Alien Isolation: Reflecting on Why I Crouch When I Move from Room to Room at Night

Game:

Alien Isolation

Platforms:

PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Mac, Linux, Oculus/Vive VR (but be prepared to poop yourself)

Average Time to Play

18-22 Hours, depending on play style

Spoiler-free Plot

Years after the events of Alien, Amanda Ripley is working as an engineer when she is approached with an interesting offer.  Sevastopol, a soon to be decommissioned space station, has located the flight recorder of the Nostromo, the ill-fated ship from Alien.  Wanting to know what happened to her mother (Ellen Ripley, again, from Alien), Amanda teams up with a group of... other space people to get her hands on the flight recorder. Unfortunately, as soon as they touch down, things start to break bad.  Chaos breaks out throughout the station due to a mysterious "creature" hunting down residents.  The survivors break into panic, making them just as unsafe.  Oh! Let's not forget the creepy robots that are also out to get you!  Use your creeping skills and your trusty motion detector (that will just shit the bed sometimes) to help navigate this horrible place.

The story of Alien Isolation isn't anything to write home about, but it isn't anything to dismiss either.  Without any spoilers, the game treats you to some nice twists and turns, some real feels, and some classic Alien-franchise bits.

Why This Game is Amazing.

I saw the first Alien movie alone in my dorm room some Halloween and it was ok.  I mean it is a classic, but I was not obsessed with the franchise.  I never played any of the other games associated with the series (Aliens V Predator, Colonial Marines).  I fell asleep watching Aliens.  So I just wasn't immediately interested in this game.

If you’ve never experienced the indescribable joy that is watching a youtuber play Alien Isolation, you absolutely should go now.  It is the best.  This is the first one I found, and it's pretty hilarious.

It was this very experience that made me think, “OK, I’d like to give this game a try”.  

This is a worthy first installment of this blog, as it is my favorite game.  When people ask me what my favorite game is, they usually think I’m going to say World of Warcraft, or at least something more conventional.  To be fair, I’ll be the first to admit that I have a weirder taste in video games.  I picked up The Witcher III a few years back and I played about 2 hours and was not into it.  It mostly stems to the fact that when I play a role playing game, I don’t want to be someone the game has invented for me, I want to be my own person.  That’s why I love games like Fallout and Skyrim, or Dungeons and Dragons, and even World of Warcraft since it gives me the space to create my own “head canon” for my character. 

So, if you’ve ever played Alien: Isolation you might be surprised to hear that this game is my favorite.  Amanda is definitely a game-invented character.  The game features no choice, no dialogue options, nothing really personal.  So why?  Well it helps that the game is in first person.  Mix in the intensity of any survival horror and you can cultivate a deeply immersive experience.  This makes it easy to find yourself in the game.  Beyond that, I immediately found Ripley to be more interesting than I found Geralt.  First of all, Ripley is a woman which is pretty rare for a protagonist.  Secondly she's just an ordinary person.  But instead of taking the approach some games or movies take like...

"Meet this ordinary woman who can all of the sudden battle an xenomorph like a boss!"

... the game believably shows you a way that Ripley can overcome this situation.  Either that, or it chalks it up to luck, which is also very well done.

------------Warning:  Minor Spoilers------------

There are a few scripted moments in the game where you encounter the Alien, and it's totally about to kill you, but then something happens.  Part of the extremely damaged ship explodes.  There is another moment that's not even worth the spoiler, you just have to play!

---------End of Spoilers-----

The game uses luck in a believable, non-deus ex machina sort of way.  Any instant when you escape or avoid the Alien feels like something believable for Ripley or allowable due to what's going on in the station.  In Alien: Isolation, you will never feel like you cheated the game. This creates a super rewarding experience.

Best Part: The Environment

A similar care goes towards the environment.  The game could potentially be described as open-world, as towards the end of the game no part of the ship is really off limits to you.  The problem is that you have ABSOLUTELY ZERO desire to go anywhere but where you are supposed to go.  The game does a fantastic job opening up different areas of the ship and controlling the movement of the player in a believable way.  By way of comparison, I was playing The Last of Us last night and I was on the level when I was stuck in the Massachusetts State House.  I was being hunted by about 10 dudes and I was with a 15 year old girl who seemed unable to appreciate that fact.  When I turned towards the back of the room, holding a baseball bat I'll add, I saw a closed window that I could not bash through.  To me, nothing ruins realism like being faced with impossible odds and not being able to bash your way through a window.

Now I understand for designers, that must be an impossible issue to deal with.  Especially in real-world environments.  In Alien: Isolation though, there are very few spaces that you cannot enter for no reason.  You either can't enter it because you haven't found the access code or key card, or you don't have the right wrench, or there is a big scary xenomorph between you.  But from a narrative perspective it all makes sense.  Why would you have any of that stuff?

The real reason the environment wins is for stuff like this:

On top of really keeping this 80s-futurism aspect from the movies, so much of the game's environment is designed to look like the xenomorph.  It's hard to find a good picture of it, but this is the best I could do.  I can't tell you how many times I played this game, cried "OH SHIT" only to realize that I was looking at a pipe.  Its just so good at keeping you on your toes.

TL;DR

I love this game.  It is the perfect length, not overstaying it's welcome or ever feeling repetitive.  The haunting environment, first person perspective, and believable story work together to create a truly immersive (and scary!) experience.  This game offers a great avenue into survival horrors that isn't filled with blood and gore.  Its just a smart game with an even smarter xenomorph hunting you for 18 straight hours.  

If you haven't played this yet, you're late to the game.