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 I've always thought that Ellen left that message for Amanda knowing that she might never hear it. "I hope you get to hear it one day" tells me that Ellen knows Amanda might never hear it, and that the company might destroy it. She just added that personal message as a "fuck it, why not, might as well" thing.
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.
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...
The infamous fourth act of an Alien film, translated perfectly to this game. Honestly I took a long break from this game when I got to that point. I was so stressed out I literally said fuck this and turned it off. Only horror game to really get to me
@@ToastyAvocado69 Hahaha yes I first played Alien Isolation on Gamepass in 2020 on my old console after rediscovering it from YT videos I used to watch about it. Needless to say, my 14 year old self did the same thing you did and it took me a week to find the courage to continue. Now I play with shaders on PC and the game looks even better. Even when I beat the survival missions recently I was still crapping myself. I've never experienced horror like it, and I desperately want a sequel. I just watched the Alien trilogy this week and man that ending was PURE evil. Poor Ellen... well I'm officially a huge fan now and want more.
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!
Alien Isolation is a masterpiece. -Absurdly good AI (one of the few games that has one, with FEAR) -Terrific sound design -Extreme fidelity to the original source material -Beautiful graphics and effects -Good gameplay and mechanics -Amazing atmosphere and new enemies The pacing problems are honestly minor, not to mention the game has the genius idea make you believe your safe, just to pull another catastrophic situation and reveal the Xenomorph has a Hive.
They could have done more terrifying and add more DLC to explore random NPC’s stories like Lingard or Morley or Waits… more room and more alien’s mechanism to bypass like the ladder immunity, the vents upside (the alien to the vent and immediately catch you instead you look at him from upside) and some vents when you can walk normally…. Alien Isolation is almost perfect.
The AI is far from "good" its extremely prone to breaking, leaving it stuck in a loop where your stuck in a locker or under a table for 5 minutes before you finally get sick of just sitting there and have to reload checkpoint losing 20-30 minutes of progress. F.E.A.R AI didn't break and even IF it did, it didn't matter because you weren't creeping through hallways faced with insta death or losing 30 minutes of progress because "checkpoints" are set absurdly far apart
We know that Amanda had a happy ending though. We find out about it in Aliens when Burke tells Ripley about her daughter’s life and death many years after this event.
Isolation is by far my favorite game. Precisely because the narrative doesn't follow the norm. The pacing is off when compared to similar games, but spot on when you are immersed in the lore and feel of the films. The repeaded setbacks the player suffers mirror what the reality of being in that situation would be like. The fact that you can play several times and the AI will react differently makes it almost a new game each time, definitely a differwnt experience. IMO it stands alone in the gaming world and deaerves a sequel. Perhaps we will get one someday.
This game is also one of the best-looking games ever made to this day. And it's the well put together art style that'll help it stand the test of time. You could say the game just released, and people will believe you.
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.
Don't forget the semi regular need to reload checkpoint losing 20-30 minutes of gameplay because the Alien AI breaks and gets stuck in a loop so you spend 5 minutes hiding in a locker or under a table before you finally have to just lose progress and reload. It is ridiculous how easily the Alien AI seems to break. Walking/sneaking simulator games are short because NOBODY wants to spend 20-30hrs slowly creeping slower than corpses bang through hallways doing menial tasks with a questionable AI prone to breaking. Its pretty annoying to how it starts as a creeping oh my god level sneaking sim only to become a shooter halfway through the game then to get back to the sneaking simulator. People LOVE to bring up Resident Evil, conveniently ignoring that Resident Evil is about 3hrs long can be beaten in about 45 minutes if you know what your doing and at its longest is around 6-7hrs not 20-30 and your not sneaking at the pace of a zombie with no legs to get through the game
I was really hoping that Seegson and the Working Joes would make an appearance in Romulus. The idea of them (5 years after the events of isolation) trying to get in on the Alien action as a last ditch bid to beat WY to the punch would have been great.
Same. The closest was a map on the wall that looked reminiscent of some level maps - but I was hoping for a computer with a Seegson logo, or even a Working Joe in the background. That said - the 70s tech aesthetic felt deliberate, and it was at least from the same playbook as A.I.
Played this game for the first time earlier this year. In my top 3 scariest games I’ve ever played. Played on my Legion Go and was surprised how visually fantastic the environments are. Have a special place in my heart for this game
alien isolation and resident evil 7 were the games that brought me back into gaming after falling off towards the end of 7th gen. It was so frustrating that both games got such terrible reviews from ign, alien got it so much worse. They're still my two favorite survival horror games.
@@CentrifewgiThat’s correct. Showed a renewed interest in the survival horror aspect that made RE a household name, which led to the Re2 remake imo and the rest is history.
@@Centrifewgi as far as i know the second game ( the Fnaf like Game ) is considered canon sadly.. even though it is a major step down from the first game.
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 !
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
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.
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.
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
This game is so, so, SOOOOO much better if you actually pay attention when you pick up the motion tracker and learn that it points to your next objective. On my first playthrough my dumb ass didn't read that part and I often got fed up circling around trying to figure out where I was supposed to go next.
I was never even a fan of the alien movies or franchise but this game made me a lot more interested in the alien lore and story. It’s an underrated masterpiece. This is a space horror game done right in almost every way. I’m so happy the devs are making a sequel now can’t wait for what they will bring next.
I guess you had many ALIEN(s) Fans already pointing this out, but the story is not just a "Love Letter" for ALIEN, it is in fact expanding the story of an actual character that was meant to be mentioned on the Theatrical Cut of ALIENS, but was then left on the cutting room even when James Cameron wanted her to be IN his movie's story. Amanda "Amy" Ripley was then shown and mentioned and her depth as a character was incorporated in the Director's Cut of ALIENS, as she was originally intended. So in reality ALIEN ISOLATION is more than a simple "Love Letter" it is a sequel prequel for ALIEN and ALIENS that even helped see more of Ellen Ripley IN her own actual Daughter. The ending on the game was lamely put as ambiguous, because we know how she in fact dies and how was she when she does die. If anything, ALIEN ISOLATION is indeed not for everyone, but for the ALIEN franchise fans and when it come for the story, the effectiveness of making the ALIEN scary and finally even inspiring Fede Alvarez in making ALIEN ROMULUS, ALIEN ISOLATION is THE BEST ALIEN game of them all in story, tension and world building.
Great catch up! Really enjoyed your critical and fair take on its strength and flaws. The only thing I'd kinda critically comment on, is the statement that the game had mixed reception at launch, as yes, three of the bigger review outlets gave it a 6/10-kinda rating, but pretty much all other outlets lauded the game. Its metascore was above 8/10 pretty much from the get go, so in reality it did not have a mixed reception at launch.
I did feel the story was amazing when I first played this game I was really attached to Samuel and Ricardo and when everything kept going bad throughout the game it made me feel alone and when everyone died except for Ripley it made me feel hopeless for the situation ripley was in. When I saw the facehugger on Ricardo’s face my face went pale in shock because he was such a helpful character the only thing that didn’t make me feel completely alone was the alien and of course it wants to kill you. And the ending when Amanda was in space it really felt isolated
...and it's 10 freaking years old. I just need to reiterate that. Nowadays, we've become so used to slow burner games, that it's not difficult to imagine this as just being another one. But what sets this game apart from a lot of others is the fact that this is open* world. You can just explore parts of the station whenever you like. However, the narrative just heavily steers where you (should) go and what you have access to. And there lies the core to this game's runtime criticisms - it's setting. Had this game been compacted into a setting like the Nostromo in size and scope, there'd be less criticisms. I love this game, and revisiting it never gets old despite it's length and repetitive level design. Only thing I can say for a sequel pitch is compact the level design, and tell more of a compelling story with characters you actually care about and try to protect. Sevastopol on its own was huge enough, not including the Anesidora, LV426, and the Torrens. It may be in-universe, but I shouldn't lose track getting from point A to point B
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.
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!
What most miss out on is the fact that the game is so nerve wracking that I used to play for 10-20 mins then take a break and come back after a few hours because it had me genuinely scared and I couldn't keep up with constantly being tense and nervous. I loved the length of the game and personally for me this is the perfect Alien 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.
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.
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.
This is my favourite horror game of all time. It's not perfect but it gets most things right. When this game came out most horror games were just action games like Dead Space and Resident Evil. This game actually made you feel completely powerless which I think is really important in horror.
I keep hearing people say this game is "stretched too thin" but like... I've never agreed. It's a metroidvania in a sense. You come back to areas with new abilities (the jack, the ion-torch and its upgrades etc.) to open new pathways. You unlock new abilities to help "fight" against the threat and some of the stuff you find is in secret areas. At first it's believed there's one Alien on the ship, you evade it until you jettison it into the gas giant through the KG348 lab, then you have a moment of reprieve, the only enemies are the androids which at that point with a shotgun aren't that big a deal. It's a moment where you can relax, take a breather. And then there's the final sequence where you find out there's a lot more Aliens than just the one. It's perfectly paced for the game it is, especially considering the lore it's based on. In the first movie Ripley also continuously had set-backs, had to run back to areas a bunch of times to do certain things. It fits.
From what I understand is that originally the protagonist was supposed to be a new character who discovers a conspiracy, and it was only changed to be Amanda Ripley later in development. Having it be Ripley's daughter on some secret mission to find out what happened to her mom makes no sense, and required them to rewrite the story to twist logic into a pretzel as to how she finds out the flight recorder is on the space station, as opposed to the protagonist just being unlucky to have arrived at the doomed station on normal business. Other than that, the game is pretty good. It gets repetitive after a while, which is probably why some people criticize it. Especially on the highest difficulties where the Alien AI isn't necessarily smarter, it just has shorter patrol routes. Cabinet Simulator isn't engaging gameplay.
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!
They might well not know where she is, or she's become a significant problem for WY, so telling her also defiant mother "oops she died of old age" rather than let them try to find each other and become a bigger headache. That said, with the events of Alien 3 and resurrection make that all a bit moot unless they are discounted as Canon or consined to an alternative outcome after Aliens
i personally think the game is the perfect length. how the steaks keep building up, the varied envirnments past the xeno ejection like the generator room and the alien nest. amandas discovery of where her mom is, and that explosive finalie that makes you feel like you are in hell. ive beaten this game 3 times on different consoles all on hard, and i dont think the game is too long at all.
I wanted to like this game, but I am not a person that likes stealth and this game's heavy focus on it was a major turn off. I liked what the game did with the Seigson robots, but nothing else about it tickled me in a positive way. And like the video mentioned, the quests just dragged on for far too long to the point of tedium & with seemingly no reward. Not saying its bad, just that it wasn't for me.
I appreciate that this reviewer loves the game and, thus, gives it its do. However, whenever i hear certain criticisms of this game, I get irritated because those criticisms seem to lack a certain attention to details, certain contexts, certain realities that logically result in the game we were given. For example, the "repetitive environment" critique. For one thing, the design aesthetic applied here was slavishly devoted to ensuring that nothing was designed that wouldn't have been possible to create for a film set in 1979. That logically limits the scope of design variability, and frankly, I think most of us appreciate that faithfulness to the original design aesthetic. Secondly, we're talking about a space station in deep space. In universe, much like the real world, designing a functional facility, much less one of such gargantuan size and scale, requires an attention to function rather than form in an environment as fundamentally harsh as space; especially with a used future in which the technology is as primitive and analog as it was when the original film was first made. Of course, it's all going to look the same. A company like Seegson, or Weyland-Yutani, isn't going to care about building functional environments that vary in design. The person designing these environments is only creating a facility to be functional in space. I could go on about other criticisms of this game that are often leveled, unfairly in my opinion, but this example typifies the issue with all of them.
Comparing Isolation's story to Alien, they're very similar in the "everything fails" department. They heal a crewmember, he ends up dying. They search for the little alien, it had grown into a big one. They make a motion tracker and a flamethrower, it fails. They trust Mother, she betrays them. And so it goes. Same with isolation.
Btw there is a mobile game called alien blackout that actually confirms Amanda was picked up and saved but she ends up in another station with a xenomorph
@NothingBetterToWatch same. Incursion does look promising, but not really something I wanted. Nor do I have the tech to be able to play it lol. I hope it does well though.
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
The notion that Ripley leaving a message for her daughter is pointless, knowing that the company will never let her daughter hear it, is besides the point. Given what Ripley went through, especially considering how little loyalty or regard she displays for the company's interests throughout the film, honestly, knowing Ripley, she isn't going to care about the poor likelihood that her message will actually be heard by her daughter. Ellen Ripley is going to say what Ellen Ripley feels compelled to say, and the company be damned. The fact that her daughter does get to hear that message is a testament to Ripley's defiance and her daughter's own tenacity to survive. Knowing the character of Ellen Ripley, the real question is whether or not Ripley has access to the means to record such a message at all. I bring this up because, let's take a look at Prometheus for a second. The closing moments of that film have a recording by Shaw that is clearly a reference to Ripley's infamous "last report of the Nostromo." That recording comes as more silly and disingenuous than the message from Ripley to Amanda in Isolation simply for the fact that she has nothing to record it with. Think about it. The prometheus vessel has been destroyed, Shaw has fled the escape pod with its ginormous facehugger and engineer battle, one she barely survived and isnt going back to, and she's flying away in an engineer's ship. There's no human technology left for her to record with much less broadcast with. It's a "recording" for our benefit as the audience, and no one else, which males it silly and cheap. Conversely, given Ripley's access to recording equipment, which is clearly evident in the film's climax, the notion that she would record something for her daughter knowing she likely won't hear it is plausible, because of the fact of who she is and the fact that she simply has the opportunity to do so. She may be a fictional character, but let's be honest hear, if any of us were in a situation where we were about to go to sleep with the knowledge we may not ever see another human being again, much less thise we love, we're going to take the opportunity to leave something for that person we love....even if we know they will probably never get to hear it.
after just finishing the game and the dlc, i gotta say the run time really hurt the game, the game starts off so well, the atmosphere is perfect, the AI of the alien so well made that i'm impressed they did this back in 2014, it really made you feel like you were in alien movie, the story unfortunately just feels like a backdrop, too much of the actual interesting parts is shown through text instead of the actual game and the plot is just go here do that then go there do that, the only somewhat emotional death scene is samuels, ironically his death feels more human than any of the actual human deaths, but honestly this game could have ended so much sooner, there's way too much filler and arbitrary objectives that kind of start to bore you, initially the xenomorph and androids were really scary, but by the end of the game i'm just blasting through the everything to get to the next objective as fast as possible, I thought the hacking mini games were actually done pretty well, but honestly the game does kind of start to get tiring by the end
Alien Isolation is what made me quit trusting IGN reviews. I did not buy Isolation on its initial release because IGN gave it such a bad review. Finally word of mouth got me to buy it and I was completely blown away. The game is fantastic. I consider it to be the scariest game I have ever played. If not for IGN we may have got a sequel.
This is the best survival horror game ever made, this stands tall alongside the original Alien, the story of blue collar workers facing off against a lovecraftian horror with no chance is why i love alien. I never cared for the all guns blazing and deep exploration of the origins of the xenomorph. I loved the ambiguity. The fact that IGN gave this a 5.9 is absolutely insane. It’s a disgrace that in my view they’ll never recover from.
I really love this game, but they should have made the Alien killable in exchange of more enemies spawning for at least like five xenomorphs per room or area of mission.
There's a good game out now that does backtracking and doing more objectives to achieve your goal. Still Wakes the Deep. It's only 4-5 hours long, but like Isolation, you're trapped in an area with no escape, and any chance goes wrong. One character, Roy needs insulin. You trying to get it is impossible, and you're sent all over the oil rig. Getting insulin turns into turning on the generator, avoiding monsters, and preventing the rig sinking. Two hours have passed since then, and when you call Roy, he's gone to get it himself and he has no hard feelings for you. He know he's a grown man who can pull his own weight.
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!!
I do think the game is a little bit too long, there's many times where you are forced to back track just to pad out the runtime. With that said I think the length of the game makes finally escaping the station and the subsequent end of the game all the more satisfying. I've never felt a release of tension like I did the first time I beat Alien Isolation.
I love the game. It has a great atmosphere and excellent music and sound design. But it does have issues. The lip sync is really bad. Some of the character models do not hold up. The Alien can be manipulated in certain sections and it has some real pacing issues that make sections that are a bit of a slog. I think the game as a whole is too long a really don't like how much androids are used. Strong 8.5 for me. Definitely a classic, but I do think it has problems. I think it's easier to appreciate what games did right when you can admit what it does wrong. I just wish the internet was more than black and white, it's either the best ever or the worst ever. I like that you came at it from both directions and were willing to show it's problems. Alot of reviewers will gloss over the glaring issues.
Alien isolation one of my favourite games ever and favourite horror game. I couldn't think of a better developer than teyon right now to do a alien game especially after the robocop and terminator success
@PrimedSnake Teyon has made some great games. I love that they pay great attention to the source material and respect what fans want. An Alien game from them would certainly be interesting. Their big flaws for me are their lack of interesting characters and poor writing.
Just finished it on for the first time. Played hard. Cant believe that game is 10 years old. On series x with hdr it looks stunning. The game wasnt too hard not at all. I always had enaugh materials to craft stuff and could distract the Alien and the Synthetics. It was really amazing played through it in 2 days. 5.9? IGN should be ashamed.
Massive fan of this game and completed it on Nightmare twice. I agree 100% that it is too long and often you find yourself effectively re-doing things that you've already done (especially on Nightmare where you might be stuck on the same section for 2 hours due to sheer difficulty) or working toward something that is later irrelevant. The latter criticism is part and parcel of the horror genre (the universe is a cold and harsh mistress), so I give it a pass but definitely, its not for everyone. The midsection lull, following the defeat of the initial xeno, is probably the worst section in the game and could mostly be cut out for me. Stalking around the rubber suit robots in the computer core is just really annoying. There's a mission later in the game which is literally go into another room and find an upgrade, which I am fairly certain is a troll by the designers. The game does pick up with the revelation that there is an entire hive below the station generator (and having to venture in) is great. Could the story and the characters be better? Almost certainly. If the game was edited down by approximately a third, this would make it an absolute classic but you're still going to have the same gameplay loop, which just isn't for everyone. Like I found myself playing Resident Evil Village and the first half of that game was absolutely fantastic. It was a really tense Isolation-like stalker game but they changed up the loop and made it more of a straight Res Evil "its better to run but you can just shoot the enemies in the face" game. So changing your gameplay look doesn't always work (and in fact, I think the latter half of Village is less well crafted, so the game definitely feels frontloaded).
The story itself doesn't bother me much. For better or worse, its structure seems to follow that of the movies, especially Alien, Covenant, Prometheus and now recently Romulus. You think the characters in each movie are in the clear, but something else gets in the way like the xeno being on Ripley's shuttle or the Engineer surviving the crash after its ship was hit by the Prometheus. Nevertheless, the gameplay with the xeno more than made up for the narrative and character shortcomings.
@XiaNingTian I think the format of film helps this though. Unlike the game, those are 2 hour investments instead of 13 - 20 hours. Many stories do this, but I think the ending leaves a lot to be desired, and it doesn't leave much room for fulfillment. Maybe that is because they were setting up a sequel. I think the length and pacing hurts it a little. I still love it. It's one of my favorite games and always will be.
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
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.
80% is correct. It's 20% too long, 20% too repetitive, and coyld use 20% less scrounging and crafting. It's a fantastic game. Awesome in VR (although a bit ropey).
i'd say 6.5 is generous. there are many problems with this game the door opening mechanics are ridiculous warioware games its 3-4 hours of content stretched out way too thin. the way humans just automatically try to murder you the moment they see you, for no reason. is lazy and not justified at all. the game looks great but ultimately they copy way too much from the movies that makes no sense. the radar literally points you to your next objective in the world, which is bizarre. things like the "docking release" at the very end is literally the exact same as the self destruct from the movie, which again is just bizarre. the idea that there's an intelligent ai for the alien that means its actually a consistent alien character stalking you is blatantly a lie, as there's clearly just set points at which the alien is triggered and then it follows the exact same movement pattern over and over again. The stealth mechanic is not well implemented, as sometimes you can be hidden and the alien sees you and sometimes you can have your head sticking out from behind a desk and the alien cant see you. so the "scary" factor becomes more about the problem that you have no idea whether you're doing what the game needs you to do in order to actually be hidden or not. lazy things like having a knee high obstacle in the way that you cant get past. the way it takes an animation cycle to interact with computers, controls, save panels is obnoxious and immersion breaking. i'm sure there's more that i cant even remember.
honestly I share your opinion, I really like this game but I've only completed it once because of how long it is and its weird pacing. I never had an issue with the alien's AI being unfair or whatever, it was just that there were so many bits of the game that feel stretched out. I also hadnt realized how weird the narrative structure was, but yeah that definetly brings the game down. also fuck the bullet-sponge elemental-resistant androids. such annoying enemies. still dont regret playing the game tho, as it does indeed have some of the best horror moments of any horror game I've ever played, and Im a big Alien fan
I'm going to save you guys 4 hours on your playthrough, you don't need to hide in lockers or crouch walk the entire game... Walking does not make any noise, just makes you more visible, running will not alert anything past 15m
@@Centrifewgi carcinogensda has a phenomenal speed run where he breaks down a lot of the little nuances to the game. The biggest mistake people make is crouch walking everywhere...
Alien Isolation is a PHENOMENAL survival horror game. This is a genre I love a lot and this game nails it start to finish. Its visuals are also insane and the fact it was made 10 years ago is absurd. This game is timeless.
While I objectively agree that the game is too long.. as a Fan I was happy that it just kept going. I think the open ending is there because its bit of a horror trope.. a lot of horrer movies end with an open ending.
I think my biggest complaints about this game are: The game is too long with a plot that doesn’t support the length The plot almost feels as if there are “sections” to the plot, as if the writers were like “we want this to happen, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this” instead of giving us smooth segways or overlapping them we are left with visible plots points as if each plot point was happening seperate from each other instead of all at the same time (I.E The AI takeover happens right after you finish shooting the Xenomorph out the station, not before, not a little bit after, but right as you come back) Xenomorph shouldve been used to build tension instead of be the main threat of sections of the story, I hated that some levels was just constantly evading Xenomorph with barely any other enemies around, getting it to the point that the Xenomorph wasn’t scary anymore, but just annoying Facehuggers should’ve been more prevalent instead of like 3 or 4 spanning 2-3 missions The Flamethrower felt super clunky sometimes Other than that I really enjoyed the game and would probably give it a 6.5-7/10
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.
🤣
Jesus, Dark Souls 2 wasn't that bad
It wasn't a Testing Room! Look behind you!
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.
@@ronwatford7331 I've always thought that Ellen left that message for Amanda knowing that she might never hear it. "I hope you get to hear it one day" tells me that Ellen knows Amanda might never hear it, and that the company might destroy it. She just added that personal message as a "fuck it, why not, might as well" thing.
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.
@@k0lpAunderrated because almoat noone played it when it came out. There was no buzz. I know very few people who played it personally.
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.
The infamous fourth act of an Alien film, translated perfectly to this game. Honestly I took a long break from this game when I got to that point. I was so stressed out I literally said fuck this and turned it off. Only horror game to really get to me
@@ToastyAvocado69 Hahaha yes I first played Alien Isolation on Gamepass in 2020 on my old console after rediscovering it from YT videos I used to watch about it. Needless to say, my 14 year old self did the same thing you did and it took me a week to find the courage to continue. Now I play with shaders on PC and the game looks even better. Even when I beat the survival missions recently I was still crapping myself. I've never experienced horror like it, and I desperately want a sequel.
I just watched the Alien trilogy this week and man that ending was PURE evil. Poor Ellen... well I'm officially a huge fan now and want more.
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!
Alien Isolation is a masterpiece.
-Absurdly good AI (one of the few games that has one, with FEAR)
-Terrific sound design
-Extreme fidelity to the original source material
-Beautiful graphics and effects
-Good gameplay and mechanics
-Amazing atmosphere and new enemies
The pacing problems are honestly minor, not to mention the game has the genius idea make you believe your safe, just to pull another catastrophic situation and reveal the Xenomorph has a Hive.
They could have done more terrifying and add more DLC to explore random NPC’s stories like Lingard or Morley or Waits… more room and more alien’s mechanism to bypass like the ladder immunity, the vents upside (the alien to the vent and immediately catch you instead you look at him from upside) and some vents when you can walk normally…. Alien Isolation is almost perfect.
@@Klliansimabras they definitely have a bunch of dlc that covers their stories...
@@themightycrixus1131 Ricardo, Lingard and Ransome DLC are you kidding ? Not enough...
@@Klliansimabras the game got 5 dlc packs as well as Crew Expendable. Bigger games dont get that much dlc
The AI is far from "good" its extremely prone to breaking, leaving it stuck in a loop where your stuck in a locker or under a table for 5 minutes before you finally get sick of just sitting there and have to reload checkpoint losing 20-30 minutes of progress. F.E.A.R AI didn't break and even IF it did, it didn't matter because you weren't creeping through hallways faced with insta death or losing 30 minutes of progress because "checkpoints" are set absurdly far apart
We know that Amanda had a happy ending though. We find out about it in Aliens when Burke tells Ripley about her daughter’s life and death many years after this event.
But the company can't be trusted. Is that really what happened?
Isolation is by far my favorite game. Precisely because the narrative doesn't follow the norm. The pacing is off when compared to similar games, but spot on when you are immersed in the lore and feel of the films. The repeaded setbacks the player suffers mirror what the reality of being in that situation would be like.
The fact that you can play several times and the AI will react differently makes it almost a new game each time, definitely a differwnt experience.
IMO it stands alone in the gaming world and deaerves a sequel. Perhaps we will get one someday.
I agree
This game is also one of the best-looking games ever made to this day. And it's the well put together art style that'll help it stand the test of time.
You could say the game just released, and people will believe you.
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 😅
Don't forget the semi regular need to reload checkpoint losing 20-30 minutes of gameplay because the Alien AI breaks and gets stuck in a loop so you spend 5 minutes hiding in a locker or under a table before you finally have to just lose progress and reload. It is ridiculous how easily the Alien AI seems to break.
Walking/sneaking simulator games are short because NOBODY wants to spend 20-30hrs slowly creeping slower than corpses bang through hallways doing menial tasks with a questionable AI prone to breaking. Its pretty annoying to how it starts as a creeping oh my god level sneaking sim only to become a shooter halfway through the game then to get back to the sneaking simulator.
People LOVE to bring up Resident Evil, conveniently ignoring that Resident Evil is about 3hrs long can be beaten in about 45 minutes if you know what your doing and at its longest is around 6-7hrs not 20-30 and your not sneaking at the pace of a zombie with no legs to get through the game
I was really hoping that Seegson and the Working Joes would make an appearance in Romulus. The idea of them (5 years after the events of isolation) trying to get in on the Alien action as a last ditch bid to beat WY to the punch would have been great.
@ntrlnkt3477 me too. I was hoping for at least an easter egg of one in the background of a shot or something.
Same. The closest was a map on the wall that looked reminiscent of some level maps - but I was hoping for a computer with a Seegson logo, or even a Working Joe in the background.
That said - the 70s tech aesthetic felt deliberate, and it was at least from the same playbook as A.I.
@markreynolds1436 the save stations make several appearances.
@@Centrifewgi in Romulus?
@@markreynolds1436 yee
Played this game for the first time earlier this year. In my top 3 scariest games I’ve ever played. Played on my Legion Go and was surprised how visually fantastic the environments are. Have a special place in my heart for this game
Alien isolation and Aliens: dark descent are my favorite Alien games.
They are both really good.
alien isolation and resident evil 7 were the games that brought me back into gaming after falling off towards the end of 7th gen. It was so frustrating that both games got such terrible reviews from ign, alien got it so much worse. They're still my two favorite survival horror games.
@jasonmadinya7759 RE7 is the reason RE is still going strong today, I think.
@@CentrifewgiThat’s correct. Showed a renewed interest in the survival horror aspect that made RE a household name, which led to the Re2 remake imo and the rest is history.
the admitting we want the rose tinted glasses is the hardest part about loving movie games lmaooooo
@@aristobrat4987 right? Lol
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.
Funny enough there's actually a sequel to this game. She got on the ship and it's a fnaf ripoff as it's a mobile game
@hitman47890 I know of the game, but I didn't know if it was considered canon or not.
@@Centrifewgi as far as i know the second game ( the Fnaf like Game ) is considered canon sadly.. even though it is a major step down from the first game.
@@diegogodet1889 that's super unfortunate
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!
the length of the game is one of my favorite things about it, then it feels like you're really isolated on this sprawling space station.
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!
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.
Idk who still actually listen to IGN. great vid my guy
@@Wolverine-si3bp thank you!
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.
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!
This game is so, so, SOOOOO much better if you actually pay attention when you pick up the motion tracker and learn that it points to your next objective. On my first playthrough my dumb ass didn't read that part and I often got fed up circling around trying to figure out where I was supposed to go next.
I was never even a fan of the alien movies or franchise but this game made me a lot more interested in the alien lore and story. It’s an underrated masterpiece. This is a space horror game done right in almost every way. I’m so happy the devs are making a sequel now can’t wait for what they will bring next.
@@Thomzz95 right? Sooo excited!
I guess you had many ALIEN(s) Fans already pointing this out, but the story is not just a "Love Letter" for ALIEN, it is in fact expanding the story of an actual character that was meant to be mentioned on the Theatrical Cut of ALIENS, but was then left on the cutting room even when James Cameron wanted her to be IN his movie's story. Amanda "Amy" Ripley was then shown and mentioned and her depth as a character was incorporated in the Director's Cut of ALIENS, as she was originally intended. So in reality ALIEN ISOLATION is more than a simple "Love Letter" it is a sequel prequel for ALIEN and ALIENS that even helped see more of Ellen Ripley IN her own actual Daughter.
The ending on the game was lamely put as ambiguous, because we know how she in fact dies and how was she when she does die. If anything, ALIEN ISOLATION is indeed not for everyone, but for the ALIEN franchise fans and when it come for the story, the effectiveness of making the ALIEN scary and finally even inspiring Fede Alvarez in making ALIEN ROMULUS, ALIEN ISOLATION is THE BEST ALIEN game of them all in story, tension and world building.
I never knew about the explosive canisters...
Great catch up! Really enjoyed your critical and fair take on its strength and flaws.
The only thing I'd kinda critically comment on, is the statement that the game had mixed reception at launch, as yes, three of the bigger review outlets gave it a 6/10-kinda rating, but pretty much all other outlets lauded the game. Its metascore was above 8/10 pretty much from the get go, so in reality it did not have a mixed reception at launch.
Remember playing this on my xbox 360 as a teen, and during the hospital level, having to go sit next to my mum on our well lit kitchen
The fact people are still talking about this game is a testament to how good is it. It's easily one of the best horror games ever made.
I'm no expert on video games, but I'm fascinated by the world of Alien. It's interesting to know that Ripley's own daughter had her own adventures.
everytime I play this game I fall in love with it again
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 did feel the story was amazing when I first played this game I was really attached to Samuel and Ricardo and when everything kept going bad throughout the game it made me feel alone and when everyone died except for Ripley it made me feel hopeless for the situation ripley was in. When I saw the facehugger on Ricardo’s face my face went pale in shock because he was such a helpful character the only thing that didn’t make me feel completely alone was the alien and of course it wants to kill you. And the ending when Amanda was in space it really felt isolated
...and it's 10 freaking years old. I just need to reiterate that.
Nowadays, we've become so used to slow burner games, that it's not difficult to imagine this as just being another one.
But what sets this game apart from a lot of others is the fact that this is open* world.
You can just explore parts of the station whenever you like. However, the narrative just heavily steers where you (should) go and what you have access to.
And there lies the core to this game's runtime criticisms - it's setting. Had this game been compacted into a setting like the Nostromo in size and scope, there'd be less criticisms.
I love this game, and revisiting it never gets old despite it's length and repetitive level design.
Only thing I can say for a sequel pitch is compact the level design, and tell more of a compelling story with characters you actually care about and try to protect.
Sevastopol on its own was huge enough, not including the Anesidora, LV426, and the Torrens. It may be in-universe, but I shouldn't lose track getting from point A to point B
This game with the VR mod is crazy scary.
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.
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.
What most miss out on is the fact that the game is so nerve wracking that I used to play for 10-20 mins then take a break and come back after a few hours because it had me genuinely scared and I couldn't keep up with constantly being tense and nervous.
I loved the length of the game and personally for me this is the perfect Alien 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.
I never played alien isolation but that sequel makes me want to try
@@b4kiv you should
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.
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.
This is my favourite horror game of all time. It's not perfect but it gets most things right. When this game came out most horror games were just action games like Dead Space and Resident Evil. This game actually made you feel completely powerless which I think is really important in horror.
I keep hearing people say this game is "stretched too thin" but like... I've never agreed. It's a metroidvania in a sense. You come back to areas with new abilities (the jack, the ion-torch and its upgrades etc.) to open new pathways. You unlock new abilities to help "fight" against the threat and some of the stuff you find is in secret areas.
At first it's believed there's one Alien on the ship, you evade it until you jettison it into the gas giant through the KG348 lab, then you have a moment of reprieve, the only enemies are the androids which at that point with a shotgun aren't that big a deal. It's a moment where you can relax, take a breather. And then there's the final sequence where you find out there's a lot more Aliens than just the one. It's perfectly paced for the game it is, especially considering the lore it's based on. In the first movie Ripley also continuously had set-backs, had to run back to areas a bunch of times to do certain things. It fits.
From what I understand is that originally the protagonist was supposed to be a new character who discovers a conspiracy, and it was only changed to be Amanda Ripley later in development. Having it be Ripley's daughter on some secret mission to find out what happened to her mom makes no sense, and required them to rewrite the story to twist logic into a pretzel as to how she finds out the flight recorder is on the space station, as opposed to the protagonist just being unlucky to have arrived at the doomed station on normal business.
Other than that, the game is pretty good. It gets repetitive after a while, which is probably why some people criticize it. Especially on the highest difficulties where the Alien AI isn't necessarily smarter, it just has shorter patrol routes. Cabinet Simulator isn't engaging gameplay.
Played it halfway through and put it down after dying in between save points multiple times. Finally finished it and I agree with you.
@@vercogaming3997 glad you finished it!
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!
The fate of Amanda in the movies could be a complete lie BTW. It's not beneath WY, definitely not.
@@0bzen22 that thought has crossed my mind. WY dirty like that lol
They might well not know where she is, or she's become a significant problem for WY, so telling her also defiant mother "oops she died of old age" rather than let them try to find each other and become a bigger headache.
That said, with the events of Alien 3 and resurrection make that all a bit moot unless they are discounted as Canon or consined to an alternative outcome after Aliens
i personally think the game is the perfect length. how the steaks keep building up, the varied envirnments past the xeno ejection like the generator room and the alien nest. amandas discovery of where her mom is, and that explosive finalie that makes you feel like you are in hell.
ive beaten this game 3 times on different consoles all on hard, and i dont think the game is too long at all.
10 years ago is crazy loved this game when it came out pulled my PS3 out to play it
Sequel? 🤔
@@pinktrutle1490 I can't believe it's happening!
@@Centrifewgi video... NOW
I wanted to like this game, but I am not a person that likes stealth and this game's heavy focus on it was a major turn off. I liked what the game did with the Seigson robots, but nothing else about it tickled me in a positive way. And like the video mentioned, the quests just dragged on for far too long to the point of tedium & with seemingly no reward. Not saying its bad, just that it wasn't for me.
@@paranoyd70 fair enough! You know what you like and this ain't it.
I appreciate that this reviewer loves the game and, thus, gives it its do. However, whenever i hear certain criticisms of this game, I get irritated because those criticisms seem to lack a certain attention to details, certain contexts, certain realities that logically result in the game we were given. For example, the "repetitive environment" critique. For one thing, the design aesthetic applied here was slavishly devoted to ensuring that nothing was designed that wouldn't have been possible to create for a film set in 1979. That logically limits the scope of design variability, and frankly, I think most of us appreciate that faithfulness to the original design aesthetic. Secondly, we're talking about a space station in deep space. In universe, much like the real world, designing a functional facility, much less one of such gargantuan size and scale, requires an attention to function rather than form in an environment as fundamentally harsh as space; especially with a used future in which the technology is as primitive and analog as it was when the original film was first made. Of course, it's all going to look the same. A company like Seegson, or Weyland-Yutani, isn't going to care about building functional environments that vary in design. The person designing these environments is only creating a facility to be functional in space. I could go on about other criticisms of this game that are often leveled, unfairly in my opinion, but this example typifies the issue with all of them.
Comparing Isolation's story to Alien, they're very similar in the "everything fails" department. They heal a crewmember, he ends up dying. They search for the little alien, it had grown into a big one. They make a motion tracker and a flamethrower, it fails. They trust Mother, she betrays them. And so it goes. Same with isolation.
Btw there is a mobile game called alien blackout that actually confirms Amanda was picked up and saved but she ends up in another station with a xenomorph
@@Hynds07 Ik, I just don't consider it canon.
@@Centrifewgi fair enough ive just never heard anyone talk about it
Sequel development confirmed!
The perfect game
@@ThisisRubbishlo I'm hoping we get another one with the success of the new movie.
@@CentrifewgiI groaned when I found out an alien game was coming later this year only to be a VR shooter.
@NothingBetterToWatch same. Incursion does look promising, but not really something I wanted. Nor do I have the tech to be able to play it lol. I hope it does well though.
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
I still have no idea how I beat the game on hard mode years ago. And I found the DLC to be even harder than the main game
The notion that Ripley leaving a message for her daughter is pointless, knowing that the company will never let her daughter hear it, is besides the point. Given what Ripley went through, especially considering how little loyalty or regard she displays for the company's interests throughout the film, honestly, knowing Ripley, she isn't going to care about the poor likelihood that her message will actually be heard by her daughter. Ellen Ripley is going to say what Ellen Ripley feels compelled to say, and the company be damned. The fact that her daughter does get to hear that message is a testament to Ripley's defiance and her daughter's own tenacity to survive. Knowing the character of Ellen Ripley, the real question is whether or not Ripley has access to the means to record such a message at all. I bring this up because, let's take a look at Prometheus for a second. The closing moments of that film have a recording by Shaw that is clearly a reference to Ripley's infamous "last report of the Nostromo." That recording comes as more silly and disingenuous than the message from Ripley to Amanda in Isolation simply for the fact that she has nothing to record it with. Think about it. The prometheus vessel has been destroyed, Shaw has fled the escape pod with its ginormous facehugger and engineer battle, one she barely survived and isnt going back to, and she's flying away in an engineer's ship. There's no human technology left for her to record with much less broadcast with. It's a "recording" for our benefit as the audience, and no one else, which males it silly and cheap. Conversely, given Ripley's access to recording equipment, which is clearly evident in the film's climax, the notion that she would record something for her daughter knowing she likely won't hear it is plausible, because of the fact of who she is and the fact that she simply has the opportunity to do so. She may be a fictional character, but let's be honest hear, if any of us were in a situation where we were about to go to sleep with the knowledge we may not ever see another human being again, much less thise we love, we're going to take the opportunity to leave something for that person we love....even if we know they will probably never get to hear it.
@@craigamore2319 well said!
@@Centrifewgi thank you
I played this in 2014 wow what a ride I’m scared to play it again
@@RammyDaBaddest you gotta do it!
@@Centrifewgi imma do it this October 🩶🥂✨💫👽🪐
@RammyDaBaddest the perfect combination right there!
@@Centrifewgi just finished it again it was awesome lol
@@RammyDaBaddest what happened to October? Lol
after just finishing the game and the dlc, i gotta say the run time really hurt the game, the game starts off so well, the atmosphere is perfect, the AI of the alien so well made that i'm impressed they did this back in 2014, it really made you feel like you were in alien movie, the story unfortunately just feels like a backdrop, too much of the actual interesting parts is shown through text instead of the actual game and the plot is just go here do that then go there do that, the only somewhat emotional death scene is samuels, ironically his death feels more human than any of the actual human deaths, but honestly this game could have ended so much sooner, there's way too much filler and arbitrary objectives that kind of start to bore you, initially the xenomorph and androids were really scary, but by the end of the game i'm just blasting through the everything to get to the next objective as fast as possible, I thought the hacking mini games were actually done pretty well, but honestly the game does kind of start to get tiring by the end
I loved this game when it was released it does get a bit frustrating towards the end but all in all a good game
Alien Isolation is what made me quit trusting IGN reviews. I did not buy Isolation on its initial release because IGN gave it such a bad review. Finally word of mouth got me to buy it and I was completely blown away. The game is fantastic. I consider it to be the scariest game I have ever played. If not for IGN we may have got a sequel.
This is the best survival horror game ever made, this stands tall alongside the original Alien, the story of blue collar workers facing off against a lovecraftian horror with no chance is why i love alien.
I never cared for the all guns blazing and deep exploration of the origins of the xenomorph. I loved the ambiguity.
The fact that IGN gave this a 5.9 is absolutely insane. It’s a disgrace that in my view they’ll never recover from.
I really love this game, but they should have made the Alien killable in exchange of more enemies spawning for at least like five xenomorphs per room or area of mission.
@@wadwad1222 I kinda like that the Alien is this unstoppable force.
There's a good game out now that does backtracking and doing more objectives to achieve your goal. Still Wakes the Deep.
It's only 4-5 hours long, but like Isolation, you're trapped in an area with no escape, and any chance goes wrong. One character, Roy needs insulin. You trying to get it is impossible, and you're sent all over the oil rig. Getting insulin turns into turning on the generator, avoiding monsters, and preventing the rig sinking. Two hours have passed since then, and when you call Roy, he's gone to get it himself and he has no hard feelings for you. He know he's a grown man who can pull his own weight.
@nocturnalcove9736 Still Wakes The Deep is one of my favorite games of this year so far.
This game was a Great start for the Alien horror game.
Of course, this game has some issues, but still is very enjoyable.
15:36 that’s no different from 99% of games unless genres are changing mid game
My favorite game of all-time with only Dead Space second. 🔥
Both phenomenal. You have good taste!
im a massive alien fan, i also love the Isolation and i agree with Your points, story is the weakest part of it
Wait.. wut?? it's been 10 years already?!
Do you feel old yet? 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!!
I just bought this game for the third time after Alien Romulus, its still a masterpiece.
@@purefoldnz3070 what did you think of Romulus?
@@Centrifewgi loved it and saw it twice, lots of people are b**ing about a certain cameo and lines being reused but its the best Alien film in years.
@purefoldnz3070 the best one since Aliens. I think I like it better than Aliens personally.
@@Centrifewgi Yes I agree best one since Aliens. Plus you have to remember that Alien Romulus was directly inspired by Alien Isolation.
I do think the game is a little bit too long, there's many times where you are forced to back track just to pad out the runtime. With that said I think the length of the game makes finally escaping the station and the subsequent end of the game all the more satisfying. I've never felt a release of tension like I did the first time I beat Alien Isolation.
I love the game. It has a great atmosphere and excellent music and sound design. But it does have issues. The lip sync is really bad. Some of the character models do not hold up. The Alien can be manipulated in certain sections and it has some real pacing issues that make sections that are a bit of a slog. I think the game as a whole is too long a really don't like how much androids are used. Strong 8.5 for me. Definitely a classic, but I do think it has problems. I think it's easier to appreciate what games did right when you can admit what it does wrong. I just wish the internet was more than black and white, it's either the best ever or the worst ever. I like that you came at it from both directions and were willing to show it's problems. Alot of reviewers will gloss over the glaring issues.
@@Icepick614 I appreciate you!
Alien isolation one of my favourite games ever and favourite horror game. I couldn't think of a better developer than teyon right now to do a alien game especially after the robocop and terminator success
@PrimedSnake Teyon has made some great games. I love that they pay great attention to the source material and respect what fans want. An Alien game from them would certainly be interesting. Their big flaws for me are their lack of interesting characters and poor writing.
the eggs and grandcanyon bit was too good
Just finished it on for the first time. Played hard. Cant believe that game is 10 years old. On series x with hdr it looks stunning. The game wasnt too hard not at all. I always had enaugh materials to craft stuff and could distract the Alien and the Synthetics. It was really amazing played through it in 2 days. 5.9? IGN should be ashamed.
@@svenk5221 it's an amazing game. IGN doesn't know what they are talking about lol. Glad to see another gamer diving into it and having a good time!
Massive fan of this game and completed it on Nightmare twice.
I agree 100% that it is too long and often you find yourself effectively re-doing things that you've already done (especially on Nightmare where you might be stuck on the same section for 2 hours due to sheer difficulty) or working toward something that is later irrelevant. The latter criticism is part and parcel of the horror genre (the universe is a cold and harsh mistress), so I give it a pass but definitely, its not for everyone.
The midsection lull, following the defeat of the initial xeno, is probably the worst section in the game and could mostly be cut out for me. Stalking around the rubber suit robots in the computer core is just really annoying.
There's a mission later in the game which is literally go into another room and find an upgrade, which I am fairly certain is a troll by the designers.
The game does pick up with the revelation that there is an entire hive below the station generator (and having to venture in) is great.
Could the story and the characters be better? Almost certainly. If the game was edited down by approximately a third, this would make it an absolute classic but you're still going to have the same gameplay loop, which just isn't for everyone.
Like I found myself playing Resident Evil Village and the first half of that game was absolutely fantastic. It was a really tense Isolation-like stalker game but they changed up the loop and made it more of a straight Res Evil "its better to run but you can just shoot the enemies in the face" game. So changing your gameplay look doesn't always work (and in fact, I think the latter half of Village is less well crafted, so the game definitely feels frontloaded).
The story itself doesn't bother me much. For better or worse, its structure seems to follow that of the movies, especially Alien, Covenant, Prometheus and now recently Romulus. You think the characters in each movie are in the clear, but something else gets in the way like the xeno being on Ripley's shuttle or the Engineer surviving the crash after its ship was hit by the Prometheus.
Nevertheless, the gameplay with the xeno more than made up for the narrative and character shortcomings.
@XiaNingTian I think the format of film helps this though. Unlike the game, those are 2 hour investments instead of 13 - 20 hours. Many stories do this, but I think the ending leaves a lot to be desired, and it doesn't leave much room for fulfillment. Maybe that is because they were setting up a sequel. I think the length and pacing hurts it a little. I still love it. It's one of my favorite games and always will be.
amanda really does take after her mother, everything she does over the films ends up being for naught, until resurrection, kind of
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.
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.
80% is correct. It's 20% too long, 20% too repetitive, and coyld use 20% less scrounging and crafting.
It's a fantastic game. Awesome in VR (although a bit ropey).
@0bzen22 well said!
i'd say 6.5 is generous. there are many problems with this game
the door opening mechanics are ridiculous warioware games
its 3-4 hours of content stretched out way too thin.
the way humans just automatically try to murder you the moment they see you, for no reason. is lazy and not justified at all.
the game looks great but ultimately they copy way too much from the movies that makes no sense. the radar literally points you to your next objective in the world, which is bizarre. things like the "docking release" at the very end is literally the exact same as the self destruct from the movie, which again is just bizarre.
the idea that there's an intelligent ai for the alien that means its actually a consistent alien character stalking you is blatantly a lie, as there's clearly just set points at which the alien is triggered and then it follows the exact same movement pattern over and over again.
The stealth mechanic is not well implemented, as sometimes you can be hidden and the alien sees you and sometimes you can have your head sticking out from behind a desk and the alien cant see you. so the "scary" factor becomes more about the problem that you have no idea whether you're doing what the game needs you to do in order to actually be hidden or not.
lazy things like having a knee high obstacle in the way that you cant get past.
the way it takes an animation cycle to interact with computers, controls, save panels is obnoxious and immersion breaking.
i'm sure there's more that i cant even remember.
Ok but I got really sad when Samuels and Ricardo died.
honestly I share your opinion, I really like this game but I've only completed it once because of how long it is and its weird pacing. I never had an issue with the alien's AI being unfair or whatever, it was just that there were so many bits of the game that feel stretched out. I also hadnt realized how weird the narrative structure was, but yeah that definetly brings the game down. also fuck the bullet-sponge elemental-resistant androids. such annoying enemies. still dont regret playing the game tho, as it does indeed have some of the best horror moments of any horror game I've ever played, and Im a big Alien fan
They're actually making a sequel
I'm going to save you guys 4 hours on your playthrough, you don't need to hide in lockers or crouch walk the entire game...
Walking does not make any noise, just makes you more visible, running will not alert anything past 15m
@@aaronmccutcheon6008 is this true?
@@Centrifewgi 100%
This game has never left my hard drive.
My best run was 7 hours and 40 minutes.
@@Centrifewgi carcinogensda has a phenomenal speed run where he breaks down a lot of the little nuances to the game.
The biggest mistake people make is crouch walking everywhere...
@@aaronmccutcheon6008 that's amazing!
@@Centrifewgi my gf figured it out faster than I did, her first run was a little over 10hra
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.
Facehuggers in this game make me have reactions when large tree leaves skitter across the ground or fly at my face.🍁🍂🍁🍂😂😂😂
@@RealBradMiller LOL
The game definitely had too many Working Joes and definitely not enough Alien.
Alien Isolation is a PHENOMENAL survival horror game. This is a genre I love a lot and this game nails it start to finish. Its visuals are also insane and the fact it was made 10 years ago is absurd. This game is timeless.
Now all we need is a sequel!
While I objectively agree that the game is too long.. as a Fan I was happy that it just kept going. I think the open ending is there because its bit of a horror trope.. a lot of horrer movies end with an open ending.
14:43 WHY TF IS IT SOO COOL LOOKUNG FROM A FAR
Funny enough there's actually a sequel to this game. She got on the ship and it's a fnaf ripoff as it's a mobile game
Suba'duba'dubbed. Great review.
I think my biggest complaints about this game are:
The game is too long with a plot that doesn’t support the length
The plot almost feels as if there are “sections” to the plot, as if the writers were like “we want this to happen, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this” instead of giving us smooth segways or overlapping them we are left with visible plots points as if each plot point was happening seperate from each other instead of all at the same time (I.E The AI takeover happens right after you finish shooting the Xenomorph out the station, not before, not a little bit after, but right as you come back)
Xenomorph shouldve been used to build tension instead of be the main threat of sections of the story, I hated that some levels was just constantly evading Xenomorph with barely any other enemies around, getting it to the point that the Xenomorph wasn’t scary anymore, but just annoying
Facehuggers should’ve been more prevalent instead of like 3 or 4 spanning 2-3 missions
The Flamethrower felt super clunky sometimes
Other than that I really enjoyed the game and would probably give it a 6.5-7/10