|| REVIEW || Alien : Isolation (PS4)

Developed By : Creative Assembly                                           Published By : SEGA
Category : First-Person, Survival Horror, Stealth   Release Date : October 7, 2014

For nearly 40 years now, Alien has swept through the world of horror and won over so many fans. From it's own saga of movies, the questionable crossovers with Predator, and even the new prequel movies. The universe these movies created has expanded into books, comics, and naturally video games. It's this latter category that has left these particular fans unhappy. With the release of Alien : Isolation in 2014 though, hope was once again reborn...

Going Backwards a Bit

The ending of the original movie (you've had 40 years, you don't get a spoiler warning) saw Ripley shoot the alien creature out into space and prepare for her hyper sleep journey which she expected to last for six weeks. We also know from the sequel that...things lasted a bit longer than expected. She wakes up nearly 60 years later to carry on the legacy of the movies, however we pick things up only 15 years after the first movie as we step into the role of her daughter, Amanda Ripley.

Amanda learns from an android named Samuels that works for Weyland-Yutani, that the flight recorder from the Nostromo, the ship her mother was on, has been located. A salvage vessel located it, and has brought it aboard a remote space station named Sevastopol, and a team is being sent to retrieve the recorder. Knowing how much she wants closure on what happened with her mother, Samuels secures Amanda a spot on the retrieval team. 

Once they arrive, it's very clear that things are amiss. Communications are offline, the station has suffered extensive damage, and they can't even dock their ship to board, leaving the crew to attempt a short spacewalk. Ripley makes it in on her own and sets off for the recorder and the rest of her team. The recorder ends up being completely empty, and while trying to get back to her team she learns that a deadly alien is stalking its way around the station. Can Ripley find the answers she so desperately seeks, and survive the horrors that wait for her on board the Sevastopol? 

Getting Acclimated

You'll play as Ripley from a first-person perspective as you find your way around Sevastopol. It's a station that is made up of multiple towers, which are all connected by trams and elevators. On your first pass through, you'll see yourself cut off from a lot of areas that are restricted in numerous ways : big locks that prevent doors from opening, terminals that need to be hacked, or require a keycard to access them. 

Initially, you start with nothing except a flare that you pick up in the cargo vent after your failed spacewalk. Slowly, Ripley comes into an arsenal of weapons and items, as well as a ton of supplies which can be put together to craft even more items. You'll arm yourself with things like a revolver and a flame thrower, and be able to make yourself some medkits, pipe-bombs, and flashbangs. But don't get too excited, these items are going to be very sparse.

Most of the areas you get to are going to have something wrong that you'll need to fix. A generator needs to be powered up, a terminal needs to be hacked, or a panel needs to be cut open. Luckily you'll slowly come into possessing the tools you need such as plasma torches to cut through doors, and the hacking tool that gains you access to plenty of things. Some areas will even have what is called a Rewire panel. Accessing this gives you control over any items in the area that run off units of power. Each item has a number it is required to run, and the area as a whole has a maximum capacity. These can be used to silently help yourself by turning off lights or cameras to help prevent you from getting detected. 

Hide and Seek Champ

Not getting detected is going to be absolutely key for you. First off, not everyone on the station is out to get you. There are a few people you'll come across that want your help, or want to help you...and when I say a few, I mean it. Everyone else, from human to android, perceives you as a threat the mere second they see you. Sneaking quietly and using cover to get around when people aren't looking in your direction will be the best mode of transportation. 

However, your biggest threat is one that you don't even get to see all the time : the alien. For the most part, it will always be lurking around, looking for you. The best part [read : worst part] is that it can utilize many ways to get around and make sure that you most likely won't see it coming. Sevastopol has a maze of ventilation systems that this beast can crawl through and surprise you from. 

A lot of the time it will be visible in front of you, and this is where your silence and stealthiness are key. If it so much as catches a glimpse of you, it'll come running and stick its spear-tail through your back, or its inner mouth through your face. Even hearing you can send it right in your direction, so be weary with your walking and sprinting. This thing can not be outrun so don't expect to do so. But sometimes, even being sneaky won't matter. There are plenty of ceiling vents around the station that it can lurk near, and if you don't spot the goopy-spit dripping from one of these, just walking under means you're snatched and done for. 

Running Around and Staying Alive

Naturally, you want to prolong Ripley's life for as long as possible. Any death you suffer will more often than not send you back to the last hard save point you made. There are physical save points that you need to save at, with no option for quick saving, autosaves, or checkpoints along the way. Well, that's not entirely true. You'll be treated to an auto save every time you begin a new mission/chapter, and towards the end you'll get a series of these for...reasons that will remain unspoiled.

The best part about this game is that you can approach every scenario however you want. Aiming to invoke your stealthy side? Sneak around and take your time through every room. Think you have what it takes to eliminate everyone and not get ganked by the alien? Attack away. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even let yourself get detected by enemies and force them to fire off a shot, and have the alien come do your dirty work for you and clear a path.

Your most valued item that you're going to always be using is your motion tracker. The main purpose of it will obviously be to let you know when people are near and give you a rough distance and direction for how far away they are. On the outside rim of the screen though, you'll have a marker that indicates which way you should head to make it to your next objective. Be careful with this though, the beep it makes is not just for your pleasure, it can be heard by enemies and the alien if they are close enough.

Sizing It Up

One thing is safe to say right off the bat. While every other previously released Alien game was sub-par, Isolation is absolutely the cream of the crop. The story is well presented, you encounter the alien itself in such a believable scenario...it takes the bar that had been laying in the dirt before and hoists it up pretty high.

Yet, as great as this game is in comparison, it fell a little short of perfect for me. The biggest issue I had overall was the length of the game. My first playthrough came in at around 18 hours total. If it had finished at around half that time, then it would be no doubt to label this game as perfect. However, with the length being what it was, a lot of the games edginess wore off before the end.

When you first start encountering the androids that want to murder you, and playing hide-and-seek with the alien who thinks you're a snack, everything is tense to the max. You're afraid to even peek around corners, let alone walk anywhere. Just hearing some sort of noise puts you on edge...its a truly horrifying scenario and it's perfect. But too often the game relies on old-school horror tropes and things begin to get stale and laughable.

You've seen the old campy movies. Bunch of kids are being chased by a killer, one of them finds a car so they all pile in, lock the doors and...oh no the car won't start. It's here in Isolation. You'll need access to a specific room but oh darn the doors locked and has no power going to it. That terminal which would allow you access to a restricted area is locked out until you can find the passcode to unlock it. This all culminates to a point where something big happens around the middle of the game and someone utters the phrase that Sevastopol is now a "safe space station".

From there, for me at least, the rest of the game became laughable and long. Instead of being tense, I was rolling my eyes at what my next threat would be, or what was going to break down and cut me off from a short route and force me on a scenic one. It's still a good game, and an overall amazing experience. Hitting that final screen is still exhilarating, but I still stand by the fact that the length of the game would have been better off at about half. Shorter story would have made the campy, tropiness not seem so glaring and obnoxious.

So if you've been waiting for an amazing game in the Alien universe, and haven't managed to check this one out in the last five years, pick it up and make it one of the next things you play. Whether you agree with me or feel differently about the game length, you will be more than happy that you played through the game. Especially if you are a fan of the movies, this fits in perfectly after the first movie giving you a bit more to the story.

Game Rating : 7/10

Pick up the game HERE on Steam or search 
for it in the shops for the platforms below 

Game Played on PS4
Also Available On : Xbox One, PC (Steam)
and coming soon to Nintendo Switch