Alien: Isolation

[arry_g]

I'm waiting for a patch to come out before I play more. I like the game, it's atmospheric and tense, Alan the Alien is excellent but... the cutscenes are just way too choppy. Lips are out of sync much of the time for me and frames often jump. This is a game with a story. I want to experience it the proper way.

[DomsBeard]

I've just got the motion tracker, I've not had any glitches for a bit now are you on ps4 too?

[magicjoef]

I found Nostromo Edition on Zavvi for £27 (PC), so I couldn't resist! I didn't pay for fancy postage so it didn't turn up for release day, but looking forward to playing it later in the week. I've been catching up on older games in my backlog for a few months, so very interested in getting a bit of 'next gen'.

[arry_g]

I've just got the motion tracker, I've not had any glitches for a bit now are you on ps4 too?

Yeah, PS4 too. Like I said, I actually enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay, plus the sound design is excellent the set pieces feel (mostly) true to the movie, they've nailed atmosphere and Alan is brutal. The cutsenes are from the start choppy though and it ruins moments when frames are skipped during pivotal character moments, hopefully this gets better as you go in (you suggest it might) but I want to play a version of the game where this isn't my lasting impression so hopeful they patch it. I also think the voice acting is less than perfect (I gamed though the 32-bit gen though so I can ignore that), I think the graphics suffer slightly in well-lit environments and it does that think where interactable items glow yellow/orange - I understand why games do that but I appreciate when the option is there to switch that off (it's immersion breaking).

Of the gripes I've listed I can still enjoy a game, love it even as long as the gameplay is solid or it has an interesting gameplay hook and the story is either delivered efficiently or competently. I hope that one major issue I have is fixed, then I feel I can lose myself in it. For now though, Shadow of Mordor I guess.

[DomsBeard]

Had some more time with it last night and after some initial frustrations I'm really really enjoying it.

I'm playing on hard and it is tough going. The hud is minimal and nothing is signposted so you have to explore everywhere. I had to find a switch which took me a good 10 minutes.

There's no vision cones on the human enemies, if they could see you in real life they can see you here. I had to rewire my brain to stealth.

Only moan is that I had a bit that ruined the immersion a bit when I took a guy out early on and picked up his bullets but wouldn't pick up his gun. A bit later there's a little Cutscene where you find a gun.

Met you know who again. Genuinely horrible in a good way.

[Indiana747]

Yeah, PS4 too. Like I said, I actually enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay, plus the sound design is excellent the set pieces feel (mostly) true to the movie, they've nailed atmosphere and Alan is brutal.

So is Alan a character in the game? Or have you put a playful pet name on the Xenomorph to dampen its fear factor?
Alan the Alien has a nice ring to it.

[DomsBeard]

I think Alan is the Alien as I've not met one yet. Don't try sneaking up and mêléeing the creepy androids by the way that ended in another death.

Death count so far:

Humans 5
Androids 1
Alien 0

[arry_g]

Yeah, PS4 too. Like I said, I actually enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay, plus the sound design is excellent the set pieces feel (mostly) true to the movie, they've nailed atmosphere and Alan is brutal.

So is Alan a character in the game? Or have you put a playful pet name on the Xenomorph to dampen its fear factor?
Alan the Alien has a nice ring to it.

I can't remember what podcast it was The Crate and Crowbar maybe... but one of the journalists was talking about an interview with the developers where they were talking about how the team nicknamed the Alien Alan. They were saying for QA purposes they would have the Alan speak to indicate whether he was looking for you, had lost you or thought you were in particular places. That way they could keep up with what he was doing and log AI issues more efficiently. I have no idea whether it was true or not but the idea of it made sense to me and when the podcast team began to joke about the ort of UK regional accents Alan could have (Welsh, Scouse and Yorkshirian all came up) it secured the mindset of me seeing the Alien as Alan.

[Indiana747]

Thats me told.
Just sayin it wasn't a typo would've been sufficient.

[arry_g]

...plus when things get tense I can just pretend Alan and I are playing hide and seek and that he isn't a horrific murder machine.

[Indiana747]

Ha ha. Like a Care Bear, only with acid for blood & less furr.

[arry_g]

Ha ha. Like a Care Bear, only with acid for blood & less furr.

I always assumed the Care Bears did bleed acid.

[DomsBeard]

Nah that's Gummi Bears.

[arry_g]

Nah that's Gummi Bears.

[Flabyo]

They were saying for QA purposes they would have the Alan speak to indicate whether he was looking for you, had lost you or thought you were in particular places.

I'll have to remember that one next time I'm on something of this scale. I've tended to just stick to having debug text displayed over the characters heads for my stuff.

(Incidentally, having a character yell what they're doing tends to increase a players perception that the AI is good, when of course yelling loudly what you're doing isn't exactly intelligent. Often you can get them to shout things that the AI clearly can't do, and players will fill in the gaps... this is what the first Half Life does to fantastic effect)

[arry_g]

Despite me saying I wouldn't, I played a little again tonight. There's a period of time without cutscenes, during those times the game is excellent. Up to the first save point after the motion tracker my deaths are:

Humans - 1
Androids - 0
Alan - 2

Also, Alan really does stomp about. I wonder if he is going through the difficult teenager stage of an Xenomorph's life. He certainly has temper issues.

[DomsBeard]

Going in now....... :/

[DomsBeard]

I've got to medical. Played for a good 90 minutes and apart from some drool dripping from a vent about 70 minutes in I'd had no sign of Alan apart from a Cutscene. I'd been in a section I'd already been around 10 times and saw something on the tracker. Hid in a locker and thought about getting out after a good minute then THEN he strolls up towards the locker


And straight past me. I then check the motion tracker after two minutes of him not being there and know there is a save point at the bottom of the stairs to my left. To make things worse I hadn't saved it for about a hour as androids had been hanging around each one along the way. So off I slowly went down the stairs swinging the motion tracker round like you wouldn't believe and it gets a large beep as I'm literally two metres from saving. I spy a locker to my left and dash in not saving.

3 seconds after he stomps past the locker obviously looking for me, he then circles back walking towards me and I'm like that's it he's got me

And he crawls up into the vents above. I still need to bloody save though so after a good three or four minutes in the locker I go out and save (it told me there was an enemy near). I then summon my tram and hide again and when it arrived ran straight in. Phew genuinely scary stuff.

So deaths so far 5 human 1 android and 0 to Al

Time for something more easy going

[arry_g]

Ah see, now what you've described is the experience I want from this. I want to focus on Mordor whilst I wait for a patch for the cutscenes (that might not even come) but at the same time I want to just get on and start interacting with Alan (and I'll be honest, humans I couldn't care less for and the androids are lethal and creepy but it's all about Big Al for me).

Already my experience has been a little different to yours. So to keep this spoiler free between first meeting Alan and first coming across Androids I was killed by him twice (I'm also on Hard). Then first time he dropped from a vent as I was hacking the exit and skewered me. The second time he was already prowling the room as entered so I snuck around the left of the room and hid under a desk. Whilst I was under there he kept looking above it and eventually bellow, then moved swiftly on top of the desk before killing me. Third time entering the room he wasn't there and I moved very quickly.

[DomsBeard]

He got me, 15 minutes I'd been hiding in one of two lockers and not getting any further till my objective as Al was there. I decided to make a break for it and I thought it was him ahead of me but not 100%. He then moved to confirm it was him and he ripped me out of the locker after me thinking I'd just made it.