Want more content folks ... follow these links. Check out the current discounts on my offline vids and articles www.collativelearning.com/ Join my Film, Game & Media analysis page on Facebook facebook.com/groups/4637000646361309 ... as well as following the Collative Learning FB page facebook.com/RobAgerpublic Get a copy of my video game To The Death store.steampowered.com/app/2758570/To_The_Death/ ... and follow the game on the Ager Games UA-cam channel www.youtube.com/@robagergames ... and at the To The Death FB page facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555615927786 Follow me on Twitter / X twitter.com/RobAger Signing up as a monthly supporter on Patreon gets you arround 12 hrs more content www.patreon.com/RobAger PLEASE ALSO POST YOUR RESPONSES TO THE VIDEO CONTENT ABOVE SEPARATELTY FROM THIS PINNED COMMENT, THANKS.
I wholeheartly believe that analysis will be easier if the alien is pretty much useless, so if you do use the mod toolkit or you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out.
For instance, at 9:14, the woman is getting killed by the alien, and you make note if the alien's size. However, it kills you 1 seconds later. If you make the alien into a potato, then you could document the true size of the alien by stalking around it.
hey I love your content, but there could be a way you could enable the closed captions option? I'm hard of hearing and that feature helps me follow what you say
This game is the ONLY horror game that after I beat it, I would still get the same levels of anxiety and tension I felt the 1st time I played it. A masterpiece.
I hate admit, just watching the playthrough in this video, gave me anxiety, and I've played through the game on every difficulty level....man, my poor heart....
Yep sometimes I am sad that they decided not to do an other one because the sells were below expectation at launch. I agree, it's a masterpiece. I redo it every other year.
The same here. After finishing AI i thought I love horror games. I am basically a rpg gamer 99 %. Wrong ! I love only AI . And I got the same feeling playing Subnautica. But after finishing it, the horror disappeared. In AI I am constantly on edge, even I beat it 4 times.
@@theinnerlight8016 I think Subnautica is one of my top 5 games of the decade. Is the game that really really scared me,but at the same time it feels like home
Most terrifying death for me was in the tunnels. At the far end was the iris door, opening up and I'm seeing the bright environment, when the alien walks in front, silhouetted. It crawls inside the tunnel, quick as a cat, coming directly at me as the iris closes behind it so it's silhouette disappears, leaving me staring into blackness as I hear it coming closer. And then it's in my face. I think I teared up a little bit.
@@subarusumeragikun Haha yes they were 99% of the time safe but then there was that 1% time when al used them as well, I always thought if you didn't use the torch (flashlight) inside them the alien wouldn't use them but maybe not.
Gemini labs was the most anxiety inducing part of the game. Getting through it was like a rollercoster ride. When I finished it I was relieved. This game is amazing and needs the sequel.
@@tristanholland6445 the sound machine was a godsend. Once I figured the alien was like a dog, I used it to get out. The alarms and stone lights were the scariest part. I don’t know how people play that game in VR. I’d be in a locker lol
I enjoyed the whole game. Didn't think that it was too long. For an Alien fan it felt a little short hehehe. Definitely needs a sequel and f*ck Alien Team Elite garbage :D
@@WaxTheDolphin oh no. The new one sucks? Darn it. You can blame the soy COD reviewer who gave Alien Isolation a 5 score. I wonder if we can encourage Peggy Games to do a sequel. Alien isolation is a book too. Check out the audio drama Alien, out of the shadows on UA-cam.
@@kintero27 it's just how I feel. It resembles Alien Colonial Marines in a way but it's not that clunky. That was the worse. Thanks for the recommendation and hopefully we'll have more games like Alien Isolation in the future.
A huge step away from the typical POV game, is Alien Isolation focus a LOT on your ear sense, rather than the visual, in order to protect yourself from the enemy.....almost 99% of the visual threats are not such, and if you switch your attention to your ears (specially if you use good expensive headphones) you will start to progress much easier........after playing it for a while, you can CLEARLY predict the alien behaviour, the foot steps tells you his direction (the volume increases or diminishes accordingly)....the way he "roars" tells you if he found something of interest or if he is about to leave the room.....before spotting an enemy, the alien starts hissing and if it starts to move will launch a scream before starting to run at you.......the sounds of the airducts also tells you if he is moving around or is about to get down from the roof......this also has a "distance" effect, you can tell if the alien is near or not depending on how far this sounds are happening......
I liked the hissing. It was anxiety inducing, around mission 16,17 and 18 it does it more to try and fake you out. It also dips into the air ducts and straight back out in mission 17 to try and lull you into a false sense of security and make you come out of your hiding spot. The alien got very smart in those last few missions. Gemini and San Cristobal medical facility were the worst missions. Surprisingly the nest was pretty easy. The super joes were the worst enemy in the core.
@@tarantulagirl The hissing basically means HIDE RIGHT NOW because the alien spotted you, and you have 1 second to get out of his sight quietly.....right after the hiss, if you don't move will yell and start running at you..........by then means TOTAL DEATH, unless the alien spotted you from another room and there are walls between you, meaning the alien will lose the sight of you for a couple of seconds.........this is the only time you can run and avoid the alien. Since the program protocol makes the alien go to the last point it spotted you.....if you move, away, the alien will stop and then will start to lurk to see in the nearby areas if you are hidding (this can only be achieved if there are walls in between, or the alien jumps to the airducts to get you, it requiers to be out of sight when you run.......then it doesn't matter even if you make noises, the trick is avoid being in the spot it saw you before running)
I've played just about every survival/horror game, from Resident Evil to Outlast and everything in between... And I can honestly say that Alien Isolation is the scariest game ever. The Xenomorph isn't just terrifying, but it's also brilliant. Aside from the horror, it's also one of the most detailed games of all time. You can tell that the people who made this were genuine fans of the Alien franchise. This is why Alien Isolation is one of the best games ever.
I found the working Joes much scarier in VR...there's something about actually looking into their eyes. The alien was actually less scary - mainly because the kill animations tear in vr - i.e. you can move your head during the kill, but in 2D Amanda's POV is fixed. So you end up seeing e.g. a disembodied alien arm with a motionless alien model behind you or something. Bit weird.
Games have the potential to expand a movie's universe, but the catch is that they have to be developed with love and care. Many executives can't grasp the concept of videogames being a form of art that has to be treated with the same level of respect (if not more) as a movie, so they think that they can pump out half assed videogames and people will buy them them, and when that doesn't happen, they think it is because videogames are a bad business.
@@kelvincasing5265 It would work so well, the whole t-rex not being able to see you if you don't move could be a massive in game mechanic. It might be fun to use the same storyline set up for the first film but to change the way the story progresses and develops so that players aren't too familiar with it, eg Nedry backs out of the corporate espionage thing and has a chnage of heart and Ray Arnold becomes the villain as an example off the top of my head.
In my many play throughs I have observed that the Alien AI adapts to your in game behavior. If you always go hide in a locker or under a table it will soon start looking in those places and find you. If however you are less predictable and utilize multiple evasion and concealment methods it has harder time finding you because you don’t have a predictable pattern.
It also seems to become more aggressive in it's searches if you have the Flamethrower. Also if you throw too many distractions at it it will begin to ignore them. But it takes using three of any before it starts to ignore them.
The fucker even ends up calculating the reach of the flame when you use the flamethrower. It learns its not deadly, so it becomes bolder, enduring the heat and light of the fire for a bit longer, so you end up using more precious fuel. But it also learns how far the flames can reach, and it teases you. You still end up scaring it, but every time it gets harder to do so.
Alien Isolation is, hands down, the most intense and scary movie or game I have ever experienced. I had to sort of mentally prepare myself before each session. It was somewhat a victim of its own success since only about 20% of players made it all the way through. Sure, many of those may have been people who didn't care for the nature of the game. Survival Horror is a very particular genre and a lot of people don't like the feeling of helplessness. But I think most of them just couldn't handle the game's relentless intensity.
Not only is the psychology brutal, but the game is brutal. I love it, but had to drop the difficulty down to EASY half way through just to get through the rest of the game. Really well made game and glad Rob Ager (who I spoke with back in the old days about The Shining and such) did an analysis on this game.
@alexregiani386 I’d pay full price all over again for a PS5 version with the haptic feedback and trigger effects on the Dualsense controller!! Imagine how immersive it’d be to feel the vibration of the Xenomorph’s footsteps!! And all the other little subtle “feels”
I remember buying this game years ago. I played it maybe 2 times and it cause me to have anxiety so badly that I cut it off and didn't play it for over a year. Once I got back to it I realized it was 1 of the best survival games I had ever played.
I also have finished it twice. After I significantly upgraded my PC, it became even more dreadfully realistic, and I have yet to finish the third round.
@@trevorfrenk4137 don’t need a runner, they did the Alien right. It’s big, lumbering but lithe at the same time. The developers of this game clearly had respect for the original vision, the alien they portray in this game is a damn force of nature.
When I first played through this game, it was the only game that ever gave me nightmares, and it still holds that distinction. My first dream involved running from androids and seeing them pounding on the doors that I closed behind me, causing me to be trapped in room. The second nightmare involved me making my way through a pitch black, with nothing but a flashlight. I never saw the alien, i never heard it, but i knew it was out there somewhere, hunting me. Alien Isolation is a masterpiece.
good video explaining loads of cool stuff - one of the things i liked at 17.40 regarding the light.... i found playing this that at first i was scared of the dark in the game.. its moving shadows and other elements added to the scare factor... but later when you come across the areas where the gas giant light is bleaching the room in light, you feel completely exposed and this worried me even more. I quickly found myself scurrying for dark or shadows and hiding in amidst the darkness.. under tables or in lockers lol!
Isolation has no right to be as good as it is. No Alien/Aliens game comes close to what they pulled off here. Most movie adaptation games don't come close.
One of my favorite stealth games of all time. It's a classic. Anyone into this genre not playing this is missing out. The tension is hard to describe verbally, but you did well. This game is all about tension. Good job.
28:37 Somehow a visible scull shape makes the monster less scary to me. One reason to this, I see, is that the human scull is a widely used form of horror which feels too familiar. Another reason: eye-like features provide some prediction about the monster's senses and field of view, so we can feel safer when the "eyes" are turned away from us. Hence the eye-less version looks less human and more alien, and I think it was a good choice for the movie.
I can see your point, and on the surface level I agree a bit. The skull is overplayed, and was probably overplayed when the movie originally came out. But I guess for me its less about the skull itself and more that it represents a shred of humanity in the alien, and the questions that come out of that line of thinking creep me out, and for that reason I'm glad they made that design choice. If there is genetically some aspect of humanity to this creature like the skull, what other traits did it get from its host? Maybe during gestation it extracts traits from the host that would increase survivability. Maybe in human hosts the alien deems psychotic tendencies to give it the best chance of survival? Perhaps with a human host it gains a level of sentience that allows it to understand exactly just how frightened its prey is, and it revels in their torment, and plays with its food like a cat with a mouse. Given Ash's haunting monologue in Alien about its intelligence and brutality, I'm inclined to lean towards thinking it knows exactly what its doing, and not just some creature driven by instinct. Also, even though the skull is right where you would expect its eyes to be, my head cannon is that its a sort of evolutionary holdover from its host that doesn't necessarily have a direct use, like a vestigial tail. Because imagining the alien looking at you with skull eyes is infinitely less creepy than an eyeless monster, as you said before.
Alien Isolation is the best game based on movie IP. Atmospheric, scary, stressful, great alien AI, creepy Working Joes - androids, original and new music, intense gameplay, sometime the gameplay is extremely fun... One of the best games from 2014 that i played and beat twice on PC and two more times on PS3, making it total of 4 passing. 11 out of 10. But this game is not for everyone. It also has many references to all 4 movies mostly referse to the original 1979 Alien movie. There's even a reference to the cat, like in the original movie with Jonesy the Cat....
The only game that stresses me out to such an extent. Sometimes I pass on a playthrough because the Med Center is so tense. I beat it on survival and I haven't picked it up since.
Hey Rob! Another great examination of an excellent game and fun series. I might be wrong, but does anybody else notice a very fast image during the Sega, CA credits on the loading screen of the Alien's teeth?
I went and watched a playthrough of the game after watching this. Even viewing someone else play, the game is so immersive. It's not without some twisted humour either. I love how hilariously convivial the Working Joes are while they stalk and attack the player. They have a Baty toying with Deckard in the last act of Blade Runner vibe to them. I can well imagine Baty telling Deckard as he tries to flee 'running causes accidents'!
When games went 3D back in the '90s I began to dream of the day when movies would follow course and allow me to live and move within them while their storylines played out. That may be an impossible dream in practice, but Alien: Isolation gives a very close approximation of it. That being said, you will understand what I mean when I say that I, personally, consider A:I to be the third installment in the Alien movie series, with the other sequels best forgotten--and that, in keeping with the original films' trendsetting ways, I think Isolation could conceivably end up being considered by everyone to be a pioneering achievement in cinema on a par with the original two, if movies should take the course in the future that I originally fantasized about and merge with the 3D interactive world of computer gaming.
It's incidental, but others beside myself have noticed an effect of the expertly 70's-sensibility analog electronics & graphic interfaces. From our frame of reference, it gives the impression of old & unreliable antique machinery, brittle stuff on its way out. This creates suspense of a random system failure invalidating all your razor's-edge efforts. Nevermind that this 70's style fictional tech may be robustly built and is ostensibly far more capable than ours; many of us carry real world experience with holdovers from that decade, and it leaves a more visceral impression.
Firstly, I gave your video a like in the first two minutes because I already knew I would like it. Secondly, there are people out there who would pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to uni to learn what this video communicates. Thank you for offering it free of charge. Thirdly, this game is so exceptional, that even watching a playthrough, having played the game for more than 100 hours, I still get shivers of dread at the environmental design, like sounds and hisses and plumes of mist.
This is one of my favourite games. Takes patience and persistence to complete but it's worth it. Glad you're analysing this one. Edit: I'm gonna replay the game and watch the analysis after lol, watching this made me want to play it again.
I just played thru Doom3 a few times. I’ll have to go back and play again with my senses on alert for these subliminal tricks I’ve learned. Good work Rob!
The fact that your character makes so much noise when you walk really adds to the idea that you can’t run from the alien and also encourages you to crouch and use stealth
It's great to have the game analysed through your filter. I doubt I was conscious of much of it but the overall effect for me was the dedication recreating the look and "feel" if the original Alien. It was as if fans of a sci-fi franchise had somehow been allowed complete creative freedom to create a new work. A rare thing. I had no idea while playing where the design of Sevastapol station came from (didn't realise Alien already created it). Except for parts that require a dozen attempts to get through it is effective at creating atmosphere, although the graphics are a bit poor on the PS4 (it wasn't remastered).
The sequence where you carried the Jack Daniels Molotov then cut to the ladder hole from the movie had me fooled for a second. Thought that was the game. Testament to work that went into it, especially the lighting. One of the most immersive game experiences ever. Best played alone in the dark.
Alien Isolation is a masterpiece. The first time playing this game it took me FOREVER to get through it. The atmosphere and AI Alien cranks your anxiety to 11.
Excellent analysis of that sequence! Whenever I replay the game I'm always struck by the atmosphere, the attention to detail, and the sound design. Won't spoil it for others on here who may not have played it, but story wise I like how there's reasonable logic as to how Amanda also encounters the Alien, which doesn't make it feel like just a co-incidence made for the game's story.
Oh man, Alien isolation is such a beautiful game. It’s the most accurate recreation of both the looks and feel of the first Alien movie. On my first playthrough I was legitimately scared and felt anxious about the alien. I would literally spend 30 minutes in a single room just crawling from hiding place to hiding place because I was terrified that I would get caught.
Ambience and environment is somwthing that I really love in a game. Slowly walk around the levels, enjoy the views sounds and story. Creators that understand this can make the environment more alive that most protagonists in games. I highly appreciate when I find a game like that once in a while.
So happy to hear you finally talk about this game, currently playing through this game on the Switch after watching the first Alien film on Halloween and it kinds fits in with the cold snow and how dead it is outside now with Christmas coming up with no one but my German Shepherd on my couch, genuinely an unreal experience of playing this in the right setting and time. Wish this game would get a proper sequel, the 2014 graphics STILL hold up in modern times which is shocking. Thanks for the great video!
Unfortunately it didn’t sell well, so no sequel. It got lambasted by clueless game critics too, they scored it poorly. They were playing the game like it was a shooter and didn’t understand what the game was trying to do, so instead of try to play it the way it’s supposed to be played they just said it was bad. Unfortunately, a lot of people read those reviews and decide whether or not to play games based on them.
@@joebeast15 It was pretty much just IGN and gamespot two of the biggest review sites at the time that scored it badly, the cynic in me suspects foul play but I guess it could just be clueless critics.
@@chatteyj yeah hard to say, but when I finally played it I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. It’s a shame because I avoided playing it because of the bad track record that franchise has had before and after
Just found this video and the channel. Great stuff dude, I too love environmental details and story telling. Dead Space 1 and 2 are some of the best imo
I've played countless horror games, but this particular game is the only one to scare me enough that it prevents me from finishing it. The fear and anxiety I experience every time I play it forces me to take breaks and limit the number of times I can play in one sitting. No playthrough is ever the same. You have to frequently change tactics, hiding eventually stops working, forcing the player to constantly move despite the sheer terror of running into the alien. The vent noises also mess with your mind, the music sets the tone, adding another layer of fear, and the lighting makes you paranoid, because you have no clue to it's exact location. In true diabolical fashion, the one thing that CAN help you detect it's location, the motion tracker, simultaneously attracts the alien with it's noise. The mic feature, if activated, adds another means of allowing the alien to find you through sound. If you sneeze, you're screwed. It's quite a unique experience, and is also the only horror game to successfully make me feel like this. That's why I love it. It's a true psychological horror game. Don't even get me started on the medical center, omg.
I'm only watching this review and I still tensed up. That shows how well the game developers did their job. I played this game for a year straight, and even after all that time the game was intense as hell. The anticipation of getting caught from the xenomorph was probably more scary than actually getting caught.
Love that you are expanding into games as a source for subliminal analysis! Long time fan of your work my friend, and can see this going in many directions in the future!
I remember when you trigger the escape area for this area, and the alien comes dashing to inspect it, it seems to stop and stare at the spinning green (maybe yellow?) light immediately above the door before resuming patrol. I recall reading that there was a deleted scene in the original movie, where Ripley comes across the alien, already mesmerized by a spinning or blinking green light, allowing her time to back off and get away. I always remember that when I play this part!
18:12 This is something the alien’s AI actually does, deliberately, by keeping track of how much time it spends being an immediate threat to you and occasionally backing off for a while when it thinks you’d be at a breaking point. This way, the Alien itself can help the pacing of the game on the fly, beyond what the static and inflexible story progression can do. The ratio of downtime/danger is one of the things that the difficulty setting is connected to.
This is one of the greatest horror games ever. That it is set in one of my favorite movie franchises, and being so faithful to the movie, is a real treat. This game will be the death of me, as it raises my blood pressure to the moon, even just watching someone else play, lol.
Isolation is by far the best horror game ever made. It's also on my own personal top 10 favourite games of all time list, and I've been gaming since 1991, played a hell of a lot of games, so that's a tough list to get on.
Rob. You sir... Are an amazing analyst. Love your content. And it's format. Your work is inspiring. Thank you much. Wish I had it, in my budget to help. Soon though. Cheers.
This was by far the most stressful game I've ever played. I have been scared playing horror games before many times, ever since I was a child. When I was young, I couldn't beat the likes of Silent Hill and Resident Evil out of fear, but I eventually conquered them. I'm still a pussy, but generally speaking I can get through a horror game just fine if I'm enjoying what's on offer. Alien Isolation however was so GENUINELY STRESSFUL that I found myself not wanting to play. I like the tense stealth and brilliant threat of the Alien, but it was often too much for me to handle, to the point of not being fun. I guess watching this video I now understand why -- there was a lot under the surface designed to make me as uncomfortable as possible, and I guess it got to me more than some people. I eventually beat this game, but I had to take long breaks between play sessions.
I absolutely love the films, im a pretty high anxiety person, I couldn't play his game. I loved the story so much I watched my wife play and enjoyed it from a safe distance. So strange how that works. I experienced the same playing dead space. I eventually just watched the cut scenes online. When I watch my friends play, no issues, when I pick up the joy pad, intense anxiety
@@Michel1234-n3t Dead Space is a walk in the park compared to AI, Isaac Clark, can literally stomp any threat he face. Not saying it isn't a good game, but in reality, Dead Space is mostly very good in lore, world building, setting and story, not so much in gameplay wich to be fair isn't bad even for today standards, but still, it is just a improved Resident Evil. AI is terrifying, i also had to stop playing for a week in the middle of of the playthrough, and play other games, simply because i could keep that level of anxiety and stress, while in Dead Space, i knew for sure that if Isaac die, is because i was dumb and slow, but usually Isaac would cutter through necromorphs, like butter, so yeah...
Played this game back in 2016, can confirm that it can be incredibly scary under the right circumstances. Watched a friend of mine nearly have a heart attack the first time an alien caught him wondering around. Really great game and would love to replay it!
That permanent grin of the alien makes it seem like it playfully sort of enjoys haunting you and playing all that hide and seek - it also reminds me of a twisted rapist enjoying to creep out and scare their helpless victim
I just bought this game on the ps4. I played through it 3 times on the PC. It's been a couple.of.years since I played and honestly I'm so impressed by what the developers did. The tension is unreal. Even though I know I'm.safe at the beginning my heart was beating like crazy. I was nearly sweating. The sound design is amazing. By the time I got to the flight recorder I had listened carefully to what was happening. They introduce the alien with sound so perfectly. You can hear it above you and far away. The music is tense and the sounds on the ship make me feel so uneasy. The designers did such an amazing job. One of the best games ever made. Easily in my top.5
Excellent analysis, that added to my appreciation of the game and especially this sequence. I hadn't noticed some of those details like the axe before, which by the way was *also* reminiscent of "The Shining", I thought. One additional detail worth mentioning; the additional alarm that begins when Ripley initiates the pressurizing of the airlock is borrowed from a similar event in the Stanley Kubrick film, "2001: A Space Odyssey".
I could listen to your psychological breakdown of the entire game's hypnotic and subliminal sensory featured throughout, to be honest. Or at least more of the story. Love this video!
I love everything about *Alien* & am surprised I haven't picked up this game yet -- I've been an H.R. Giger fan my entire life because of the franchise. Side note, Giger's frequent muse & the subject of many of his works (the feminine alien/demon/angel/etc.) was a model/actress named Li Tobler. They had a long, roller coaster relationship that ended in tragedy.
Honestly, Alien Isolation is one of the best horror games of all time, if not one of the best games of all time, period. This video doesn't really get into the gameplay side of the, well, game, but I'd like to mention that the game always does it's best to remain *fair* . The Alien is always going to be stronger, smarter, and faster than you, but it is never made to be an insurmountable task. Even on my Hard playthrough, while short on resources, I always had an out of some kind, I was never truly out of options. I could use a noisemaker to lure it away temporarily, I could use the 'ol reliable that is the Flamethrower, I could use a flashbang, or even just time my traversal of the area well enough to not be spotted etc. Speaking of the flamethrower, while powerful, the Alien takes more and more fuel to dissuade with every successive use of it, giving the player a means to defend themselves while not necessarily turning the tides on the Alien. It gives you ways to evade, or to dissuade, but it never gives you a chance to actually fight back, you are always on the defensive. And I think that's a fantastic way to balance having weaponry in a horror game, and an excellent way to balance making the player feel weak, but not helpless.
Hands down, one of the best video games ever made that captured the environment, the atmosphere, the Alien itself is perfect. I still play this game to this day and still feel the anxiety, the stress of avoiding the Alien throughout the game. Despite whatever critique you have for it, it's a masterpiece.
I had to stop playing it after a while. The stress that i got from the tense athmosphere literrally gave me headaches. It angers me a bit, that i was'nt able to play further. I love this stuff. Played through Soma and Observer several times.
If you have it on PC, there's a table for Cheat Engine that makes you invisible to all enemies. At this point I have probably spent more time peacefully exploring than actually playing the game. The environments and sound design are just so rich with detail.
Just watching the game play is kind of anxiety inducing. I think it would take me a while to be able to compartmentalize that fear of being hunted and start rationally analyzing my environment. Great work.
One of the interesting designs in the PS4 version is that the Alien can hear you through the speaker/microphone in the controller. Disabled that immediately haha
Yes! Thanks for putting this out, this game is one of the best ever - not just in the horror genre, or Alien franchise, but in the medium in its entirety, as a ludonarrative object.
Here's what never made sense about the Alien universe, you can build a ship capable of prolonged deep space travel, build undetectable human looking androids, and have cryostasis chambers that can keep you young for decades, but the lighting on the ship is almost non existent? I know that the reason is to make the atmosphere as scary as possible, but it doesn't make sense in universe. I'm also confused as to why the company didn't send maybe two androids and a human instead of sneaking one aboard a human crew, entities that were completely aware of the mission and desired outcome. I placed the singular human with the two androids in case they wanted to observe what would happen if the human species were to encounter the xenomorph.
I just played through this in Virtual Reality (MotherVR Mod), fascinating to look back at what subliminally made my experience so visceral. Excellent analysis.
One of the best games ever. I did finish it on standard difficultly and so relieved when I did. I went for second playthrough and got so far before realising 'why torture myself again' and stopped.
my favorite and could be best game i've ever played. playing through again to find all the tags. have 5 of the 7 dlc's and will get the other 2. great game. great walkthrough and opinion piece. will be playing shortly i'm sure just cause this came up in my yt rotation.
Great analysis rob. I think the motion tracker in this game is absolutely genius game design. When I played alien isolation I noticed the things you mentioned, such as the out of focus depth of field shift and the noise that attracts the alien hunting you. Absolutely great details for an interactive horror game.
Love this game. I beat it on hard within the first week of its release. Using the Xbox one "kinect" was interesting. It utilized noise detection on the player while playing and of course tracking if you were leaning to one side. Which alerted the alien if you were making loud noises while playing and would cause the character to lean around a corner.
Fantastic observations of this brilliant game. During my play through, I did not notice quite a few of the design queues you pointed out. 👍 I was just so drawn into the atmosphere and appreciated how they nailed the look and feel of the first film. Alien remains one of my top 10 movies of all time. I recently started replaying this game on Xbox series X which gives the game a FPS boost and can force HDR lighting if you enable that on your console. The FPS boost is a big addition that helps immersion and the forced HDR lighting works surprisingly well considering the game was never optimized for it. Also I forgot how amazing the sound design is in this game. Some truly terrifying moments when played in surround sound in a dark room.
Awesome analysis of one of the greatest survival horror alien simulator! All the experience is thrilling, a must for all the alien and thriller fans. One of the games that until today i am afraid of replaying some parts.
Want more content folks ... follow these links.
Check out the current discounts on my offline vids and articles www.collativelearning.com/
Join my Film, Game & Media analysis page on Facebook facebook.com/groups/4637000646361309
... as well as following the Collative Learning FB page facebook.com/RobAgerpublic
Get a copy of my video game To The Death store.steampowered.com/app/2758570/To_The_Death/
... and follow the game on the Ager Games UA-cam channel www.youtube.com/@robagergames
... and at the To The Death FB page facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555615927786
Follow me on Twitter / X twitter.com/RobAger
Signing up as a monthly supporter on Patreon gets you arround 12 hrs more content www.patreon.com/RobAger
PLEASE ALSO POST YOUR RESPONSES TO THE VIDEO CONTENT ABOVE SEPARATELTY FROM THIS PINNED COMMENT, THANKS.
I wholeheartly believe that analysis will be easier if the alien is pretty much useless, so if you do use the mod toolkit or you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out.
For instance, at 9:14, the woman is getting killed by the alien, and you make note if the alien's size. However, it kills you 1 seconds later. If you make the alien into a potato, then you could document the true size of the alien by stalking around it.
How/where do I go to learn how to see these smaller nuanced details, like you have? This is fascinating!
hey I love your content, but there could be a way you could enable the closed captions option? I'm hard of hearing and that feature helps me follow what you say
@@acfan8253 Have just gone in and specified the language so hopefully YT will automatically create subs now.
This game is the ONLY horror game that after I beat it, I would still get the same levels of anxiety and tension I felt the 1st time I played it. A masterpiece.
I hate admit, just watching the playthrough in this video, gave me anxiety, and I've played through the game on every difficulty level....man, my poor heart....
Yep sometimes I am sad that they decided not to do an other one because the sells were below expectation at launch. I agree, it's a masterpiece. I redo it every other year.
The same here. After finishing AI i thought I love horror games. I am basically a rpg gamer 99 %. Wrong ! I love only AI . And I got the same feeling playing Subnautica. But after finishing it, the horror disappeared. In AI I am constantly on edge, even I beat it 4 times.
@@bilibistrox Subnautica is so good. 👍
@@theinnerlight8016 I think Subnautica is one of my top 5 games of the decade. Is the game that really really scared me,but at the same time it feels like home
Always got time to hear you talk about Alien and Isolation is a classic
indeed sir it is.
@@ArtofLunatik no doubt
Imagine seeing you here! And, yes, this is a definite classic.
Nice to see more modern style channels pay homage
Cheers bud
Ey, it's you! You guys are awesome..
Most terrifying death for me was in the tunnels. At the far end was the iris door, opening up and I'm seeing the bright environment, when the alien walks in front, silhouetted. It crawls inside the tunnel, quick as a cat, coming directly at me as the iris closes behind it so it's silhouette disappears, leaving me staring into blackness as I hear it coming closer. And then it's in my face. I think I teared up a little bit.
This is exactly why I refused to use tunnels unless absolutely necessary. I was terrified of this happening
That’s true horror. What a game.
@@subarusumeragikun Haha yes they were 99% of the time safe but then there was that 1% time when al used them as well, I always thought if you didn't use the torch (flashlight) inside them the alien wouldn't use them but maybe not.
Gemini labs was the most anxiety inducing part of the game. Getting through it was like a rollercoster ride. When I finished it I was relieved. This game is amazing and needs the sequel.
Yeah I really enjoy how great this game is at building tension. I especially love the many parts when you just have to go for it.
@@tristanholland6445 the sound machine was a godsend. Once I figured the alien was like a dog, I used it to get out.
The alarms and stone lights were the scariest part. I don’t know how people play that game in VR. I’d be in a locker lol
I enjoyed the whole game. Didn't think that it was too long. For an Alien fan it felt a little short hehehe. Definitely needs a sequel and f*ck Alien Team Elite garbage :D
@@WaxTheDolphin oh no. The new one sucks? Darn it.
You can blame the soy COD reviewer who gave Alien Isolation a 5 score.
I wonder if we can encourage Peggy Games to do a sequel.
Alien isolation is a book too. Check out the audio drama Alien, out of the shadows on UA-cam.
@@kintero27 it's just how I feel. It resembles Alien Colonial Marines in a way but it's not that clunky. That was the worse. Thanks for the recommendation and hopefully we'll have more games like Alien Isolation in the future.
Rob, did you know that the actor who did the voice for Waits is William Hope. None other than Lt. Gorman himself. I enjoy his voice acting a lot.
He gave his voice and face, if you watch Waits clearly looks like Gorman.
@@nicolashrv and he gave his heart ❤️
@@nicolashrv i was JUST replaying this yesterday and thought, hey, waits kinda looks like gorman
Gorman... A noble end.
He’s also in AVP 2010 , as Doctor Groves
A huge step away from the typical POV game, is Alien Isolation focus a LOT on your ear sense, rather than the visual, in order to protect yourself from the enemy.....almost 99% of the visual threats are not such, and if you switch your attention to your ears (specially if you use good expensive headphones) you will start to progress much easier........after playing it for a while, you can CLEARLY predict the alien behaviour, the foot steps tells you his direction (the volume increases or diminishes accordingly)....the way he "roars" tells you if he found something of interest or if he is about to leave the room.....before spotting an enemy, the alien starts hissing and if it starts to move will launch a scream before starting to run at you.......the sounds of the airducts also tells you if he is moving around or is about to get down from the roof......this also has a "distance" effect, you can tell if the alien is near or not depending on how far this sounds are happening......
I liked the hissing. It was anxiety inducing, around mission 16,17 and 18 it does it more to try and fake you out. It also dips into the air ducts and straight back out in mission 17 to try and lull you into a false sense of security and make you come out of your hiding spot. The alien got very smart in those last few missions. Gemini and San Cristobal medical facility were the worst missions. Surprisingly the nest was pretty easy. The super joes were the worst enemy in the core.
@@tarantulagirl The hissing basically means HIDE RIGHT NOW because the alien spotted you, and you have 1 second to get out of his sight quietly.....right after the hiss, if you don't move will yell and start running at you..........by then means TOTAL DEATH, unless the alien spotted you from another room and there are walls between you, meaning the alien will lose the sight of you for a couple of seconds.........this is the only time you can run and avoid the alien. Since the program protocol makes the alien go to the last point it spotted you.....if you move, away, the alien will stop and then will start to lurk to see in the nearby areas if you are hidding (this can only be achieved if there are walls in between, or the alien jumps to the airducts to get you, it requiers to be out of sight when you run.......then it doesn't matter even if you make noises, the trick is avoid being in the spot it saw you before running)
I believe the "rattlesnake hiss" sound effect used for the breathing of the xenomorph when existing the vent is the sound of a tiger chuffing. 7:36
I've played just about every survival/horror game, from Resident Evil to Outlast and everything in between... And I can honestly say that Alien Isolation is the scariest game ever. The Xenomorph isn't just terrifying, but it's also brilliant. Aside from the horror, it's also one of the most detailed games of all time. You can tell that the people who made this were genuine fans of the Alien franchise. This is why Alien Isolation is one of the best games ever.
This game is great. The true sequel to the original Alien movie.
Xenomorph hide and see simulator 10/10
I keep saying this is the best horror game ever. The VR mod is terrifying, literally had me shaking at times.
Bet it is.
I found the working Joes much scarier in VR...there's something about actually looking into their eyes. The alien was actually less scary - mainly because the kill animations tear in vr - i.e. you can move your head during the kill, but in 2D Amanda's POV is fixed. So you end up seeing e.g. a disembodied alien arm with a motionless alien model behind you or something. Bit weird.
They could do this with a lot of games. A Jurassic Park game like this would be terrifying too.
Apparently they looked at JP when making this, definitely brings the kitchen sequence to mind.
Games have the potential to expand a movie's universe, but the catch is that they have to be developed with love and care.
Many executives can't grasp the concept of videogames being a form of art that has to be treated with the same level of respect (if not more) as a movie, so they think that they can pump out half assed videogames and people will buy them them, and when that doesn't happen, they think it is because videogames are a bad business.
@@kelvincasing5265 It would work so well, the whole t-rex not being able to see you if you don't move could be a massive in game mechanic. It might be fun to use the same storyline set up for the first film but to change the way the story progresses and develops so that players aren't too familiar with it, eg Nedry backs out of the corporate espionage thing and has a chnage of heart and Ray Arnold becomes the villain as an example off the top of my head.
@@ixcutamp8059lol I don’t think it has anything to do with video games vs movies as art, they pump out shitty soulless movies as well
Funny you should mention this two years ago because the trailer for Jurassic Park Survival looks like it’ll be exactly that.
In my many play throughs I have observed that the Alien AI adapts to your in game behavior. If you always go hide in a locker or under a table it will soon start looking in those places and find you.
If however you are less predictable and utilize multiple evasion and concealment methods it has harder time finding you because you don’t have a predictable pattern.
There is a video on YT about this ALIEN Isolation AI.
ua-cam.com/video/Nt1XmiDwxhY/v-deo.html&ab_channel=AIandGames
@@kelvincasing5265 what's the context though?
It also seems to become more aggressive in it's searches if you have the Flamethrower. Also if you throw too many distractions at it it will begin to ignore them. But it takes using three of any before it starts to ignore them.
The fucker even ends up calculating the reach of the flame when you use the flamethrower. It learns its not deadly, so it becomes bolder, enduring the heat and light of the fire for a bit longer, so you end up using more precious fuel. But it also learns how far the flames can reach, and it teases you. You still end up scaring it, but every time it gets harder to do so.
Alien Isolation is, hands down, the most intense and scary movie or game I have ever experienced. I had to sort of mentally prepare myself before each session. It was somewhat a victim of its own success since only about 20% of players made it all the way through. Sure, many of those may have been people who didn't care for the nature of the game. Survival Horror is a very particular genre and a lot of people don't like the feeling of helplessness. But I think most of them just couldn't handle the game's relentless intensity.
Not only is the psychology brutal, but the game is brutal. I love it, but had to drop the difficulty down to EASY half way through just to get through the rest of the game. Really well made game and glad Rob Ager (who I spoke with back in the old days about The Shining and such) did an analysis on this game.
@alexregiani386 I’d pay full price all over again for a PS5 version with the haptic feedback and trigger effects on the Dualsense controller!! Imagine how immersive it’d be to feel the vibration of the Xenomorph’s footsteps!! And all the other little subtle “feels”
I remember buying this game years ago. I played it maybe 2 times and it cause me to have anxiety so badly that I cut it off and didn't play it for over a year. Once I got back to it I realized it was 1 of the best survival games I had ever played.
They succeeded TOO well at making it scary, I also bought it and got about half way before quitting
Same here! Got halfway but too stressful then played right through and loved it even more a year or 2 later. Near the end of my 3rd playthrough now.
Same for me... sits unfinished because I was having panic attacks even on easy!
@@drumboy256 I feel your struggle
I also have finished it twice. After I significantly upgraded my PC, it became even more dreadfully realistic, and I have yet to finish the third round.
Best Alien game I’ve ever played. It is very good and will scare the crap out of you. Unfortunately it didn’t sell well, which is a damn crying shame.
i’d LOVE a sequel w a runner xeno. theyre bringing it to iOS and switch so maybe theyre trying to generate interest for a sequel???
@@trevorfrenk4137 don’t need a runner, they did the Alien right. It’s big, lumbering but lithe at the same time. The developers of this game clearly had respect for the original vision, the alien they portray in this game is a damn force of nature.
It's still selling today so maybe it's a cult classic.
I would really like in a potential sequel to see the alien walk on walls more
@@android584 it is in fact a cult classic and hailed as THE definitive Alien game out of all the others that came before it.
When I first played through this game, it was the only game that ever gave me nightmares, and it still holds that distinction. My first dream involved running from androids and seeing them pounding on the doors that I closed behind me, causing me to be trapped in room. The second nightmare involved me making my way through a pitch black, with nothing but a flashlight. I never saw the alien, i never heard it, but i knew it was out there somewhere, hunting me.
Alien Isolation is a masterpiece.
I always appreciate the long form analysis getting posted here for free. Thanks Mr. Ager!
I hope your holiday was filled with many thanks.
good video explaining loads of cool stuff - one of the things i liked at 17.40 regarding the light.... i found playing this that at first i was scared of the dark in the game.. its moving shadows and other elements added to the scare factor... but later when you come across the areas where the gas giant light is bleaching the room in light, you feel completely exposed and this worried me even more. I quickly found myself scurrying for dark or shadows and hiding in amidst the darkness.. under tables or in lockers lol!
Isolation has no right to be as good as it is. No Alien/Aliens game comes close to what they pulled off here. Most movie adaptation games don't come close.
I rarely play video games, but I made an exception for this one. One of the best games I've ever seen.
One of my favorite stealth games of all time. It's a classic. Anyone into this genre not playing this is missing out. The tension is hard to describe verbally, but you did well. This game is all about tension. Good job.
Always good when Rob uploads.
28:37 Somehow a visible scull shape makes the monster less scary to me. One reason to this, I see, is that the human scull is a widely used form of horror which feels too familiar. Another reason: eye-like features provide some prediction about the monster's senses and field of view, so we can feel safer when the "eyes" are turned away from us.
Hence the eye-less version looks less human and more alien, and I think it was a good choice for the movie.
I can see your point, and on the surface level I agree a bit. The skull is overplayed, and was probably overplayed when the movie originally came out. But I guess for me its less about the skull itself and more that it represents a shred of humanity in the alien, and the questions that come out of that line of thinking creep me out, and for that reason I'm glad they made that design choice. If there is genetically some aspect of humanity to this creature like the skull, what other traits did it get from its host? Maybe during gestation it extracts traits from the host that would increase survivability. Maybe in human hosts the alien deems psychotic tendencies to give it the best chance of survival? Perhaps with a human host it gains a level of sentience that allows it to understand exactly just how frightened its prey is, and it revels in their torment, and plays with its food like a cat with a mouse. Given Ash's haunting monologue in Alien about its intelligence and brutality, I'm inclined to lean towards thinking it knows exactly what its doing, and not just some creature driven by instinct.
Also, even though the skull is right where you would expect its eyes to be, my head cannon is that its a sort of evolutionary holdover from its host that doesn't necessarily have a direct use, like a vestigial tail. Because imagining the alien looking at you with skull eyes is infinitely less creepy than an eyeless monster, as you said before.
Alien Isolation is the best game based on movie IP.
Atmospheric, scary, stressful, great alien AI, creepy Working Joes - androids, original and new music, intense gameplay, sometime the gameplay is extremely fun...
One of the best games from 2014 that i played and beat twice on PC and two more times on PS3, making it total of 4 passing.
11 out of 10.
But this game is not for everyone.
It also has many references to all 4 movies mostly referse to the original 1979 Alien movie.
There's even a reference to the cat, like in the original movie with Jonesy the Cat....
I bet the artists who made this game are so appreciative of you pointing out their pipes.
The only game that stresses me out to such an extent. Sometimes I pass on a playthrough because the Med Center is so tense. I beat it on survival and I haven't picked it up since.
Hey Rob! Another great examination of an excellent game and fun series. I might be wrong, but does anybody else notice a very fast image during the Sega, CA credits on the loading screen of the Alien's teeth?
I got the same impression. Need to slow that footage down. Harsh jagged white patterns and harsh sounds = alien bite.
I went and watched a playthrough of the game after watching this. Even viewing someone else play, the game is so immersive. It's not without some twisted humour either. I love how hilariously convivial the Working Joes are while they stalk and attack the player. They have a Baty toying with Deckard in the last act of Blade Runner vibe to them. I can well imagine Baty telling Deckard as he tries to flee 'running causes accidents'!
When games went 3D back in the '90s I began to dream of the day when movies would follow course and allow me to live and move within them while their storylines played out. That may be an impossible dream in practice, but Alien: Isolation gives a very close approximation of it.
That being said, you will understand what I mean when I say that I, personally, consider A:I to be the third installment in the Alien movie series, with the other sequels best forgotten--and that, in keeping with the original films' trendsetting ways, I think Isolation could conceivably end up being considered by everyone to be a pioneering achievement in cinema on a par with the original two, if movies should take the course in the future that I originally fantasized about and merge with the 3D interactive world of computer gaming.
It's incidental, but others beside myself have noticed an effect of the expertly 70's-sensibility analog electronics & graphic interfaces. From our frame of reference, it gives the impression of old & unreliable antique machinery, brittle stuff on its way out. This creates suspense of a random system failure invalidating all your razor's-edge efforts. Nevermind that this 70's style fictional tech may be robustly built and is ostensibly far more capable than ours; many of us carry real world experience with holdovers from that decade, and it leaves a more visceral impression.
Firstly, I gave your video a like in the first two minutes because I already knew I would like it.
Secondly, there are people out there who would pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to uni to learn what this video communicates. Thank you for offering it free of charge.
Thirdly, this game is so exceptional, that even watching a playthrough, having played the game for more than 100 hours, I still get shivers of dread at the environmental design, like sounds and hisses and plumes of mist.
This is one of my favourite games. Takes patience and persistence to complete but it's worth it. Glad you're analysing this one. Edit: I'm gonna replay the game and watch the analysis after lol, watching this made me want to play it again.
I just played thru Doom3 a few times.
I’ll have to go back and play again with my senses on alert for these subliminal tricks I’ve learned. Good work Rob!
The fact that your character makes so much noise when you walk really adds to the idea that you can’t run from the alien and also encourages you to crouch and use stealth
It's great to have the game analysed through your filter. I doubt I was conscious of much of it but the overall effect for me was the dedication recreating the look and "feel" if the original Alien. It was as if fans of a sci-fi franchise had somehow been allowed complete creative freedom to create a new work. A rare thing.
I had no idea while playing where the design of Sevastapol station came from (didn't realise Alien already created it).
Except for parts that require a dozen attempts to get through it is effective at creating atmosphere, although the graphics are a bit poor on the PS4 (it wasn't remastered).
The sequence where you carried the Jack Daniels Molotov then cut to the ladder hole from the movie had me fooled for a second. Thought that was the game. Testament to work that went into it, especially the lighting. One of the most immersive game experiences ever. Best played alone in the dark.
Amazing work here. It really elevates my appreciation for the level design and art direction in this game.
This channel deserves at least a million subs... I purchased the analysis of Ripley, pure gold...
Alien Isolation is a masterpiece.
The first time playing this game it took me FOREVER to get through it.
The atmosphere and AI Alien cranks your anxiety to 11.
Excellent analysis of that sequence! Whenever I replay the game I'm always struck by the atmosphere, the attention to detail, and the sound design. Won't spoil it for others on here who may not have played it, but story wise I like how there's reasonable logic as to how Amanda also encounters the Alien, which doesn't make it feel like just a co-incidence made for the game's story.
Saw your post on Reddit can't wait to watch the video.
yes yes. You get it. This game is a once in a lifetime masterpiece with the same resonance as the first Alien movie.
Oh man, Alien isolation is such a beautiful game. It’s the most accurate recreation of both the looks and feel of the first Alien movie. On my first playthrough I was legitimately scared and felt anxious about the alien. I would literally spend 30 minutes in a single room just crawling from hiding place to hiding place because I was terrified that I would get caught.
Ambience and environment is somwthing that I really love in a game. Slowly walk around the levels, enjoy the views sounds and story. Creators that understand this can make the environment more alive that most protagonists in games. I highly appreciate when I find a game like that once in a while.
So happy to hear you finally talk about this game, currently playing through this game on the Switch after watching the first Alien film on Halloween and it kinds fits in with the cold snow and how dead it is outside now with Christmas coming up with no one but my German Shepherd on my couch, genuinely an unreal experience of playing this in the right setting and time. Wish this game would get a proper sequel, the 2014 graphics STILL hold up in modern times which is shocking. Thanks for the great video!
Unfortunately it didn’t sell well, so no sequel. It got lambasted by clueless game critics too, they scored it poorly. They were playing the game like it was a shooter and didn’t understand what the game was trying to do, so instead of try to play it the way it’s supposed to be played they just said it was bad. Unfortunately, a lot of people read those reviews and decide whether or not to play games based on them.
@@joebeast15 It was pretty much just IGN and gamespot two of the biggest review sites at the time that scored it badly, the cynic in me suspects foul play but I guess it could just be clueless critics.
@@chatteyj yeah hard to say, but when I finally played it I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. It’s a shame because I avoided playing it because of the bad track record that franchise has had before and after
Just found this video and the channel. Great stuff dude, I too love environmental details and story telling. Dead Space 1 and 2 are some of the best imo
I've played countless horror games, but this particular game is the only one to scare me enough that it prevents me from finishing it. The fear and anxiety I experience every time I play it forces me to take breaks and limit the number of times I can play in one sitting. No playthrough is ever the same. You have to frequently change tactics, hiding eventually stops working, forcing the player to constantly move despite the sheer terror of running into the alien. The vent noises also mess with your mind, the music sets the tone, adding another layer of fear, and the lighting makes you paranoid, because you have no clue to it's exact location. In true diabolical fashion, the one thing that CAN help you detect it's location, the motion tracker, simultaneously attracts the alien with it's noise. The mic feature, if activated, adds another means of allowing the alien to find you through sound. If you sneeze, you're screwed.
It's quite a unique experience, and is also the only horror game to successfully make me feel like this. That's why I love it. It's a true psychological horror game. Don't even get me started on the medical center, omg.
Great work. Some of the best game analysis Ive ever seen.
I'm only watching this review and I still tensed up. That shows how well the game developers did their job.
I played this game for a year straight, and even after all that time the game was intense as hell. The anticipation of getting caught from the xenomorph was probably more scary than actually getting caught.
Love that you are expanding into games as a source for subliminal analysis! Long time fan of your work my friend, and can see this going in many directions in the future!
I remember when you trigger the escape area for this area, and the alien comes dashing to inspect it, it seems to stop and stare at the spinning green (maybe yellow?) light immediately above the door before resuming patrol. I recall reading that there was a deleted scene in the original movie, where Ripley comes across the alien, already mesmerized by a spinning or blinking green light, allowing her time to back off and get away. I always remember that when I play this part!
18:12 This is something the alien’s AI actually does, deliberately, by keeping track of how much time it spends being an immediate threat to you and occasionally backing off for a while when it thinks you’d be at a breaking point. This way, the Alien itself can help the pacing of the game on the fly, beyond what the static and inflexible story progression can do. The ratio of downtime/danger is one of the things that the difficulty setting is connected to.
One of the most intense game I've played, and I played it on hard (it's only the way I play games). 10/10. Need a sequel.
Sadly we probably won't see one due to poor sales. Thanks IGN.
I just finished it on Hard and it felt much more satisfying. Definitely a game that should have a sequel...
@@bogdananicescu6051 Exactly! Everything you get and everything you achieved feel earned. Wish there was a sequel.
I really appreciated the long shots of the axe in this analysis. Something about them really captivated me.
Christmas came early this year, thanks Rob. Awesome channel, awesome topic, awesome game.
would love to see a Silent Hill or Resident Evil analysis video like this!!!
this was an awesome video!
This is one of the greatest horror games ever. That it is set in one of my favorite movie franchises, and being so faithful to the movie, is a real treat.
This game will be the death of me, as it raises my blood pressure to the moon, even just watching someone else play, lol.
A terrific game! I was so proud when I completed it - after quitting halfway through and coming back to it a year later :D. Thanks for the analysis.
Isolation is by far the best horror game ever made. It's also on my own personal top 10 favourite games of all time list, and I've been gaming since 1991, played a hell of a lot of games, so that's a tough list to get on.
This is one of my favorite videos of yours Rob. Many people forget the artistry that goes into video games
Rob. You sir... Are an amazing analyst. Love your content. And it's format. Your work is inspiring. Thank you much. Wish I had it, in my budget to help. Soon though. Cheers.
This was by far the most stressful game I've ever played. I have been scared playing horror games before many times, ever since I was a child. When I was young, I couldn't beat the likes of Silent Hill and Resident Evil out of fear, but I eventually conquered them. I'm still a pussy, but generally speaking I can get through a horror game just fine if I'm enjoying what's on offer. Alien Isolation however was so GENUINELY STRESSFUL that I found myself not wanting to play. I like the tense stealth and brilliant threat of the Alien, but it was often too much for me to handle, to the point of not being fun. I guess watching this video I now understand why -- there was a lot under the surface designed to make me as uncomfortable as possible, and I guess it got to me more than some people. I eventually beat this game, but I had to take long breaks between play sessions.
I absolutely love the films, im a pretty high anxiety person, I couldn't play his game. I loved the story so much I watched my wife play and enjoyed it from a safe distance. So strange how that works. I experienced the same playing dead space. I eventually just watched the cut scenes online. When I watch my friends play, no issues, when I pick up the joy pad, intense anxiety
@@Michel1234-n3t Dead Space is a walk in the park compared to AI, Isaac Clark, can literally stomp any threat he face.
Not saying it isn't a good game, but in reality, Dead Space is mostly very good in lore, world building, setting and story, not so much in gameplay wich to be fair isn't bad even for today standards, but still, it is just a improved Resident Evil.
AI is terrifying, i also had to stop playing for a week in the middle of of the playthrough, and play other games, simply because i could keep that level of anxiety and stress, while in Dead Space, i knew for sure that if Isaac die, is because i was dumb and slow, but usually Isaac would cutter through necromorphs, like butter, so yeah...
This channel is some of the best quality content on UA-cam. Great Work!
Played this game back in 2016, can confirm that it can be incredibly scary under the right circumstances. Watched a friend of mine nearly have a heart attack the first time an alien caught him wondering around. Really great game and would love to replay it!
That permanent grin of the alien makes it seem like it playfully sort of enjoys haunting you and playing all that hide and seek - it also reminds me of a twisted rapist enjoying to creep out and scare their helpless victim
Agreed. Check out my video on the alien creature design. It goes into that and more ua-cam.com/video/Y274MAueDdY/v-deo.html
I never played the game but watched a whole playthrough; like watching a creepy movie. The game was a labor of love.
I just bought this game on the ps4. I played through it 3 times on the PC. It's been a couple.of.years since I played and honestly I'm so impressed by what the developers did. The tension is unreal. Even though I know I'm.safe at the beginning my heart was beating like crazy. I was nearly sweating. The sound design is amazing. By the time I got to the flight recorder I had listened carefully to what was happening. They introduce the alien with sound so perfectly. You can hear it above you and far away. The music is tense and the sounds on the ship make me feel so uneasy. The designers did such an amazing job.
One of the best games ever made. Easily in my top.5
Excellent analysis, that added to my appreciation of the game and especially this sequence. I hadn't noticed some of those details like the axe before, which by the way was *also* reminiscent of "The Shining", I thought. One additional detail worth mentioning; the additional alarm that begins when Ripley initiates the pressurizing of the airlock is borrowed from a similar event in the Stanley Kubrick film, "2001: A Space Odyssey".
I bought this game about 6 months ago... and I'm still too terrified to even play it. Such is the power of the 'Alien' concept.
I could listen to your psychological breakdown of the entire game's hypnotic and subliminal sensory featured throughout, to be honest. Or at least more of the story. Love this video!
I so hope they port this over to the PSVR 2!
This goes without saying, but you do a truly incredible job in every video you make.
I love everything about *Alien* & am surprised I haven't picked up this game yet -- I've been an H.R. Giger fan my entire life because of the franchise. Side note, Giger's frequent muse & the subject of many of his works (the feminine alien/demon/angel/etc.) was a model/actress named Li Tobler. They had a long, roller coaster relationship that ended in tragedy.
This was very interesting. Thank you.
The tension you got from cutting open a door at the end of the hallway and hearing the motion tracker beep was intense.
Honestly, Alien Isolation is one of the best horror games of all time, if not one of the best games of all time, period. This video doesn't really get into the gameplay side of the, well, game, but I'd like to mention that the game always does it's best to remain *fair* .
The Alien is always going to be stronger, smarter, and faster than you, but it is never made to be an insurmountable task. Even on my Hard playthrough, while short on resources, I always had an out of some kind, I was never truly out of options. I could use a noisemaker to lure it away temporarily, I could use the 'ol reliable that is the Flamethrower, I could use a flashbang, or even just time my traversal of the area well enough to not be spotted etc. Speaking of the flamethrower, while powerful, the Alien takes more and more fuel to dissuade with every successive use of it, giving the player a means to defend themselves while not necessarily turning the tides on the Alien. It gives you ways to evade, or to dissuade, but it never gives you a chance to actually fight back, you are always on the defensive. And I think that's a fantastic way to balance having weaponry in a horror game, and an excellent way to balance making the player feel weak, but not helpless.
I won't lie, I've been waiting for a Rob Ager analysis of this game for a very long time.💯
This game is an absolute masterpiece. I wish they would make a sequel.
Well guess what they are 😊😊
This is the second best alien film
Each time I visit your page I typically enjoy your content I VERY much liked this as it marries 2 forms of entertainment I indulge most.
Well done.
Hands down, one of the best video games ever made that captured the environment, the atmosphere, the Alien itself is perfect. I still play this game to this day and still feel the anxiety, the stress of avoiding the Alien throughout the game. Despite whatever critique you have for it, it's a masterpiece.
Great insight and observations Rob. Would love a similar analysis for the now legendary 2008 game Dead Space.
I had to stop playing it after a while. The stress that i got from the tense athmosphere literrally gave me headaches. It angers me a bit, that i was'nt able to play further. I love this stuff. Played through Soma and Observer several times.
If you have it on PC, there's a table for Cheat Engine that makes you invisible to all enemies.
At this point I have probably spent more time peacefully exploring than actually playing the game. The environments and sound design are just so rich with detail.
Just watching the game play is kind of anxiety inducing. I think it would take me a while to be able to compartmentalize that fear of being hunted and start rationally analyzing my environment. Great work.
@23:10 I admire it's purity. The anxiety of being caught and killed.
One of the interesting designs in the PS4 version is that the Alien can hear you through the speaker/microphone in the controller. Disabled that immediately haha
Yes! Thanks for putting this out, this game is one of the best ever - not just in the horror genre, or Alien franchise, but in the medium in its entirety, as a ludonarrative object.
Here's what never made sense about the Alien universe, you can build a ship capable of prolonged deep space travel, build undetectable human looking androids, and have cryostasis chambers that can keep you young for decades, but the lighting on the ship is almost non existent?
I know that the reason is to make the atmosphere as scary as possible, but it doesn't make sense in universe.
I'm also confused as to why the company didn't send maybe two androids and a human instead of sneaking one aboard a human crew, entities that were completely aware of the mission and desired outcome.
I placed the singular human with the two androids in case they wanted to observe what would happen if the human species were to encounter the xenomorph.
When someone talks about my favorite game, for an hour, I rescheduled everything else.
I just played through this in Virtual Reality (MotherVR Mod), fascinating to look back at what subliminally made my experience so visceral. Excellent analysis.
Rob Ager talking about alien isolation? This is too good to be true
One of the best games ever. I did finish it on standard difficultly and so relieved when I did. I went for second playthrough and got so far before realising 'why torture myself again' and stopped.
my favorite and could be best game i've ever played. playing through again to find all the tags. have 5 of the 7 dlc's and will get the other 2. great game. great walkthrough and opinion piece. will be playing shortly i'm sure just cause this came up in my yt rotation.
Absolutely delightful analysis. I'd love to see you take a similar eye to SOMA, as that game feels equally as atmospheric as Alien Isolation.
Alright Rob, great video again. Only 15 minutes in and now I have to go replay Alien Isolation! on Nightmare! Well played sir and thanks I guess.
Great analysis rob. I think the motion tracker in this game is absolutely genius game design. When I played alien isolation I noticed the things you mentioned, such as the out of focus depth of field shift and the noise that attracts the alien hunting you. Absolutely great details for an interactive horror game.
Love this game. I beat it on hard within the first week of its release. Using the Xbox one "kinect" was interesting. It utilized noise detection on the player while playing and of course tracking if you were leaning to one side. Which alerted the alien if you were making loud noises while playing and would cause the character to lean around a corner.
I turned off that feature after some background noise outside my control brought me face-to-face with an android too many times ...
Fantastic observations of this brilliant game. During my play through, I did not notice quite a few of the design queues you pointed out. 👍 I was just so drawn into the atmosphere and appreciated how they nailed the look and feel of the first film. Alien remains one of my top 10 movies of all time. I recently started replaying this game on Xbox series X which gives the game a FPS boost and can force HDR lighting if you enable that on your console. The FPS boost is a big addition that helps immersion and the forced HDR lighting works surprisingly well considering the game was never optimized for it. Also I forgot how amazing the sound design is in this game. Some truly terrifying moments when played in surround sound in a dark room.
Awesome analysis of one of the greatest survival horror alien simulator! All the experience is thrilling, a must for all the alien and thriller fans. One of the games that until today i am afraid of replaying some parts.