Alien: Isolation

[Rev]

Do you lose anything for dying? Does it require skill to get past difficult bits? Are the bits just randomly generated events and therefore all equal? Is there any reason not to just die and restart that bit? If not, then what's at stake? Your time? Does that not make it meaningless quite quickly?

You don't lose anything for dying but your progress up to that point, but it has a very old-skool save system.  There is a very occasional auto save, but mainly we're talking the typewriter or notepad system here - manual save points that aren't too generously available.  This means that death means re-starting a particular sequence, which can mean being put half an hour back.  I'm not a fan of this approach, as what happens is inevitable, and is probably the actual punishment:  after dying a couple of times on a particular bit, you'll longer bother to bother going about and picking up the stuff you did on your first attempt.  You just want to get the hard bit over and not slog through it again.

Nothing in it is randomly generated - so it involves learning patrol patterns and timing and whatnot.  Everything's scripted, particularly where the alien is at any point in time, but how you react in the moment changes how things play out.  You can take different approaches, although it does always feel like there's one 'best' one, even if you don't know what that is.

I think what you were asking there was does repetition let you improve?  It definitely does, but it takes the shine off the thing too.

[mbedd]

Yep totally agree, hate that system too, the punishment for not being able to read a game designers mind, is indeed to be forced to listen to the same painful 'character' dialogue as you pointlessly go down the same corridor or similar looking air vent again and again until any excitement or interest disappears.

Game design would improve dramatically if every one had a 'Shut the fuck up' button'. I wouldn't even mind if the companion characters ignored my exclamations and carried on delivering their dirge lines, in fact it would relieve quite a lot of tension if they kept banging on about security doors or whatever, if you could keep replying with an increasingly aggressive 'Shuuuut uuuup!!!' every time you pressed that button.
It might make wading through the same route more entertaining, instead of getting frustrated and bored like I just did, switching it off and finding something more interesting to do, like scraping the dead skin from the recesses of my mouse.
Don't get me wrong it seems a mostly good game so far, mostly, but things like that just get on my wick.

[Thursday]

*edit* misread something

[Bored of Canada]

Christ. The game absolutely shits the bed halfway through. Well, I say halfway through. It has a reasonably well paced three act kind of deal, with a natural resolution. And when the third act ends, that is the halfway point of the entire game...It then just potters about throwing busy fix the door, by going to one place to fix the generator, and to fix the generator, you're going to need to go somewhere else for that thing, and then etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

And then the game inexplicably continues for what appears to be the second half of the game. It really feels like the earlier sections were playtested a lot more too.

I'm always advocating shorter games, and this one could have worked with the pacing it had when it had it's natural kind of resolution, but nah, they absolutely shit the bed and it becomes infuriating. It is seemingly a never ending game at this point.

That said, I looked at the walkthrough just to see how much longer I had to do of this shit, and it seems like I'm only 40 minutes from the end at this point, but still, poor direction for this. I'm still very interested in going back to the Survival Mode, which seems like a concentrated dose of what makes the game special.

The game starts off really nicely, with just a barebones plot, but chock full of interesting story to explore and discover through the logs and environment, like any Shock game. But that really falls by the wayside and then the interesting story disappears and is replaced by the fucking dull plot. There is so much good about the game, and I still really have fallen in love with it, but it's a rough as fuck diamond that I wouldn't recommend to a lot of people.

I think the problem is that this ending is so damn dragged out and tedious that it really ends on a sour note. If it had a shit beginning and then had all the good stuff at the end, I'd probably be bloody preaching about the game, but it's just such a damn slog at this point. 

I've had it with bloody video game's plots at this point between this and the bloody Shadows of Mordor game. The latter is far more offensive than the first but still. 

[Rev]

I think I'm a little over halfway through, but it really feels like it could do with wrapping up quite soon.  It doesn't, I know, but the daft accepted terms of 'game length' are going to push this one into padding and tedium, I can feel it happening.

Spoilered for the benefit of others - I'm talking about the staircase plan here: 

Spoiler alert

It's almost unbelievable that nobody seems to have spoken up and pointed out how shit that was during the development.  A long scrape doing stuff, then the game resets it and you're back to where you started with only 'oh, those isolated stations you had to use to lock everything down are all completely linked, so we've opened all the doors again' explanation.  If they wanted to just reset that area, a five minute think about it would have provided a better idea.

[close]

This sort of game should be about ten hours tops if it's particularly long - you wear out your bag of tricks, is the thing.  Outlast remains the gold standard for this roughly-defined genre for me, because it knew when it was outstaying its welcome and therefore did something completely crackers.  I'm still enjoying this, but don't think I'm going to get a similar kind of shift near the end.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I really can't decide whether I want to get this now[nb]Yeah, yeah, first world problems. Shut it, you tiresome tit.[/nb]. I feel like I could forgive the game some flaws if the atmosphere is right, but even I have my tedium threshold. Maybe I'll just play Condemned again.

Further complicating things, I've just learned of Routine, an indie game in development since 2011, by a team of four people. It looks incredibly similar to Isolation but may potentially avoid some of its flaws. Or it could be crap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaZqV0o7EW4

[Rev]

Well don't let my grousing put you off - what it gets right it gets very right, and there's no faulting the atmosphere.  The plot isn't particularly compelling, so there's always the option of just leaving it when you've had enough.  It's good, it just needed to be shorter and tighter.

[wooders1978]

Tediously difficult once the alien gets involved - I simply dont have the time to invest hiding in lockers to inevitably judt get killed anyway

[Thursday]

Hmm not getting off to a good start with this game. I keep missing the obvious place to go, because of some things that aren't very well highlighted. (that room with the 2nd generator and that fucking vent in the kitchen) Which means I started wondering back and fourth through the big open areas at the start, and because you can't run that's very slow and tedious.

I'm sure I'll like it once it gets going, but I've got evil within to finish off first.

*edit* So if an enemy see's you (and they will, even if you can't see them) they'll shoot you automatically from 5 miles away across a dark room?

[Rev]

I'm not sure whereabouts you are, but do you have the motion sensor yet?  The opening stretch is deeply weird, in that it the game doesn't start properly until you get it, but it doesn't go much easier on you until you do.  Once you do have it, you're clearly pointed in the right direction at all times.

[Thursday]

No, I'm talking about very early game. It's okay now though. I was quite stuck on the bit where the lady drops her hack tool and then you pick it up and have to find a data cell.

[Bored of Canada]

*edit* So if an enemy see's you (and they will, even if you can't see them) they'll shoot you automatically from 5 miles away across a dark room?

That's just a scripted moment if I know what you're thinking. That bit when you walk in on the lady and she just immediately fires at you, even if you're crouching and hiddne in the darkness. Took me about 7 goes at that bit to get past that first encounter with the humans, which was why I linked that need to know article above which explains that before you get into it.

I also had a fuckload of trouble figuring out where I was supposed to go throughout. Especially that bloody vent in the kitchen floor. As well as about 3 times when I was going back and forth between places, before finding out that it was actually a glitch and a door hadn't triggered to unlock for some reason.

The motion tracker is a godsend, but it's a bandaid for poor level design.
I think a lot of people have cited Bioshock as a touchstone for the world, but bloody hell, it reminds me of it because it has exactly the same problems. 

The bloody missions and plot of Bioshock is exactly the same as Alien, constantly trying to go forward, but being met by a locked door, or a broken door, or a broken elevator or what have you. You need to move to the next area but you can't move on until you finish this busywork.

And the only reason people knew where the hell they had to go in Bioshock was because they had a big fuck off arrow at the top of the screen, pulling you along.

There's fundamental design problems with both games that seem to me like they didn't playtest it as much, and watch how players actually moved through the game. I understand that not every designer has the money that Valve has, and maybe can't afford months and months of playtesting on various iterations and drafts with special cameras that watch the players faces and such. Let alone have the money and time to actually fix problems that come up in playtest, but still, if you can't afford to fix the problems of your game, then perhaps you've bitten off too much. Make the game half as long and you'll have far more of an opportunity to polish and bring in the quality.

I really love Bioshock. I really love Alien Isolation.

The second half of both is a fucking slog.

Both games are too bloody long, have a lot of really bad points, can be rough as guts, but honestly, the things they get right are the things I care about most, and I really do have a lot of love for them both. Rough as guts diamonds.

[Thursday]

That's just a scripted moment if I know what you're thinking. That bit when you walk in on the lady and she just immediately fires at you, even if you're crouching and hiddne in the darkness. Took me about 7 goes at that bit to get past that first encounter with the humans, which was why I linked that need to know article above which explains that before you get into it.

Oh I know, but even after that, the people in that room just seemed to have a psychic gift for knowing where I was, I'd be behind cover, see them walking in the opposite direction and I'd step out and they'd instantly see me. It doesn't help that you don't really know which way you're supposed to go at that point, and I went every other way you could have gone before choosing the right one.

It's just a bit frustrating when the presentation and atmosphere is so perfect. I fucking love the fuzzy 20th century fox logo at the beginning and how they've integrated the sega logo.

[Bored of Canada]

It's just a bit frustrating when the presentation and atmosphere is so perfect. I fucking love the fuzzy 20th century fox logo at the beginning and how they've integrated the sega logo at the beginning.

I really love how it's followed by that bombastic AMD Graphics Card advert directly after it though. Burst out laughing when that first came out. Completely fucked the atmosphere.
Though that might just be on PC.

[Thursday]

It's just got the Havok/autodesk/wwise bit.

Oh also the loading times are incredibly slow, but I'll accept that as console limitation rather than the game, but it does make death even more annoying.

Anyway, getting this and Alien Isolation has been a bit of a mistake, because both are games I'm waiting until it gets dark to play, so now I'm sitting around with very little to do at the weekends wishing time would pass.

[clingfilm portent]

I'm relieved to read I wasn't the only who got stuck looking for that hatch in the floor. I spent hours walking back and fucking forth before I got that.

At the moment I'm still stuck at the first proper alien encounter. Scary? Very. Annoying? Very. I just don't really feel compelled to play any further to be honest, especially after BoC's posts. This thing had so much potential, it feels like its just going to disappoint me the more I progress. Fuck.

[Rev]

The thing is, it doesn't really - it portions things out in such a strange way.  I think I'm about three-quarters of the way in (spoiler to identify where I am, and it is a spoiler:

Spoiler alert

the alien has been fucked off

[close]

), and the couple of hours around this stretch have been the most fun I've had with it so far.

It's peaks and troughs all the way with this one, the pacing and balance is so weird.  I was also stuck for ages on that initial encounter in the big lobby, and with good reason:  I've not had an encounter that difficult since, because you have stuff to deal with those situations later on - particularly the motion tracker, and also things like the noisemakers that the alien never hears because he's a big deaf bastard.

[chand]

Started playing this on the weekend, only a short way in, just past the first (cut scene) sight of the alien. I found the tutorial section odd cos it just seemed to leave loads of stuff out. I don't recall it ever telling me where the fricking map is, which is an enormous help once you figure it out. It also didn't explain how to crouch/stand up, which I had to figure out by hitting every button on the controller once I came out of a vent and found I was stuck in the crouch position until I worked out it was R3.

It's alright so far, some slightly jarring stuff like NPCs not facing me when they talk though, which ruins some of the sense of immersion.

It's kind of a shame really that the style of the opening has been done so many times before. By that I mean the walking around, talking to people, not shooting anyone, just setting the scene stuff. It really suits the mood of this game, but I feel like it's been done so much that it doesn't have the same impact. Hey, there's some background plot information in written note form! Look, a convenient audio log which adds to the atmosphere! Pretty much every FPS with any kind of aspiration has done this stuff since the original Half-Life so it's difficult to get properly enthused by it.

[The Boston Crab]

I would like to play the first few hours of this for the vibe but it sounds like the actual game is little more than a walking simulator.

[Bored of Canada]

I would like to play the first few hours of this for the vibe but it sounds like the actual game is little more than a walking simulator.

So clearly a NOTAGAME

[The Boston Crab]

I loved The Unfinished Swan and Journey and there's not a hell of a lot of game there but they also made their point beautifully, concisely and without making you repeat bits for no reason other than gaming convention. They're also only a tenner.

I've only seen bits of a Let's Play, to be fair to this.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

It's not a walking simulator, its a hiding in lockers simulator.

[Thursday]

Enjoying this more after the rubbish first hour, although it is also completely unfair and not my fault I died all those times.

[chand]

The first time I died was annoying, it was shortly after the scripted alien encounter where Irvine Welsh gets minced, I was at that bit where you call for transit and wait ages with the scary music, but nothing seemed to be happening. Got in the transit pod, missed the prompt to set off and was dicking around looking for it when suddenly I got dragged off and killed.

Played a bit more the other night and got up to the bit where you first properly see the alien

Spoiler alert

when he drops out the ceiling and you hide under the desk. Watched him wander off and then had to go back through the room where that girl and the three dudes try and kill you, which was empty because I'd brained them all with the maintenance jack. Spent a good couple of minutes moving around and peeking and trying to see if he was in the room, but it didn't seem like he was at all. Got up to the door that the girl had been trying to get through, figured I'd made it, and BAM, he'd sneaked up behind me. Argh!

[close]

I think it's gonna take me a while to get used to the rules, the rules don't feel as clear as they do in stuff like Dishonored or Splinter Cell, where I pretty much always knew when I was safe and when I was risking my arse. Does the alien have predictable routes? Does the game cheat and just have it sprouting out of unlikely places, or can you always figure out where he is? Can it see me when I'm peeking or am I safe like Dishonored?

[clingfilm portent]

You know which section the Alien is going to be in each time, yes.

Once you have the motion tracker, life becomes a lot easier. The further you progress, the more you learn the rhythm of the thing. That is to say, you know how much noise you can make/how long you can spend out in the open/where the next convenient place to hide is.

So yeah, its just that annoying first face off really.

[chand]

Do you get any stealth-killing methods? I did the first encounter with aggressive humans a bunch of times and no matter how much I snuck about, twatting one on the bonce with the jack alerted the others and they'd all start constantly shooting from miles around. I ended up doing a very video-gamey thing of standing by a door and fucking them up as they came in, or waiting for them to edge close to the door and rushing out at them flailing my weapon about. One of those things that would never work in real life, so felt a bit shit.

[clingfilm portent]

No stealth-killin' I'm afraid. It would have been nice to be included, but to be honest there are so few moments were you'd be able to execute them that it's not a substantial loss. There aren't that many human enemies, and really its the androids that I wish you could dispatch a bit quicker (playing on Hard).

Speaking of which I sort of wish I'd played on Hard from the beginning, I opted for medium but switched after breezing though a few bits.

[Thursday]

I was starting to really get into this, and then another bit where I was wondering around lost for ages, all because I'd missed a shutter that gave no indication whatsoever it could open. You have to walk right up to it for it to open, and nothing that looks like it was something you could walk through up to that point.

[Hollow]

I'm shocked and quite quietly pleased at this games difficultly...it seems hard games are making a comeback.

But Christ this is a hard game...sadistically so at times.

[Thursday]

I finished this (although I type as the credits roll, don't know if they're might be another 5 hours after that.) It is worth getting, but god it really doesn't know when to give up. I'm not sure it's even a problem with the game being too long so much as it spends so much time feeling like it's about to end.

Spoiler alert

I was thinking it was actually quite a decent place to end, when you're just putting the suit on to escape, but then the alien knocks you down for a just little bit more in a sequence that really isn't very interesting. Eventually you return to the airlock, but then you have to go outside to do... something... I don't actually have the slightest clue what any of this space jargon means. So then it ends with that sequence with the 3 aliens about to tear you apart, but then the thing you're doing happens just in time and there's an explosion and you manage to get on the torrens again. Hooray! I Finished the game... Oh wait what's this... I'm in control again... hmm I think I can tell what's going to happen here. Oh an Alien got on somehow too! What a Twist! And we're going to finish with a QTE because why the fuck not? Let's all code a few more seconds of gameplay! It'll be more work for us and no fun for the player. HOORAY!

[close]

Good game though 7.5/10. Although the slowdown on PS3 was terrible at times, it feels like your playing a game that your system is well below the minimum system requirements for, but that's fair enough really.

I preferred The Evil Within.