Alien: Isolation.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 2:09 pm #34765

Way better than would've been prudent to hope it would be.

Makes up for Aliens Colonial Marines.
Makes me proud of Sega again.

Scares the shit out of me.

Anyone else play it?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 3:52 pm #34784

Very good game, nice enemy variety, very well fleshed out Alien AI mechanics, 2spooky4me.

Also a nice amount of content, my friend got through the campaign in 16 hours and I'm currently on my 7th hour.

Reyouka · Post by **Reyouka** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 3:56 pm #34785

Game scares the shit out of me and I'm still stuck in the med/sci tower because of it.

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 4:37 pm #34789

Currently in the med section playing with a buddy.

God fucking damn the game is hard as shit and nerve-wracking.

I'm so glad there's just one alien. Finally does the original film justice.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:30 pm #34820

I'm slowly learning some of the audio cues and stuff that let you know AYYLMAO has come.

These fucking androids though Jesus fuck. You can dump a whole cylinder of bullets into their faces and they just don't give a fuck.

I'm beginning to think the revolver is there just to comfort you. I haven't managed to kill a single android with it.

Anyway two things I fucking love about this game:

1) If you can see them they can see you. No magic invisible lean powers. No cloak of being-under-the-table. If you lean around a corner to peek at someone or something it can see you poking your head out. If you crawl under a table things can still see under there and spot you.

2) No such thing as safe. Prettymuch every single room in the game has a way for Jumping Jack Flash to get in there and get you. You make enough noise or goof around too long in any one spot and H͏͏̜͕̀Ȩ̵̞̙ ̴̙͈̫͘C̼̱͉O͔̥̲̞̞̪͇M̩̦̘͖̰͕͘͠E͔̝͇̮̝̠̣̦S̮͈̮͘

In the very very beginning when Axel dies and you have to call the tram I hung around listening to the music not sure what was going on. I figured I should still be safe from alium attacks because the game hadn't done the big reveal yet and so I kinda lingered for a second. FUCKING NOPE.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:34 pm #34821

It took me about seven shots to down a android. I've found using a EMP Mine, coupled by smashing their faces in with my wrench, works well. Fortunately they are slow as all hell.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:35 pm #34822

What difficulty are you on?

The game recommends you play it on Hard so that's what I did.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:38 pm #34824

Hard all the way.

Desucake · Post by **Desucake** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 8:18 pm #34845

I'm playing it currently, its great and I've always loved sneaking games;super tense

. I find it funny that the station you end up on is covered in graffiti, damages, and records you find suggest that a revolt happened.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 8:35 pm #34857

I think they sacrificed some better gameplay ideas to keep the game scary and shit.

Most obviously the Alien AI is crazy unpredictable.

And for sheer horror value, that's great! You never know where it's going to be, what it's going to do when it's in a room, where it will decide to wander next. It's nerve-wracking to keep your eye on this fucking thing all the time, and you never know what it's thinking.

For gameplay, that sucks! You're going to die randomly a lot as ol' Grandpa realizes he left his wallet in the room he was just in, and comes barreling in to facefuck you. The AI is scripted enough that it never strays too far from the area you're in, but because of how randomly it moves between rooms it's often just a crapshoot. Okay AYYLMAO left the room I'm just going to say fuck it and start creeping behind him and try to get in the next roo- oh shit he decided to randomly double-back up the hallway you're fucked.

Or you kicked one of the billion crushed cans (RIP JAY OWENS) that are all over the place and Alium comes running back like he heard they revived Surge.

It's suuuuuuper difficult and I like that, I just wish more of it was outsmarting the Alien and actual stealth vs. oh hey I got lucky and it wandered far enough away that I think I can do this. If they're going to have the alien sort of procedurally wander around and investigate different rooms, it shouldn't be tied to the rooms that are just close to you. Fucker should have to wander the whole area and not just tag along behind you.

Also the mechanic for throwing shit is terrible. Just plain fucking broken. I don't think I've ever thrown something that didn't immediately bounce off of something in front of me and then go off at my feet. It needs some kind of arc indicator ala Arma.

I've spent the last hour just trying to get from one room with a save point in it, to the next room over, and then back into the room with the save point. Fucking Med/Sci holy shit why.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 9:47 pm #34879

I'm still not convinced. The franchise is dead to me.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:00 pm #34883

>not convinced

Spoiler:

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:02 pm #34885

paprika wrote:>not convinced

Spoiler:
[img]http://puu.sh/c4LhH.jpg[/img]

BURNED TOO MANY TIMES. CAN NEVER LOVE AGAIN.

Desucake · Post by **Desucake** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:04 pm #34886

paprika wrote:>not convinced

Spoiler:
[img]http://puu.sh/c4LhH.jpg[/img]

Well, it just wouldn't feel like an Alien game without a tankini,

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:08 pm #34887

Spoiler:

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 3:23 am #34951

Also you're kinda skinny.

So 80s.

Mat13295 · Post by **Mat13295** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:04 am #34980

paprika wrote:
Spoiler:

>Aliens 3

You're dead to me.

Whoisthere · Post by **Whoisthere** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 10:32 am #35004

Is it as scary as ss13 was when I just started playing and arrived on the station and the AI was malf and everyone was dead and everything was on fire and the borgs were searching for me and I was hiding in arrivals maint and didn't even know you can killallborgs.exe by stealing that flash from arrivals checkpoint and jumping out a locker?

capi duffman · Thu Oct 09, 2014 11:49 am

Sounds better than I Heard elsewhere. maybe I should give it a try. Not that I have a lot of endurance for (truly) scary games.

Also, I'd love to get some toolbox or a kitchen knife, so you can robust that bitch and then make some yummy burgers.

Reyouka · Post by **Reyouka** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 7:01 pm #35078

That one bit were Axel was killed by the alien fucking freaked me out, I wasn't expecting to encounter it that soon. The music kept going after he was killed, so I figured 'ohshitohshitohshitit'sprobablystillhere' and booked it to a corner in the tram station. That fucking thing takes forever to arrive, I get on, and I look back into the darkness and the fucker is right there staring at me.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 7:53 pm #35090

Made it as far as escaping the Medical Wing before I started getting really frustrated with the game.

All the one-hit-kills and random deaths get really annoying. There's hardly any down time either, it's always the alien in your face almost non-stop.

I was completely sold on this game on Atmosphere alone until the shitty stealth gameplay took over. Really hard to enjoy when you keep dying and having to play the same parts over and over due to OHKOs.

Changing the difficulty does fucking nothing either, since OHKOs are still OHKOs.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 9:07 pm #35099

I feel like this should be obvious, but when you have a OHKO mechanic you'd think you'd make the deaths at least more interesting than the same thing over and over so there's something to fear not boredom as you wait for the death sequence to finish since you've seen it a couple times before

I hardly died that many times and I still got really bored of seeing it especially because I died due to the game's shitty mechanics (what an0n3 said about throwing really bugged the shit out of me the most in this game).

Shadow of mordor was okay.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 2:30 pm #35303

Alien is not so annoying once you get the flamethrower. I'm actually having fun again.

Androids are also easy to deal with: they can only walk. Keep a brisk pace without running and you'll be safe from them.

Also the AI is pretty fucking terrible. I discovered that the first set of stairs in communications serves as an airlock between game areas, and the AI pathing didn't let them into the room. Kinda stupid but exploitable.

EDIT: Ending sucks

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 5:25 am #35502

I'm just at the part where you received the flamethrower and have gone back to the Server area. I'm having a bit of trouble dealing with the androids and AYYLMAO at the same time. Fighting them triggers him to come a runnin', so you have to kinda stealth them while also sneaking around big bad at the same time.

I like that the flamethrower is like a water bottle to a cat. If you can get it out and warmed up in time it's really satisfying to hose him down with it and watch him go runnin' like a bitch. It seems to really weaken the synthetics as well, once they're roasting a single revolver round to the dome seems to put them down. The problem is juggling all the weapons around quickly enough to not get run down by Grandpa Mouth Bites or given the Night at the Roxbury treatment by multiple synthetics. They'll take turns punching you and choking the shit out of you, once two of them are close to you it's prettymuch game over.

Also if you're in a grab when AYYLMAO shows up he takes over and just slaughters you.

It's frustrating but if I was smarter and using more traps to do the work I'll get through. I have two pipe bombs I should probably be using to just eliminate the synthetics while I keep the flamer primed. I'll probably finish it up this weekend.

Med/Sci was by far the hardest part of the game. Getting that fucking keycard was a nightmare and took me a ton of trial and error.

Kraso · Post by **Kraso** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:15 am #35531

>med/sci was the hardest

wait for the nest part, you're going to enjoy it

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 11:17 pm #35646

Nest was easy peasy.

The only difficulty there that was getting lost.

And yes, medsci is bullshit. Definitely my low point in the game. It's the one part that drags down the rest of the otherwise phenomenal game.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:59 am #36484

Just beat it:

Spoiler:

Fantastic horror game. One of the more atmospheric, and intense games in that genre I've played in a looooong ass time. Eventually you will get used to having the Xeno around and it loses some of its spookyness. You can only get murdered so many times by that thing before you stop worrying so much about it. They needed to have more than 3 different animations for getting killed, once you've seen them all for the 10th+ time you start looking for a method to skip the animation and just load your game.

The ending is garbage. The game dragged on a little too long and it seems like they ran out of ideas of where to go next, so rather than try to find a way to button things up nice they just end the game full-stop. Why even fucking bother having the segment with the Alien on the Torrens, if it leads to that ending? They should've just ended the game with Amanda boarding the Torrens, being like "Wow that was crazy lets go home" and the Weyland Yutani people on the ship being like "Yes we're all set here" and then cut to like an X-ray of Amanda showing the Alien parasite you were obviously implanted with stirring around. Fade out.

I'm left with a bunch of questions, like where did all the fucking eggs come from in the reactor? There must have been a Queen we just never saw on the station somewhere? There's no way it would've been able to fit in or out of any of the places we saw the eggs, so really where the hell did they come from? Where did the black box recorder for the Nostromo actually come from? The Nostromo was detonated in space over LV426. So by some random chance did the flight recorder get launched back into the direction of LV426, survive atmospheric re-entry, and land perfectly in the same downed alien spacecraft that they visited in the first film? It never should've appeared anywhere, really. The whole impetus for the story of the game doesn't fit.

It does a lot of great things though. Graphics are great, it runs great, it sounds AMAZING. The aesthetics of Sevastapol fit perfectly. I want more retro 80's future shit (COME ON ROUTINE! ROUTINE! ROUTINE!). I just encountered too many weird movement bugs and prompts that didn't want to work or didn't want to appear alongside questionable story choices to say it's a 10/10 game. It's a solid 8/10. Must play game if you like spooky shit or sci fi shit.

Oh and they say you should play the game on Hard, and I did, but I think I would've gotten more fun out of it playing it on Normal. I found the damage reduction on Hard makes items like Pipe Bombs pathetically weak for how many resources it takes to craft them.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 4:41 am #36491

Minor spoilers.

Lore wise, and this is coming from the first Alien move, a Alien is capable of slowly growing eggs by itself without the need for a Queen. It simply needs some organic material (dead or alive). That would explain where the hive came from.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:08 am #36501

Steelpoint wrote:Minor spoilers.

Lore wise, and this is coming from the first Alien move, a Alien is capable of slowly growing eggs by itself without the need for a Queen. It simply needs some organic material (dead or alive). That would explain where the hive came from.

I've never heard that.

In Alien we never see a queen at all. Just the eggs on LV426 in the ship, and the resulting Xenomorph running amok on the Nostromo. Nothing is said about where these eggs come from.
In Aliens we meet the queen for the first time and see that she's the one that produces the eggs containing the facehuggers. Nothing is said about where these queens come from.
In Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection they expand further and show that a queen alien comes from random hosts "lucky" enough to pass the right genes on to the parasite. Now we know the whole lifecycle.
The games and comics expand on that in a different direction, and show that any single xenomorph has the ability to molt into a queen alien if there isn't one around.

So it's kinda up in the air which is true about where the queens come from. Each of the films was written by a different person. Dan O'Bannon wrote the original screenplay, James Cameron wrote the second film, the third movie was butchered by a bunch of execs, and Joss Whedon wrote Alien Resurrection. The games are all equally niche and weird.

Through all that I've never heard of a regular drone being able to produce eggs though so I'm curious what I might have missed in the first film that would prove that. They can spread that carapace goo all over the place (or at least we assume they can, given how much construction is done in infested areas it's hard to imagine the big bulky queen scrambling up the walls to spew goop all over the ceilings and places all by herself). They can molt into queens if you think the games count as canon. But honestly the most evidence I think is out there that they can produce eggs on their own is the confines of the physical space of the nest on the Sevastopol and the lack of any signs of a queen alien (outside of maybe some roars and stuff you hear as ambience when goofing off in the nest?).

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:12 am #36502

There was a deleted scene in the original movie showing the Alien using one of the dead crew members as material to make a new egg in a mini hive. This scene was restored in the directors cut, I should know since I have that DVD.

*EDIT* Its actually quite a thing to the Aliens community, here's a Xenopedia page on the process: http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Eggmorphing

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:18 am #36504

Yeah I just did some digging and came up with this:

http://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/egg-morph/

Huh. Never saw those scenes, this is totally new to me. It seems like Dan O'Bannon originally wanted this to be how it all worked and never envisioned any kind of queen alien, but the franchise went in another direction.

I gotta say this seems pretty non-canon, then. Having appeared only in a deleted scene and being replaced entirely in every iteration of the franchise since, it would be weird that this is how it gets done in Alien:Isolation. I mean, we see people cocooned to the walls ala Aliens, nobody getting Eggmorphed around.

EDIT: I guess it makes an appearance in the Atari Jaguar AVP game? Apparently you can cocoon marines and then use them as respawn points if you die. Wacky.

I guess what I'm saying then, if they wanted to use THIS as the method for which the hive got started in the reactor core, then we really should have seen evidence that it had happened that way and not just the eggs that come out of a queen and a bunch of people stuck to the walls, with no queen around. It's plausible enough that someone got eggmorphed by the one alien, which then created a queen, which then laid all the eggs. But still, where did it go? Why did we never see it? If they wanted to suddenly bring back eggmorphing as a thing, where are the eggmorphed people in that nest?

QuartzCrystal · Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:33 pm

Is it worth it to get this for the 360 or should I just wait until I have a PS4?

I really don't mind waiting, I just rather not waste the 60 bucks.

Phalanx300 · Post by **Phalanx300** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:40 pm #36594

Really wish our AI was more like the ones in the Alien franchise. Where even speaking to a AI is troublesome and can only be done through a special console.

As for the Eggmorphing theory, its been around for a long time and its nice that Alien Isolation hints at its existance. Then again it makes sense somewhat since morphing into a Queen leaves you vulnerable and it takes time, better to have a starting hive before turning into a Queen. New power for the Drone? Also -if- Aliens ever get replaced then this Eggmorphing should be their reproduction method as a reference.

I also heard that originally they intended for the Alien stinger tails to incapacite people which is how they move people around and how they suddenly wake up coccooned in place.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:42 pm #36595

An0n3 wrote:snip

The DLC will explain that.

Being serious, it could be entirely possible we simply did not see most of the hive during our brief stint. I think I agree in that the original Drone created a egg or two, of which that evolved into a Queen allowing them to ramp up production.

On another note, a good theory presented as to why the station's pistols and shotguns are totally ineffective in harming the Alien is because the ammo being used are designed with very low penetration in mind, considering the last thing any one wants is for a stray bullet to pierce the station's hull, as such the weapons are unable to pierce the Aliens carapace. However the weapons used by the marines in Aliens use explosive tipped armour piercing rounds.

Kraso · Post by **Kraso** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:06 pm #36605

Steelpoint wrote: In Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection they expand further and show that a queen alien comes from random hosts "lucky" enough to pass the right genes on to the parasite. Now we know the whole lifecycle.

I thought the alien queen came from a royal facehugger

JDemms · Post by **JDemms** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:06 pm #36606

Steelpoint wrote:
An0n3 wrote:snip
On another note, a good theory presented as to why the station's pistols and shotguns are totally ineffective in harming the Alien is because the ammo being used are designed with very low penetration in mind, considering the last thing any one wants is for a stray bullet to pierce the station's hull, as such the weapons are unable to pierce the Aliens carapace. However the weapons used by the marines in Aliens use explosive tipped armour piercing rounds.

Which makes me wonder what the hell colonial marines -usually-prepare for, since (as I understood) they're supposed to be going up against like, the Weyland-Yutani version of pitchforks.

Actually, it'd be kind of cool if we could see that kind of thing in ss13, where heavier weapons (laser cannons, mech weapons, whatever) could indeed penetrate bulkheads (at least non-reinforced walls) with enough fire. It would make heavier caliber weapons more of a threat in the hands of antags, while forcing their counterparts to be more careful with their shots, or risk blowing a hole right into the void/plasma exposure/xenobio's pet xenos.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:35 pm #36613

The biggest guns in the game (SS13, that is) can blow holes in walls easily. Exo rockets and Laser Cannons can shred holes to space just fine. Having an area exposed to space isn't such a huge threat in our games though, as opposed to the magic vacuum cleaner effect of some other stations/sci-fi stuff.

Fun fact: nobody gets "sucked" into space, you get blown into space by the mass of air gasses around you moving from high concentration to low concentration and (if you're in the way) shoving you outside as well. If you aren't directly in the path of that eruption of gasses moving outwards you should be fine. Go watch that video of the crab crawling around on the drainage pipe at the bottom of the sea. It's totally fine and oblivious to any nearby current until it stands directly over the crack. Same principal.

There's still no evidence Alien:Isolation subscribes to the eggmorphing lifecycle or not. Though we never see a queen, we never see any eggmorphs either. We DO see some of the eggs that are typically laid by a queen but without any source. I'm curious to see how they end up explaining it but as is it's annoying because we go from having one alien on the station to having a whole hive and there's no explanation given for how that happened. Just sudden plot device, "hey we need a new stinger for the 3rd act what can we do?" kind of asspull.

Apsis · Post by **Apsis** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:15 pm #36690

Since the game was based on Alien, I think the nest was just a homage to the cut eggmorphing scene. The queen in Aliens didn't make a lot of scene either, since the eggs still came from the derelict ship on LV-426. It's likely that a queen just mutates from a drone while the other drones turn into the ridge-headed warrior types. Though Alien 3 makes it fucky with the royal facehugger shit even though it was a deleted element of the movie.

Remie Richards · Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:47 pm

Apsis wrote:Though Alien 3 makes it fucky with the royal facehugger shit even though it was a deleted element of the movie.

While the royal facehugger was cut from Alien 3, the Queen embryo was not (it's also the plot for the fourth film, since clone ripley still had the embyro in her), which also clouds everything.