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Alien Isolation


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->Outlast + Evil Within

 

That is a pretty good analogue. It's a real shame the second game was never released on PC, it was brilliant in its own right. Especially because of the part

with the friggen' BEAR!

 

 

I guess I'll give Alien a whirl this weekend, been reading reviews and so far it sounds really intriguing. A bit System Shockish, even?

Edited by kyyrma
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I haven't even seen the Alien yet but I'm loving this game. The attention to detail is quite amazing--they've really got the atmosphere down and the "Alien movie feel" just right. Advancing through almost every room is excruciating (in a good way) due to how unforgiving the game is--it keeps you on your toes at all times (which is great for immersion).

 

Also, if anyone has an Oculus Rift DK2 (or knows someone who does), the game has a hidden VR mode. And it must be well done because a lot of reviews state that with VR the game is no longer enjoyable but rather just terrifying and stressful :D . http://www.polygon.c...ion-oculus-rift

 

With the Oculus Rift taking up the entirety of your view, and good wireless headphones making sure no external sound can get in, the illusion of being trapped inside this environment is complete.

 

Having to flick your eyes from your motion tracker from time to time to make sure nothing is creeping up on you means you can't always be watching what's in front of you, and the near panic of trying to find the alien when you have a ping can be overpowering.

 

I found myself looking away when it found me and bound towards me. There's nothing you can do to save yourself in those situations, I just didn't want to watch it kill me.

 

Instructions: http://www.theriftar...culus-rift-dk2/

For example, you can no longer hold down the Control key to lean left and right, instead you only need to physically lean in your chair, and it makes peering over tables and through objects more lifelike and easy.

 

 

Of course, even from the standpoint of my preliminary impression, the game isn't perfect. Given how it does so well in certain respects, its flaws really stick out. Actually, I wouldn't call them "flaws" but rather just "glaring missed opportunities." In particular, the mechanics of stealth, the interactivity with the environment, and the physics are painfully rudimentary. I blame consolitis. If only the PC version had Amnesia's solutions to these problems...

Edited by woah
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That is a pretty good analogue. It's a real shame the second game was never released on PC, it was brilliant in its own right.

 

Do you mean The Evil Within? It's on steam now, and I know Outlast is too (unless you're referring to a sequel to either game, in which case ignore me)

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Usually can't stand games that don't give you any means of defending yourself.

 

You can defend yourself later on by scaring it off with a flamethrower, but early-game is gratuitous use of the generous supply of hiding places and distraction items.

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Condemned 2 was never released for PC ;)

 

Ah, point taken. In that case, ignore me ;) (speaking of which, I have Condemned sitting around here, really need to get around to playing it at some point)

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That's not what I am saying. I just said that it would not work without it imho.

 

Regarding the ai: All individuals (alien, bots and human) behave similar like they does in Thief, TDM etc... The main difference is that the alien is much more sensible and can move through the airshafts. There are only a few scripted sequences involving the alien, but normally it is like dealing with a guard in TDM, just that it is more deadly and freaking fast.

 

The Save system doesn't make the game work. It makes the fear real. Let's face it, no game can generate real fear, as theirs no real danger, so

it needs to use other mechanics to make you care about your life. This method works beautifully, as the spacing between saves is not far,

but the time it takes you to get that distance is long, so you dread getting caught and killed. This gives the game it's real raw emotion as

their is a price to be paid if you mess up, which is what it should be.

 

I don't believe this is true. I'm playing on hard and I've studied the creature a lot trying to find a pattern to it's behaviour, and as of yet (almost 10 hrs into game) I've yet to find any pattern. The slightest sound you make, or cause indirectly or directly will draw it to you. Sometimes it just seems damn unfair but that's the price you pay for the full experience of this amazing game. It's not a stealth survival game, but more like you have been really thrown into this situation, and the creature is intensely difficult to predict.

 

If you play this game to find it's flaws, well it defeats the purpose of playing it. However if you really give yourself to the experience, you will

get a really rich experience that I've not felt every before in a game.

 

To be honest, this review says it better than any words I can say.

 

http://www.gamesrada...olation-review/

 

It is most definitely THE most intense game I've ever experienced, and I'm loving it. :D

Edited by Venus

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I'm playing on hard and I've studied the creature a lot trying to find a pattern to it's behaviour, and as of yet (almost 10 hrs into game) I've yet to find any pattern. The slightest sound you make, or cause indirectly or directly will draw it to you. Sometimes it just seems damn unfair but that's the price you pay for the full experience of this amazing game.

 

Speaking of unfair and not finding a pattern, maybe the game is cheating? Like the Alien teleports nearby when you make a sound although it could never have heard you where you last lost it? Is there a noclip and notarget mode to check this out? I'm not far into the game yet, but in the second cutscene where you finally see the Alien it's basically blind to your presence although you are only inches away. Then it dissappears and reappears exactly where you need to go as if it knew this! I remember the enemies in Unreal dodging the moment one pressed the fire button and the final boss in Unreal Tournament increasing it's difficutly once you were close to win, so there are precendeces. For me this is the biggest immersion killer possible, if I feel the game is cheating on me, all sense of realism or reality is gone!

Edited by wesp5
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Its chilling and immersive enough on 3 monitor surround in the dark.... playing it on oculus would be seriously heart pounding. It is really unfortunate there isn't a consumer version out yet. I guess we'll just have to play it again next year when the OR is released!

 

If my sister walked through the station with the OR on she would probably pass out from the excitement...gigeddy!

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Speaking of unfair and not finding a pattern, maybe the game is cheating? Like the Alien teleports nearby when you make a sound although it could never have heard you where you last lost it? Is there a noclip and notarget mode to check this out? I'm not far into the game yet, but in the second cutscene where you finally see the Alien it's basically blind to your presence although you are only inches away. Then it dissappears and reappears exactly where you need to go as if it knew this! I remember the enemies in Unreal dodging the moment one pressed the fire button and the final boss in Unreal Tournament increasing it's difficutly once you were close to win, so there are precendeces. For me this is the biggest immersion killer possible, if I feel the game is cheating on me, all sense of realism or reality is gone!

It sometimes seems to move to keypoints, but normally stays in the airshafts and makes quite some noise when moving. I don't think it is teleporting, because I could always hear it and follow its movements on the movement detector or whatever it is called.

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if I feel the game is cheating on me, all sense of realism or reality is gone!

Not really an issue in a game about aliens on a space station. It is a little hit to the immersion when it drops down in the middle of the route you have to go down but there's so much RNG in play that I can't tell when and where it's scripted to appear. I'd only know if I watched somebody else play it but then that'd be my own fault for ruining the illusion of being stalked.

Edited by Airship Ballet
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People who may like this game should have the following qualities:

  • You should like games that challenge you, and sometimes kick you in the ass really hard: Not really
  • You need a very high frustration tolerance (really, very high): Nope
  • In stealth games you should prefer the ghosting approach or a clever use of tools, although you have weapons in this games using them isn't really an option: Hmmyeah, nope

Edited by Jon Irenicus
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Not really an issue in a game about aliens on a space station. It is a little hit to the immersion when it drops down in the middle of the route you have to go down but there's so much RNG in play that I can't tell when and where it's scripted to appear. I'd only know if I watched somebody else play it but then that'd be my own fault for ruining the illusion of being stalked.

 

Its definitely a percent chance at decision points. You can tell that by reloading a save. Sometimes you will get the similar behavior but not completely similar. Its pretty unpredictable which is nice.

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Sometimes you will get the similar behavior but not completely similar. Its pretty unpredictable which is nice.

 

I've seen a bit more now and I would say that the Alien appearing in a section is completely scripted and triggered by another event, like reading a computer log or similar. Although that's a bit of cheating, it is necessary, otherwise you could get lucky by chance and never encounter the Alien at all! After it appears it's free running AI and also pretty blind: I crawled around some furniture once with it in plain sight and it didn't find me! Still I died a lot because of the unpredictable movements, especially compared with most TDM guards.

 

I'm fine with this, but my complaint would be that often the last save point is not shortly before the Alien appears, but earlier, so you need to do some unspectacular running around each time you die which is just a waste of time. Combine this with the visuals which are very detailed, but also very much copy and paste in that e.g. the crew section of the space ship is copied inside the space station and I can only ever play a section or two before I get bored! But I would really like someone to do a Marines vs Aliens mod with this graphics :)!

Edited by wesp5
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It is a game after all :)

 

 

 

Yeah, one of the first encounters I had in the medical ward when he drops down out of the ceiling the first time. I had done this quite a few times so I decided, screw it, I'm going to sprint and see what happens.

So I sprinted up the stairs right past him dropping out of the ceiling, then down the hall away from him and quickly punched a code in the door and went through there and kept sprinting around collecting everything cause I knew where the stuff I wanted was, then hid. He wasn't looking for me or seemingly detecting my sprinting footsteps until well past the locked door and that's because when he drops down out of the ceiling he does a nice long animation that apparently can't be interrupted so it gives you a time gap.

 

 

 

Of course another time when I tried sprinting down a hallway even staying to the left or right of ceiling vents, eek, there he was grabbing me from ceiling vent and murdering me :)

 

There's only so much they have done outside the confines of normal AI behavior but I think by-and-large they've done a good and interesting job with his AI.

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Of course another time when I tried sprinting down a hallway even staying to the left or right of ceiling vents, eek, there he was grabbing me from ceiling vent and murdering me :)

 

That happened to me in the meantime too and I can't really believe that this was not cheated. Anyway, not running below vents helps and I died more often during the stupid quicktime events when the fire started and the last save point was far away! That's just unfair of the developer, after each main cutscene there should have been an autosave. Not doing this is just artificially prolonging the game and angering the players :(!

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Good God there's just no pleasing some people.

 

Don't misunderstand me, the game is pretty good in my opinion! But badly placed save points are a problem with many games. And it's one thing to keep the tension up by using save points under the immediate threat of the Alien and another to place them so stupidly that you have to repeat boring stuff over and over until you even met it!

Edited by wesp5
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I despise checkpoint saving in general and actually quite like the system they've used in Alien: Iso. Its my feeling that its well paced, well thought out, and I haven't had a single issue with it, and after exploring a bit it almost seems like there are too many save points.

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I'm not far into the game but I already had two save stations which were placed badly. In one I had to do a boring run all over again to activate a computer which then would trigger the Alien appearing. Placing a save station in that room would have make much more sense! The same goes for the fire inferno in medical. Why not place a save station there which you can access after the cutscene? Right now I needed to watch the cutscene over and over again after I fell down due to the quick time events!

 

On another note, in the medical area there were several corpses with chestburster holes. Is this explained anywhere because I think there is only one Alien around, no? Also I think they missed the chance to place some dead facehuggers or chestbursters in medical tubes in case there were supposed to have been several of them...

Edited by wesp5
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On another note, in the medical area there were several corpses with chestburster holes. Is this explained anywhere because I think there is only one Alien around, no? Also I think they missed the chance to place some dead facehuggers or chestbursters in medical tubes in case there were supposed to have been several of them...

 

Facehuggers have been referred to in computer related voicemail/emails.

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Facehuggers have been referred to in computer related voicemail/emails.

 

Okay, these are some kind of spoilers, but will it be explained how the Aliens came to the station? Will you see some facehuggers? I think one of the coolest moments of the Aliens movie was when they encountered the living one in the tube :)!

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