Andy Naylor reviews Alien: Isolation…
HOW WILL YOU SURVIVE?
Discover the true meaning of fear in Alien: Isolation, a survival horror set in an atmosphere of constant dread and mortal danger. Fifteen years after the events of Alien™, Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda enters a desperate battle for survival, on a mission to unravel the truth behind her mother’s disappearance.
As Amanda, you will navigate through an increasingly volatile world as you find yourself confronted on all sides by a panicked, desperate population and an unpredictable, ruthless Alien.
Underpowered and underprepared, you must scavenge resources, improvise solutions and use your wits, not just to succeed in your mission, but to simply stay alive.
The Alien game franchise has had a somewhat chequered past. Yes, there have been some successes, Aliens versus Predator (and it’s sequel) on the PC, even Alien vs. Predator on the PS3/Xbox 360 had some fun about it. For the main they have been abysmal, particularly the last in the franchise, Aliens: Colonial Marines – at £5 this is still a waste of £5. Hell, even free it’s just a waste of your time. With the benefit of hindsight the problem is pretty clear. Nearly every game associated with the Alien franchise uses the 1986 movie sequel, Aliens, as it’s starting point. A fast paced action extravaganza that simply fails 99% of the time to translate into a video game of any quality or individuality in a market jam-packed with FPS’s. The Creative Assembly (the developer) have taken a different route with the latest game, Alien: Isolation, to them there is nothing after the 1979 Alien. That is their only influence for this game and that template has produced a something quite exciting and unique. Alien: Isolation is a first-person survival horror stealth game, very much in the mould of the original movie.
From the off you are immersed in the 1970s depicted future. Everything within the gaming world has been created, drawn and designed to match the sets of Alien, and when the game takes the player to new locations, everything is directly inspired by the movie. The effort gone into the detail and the creation of locations is breath-taking. You start in a sister ship of the Nostromo, every eerie corridor is oddly familiar and fashioned in stunning detail. The graphics themselves, being on the next-gen consoles, are outstanding, but when combined with the use of lighting and particle effect, the result is so staggering that you could be forgiven for confusing it a movie set. This may sound silly, but keep an eye for corridors containing panel lighting and steam pipes, boring in real life but details like than just enhance the gaming experience. The rumoured level of help and information provided by 20th Century Fox during the production process is staggering – original concept art, original soundtrack and a whole host of archived data. This level of cooperation and research is unsurprising after seeing the finished result. All in game object are rumoured to be designed in a manner that was only available to the production team in the 1979 movie. A particularly impressive feature is the use of old grainy videos, on par with the quality of the old curved TV sets of the era produced through VHS players. While it may only be a small detail, the devil is always in the detail and it’s often the small things that elevate a very good game to a great game.
Through a combination of art, level design and the musical score, playing Alien: Isolation could take years off your life. Earlier this year a game called Outlast was released on the PS4, very much the same genre as this. However, to creep out and scare it’s audience it relied more on gruesomeness and sudden loud bangs to get a reaction, much like, what sadly passes for, modern horror movies. In between these cheap parlour tricks the gamer would happily explore the world. Alien: Isolation is a constant tense experience, using a combination of music, lighting, narrative and whatever else it can do to terrify the gamer. As you explore each location, it’s impossible to remain at ease as behind every new corner can be some manner of new horror. The blood chilling noise of the circular air vents opening and closing is bad enough, put a motion scanner in your character hand to go with it – Jesus, just keep spare underwear close by. There is no noise more terrifying in the history of mankind than the motion sensor, especially if you are home alone with the lights out.
Not only is there the main story mode, but there is a mode that offers more longevity to the game too – Survivor Mode. The worry these days are that really great games have multiplayer modes tagged onto them in order to appeal to a wider range of gamers. Sometimes a multiplayer mode will genuinely surprise you, The Last of Us being a prime example, but for the most part they are cheap and hurriedly create modes slapped into the game and serve no real purpose. As with everything with Alien: Isolation, that is not the case. Instead of the traditional multiplayer levels, Survivor mode is a series of levels where the gamer must use their wit, cunning to traverse a level as swiftly as possible while avoiding the Alien. This mode is simply a more intense version of story mode that will leave you tense, an elevated heart rate and the sweatiest palms you’ve ever experienced.
Alien: Isolation is the first must own game for the next generation of consoles. Every single piece of this game fits together in such a complimentary fashion that it will leave fans of the original movie feeling like they’ve been part of it’s spiritual successor. When the only complaint is that every character looks sweaty, you know that’s just trying to find a flaw in something flawless. Through a combination of an oppressive atmosphere, the original musical score and a really, really good narrative, Alien: Isolation is the game we all hoped it would be.
Rating: 9.5/10
Reviewed on the PS4.
Alien: Isolation is out 7th October on PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC .
Andy Naylor – Follow me on Twitter.
Originally published October 6, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
