all interest and developed a strong desire to resume my Dead Space 2 campaign.

Fascinating how A:I requires DX11 hardware on PCs yet runs perfectly fine on XBOX360 and PS3.

 

[bonescraper]

Fascinating how A:I requires DX11 hardware on PCs yet runs perfectly fine on XBOX360 and PS3.

Runs fine indeed.

Also. Movie trailers, they don't make them like they used to.

 

[shihonage]

wat

 

[chestburster]

Shortly after intro, lost all interest and developed a strong desire to resume my Dead Space 2 campaign.

Wat

A:I compared with DE2 is what Arma is to COD.

 

[shihonage]

Lul?

Both games are linear and use QTEs, so that analogy is bullshit.

But Dead Space 2 has a compelling weapon/armor upgrade system, and more varied level design. Also, it is actually fucking scary, and the atmosphere is done better.

 

[Jick Magger]

The upgrade system was good, as was the monster design and atmosphere, but scary? Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

 

[chestburster]

Lul?

Both games are linear and use QTEs, so that analogy is bullshit.

But Dead Space 2 has a compelling weapon/armor upgrade system, and more varied level design. Also, it is actually fucking scary, and the atmosphere is done better.

I think you use "linear" to mean both games are level-based instead of free roaming. The difference is DE2 uses scripted triggers for monsters and there're seldom any branching paths or alternative options to deal with monsters. You go in one corridor, you trigger some monster spawn in your way, you blast them apart, you go into the next corridor. At least A:I is more sandboxy. Replaying the same section never feels the same (believe me, I've reloaded/replayed the medical bay level 20 times because there was always something different that fucked up my plan and got me killed, every time some new, random thing).

And DE2 is scary? Wat?! You are a fucking moving armory and kill monsters like they're Muslims. How is it scary?

TL;DR Just go play Dead Space 3 if you want "compelling weapon/armor upgrade system, and more varied level design".

 

[Jick Magger]

As for the androids being scary, I don't quite agree. They were kinda scary the first time I ran into them (and after they subsequently brained a guy against a wall), but there's so many different ways of dealing with them or otherwise bypassing them (I'm pretty sure your default walking speed is actually faster than theirs, not even going into the running), and this is before you get the shotgun and the bolt gun, both of which can kill them in a handful of shots.

I find their hunting comments more humorous than anything. I just assumed that all of their dialogue was pre-scripted to some degree by the manufacturers who made them (which is why they'll just constantly quote company phrases when they're idle, even when they are completely non-applicable to the current situation), so it conjures up the image in my head of a bunch of guys at the programming department going over all the SUPUR SCURRY dialogue that the upper management is forcing them to add in and wondering with a confused expression how statements like "I am patient, I can wait for you for eternity" and "I will find you" could be applicable to an android that's supposedly just there to do all the back-breaking menial work.

 

[Jaesun]

Other Places is a series celebrating beautiful video game worlds. This episode features the space station Sevastopol from Sega and The Creative Assembly’s 2014 stealth/horror game, Alien: Isolation.

 

[Sranchammer]

PR firms hard at work

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Shortly after intro, lost all interest and developed a strong desire to resume my Dead Space 2 campaign.

The game has a long lead in time. Until you get to medical -- which is like 4 hours in -- you really haven't seen much of what the gameplay is like.

 

[shihonage]

Shortly after intro, lost all interest and developed a strong desire to resume my Dead Space 2 campaign.

The game has a long lead in time. Until you get to medical -- which is like 4 hours in -- you really haven't seen much of what the gameplay is like.

Is it really gonna get less banal than random vents exploding nearby over the next 4 hours? Because those will be a long 4 hours.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Shortly after intro, lost all interest and developed a strong desire to resume my Dead Space 2 campaign.

The game has a long lead in time. Until you get to medical -- which is like 4 hours in -- you really haven't seen much of what the gameplay is like.

Is it really gonna get less banal than random vents exploding nearby over the next 4 hours? Because those will be a long 4 hours.

It's a gradual ramp up. The initial area is mostly linear exploration and light puzzle solving. Then you get a couple human encounters, albeit still in fully linear levels, before catching your first glimpse of the alien. You then have some more human encounters but the levels start opening up a bit, in that they take on the shape of actual places rather than extended corridors; in fact, later on, if you choose, you can revisit these areas. You then get your first real encounter with the Alien, albeit an abbreviated one. Finally, you have a level where the androids are your primary adversaries. Then you get to medical and the real game begins: playing cat and mouse with a vicious and aggressive predator as you try to complete objectives in relatively open, non-linear levels.

edit: I should note that with the level design, the key words are "relatively non-linear". There's generally a fair amount of backtracking to start power supplies or find keycards, or whatever, and so initially there may be only one path to follow. Typically what happens however is that as you explore more of the area, more sections open up. Because the alien hunts you, you often have to run away, or back off and try an alternate approach to get where you want to go. The overall effect is very sandboxy, as others in this thread have noted. Yes you need to complete object x, which means initially following path y to get to switch z, but when you're playing cat and mouse with the alien, you're often using the whole level to try to evade detection while gradually making forward progress to your objective.