OK, I know it's almost four years old now (Four? Four years? Really?! This was the last game I bought - what have I been doing all this time?) but **** me if this isn't not only one of the best Aliens spinoffs of all time, but also one of the best survival horror games of all time.

Atmospheric? Check. Nerve wracking? Check. I literally can't play the game for more than half an hour without having to take a break. It is intense. The xenomorph's AI and behaviour means that almost every playthrough and encounter will pan out differently. This isn't a pattern recognition stealth game, this is a seat of your pants and wing it stealth game. And it is troll-tastic.

The game was criticised by the mainstream reviewers on release, but it really is a cult classic.

Ive never heard anything but great things about it. If I ever start playing video games again it’s very high on my list of stuff to get.

My favorite memory of this game was some Kotaku reviewer saying (paraphrased) "This game is garbage. Every time I hide in a locker, I turn on my motion tracker and the Alien just makes a beeline for my position. It's just bad AI to try to make the game more challenging by making the Alien immediately focus on you. It totally ruins the immersion if the Alien is focused on the player above all other things. "

First commenter: "You know the motion tracker makes noise, right?"

10 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

My favorite memory of this game was some Kotaku reviewer saying (paraphrased) "This game is garbage. Every time I hide in a locker, I turn on my motion tracker and the Alien just makes a beeline for my position. It's just bad AI to try to make the game more challenging by making the Alien immediately focus on you. It totally ruins the immersion if the Alien is focused on the player above all other things. "

First commenter: "You know the motion tracker makes noise, right?"

Yeah - the game does not hold your hand. I've watched a couple of playthroughs on YouTube and it takes people a while to discover some elements of the game, like how to find the area maps, use the override terminals and door lockdowns, things like that.

But the atmosphere and the jump scares are second to none, and the sheer variety of things that can happen during play is incredible. It's the first game I've wanted to play but simutaneously not wanted to play at the same time.

Whether you like PewDiePie or not, this is hilarious. And terrifying. And hilarious.

Watch from 19:00 onwards, and there's some epic level trolling from the xeno at 22:00 onwards. Watch in the dark, volume up, and keep clean underwear handy!

Part of me wonders if this could make a really, really good FFG board game...

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Whether you like PewDiePie or not, this is hilarious. And terrifying. And hilarious

Watch from 19:00 onwards, and there's some epic level trolling from the xeno at 22:00 onwards. Watch in the dark, volume up, and keep clean underwear handy!

Part of me wonders if this could make a really, really good FFG board game...

That would be cool. Maybe something where you can do certain (amount of) actions each turn and each action has a "noise value". And the alien rolls an amount of (different) dice equal to the player's "total noise value", and once the alien rolls a certain (amount of) symbol(s) it tracks down and kills the player. So the more noise the fewer your chances.

5 minutes ago, Robin Graves said:

That would be cool. Maybe something where you can do certain (amount of) actions each turn and each action has a "noise value". And the alien rolls an amount of (different) dice equal to the player's "total noise value", and once the alien rolls a certain (amount of) symbol(s) it tracks down and kills the player. So the more noise the fewer your chances.

Yeah, the it's certainly an interesting concept for a game. Complete objective and escape the map without being spotted/caught.

Maybe you could do something like: Human turn/Alien turn. The player can do an unlimited number of moves or actions per turn or hide for their entire turn. Each time they move or perform an action, you add a dice to the Alien's pool. Each time they hide, you remove one dice from the Alien's pool. After every move/action the player makes, you roll the Alien's dice.

Say the Alien uses a D8 - four blank results, one enter map result, one leave map result, one move closer to the player result, one move away from the player result. Whatever the Alien rolls, it has to do, but they can choose the order.

If the Alien ends up in the same square as the player, it catches them. The player can pick up cards that allow it to distract or scare off the alien, or reduce it's dice pool.

Basically you need a way to escalate tension as the Alien gets closer - that makes the player want to move slowly and carefully, but also gives them the opportunity to move quickly and do multiple things at an increased risk, i.e. run for an exit.

Definitely some potential there!

1 hour ago, FTS Gecko said:

Yeah, the it's certainly an interesting concept for a game. Complete objective and escape the map without being spotted/caught.

Maybe you could do something like: Human turn/Alien turn. The player can do an unlimited number of moves or actions per turn or hide for their entire turn. Each time they move or perform an action, you add a dice to the Alien's pool. Each time they hide, you remove one dice from the Alien's pool. After every move/action the player makes, you roll the Alien's dice.

Say the Alien uses a D8 - four blank results, one enter map result, one leave map result, one move closer to the player result, one move away from the player result. Whatever the Alien rolls, it has to do, but they can choose the order.

If the Alien ends up in the same square as the player, it catches them. The player can pick up cards that allow it to distract or scare off the alien, or reduce it's dice pool.

Basically you need a way to escalate tension as the Alien gets closer - that makes the player want to move slowly and carefully, but also gives them the opportunity to move quickly and do multiple things at an increased risk, i.e. run for an exit.

Definitely some potential there!

I was also thinking about the player being harder/easier to spot in certain locations: the engine room full of noise and the a cargo bay full of stuff would be easier to hide in. While an empty cargo bay or a brightly lit narrow hallway would alow the alien to spot you a lot quicker.

And of generating objectives from drawing from stacks of cards: say go do something from Stack A, in a location from Stack B, with an item from Stack C: Stuff like use a Welding torch to seal up an Infested Medbay.*

* Ah, good ol' Alien 3 on the SNES.

I have this game for PS4. Got it cheap at Toys R Us a year or so ago. I got maybe 1/4 to a 1/3 into it, but haven't gone back to it for awhile. Need to finish it ones of these days.

Great atmosphere for sure, but wish there was a bit more action to it instead of all the sneaking around and hiding.

6 hours ago, markcsoul said:

I have this game for PS4. Got it cheap at Toys R Us a year or so ago. I got maybe 1/4 to a 1/3 into it, but haven't gone back to it for awhile. Need to finish it ones of these days.

Great atmosphere for sure, but wish there was a bit more action to it instead of all the sneaking around and hiding.

There's definitely a lot of sneaking, hiding and being extremely cautious early on. You do get a little bit more action later on into the game, though. And if you're an evil-minded sod like me you can create your own action by throwing flashbangs or noisemakers into groups of non-hostiles and then watching the carnage.

The game is still managing to surprise me. I played through very early section last night where I was convinced the Alien wouldn't appear. Nope, it dropped down out of a vent and proceeded to angrily chase down the three non-hostiles who were hanging around keeping themselves to themselves.

On ‎03‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 6:04 PM, FTS Gecko said:

OK, I know it's almost four years old now (Four? Four years? Really?! This was the last game I bought - what have I been doing all this time?) but **** me if this isn't not only one of the best Aliens spinoffs of all time, but also one of the best survival horror games of all time.

Atmospheric? Check. Nerve wracking? Check. I literally can't play the game for more than half an hour without having to take a break. It is intense. The xenomorph's AI and behaviour means that almost every playthrough and encounter will pan out differently. This isn't a pattern recognition stealth game, this is a seat of your pants and wing it stealth game. And it is troll-tastic.

The game was criticised by the mainstream reviewers on release, but it really is a cult classic.

There have been some superb Alien computer games (as well as some awful ones!) AVP2's marine campaign is a classic - the first level making you soil yourself on several occasions on your first play-through

Yeah, I played AVP2. It was a pretty good and three campaigns, one for each of the races helped give it a bit more variety than your average first person shooter. The Colonial Marine campaign was pretty faithfully done (and who doesn't love the iconic Aliens weapons and vehicles?).

Isolation gets credit though for taking risks - ditching the Marines, ditching FPS action and combat and focusing on pure survival. AVP2 had atmosphere and tension sure, but absolutely nothing to the level of Isolation. It is genuinely unnerving.

Bizarrely, I think the biggest issue with Isolation is it's pacing. It's simply too long. There's too many twists that drag the story out, and the last couple of hours become a bit of a slog to the finish line. It's not often I'll criticise a game developer for adding too much content, but in this instance there could have been a few more edits, trimming the game down by a couple of hours.

Really intrigued by the idea of turning the concept into a board game though, maybe using Imperial Assault style maps.

@Robin Graves - I've tossed the idea into FFG's Wishing Well. https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/273178-alien-isolation/