Alien Isolation (PS4/Xbox One)

Zero-Cool · 11-07-2014 11:10am

Anyone is the mood for an Alien tshirt on Qwertee?

http://www.qwertee.com/

calex71 · 11-07-2014 11:19am

sheehy83 wrote: »

Anyone is the mood for an Alien tshirt on Qwertee?

/Sigh, go on then, because I really need another qwertee to go with the other 20 I have :pac:

Edit: Oh if you think you are a medium get a large , found their medium size a little small and the large not that large, and they do shrink.

McSasquatch II · 13-08-2014 8:22pm

A few hands-on preveiws have surfaced today;

PC Gamer
Eurogamer
RPS

Mostly positive. Mostly. /Newt

Nodferatu · 20-09-2014 5:58pm

Very little hype behind this and its out in 3 weeks. Dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

Myrddin · 21-09-2014 9:08am

Nodferatu wrote: »

Very little hype behind this and its out in 3 weeks. Dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

Alien games mostly come out at night turn out to be poo....mostly. I'd say the view on this is silent hopefulness after years of disappointment

Star Lord · 21-09-2014 10:58am

The reviews will probably come in a week or so.

johnny_ultimate · 21-09-2014 11:04am

Those cynics at USGamer have been very positive about it in their previews, so I'm cautiously optimistic. Not enough to go anywhere near pre-ordering it, of course

Still, refreshing to see a AAA sci-fi game that isn't all about shooting - it's a brave gamble at the very least.

Tar.Aldarion · 21-09-2014 12:54pm

Have seen nothing bad about his game from impressions and game play, fact that my boss preordered it means a lot to me too, he doesn't do that. A kind of alien AI amnesia has huge potential, hope it's good. It's definitely not the same old offering.

Randall Floyd · 21-09-2014 1:13pm

I hope it isn't 10-12 hours of jump scares.

Nodferatu · 21-09-2014 2:35pm

I suppose, think everyone was bitterly disappointed with alien colonial marines as so much high hopes were pinned to it. I read a few hands on previews and although mostly positive they all pretty much said same thing that your going to die over and over and over getting past certain areas which could possibly turn into gamer frustration.

Tar.Aldarion · 21-09-2014 2:35pm

Nodferatu wrote: »

I suppose, think everyone was bitterly disappointed with alien colonial marines as so much high hopes were pinned to it. I read a few hands on previews and although mostly positive they all pretty much said same thing that your going to die over and over and over getting past certain areas which could possibly turn into gamer frustration.

That will be a pleasant experience from the dumb downed easy games I play these days. I barely die ever in them, ever, so boring. When I was younger/a child games would have much higher difficulty level. Of course a balance must be met and is hard to achieve.

Sand · 21-09-2014 4:05pm

So long as its clear *why* you died its usually fair.

Most games have a set of rules that the player and the AI need to follow. The frustration comes when it feels like the game is cheating, homing in on the players location without any obvious clues. The player then gets kicked out of the immersion.

I think so long as the Alien follows the same rules the game sets, and the player gets to understand those rules then frustration should be limited. The problem I think is that there is apparently certain "set-pieces" where the game does cheat to put the Alien hunting in a particular location, at a particular time. That's where frustration could build.

Baked.noodle · 21-09-2014 4:12pm

Looking forward to this. I hope more sophisticated AI will lead to a renascence in video gaming.

krudler · 21-09-2014 5:16pm

Looks like Alien meets Amnesia meets Outlast, could actually be good.

Nodferatu · 21-09-2014 7:33pm

i agree fully, i just read that it all gets a bit repetitive and thats what went wrong with colonial marines attempt

krudler · 21-09-2014 9:15pm

Nodferatu wrote: »

i agree fully, i just read that it all gets a bit repetitive and thats what went wrong with colonial marines attempt

Pacing a game like this must be tough, it can't all be skulking around waiting for something to jump out, but if you load up on the jump scares and setpieces it gets less scary. Too short and people will whinge, too long and people will think it outstays it's welcome. It'd definitely an interesting premise and one that I'd much rather play than generic marines v aliens gunfights.

Wossack · 22-09-2014 11:02am

pretty brave imo - I dont have high hopes for it, but it could be a surprise

Star Lord · 22-09-2014 12:01pm

I was thinking, I'm sure they'll have some kind of set piece in there somewhere, probably near the end, otherwise it's entirely feasible that there's a chance you could have a playthrough where you don't encounter the Alien at all...

Sand · 22-09-2014 7:42pm

Star Lord wrote: »

I was thinking, I'm sure they'll have some kind of set piece in there somewhere, probably near the end, otherwise it's entirely feasible that there's a chance you could have a playthrough where you don't encounter the Alien at all...

Set pieces are pretty much a brute force solution that break the rules though.

Creative Assembly set a pretty high bar for the behaviour of the Alien in their hype:

“In Alien: Isolation, the creature is hunting you. If it hears you, it will track down the source of the noise; if it sees you, it will pursue at speed; tackling it head-on is not for the faint-hearted. It’s ruthless, relentless and unstoppable. Which makes us ask, #howwillyousurvive?“

But it appears that was meant in pretty much the same way the average AI guard will hunt you in an FPS. The Alien will not actually hunt you. There will be encounters, either scripted or triggered by you (noisemaker, gunfire etc) where it will spawn into an area. It will then hunt within that area, and then de-spawn until summoned again. It could still be a very good game, but its a lot less ambitious than the original hype.

TomCo · 23-09-2014 2:39am

Star Lord wrote: »

I was thinking, I'm sure they'll have some kind of set piece in there somewhere, probably near the end, otherwise it's entirely feasible that there's a chance you could have a playthrough where you don't encounter the Alien at all...

I honestly think that would be scarier!

Star Lord · 24-09-2014 8:32am

So long as you saw/heard some evidence of it being there, or caught occasional glimpses of it, causing you to freeze or hide or alter your planned route, yes. If it was just walking around, seeing/hearing nothing much, then it'd be a different story.

ZiabR · 24-09-2014 8:45am

This does look like it could be great. Only 1 alien to worry about as opposed to armies of them coming at you from all angles.

However, I will need to buy a box of pampers extra large when I sit down to play it.

BloodBath · 24-09-2014 9:22am

Looks great. My only worry would be the execution of the ai.

It will totally break the immersion if that ai isn't far above the standard of your usual crap ai.

For example the alien looks right at you and doesn't see you or you make noise and he doesn't hear you.

The storyline and puzzle/questing that will force you into encounters with the alien will have to be top notch as well.

Hopefully it turns out to be as good as it looks but I don't think it's going to hit the mark completely.

I'd like to see a game starting like this for the first few hours but gradually advancing to a more challenging action based affair but with very limited ammo so you have to choose your battles wisely like the early resident evils using traps and cunning to defeat what should be a superior foe.

This would allow for a more expanded alien universe as well with facehuggers, eggs, hive, queen etc. Maybe even a twist where you get impregnated by a facehugger and have a time limit to get it out of you.

Duggy747 · 24-09-2014 10:05am

BloodBath wrote: »

I'd like to see a game starting like this for the first few hours but gradually advancing to a more challenging action based affair but with very limited ammo so you have to choose your battles wisely like the early resident evils using traps and cunning to defeat what should be a superior foe.

From what I've seen that's pretty much what happens in this game, you get some weapons with fairly limited ammo and there's occasions where you're up against other humans and androids but you can set traps / trick the xenomorph into attacking them.

Robert ninja · 24-09-2014 5:35pm

Star Lord wrote: »

I was thinking, I'm sure they'll have some kind of set piece in there somewhere, probably near the end, otherwise it's entirely feasible that there's a chance you could have a playthrough where you don't encounter the Alien at all...

That would be pretty cool... Your paranoia alone is what caused you to be careful through the whole game. Genius.

Nodferatu · 24-09-2014 7:12pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jWEkthafwg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWEkthafwg

Nodferatu · 24-09-2014 7:14pm

anyone know if you pre order from gamestop do you get the ripley mission DLC??

Sand · 24-09-2014 9:28pm

BloodBath wrote: »

I'd like to see a game starting like this for the first few hours but gradually advancing to a more challenging action based affair but with very limited ammo so you have to choose your battles wisely like the early resident evils using traps and cunning to defeat what should be a superior foe.

My dream game was always an Aliens style game, something along the lines of the character acting as colonial law enforcement on a station. Nice easy tutorial intro act where the station is light, full of friendly humans and a few tutorial missions to build immersion and to make you give a damn about the future victims. Rumours of something going on in the corporate labs. Act II being a sandbox survival game trying to fortify a safezone with as many of the station inhabitants as you can rescue, with stealth, jury rigged weapons and so on. Act III "fast forwarding" a few weeks to the arrival of the colonial marines, switching to their viewpoint and trying to investigate what happened, rescue survivors (if any), escape, take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. Only way to be sure.

Maybe even a twist where you get impregnated by a facehugger and have a time limit to get it out of you.

Oh, its going to get out of you.

BlitzKrieg · 26-09-2014 9:23pm

So got 20 minutes hands on with this today at the EGX event.

I really really liked it.

We were playing the survivor mode and it was in two 10 minute sessions on the xbox one version.

Firstly even the xbox one version looks lovely, I've seen videos of the pc version and that looks gorgeous but the xbox one version was no lazy horse in the visuals. Things did seem a bit brighter but I'm putting that down to the tv/gamma settings

The alien model is fantastic, the movement is mesmerizing.

But the important factor.

It is scary as hell and a lot of fun.

Survivor mode does not play like Amnesia or Outlast or any other first person hider, I'd imagine Isolation's single player will play closer to amnesia, but this mode, this is different. It's a constant in your face terror, the alien never goes too far away so it's much less waiting things out and much more on taking small chances for little gains that if they fail It's death but a quick start over.

Everything feels scaled right, it's small enough that getting nipped at the finish line doesnt feel like a complete waste of time, but the level is detailed enough that things didnt fall into a routine.

The alien is never far, some might feel this is a bit cheap but it's what drives the mode, its taking the last 20 minutes of the first alien movie and distilling that into a game. It's sort of like some mad hybrid of Slender man and left 4 dead.

But the alien is the selling point, it's a.i may in the end not turn out to be the greatest, I suspect a lot of what is charming me and others may be more the dressing then the actual mechanics but with such a specific stage and intense focus you'll believe it is genuinely alive and you will hate it. The stories my friends and I were telling coming out showed this. The host laughing his ass off cause I'd swear so much abuse at the alien everytime it got me. It's not a scripted, the alien can be completely random in it's approach, the only thing you know is it will always be near.

Some of the stories though

my friend hid in a locker, and you can hold your breath while the alien passes, and he did it, but he held it down too long so when he released, ripley let out a big gasp for air and the alien came racing back in and pulled him out.

I tried hacking a door (cool retro minigame in it part deus ex human revolution hacking by rolling the thumbstick around tool part space invader shape indentifcation) and as I fumbled the device the alien started to slowly come around into the doorway, it's head peering over the frame, the long low hisss. Completed it just in time and the door closes blocking him. I take a breath of relief, waited just too long as I hear the alien banging up into air vent. Coming back out at the top of the stairs where I needed to come down and making a dash towards me. Flamethrower out to fire...out of ammo....DEAD

thats what terrifies me. The alien moves so slowly and delibrately most of the time, but once it's got your scent it just moves like lightning and you have no chance.

Outside of that, I found the controls comfortable, the focus effects while using the motion tracker etc was great, the lean function is uncanningly done to feel like someone peaking out in terror.

My friend felt the controls had a a bit of input lag, I found most actions were *heavy* but I think that was deliberate, the action of pulling out a flamethrower or lifting up the motion tracker is so clearly paced to stop twitch responses, meaning a lot of the time when you use the flamethrower it's a decision you've made before the alien has seen you.

Overall I didnt get to play a lot at EGX, but Isolation was by far my favourite, it's the only one I went back for 2nds, but that was also because it was by far the most organised game there. While everyother game was saying we had 2-3 hour queue times, Alien Isolation kept it down to 20 minutes by keeping a very organised turnover and strict 10 minute time limit.

BlitzKrieg · 26-09-2014 9:46pm

If I had other criticisms it would really be with the proposed financial model.

The survivor mode is shipping in the standard game as a *Demo*

it's only 1 level, the one we played at the show (called basement) and thats it.

There are a lot more coming but they are all DLC.

Now I have no issue with the selling of new levels for a mode as dlc, especially when each pack appears to be all new levels inspired by the films, featuring new characters from the films and will vary things up.

But shipping with a *demo* in the standard version feels a bit cheap, especially when such modes (distilled versions of a key game mechanic: resident evil mercenaries, gears of war horde mode etc) are normally bundled with a few levels inspired or plucked from the game's single player reshaped to suit. But this appears to have none.

I'll be annoyed if one of the 5 dlc packs turns out to be reworked levels from the campaign.

Alien Isolation (PS4/Xbox One)

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