Alien: Isolation

**Jarmam** · 07-09-2014, 20:57

The game is now pre-orderable on Steam. Crossed fingers for a swath of Youtube-videos of people playing it come October!

**easytarget** · 10-03-2014, 15:29

Circling back to happily say it looks like I was wrong about this one.

I respect reviews on RPS, and this reviewer is a big fan of the movie, if he gives this a thumbs up, I suspect it's legit:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014...ion-review-pc/

**HopAlongBunny** · 10-04-2014, 02:07

A not very encouraging take on the game from Ars:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/1...-unforgivable/

**Fragony** · 10-04-2014, 08:59

Sounds like it isn't for everyone. If RPS mentions System Shock 2 I am sold personally.

**easytarget** · 10-04-2014, 16:00

And yes, I'm sure this one is going to get reviews that bounce all over the place, that's why you should choose carefully who you pay attention to.

And in this case doubly so I suspect because this is a game with design mechanics I'm pretty sure some are not going to like. Take me for example, this is not one I'd ever even consider. I detest stealth games.

But if I was in the market to branch out and play something new, a couple of the places personally I consistently look to for reviews is RPS (because I tend to agree with their reviews on genres I do like and know something about and because they focus on the PC) and the site Quarter to Three, again because I agree with most of what Tom Chick has to say most of the time and he's the only reviewer in the industry who doesn't grade inflate (gaming industry media on the whole is so captive as to be utterly meaningless in most cases).

**easytarget** · 10-04-2014, 16:04

Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny

A not very encouraging take on the game from Ars:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/1...-unforgivable/

Interesting, but I got to say, I don't consider Ars for game reviews. One glance at their home page tells you pretty much all you need to know about them, which is they appear to do a scattergun coverage of tech. Possibility article authors there are subject matter experts on what they write about: zero.

**Mongoose** · 10-08-2014, 00:25

The ars review complains about "broken stealth mechanics." In my experience, when reviewers say stealth is broken, it's pretty often that they simply never got the mechanics right. Take the complaints about "Metro: 2033," for instance. Lots of reviewers hated it because they thought the stealth was too hard, when in reality it just operated on the simple rule of "if they can see, they can see you," - being in someone's peripheral didn't make you invisible to them, unlike in, say Skyrim (which reviewers loved). Also, if you fired a bunch of gun shots, they figured out where you were ... because they can hear.

So the the complaints in the ars review about "OMG how did alien find me, I was totally hidden" may reflect a failure to learn the game.

**HopAlongBunny** · 10-08-2014, 05:37

Originally Posted by Mongoose

So the the complaints in the ars review about "OMG how did alien find me, I was totally hidden" may reflect a failure to learn the game.

Agreed

It may reflect the learning curve present in the game rather than a real game flaw. Doesn't sound like a game you unpack and blow through in an afternoon.

**Jarmam** · 10-08-2014, 13:09

The game is absolutely fantastic so far. Ab-solutely fantastic. It is the first thing to reach the atmospheric heights of Alien since Alien came out. It is slow, painful, exhausting and completely terrifying.

I realize that you have to take apologetic review-reviews from the Steam game page with a grain of salt, but A. The Steam pages also link to reviews that crush the game, and B. This article is really good so I recommend it:
http://www.pcgamer.com/addressing-cr...0&ns_fee=0

He mentions the major complaint points from other reviewers and I can agree with the logic behind why they might have been given. I just find them hopeless and flat out incorrect as well. Yes, the game has balls of steel, designwise, difficultywise and pacing-wise. That's amazing. It is so incredible to me that I refused to accept it as a possibility at all until I got my hands on the game. Heck, there are three difficulties; easy, normal, hard, and the game tells you that you are "supposed" to experience the game on hard. Respect.

This game is to me what Avengers was for superhero team movies: The bumblebee that couldn't possibly fly but did - against all expectation. Yes, the plot is probably going to be exactly what I think it is for now, but that's not the point. I know the guy who "needed less sleep than the rest" in the hypersleep scene is an android. I don't care. The game isn't about the story, because there is only 1 Alien-story. It's about recapturing the things that made it work in the first place.

Is it flawless? No. I've never experienced flawless in my life. But it's damn, damn, damn good. Damn good. And it has no right to be. I am hopelessly in love.