Alien: Isolation

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Alex79
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Alex79 »

Normal is doing me just fine! It's really good though. Genuinely utterly terrifying and panic inducing when you are up on a balcony and the alien spots you and starts running up the stairs. I generally find myself cowering in a corner waiting for the inevitable.
RobC

Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by RobC »

DomsBeard wrote:Get stuck in. It was my game of the year. You need to play it on hard though.
I'm starting to think that way at the minute, I started on normal and I'm finding my encounters with the alien a bit hit & miss. There are points where we are damn near face to face and it doesn't see me, still finding it reasonably challenging though.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Alien: Isolation

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RobC wrote:
DomsBeard wrote:Get stuck in. It was my game of the year. You need to play it on hard though.
I'm starting to think that way at the minute, I started on normal and I'm finding my encounters with the alien a bit hit & miss. There are points where we are damn near face to face and it doesn't see me, still finding it reasonably challenging though.
That's what I noticed when I watched someone playing on normal. There was bits where I was thinking "you're dead" but Al didn't get him.
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Alex79
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Alex79 »

Is that what difficulty affects then, AI? I was thinking its pointless changing because it's basically one hit die anyway, even from humans (despite the fact I unloaded a whole revolver in to one of them and he didn't drop!!)
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Pitwar
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Pitwar »

I've gone back to this the past couple of nights. I stopped playing a couple of months back as the stress of it was just too much, lol.

I've just stumbled across
Spoiler: show
the alien hive
and had to call it a night there, I was just not paying attention to what was in front of me due to worrying about what was behind me and kept dying,

I'm not sure but it feels like I'm close to the end now, but knowing this game there's probably a ton more stuff to come :D
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by DomsBeard »

No comment [WINKING FACE]
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magicjoef
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by magicjoef »

That section was so tense!!
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Alex79
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Alex79 »

I've given up on this. Absolutely no interest in genuinely terrifying myself and hiding in cupboards for hours on end. In the end I was just getting no enjoyment out of constantly cowering in corners and waiting for what seemed like ages for the alien to pass, only to cautiously venture out and get my face chewed off. It's just no fun!! I can see why people like it, but I think you've got to be a bit of a masochist to really enjoy this game, haha. Or just not a big stupid baby, like me.

:oops:
Bakers_12

Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Bakers_12 »

Shame , how far did you get?
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by DomsBeard »

I think there was one point when the Alien dropped down in front of the save point on a section I'd died on about 30 times after doing what I need to do and then having to save, I wanted to take the disc out of my ps4, set it on fire, smash it and throw it into the sea. Is it Chapter 10 by chance?
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Alex79
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Alex79 »

Bakers_12 wrote:Shame , how far did you get?
Really not that far. I was skulking around a medical bay finding where a doctor had been on his rounds to find a key or something I needed. Then the alien came through the ceiling.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by DomsBeard »

Alex79uk wrote:
Bakers_12 wrote:Shame , how far did you get?
Really not that far. I was skulking around a medical bay finding where a doctor had been on his rounds to find a key or something I needed. Then the alien came through the ceiling.
Chapter 5, I remember it well. There were points where I was hiding in a cupboard for about five minutes at a time at least then I decided to get going and eventually made it. It took me 30 minutes to to Chapter 5 but when I finished it I went back and did it again in less than 5. Learning your surroundings really helps.

You are right though you need to be in the mood for it though there were a few days and the odd week I left it as it does get pretty tense especially if you've made so much progress and have not saved. My nerves were shot after Chapter 10 which is something I'll never forget in gaming.

Have you been using flares to distract him? Also I never walked anywhere when Al was about, I skulked around crouching. It is unfair at times that game but I was ok with it as Al is not on a set program you could walk into a room and him just drop in front of you and wipe you out as realistically that could happen.
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Re: Alien: Isolation

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DomsBeard wrote:Had a fallout with it tonight and think I'm going to have a break for a bit. I'm on chapter ten and I've got to leave one room, flick a switch a few rooms away then come back to said room.

Alan has killed me around twenty times in quick succession. He appears in every room without fail and has managed to find me in every locker I've hid in even when he's appeared several rooms away. He's appeared as I was saving after returning to the original room and killed me before it has completed. Dropped from a ceiling in front of me in said save area. I've got one Molotov to scare him off but when he's appearing every 5 seconds it's irrelevant as it scares him off once. It just feels unfair rather than me messing up and it'll be luck when I do get to the save point. Shame (but then I'm playing on hard)

Anyone else have this issue?
Memories! :evil:
Bakers_12

Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Bakers_12 »

Alex79uk wrote:
Bakers_12 wrote:Shame , how far did you get?
Really not that far. I was skulking around a medical bay finding where a doctor had been on his rounds to find a key or something I needed. Then the alien came through the ceiling.
Oh yeah THAT bit. I think that bit was made really hard to install fear of the alien from the get go. I remember thinking at the time that the game will be a massive slog if the rest of the game was like that section, but the tools you get after that bit help you so much.
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by Alex79 »

Hmm thanks guys I probably will go back to it, you know I never even thought to use a flare to distract him. Stealth 101 >_<
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DomsBeard
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by DomsBeard »

Alex79uk wrote:Hmm thanks guys I probably will go back to it, you know I never even thought to use a flare to distract him. Stealth 101 >_<
Yeah, you know where he drops down? Throw a flare to the right of there so he'll go investigate then the code you get is for the door at the opposite side of the area.
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magicjoef
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by magicjoef »

Distraction is definitely a key part of the gameplay. He will check out noise makers for quite a while allowing for some good progress through an area to be made.

(Just don't get excited and decide to sprint!!)
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by DomsBeard »

I know it is a way off but anyone who is playing it I would recommend playing it on Hard and if you have the choice on PS4.

I'm currently playing it on the new harder nightmare mode which is unsurprisingly an absolute nightmare, Al does not mess about. Normal from people I have spoke to is too easy. I finished it on Hard on my first playthrough on PS4. I bought it on Xbox One on sale and it is far more prone to glitches and slow down than I ever noticed on the PS4 version.

Still awesome though
NeoGazza

Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by NeoGazza »

Finished this game going through my backlog and I have to say that this is one severely underrated game.
Although the insta-fails are truly annoying, there is no other game which captures the essence and feel of Alien as good as this one. Loved it.
three word review: "Underrated, Overlooked, Classic"
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Re: Alien: Isolation

Post by matten zwei »

Hey Guys. I'm german and not a native english-speaker (or writer), so please don't be too harsh on me for my grammar-mistakes.

"Alien" might be my favourite film of all time. After the terrible "Colonial Marines", I was very pleased to hear that "isolation" would be more like the first "Alien" film. Less shooting and action and more horror and stress. When I booted the game up on my PS4 and heard the alien theme in the menu I've got goosebumps and was somehow already deeply moved by the game. I scrolled through the menu and was thrilled by the playstation-Kinect-ripoff-features. (Un?)-fortunatly I don't own a playstation camera, so the Alien would not be able to spot me when I sneeze our cough playing it. But what a great feature!

I found the game really challenging, even playing at normal difficulty. It was quite easy to get away from the human enemies or the droids, but getting away from the Alien was extremely hard. I was hiding for ages in lockers and under tables watching the scanner and waiting for the right moment to get out of my "comfort" zone. When I finally got to annoyed by the noise of the scanner and even got away, I never knew if I was skilled at this game or if it was pure luck, that I got away. The alien was running randomly through the corridors and it was hard for me to understand where it was going. I've got frustrated. Especially when I got to the Nest. In the end of the game, I only found myself running away, hoping that I would make it to the next checkpoint. What a shame, because the games atmosphere and visuals were absolutely amazing and would have loved to look at it some more. But even running away wasn't the solution for solving this game. Even if I heard the alien behind me, it somehow still managed to be above me in the next vent. The most frustrating part was towards the ending of the game when I didn't have bullets, fuel, molotow-cocktails or noisemakers to distract the alien. Maybe I am the worst skulker ever, but those parts where just pure frustration.

Would I recommend this game? Of course! Its atmosphere is a blast! The sound design is perfect, the graphics are descent (but don't take a too close look at the human NPCs). My favourite part was the alien-planet when i finally could enjoy the atmosphere and didn't need to hide in a corner. I also enjoyed the chapters in space. Sometimes I even felt, that I could deal with the alien properly, and it felt great. Overall, i found the game a bit too long, the missions where a bit bioshock-esque and the cutscenes looked great, but always felt misplaced in this game, maybe because they came to rarely and randomly.

But "Alien Isolation" is a great game, but I am not sure if I would ever pick it up again. Maybe the DLCs. I think I didn't just expected a good "Alien"-game. I expected a new "Dead Space", which isn't what this game wants to be. But it's what I want play.

Dear Dead Space, If you read this: Please come back!
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