Love the attention to detail and the faithful adherence to the Alien series look and feel. Controls are good, tension is super-high at first, but quickly devolves into repetition. The Alien doesn’t seem to obey any spatial laws: it’s simply able to show up exactly when needed. Really enjoyed the terminals and all the lore, but the hiding behind boxes and in closets got old.

Boast: The Creative Assembly (Total War, Stormrise), wanted to create an adapting and learning Alien, one with an advanced AI so that you couldn’t use the same tactic on it twice and would hunt you down by smell, sound, and sight. And it would be totally awesome… if the AI was good. I’m gonna hit you with something real quick. You die a lot in this game, and the save points aren’t too forgiving, which I think is what the devs were going for. But, when you reload, you have to go through some unecessary shit to actually get to the ‘gameplay’ section of where you last died. And the enemies (androids, other humans and the Alien), can find you anywhere. There was no point in hiding, holding your breath, leaning away, or being all the way across the room shrouded in smoke. All of that meant nothing. You could argue either way that it helped the game, or hurt it. In all actuality though, it was a broken mechanic. It got to the point where it was frustrating, and when you passed the alien, it wasn’t satisfying.

EyeCandy: I launched the game and it was running pretty choppy. Not the cinematics, those looked great. They looked really good. It’s probably one of the highest praises I’d give the game, especially the lighting and the particles. I’m talking about when I was able to first walk around. I said, “What the?”, went to the video menu, and EVERY setting was jacked up to Ultra. I don’t have a bad rig, but holy hell, that was ridiculous. So then I put everything as low as it could go, or off, (out of spite), and it looked very damn well close to the max settings. Though, I should mention that the game still ran slow and laggy. Strike one. Regardless though, it looked surprisingly well. The artwork and texturing are great and it covers up the mediocrity in the modeling. But that just comes from them having a budget. The way every environment was illustrated really did set the tone and the mood for the game. It was all run-down, everything was broken, the environment was uncomfortable and I think that’s what the developers were trying to do. I loved it. Also, it all looked retro and 70’s-ish so that was kind of badass. The characters are pretty skimped out on though, except the Alien. All of the polys and budget went straight to the Alien. It looks phenomenal. Other than that, Isolation looks like a half-upgrade from a Valve game.

Sound: There’s multiple settings in the game for your preferred audio experience. The two I played with were Full Dynamic Range and simply, Headphones. So, tell me why there was a nil difference between the two. The sound design and spacial recognition were absolutely atrocious. The redundancy of sounds will confuse you into thinking there’s a usable machine to your left, but it’s not. It’s actually upstairs, two rooms away, and it’s a completely different object. The dialogue, to change subjects, is not written well. I was going through a vent and my partner asked a personal question. Cool, character divulsion and story expansion. But that was it. He just asked me a question and Ripley didn’t answer, so we kept on crawling. But maybe that was a good thing, because the main character (oh God the main character), is so bad at voice acting it’s not even funny. Worse than Kristen Stewart. Enough said. It doesn’t make any sense though, because the supporting cast does a good, industry standard, job. It was very disappointing to experience something like that. There’s nothing to say about the soundtrack, it’s all ambiance. Except, I will say that the use of buildup was pretty cool. You hear the dissonant strings rise in volume and a rapid drum that simulates a fast heartbeat, it was pretty cool. Sound wise though, that’s the only thing that stood out.

Gameplay: This one might be a doozy. First off, this game has the slowest beginning in the history of slow beginnings I have ever played. Part of the problem is that the game has no sense of direction. A good game directs you without letting you know you’re being directed. This one makes it obvious (the use of certain lights), but then all of a sudden stops and you have to backtrack to where you were and go somewhere you didn’t know you could access because of bad design and a bad explanation of features that are in the game. I don’t expect a game to hold my hand, but at least tell me basic mapping controls. It doesn’t tell you there’s a run button until maybe an hour in, so all the backtracking and ‘exploring’ I’m doing is all walking and the running doesn’t move you any faster. I’m talking Slenderman speed here, slow as hell.

Also, the game has bad programming. I went into a room, activated a generator, and then nothing happened (even though that was my objective). So, I went out back into the bigger room and spent a good 12 minutes WALKING around, looking like a dumbass because I’m going up to walls and broken wires crouching (which I also had to figure out), and perusing them but had no luck. I went back into the smaller room to a computer terminal (that I’ve already accessed before), go through all the messages again, and exited out because there was nothing new. And then the power came back on! So I guess I was supposed to read the computer first and then turn on the generator? Bugs happen, I get it. So then a little later I’m at this sneaking part, and I die. I say eff the pre-mission dialogue, do my objective, and go back to the guy. He then continues the pre-mission dialogue and it glitched so I had to reload my save. Bugs happen, I get it. After that episode, we crawl into a vent and my character snapped onto my leader’s back and my character was lodged inside the top of the vent and I had to reload again. Okay, strike two. We came to another sneak section and I literally turned around and bumped into the enemy. I backed up, the music started going, but then nothing happened so we went ahead. My partner caught up, and then HE said, “Follow me!” and did not go anywhere. Let me repeat that, HE DID NOT MOVE. I walked around him, his eyes fixed on me, and then I went ahead and he was following me! What!? I don’t know where to go! There was no indicator telling me where to go. Strike three, I’m done.
TL;DR: The gameplay sucks.

Conclusion: Alien: Isolation is a recipe of walking, pulling levers, and uneventful filler that was very sloppily put together. It was a game I had to force myself to play. It’s too slow paced (God save you when you have to climb a ladder), and my first Alien encounter (there weren’t many after that), didn’t happen until about two-and-a-half hours in and it wasn’t even surprising. At times it had its moments. The hacking systems were unique, but drawn out. The little bit of soundtrack is good, but pretty much non-existent. And the environment is executed in a way to where you really do almost feel isolated, except, the level design sucks. If I had to give this game a score, I’d give it a 5 for trying.