The Curious Case Of Alien Isolation
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- Опубликовано: 23 май 2024
- Looking back on the experience that is Alien Isolation. A game that had mixed reception at launch, but one that is considered a classic today. But, were the reviews right and does it hold up today? Watch to find out.
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I was a quality tester on this game in 2014. Scared me so bad that they had to ask me to stop screaming in the testing room.
No way! That's a very cool anecdote.
The information Amanda heard on the black box was exactly that, The company had not yet retrieved the data and the events of alien isolation happened between the first and second film, by the time Ellen had woken up Amanda was dead. She was mentioned in a director's cut in the 1986 aliens film. But James Cameron decided to leave it out. Which is why Amanda was able to hear it.
I get that Amanda is able to hear it for that reason. My point was that if Ellen made that for her then 11 year old daughter, which is a different message than she records at the end of Alien, it doesn't make much sense. Seeing how Ellen would logically return to Weyland and they would recover the message without Amanda ever knowing. So I guess it was a failsafe incase something happened to her. Still doesn't make much sense to me.
@@Centrifewgi i’m confused by your confusion and your comment did not clear things up. People recording final messages for their family doesn’t seem that out-of-pocket as you’re making it
@ExpertContrarian it didn't make sense because Ripley had to know Wey-Yu would cover it up, especially after finding out about Ash and Special Order 937, which revealed the company was responsible for the alien and the resulting deaths.
Edit: They naturally would destroy any evidence of their involvement with an actual alien creature, and Amanda would never get the message.
@@ronwatford7331 just because it’s likely that they would try doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make sense that she would. They didn’t even get rid of her.
I played this game for the first time last year.
Criminally underated. Do i dare say it ? Best movie tie in game ever made ? I think so
I probably have to agree with you on the best movie to game tie in, although there are some good ones.
how is it a movie tie in game it didnt release alongside a movie?
Everybody praises it ! how can you say it's underrated ? I think on the contrary it's overrated ! After the 3rd time you see the alien it just gets annoying.. just go hide and wait then continue. Also make sure you walk everywhere or it's back to hiding. It's so tedious ! The graphics and atmosphere is good but the gameplay is horrible for me.
@@thegoddamnedbatman2138 Doesn't have to release along side a movie to be a tie-in game.
As someone that absolutely loves this game and has played through it several times, I find this 10 year anniversary review to be one of the most even-handed I've seen. The game is fantastic, but does suffer from pacing and narrative issues. I wonder if it had been split into two stories culminating with the alien trap by Waits for the 1st part it wouldn't seem so long. Also, 15 hours to beat the game? That must be ignoring the 5 hours spent hiding under tables and in lockers.
Thanks! Some things definitely could have been cut from the game to make it flow a lot better. The playthrough I did for this video only took me around 13 hours because I know all the routes, and I'm pretty ballsy so I don't spend a lot of time hiding lol.
True, I had at least a 30 min stretch in the hospital where I did NOT want to move 😅
I've heard the length of the game being a negative repeated so many times and despite your excellent video I still don't agree with it. Huge Alien fan and couldn't wait to pick it up on release and was so chuffed every time I thought the game was going to be over only to find more. To this day still an amazingly enjoyable experience!
I'm happy to see so many people exclaiming their love for the game. It definitely deserves it, and I hope one day we get a sequel. Oh, and thanks for the kind words!
Retrospectively I think the fake out ending at the half way point was perfect and probably deliberate, you've spent hours on edge being hunted by this unstoppable killing machine, finally get rid of it and being safe, the flood of endorphins and release of stress... and then you go to the reactor level and see the hive material... and EVERYONE who had seen alien 1 or 2 felt their butt hole clench.... think of the whole self destruct and escape scene in og alien, Ripley is safe all the adrenaline is wearing off and she's getting ready to sleep and then ... oh fuck...
It was 100% deliberate. Finding the hive is a whole other level of "oh no". It's just that the pacing is really wonky after that moment.
I try to justify the campaign's lenght, by telling myself that the game is trying to make us feel the never-ending hell that Amanda is going through, by making us also feel that 'never-ending' aspect.
That said, that was probably not deliberate. And even if it was... Not sure it was worth it. I absolutely loved the game. Definitely one of the best exemples of movies adapted into a video game. But I agree that the game would have been even stronger, by being shorter.
And the lenght is probably the n°1 reason why I don't play it more often.
Great video !
Thanks!
Great video! Alien Isolation is a game I hold very dear to my heart and the Alien franchise is probably my favourite piece of media ever! I also had my issues with the game and you articulated them perfectly while also adding some fair criticisms I never stopped to think about, so this was pretty informative.
Still, It's a shame we'll probably never get a real videogame sequel to Alien Isolation. The closest we have are the comics Aliens: Resistance and Aliens: Rescue, which were fine but I don't think that narrative would fare well in survival horror game form. I hope we get more Alien games like Isolation in the future though, even if they end up being different storylines entirely.
Sega is dumb for not green lighting another game. Especially because the team seemed to have plans for where the story was going to go. It seems big companies ruin everything.
still sad we never got a true sequal to this game it was the closest thing to feeling how it would be to be in a alien movie.
It would have been neat to see what they would do differently with a sequel. Maybe one day Sega will stop being dumb.
Alien isolation and Aliens: dark descent are my favorite Alien games.
They are both really good.
Excellent review.
I’ve tried finishing this game many times and only just half an hour ago actually finished it.
I agree that the game is stretched rather thin and that it’s slightly repetitive.. but I find this works in its favour.
The part where you have to turn on the generator, traverse through thin corridors, go to escape.. only to have to turn back to the generator again was - I agree - stretched… but also VERY daunting.
The game constantly giving you a way out and then taking it away from you was driving me crazy! It filled me with so much dread and frustration all the time, but in a good way. I understand why this sort of stuff would annoy people, 100%, but to me it just made the story more agonising and terrifying.
Also goddamn do them graphics still look good! Especially on PC.
I just found your channel because I bought alien isolation earlier and I've played it so far until ch3 and just want to hear other people talk about it since I don't really have friends but this is a great video and I subscribed and can't wait to see other videos, great job and keep it up bro
Much love! Thank you!
Of all the PC games I've owned over the years, since the mid 90's, STALKER Anomaly/GAMMA and Alien Isolation are the ones I've played most- over and over and over again. I just can't get enough of it!
At this point, I've played Isolation more than Thief 1 & 2, Dark Souls, Secret of Monkey Island, Jurassic Park, Flashback, Deus Ex, Temple of Elemental Evil, Doom, System Shock 1 & 2, Hitman 1, Witcher 1, HL 1 & 2, Quake 2, Prey 1 & 2, Starcraft, FEAR, Hexen, MOHAA, Battlefield 2, COD Modern Warfare, Farcy 1 & 3, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, Titan Quest, etc..
Simply... The Best!
I can undertsand why. Despite my issues, Isolation is an amazing experience and one that treats the Alien universe with the utmost respect.
Horror stories are the kind of things where characters successes often are undermined by circumstances or antagonists, even if they do their best.
Alien movie and Aliens movie are both like that. Things get bad, people try to fix it, some people die, then more desperate attempts, more things go wrong and then finally one or handful people manage to get out of the disaster zone, usually scarred for life.
Player can find out who picks up Amanda in the end. It's Weyland-Yutani rescue ship, as they were coming to "clean" the station and pick up xenomorph samples. Meaning she ends up in their custody. There's technically a follow-up mobile game "Blackout", where you can find out how she gets out of their hands and back towards Earth. It's just not a good game, at all.
You can't kill none hostile survivers. It's an instant fail state if you do. Summoning the xenomorph is also a bad idea to get none hostile survive as it will begin hunting you as well and with highten senses
Playing this now for the first time ever using a PC to mod it in VR. Only around 2 hours in but so far it holds up as an awesome/storybased stealth action game.
This is how games should be made, with love, attention and true care for every small little detail. CA captured lightning in a bottle with this entry and it shows. Everyone that doesn't call this for what it is "the best space scifi horror thriller experience" gaming has ever offered is mostly just bellyaching about it being" too long" or more likely due to the fact that the game wasn't for them, nor will it be for everyone. Which is totally understandable! However. There are those of us that love the atmosphere and the respect given to the original IP material as it is perfect in its entirety! 👌
I personally loved every last bit of what this game had to offer, sure obviously it has its small issues, what game doesn't? Just thinking about it logically as a situation the character finds herself in and NOT a game? It makes perfect sense and I appreciate the extra"nonsense"as this was a major LOVE letter to those of us that love and understand the xenomorph universe. Quite simply because the developers understood EXACTLY what it took to make it what it was, from the sound, lighting and visual atmosphere all while utilizing that heavy dose of the unrelenting subconscious assailment of your senses from being relentlessly hunted throughout the stories events. All aspects and elements of this gem factor into planting a seed into your psyche that sprouts from the very beginning and blossomed in the end.
This game was intentionally engineered to cause a feeling of ISOLATION and that it did 💯 %. It also was meant to deliver that feeling of being "dragged out" coz it served to give the player the sense of absolute dread, horror and that of a neverending nightmare only a xenomorph infestation could provide. For myself? (If you can't tell by now, I am a major fan of the anthology since childhood) I played this game for the first time on PC with VR and immersed myself as much as humanly possible from the get go. And wow, I wasn't let down and as soon as I felt like I was nearing an end to it? They raised that bar ever higher and masterfully delivered EVEN more suspense than before in previous chapters. IMHO this game will always reside in my top 2 most favorite games of all time and CERTAINLY my number 1 for survival horror and I don't believe this will ever be topped atleast when it comes to the alien franchise.
This is in my personal list of maybe 10 favorite games of all time. I love this game so much and definitely had the same rose tinted lenses making believe this was perfection. Game isn’t perfect but man I still adore it
Me too!
Amazing video, hope it does well!
Ayyyy! Thank you kindly!
Never played this game but this was a good review. I just love the Alien franchise. Can’t wait to see the new series on Disney plus. I do appreciate this video thanks,Centri!
Thanks for watching m8!
With the way the video starts, I thought I clicked on Chinese ASMR cooking by accident ^^ Had to double check with the title that I haven't misclicked
You're welcome? Lol
I'm wondering... As this stellar game now is a decade old and can run on a potato - it has been ported perfectly both to Android and IOS - and has pretty decent VR performance too... How difficult would it be to create a Quest 3 port of this gem of a game? It would be such a system seller!!
As someone who has spent 500+ hours in this game, I'd like to declare that its biggest flaw is being unable to skip the LV-426 flashback during subsequent playthroughs.
Bought this game four years ago. I still haven't finished yet because it's too scary for me. :(
@freddthurman3935 you sound like my brother, lol. But I get it. it's not for the faint of heart.
14:43 WHY TF IS IT SOO COOL LOOKUNG FROM A FAR
Ok but I got really sad when Samuels and Ricardo died.
Wait.. wut?? it's been 10 years already?!
Do you feel old yet? Lol
hey you wanna do irreparable damage to your psyche? Play this shxt in VR mod.
You trying to unalive me? Lol. Idk if I could do it.
15:36 that’s no different from 99% of games unless genres are changing mid game
Bloodborne, dark souls doesn't have difficulty settings. Alien isolation doesn't need it imo. It should be difficult. The fact that they gave us difficulty setting is really the only problem I had with it
Having difficulty settings does make it more accessible to a wider audience technically. But at the same time, you are right. They probably didn't need to have them.
@Centrifewgi it doesn't bother me so much that it ruined the game for me. I only play it on hard or nightmare. I do get some of the criticism about getting medical supplies and that. But I guess it didn't bother me because I was too scared of the alien and I was having so much fun at the same time. I'll be honest the only character besides Amanda I liked was Samuels. I did replay it recently and I still love it. I personally would have been upset if it was any shorter. I guess that's just me. This is still my favourite horror game to play. I have been doing more amnesia the dark descent. But that's only because I'm making my own story
@xgamerunknown6414 Yeah, that's fair. It is a really good game and quite stressful. The Alien makes the game.
@@Centrifewgi the alien should make the game. Alien wouldn't exist if alien wasn't there.
If alien isolation was predictable do you think it would be as good? Like outlast for instance. The first time you play outlast you don't know what to expect. You play outlast again and again you know where all the enemies are.
im a massive alien fan, i also love the Isolation and i agree with Your points, story is the weakest part of it
I view this game less as a story, and more like a "reality" simulator. The reality of being trapped in space hell with the space beast, and storylines, characterization, good vibes and things working out in the end, doesnt matter even an iota. No good guys, no bad guys. Just monkey's struggling to get the ook ook to a safe tree to hide in.
I think the story’s fine personally, I think it’s 100% the pacing. Spreading the butter too thin as you said at one point. I think IGN guy hated it so much because he had to marathon it. It’s a slog if you play it like that.
The level design, while beautiful, isn’t great. I have the maps from RE1&2 burned into my memory but all of Sevastopol is a blur for me even after 4 playthroughs. Most missions have you backtrack through the entire area at the end and most areas are used in 2 missions so the levels are mediocre AND overused.
The objectives are all bland too. It never gives that “ah-ha” moment of “I should use this key on that door from an hour ago.” Just follow the compass to the next lever, rinse and repeat for 15-20 hours.
Most horror games are 8-12 hours and for a reason, they clearly needed to tighten up isolation. The Alien encounters and atmosphere are exceptional but everything else is a 6.5/10
Your arguments about storyline are odd. It's what drives game forward. Same happens in Dead Space, where half of narrative makes no sense in terms of ending the game. It's a case of most of games in fact. You don't like the length? Take breaks.
@mininovaq you are right about Dead Space. It is very similar in that regard, but imo despite the setbacks the player faces in Dead Space's story, it always feels like it's moving forward. I felt fulfilled when it eventually ended. Plus, Dead Space has a constant reward loop with upgrades, new suits, and weapons that offer a different feel. While Isolation is pretty much the same experience with little expansion in those 20 hours. As for breaks, not really sure if that argument works. Because sure, you can take breaks, but if the loop feels the same, you'll be hit with the same problems you had when you last played unless you take a month long break at a time. Games can be too long for their own good.
Ironically, most of this video could’ve been cut out and just left the last third. At least add chapters or something. I was only interested in the criticism you were going to have but it was mostly just subjective nitpicking.
i couldnt make it past the first 2 hours. Cool concept but not my cup o tea
I can understand that completely. At least you gave it a go!
Which difficulty setting did you have it on out of curiosity?
"Alien Isolation is overcooked" This is your brain on being a braindead Dead Space fan. Dead Space was overcooked before Dead Space 2 was even announced.
No gaming is absolutely not at its apex when developers make a game they want. Most devs are woke liberals and you end up with games like The Last of Us Part 2. Gaming is at its best when devs make a game that the fans want. Which is sorely missing in today gaming market.
I'm so tired of everyone calling media "woke" simply because they don't like whatever it is they are talking about lol. It's so overused now, it's wild.
@Centrifewgi It's absolutely not over used. The shoe fits so it might as well be worn. Just because it makes you uncomfortable to call out these people doesn't change the fact that woke devs have absolutely been marching in lock step with the corporations to destroy the gaming industry.
@@Centrifewgibut it was pretty woke. 'Bigot sandwich' isn't something that would come out of a person's mouth who was born in the apocalypse lol.
@watchmehope6560 why not? You're telling me that people in an apocalypse couldn't know and understand concepts like bigotry? I would take aim at something like that if it felt forced because someone was pushing an agenda, but Ellie has a rough edge to her and has always been very snarky personality. Seems not out of the norm for her to say something like that.
My favorite game of all-time with only Dead Space second. 🔥
Both phenomenal. You have good taste!