ALIEN: ISOLATION

The subtitle of the game is misleading. The first few hours of Alien: Isolation are spent in an atmosphere of serene to slightly boring loneliness as protagonist Amanda Ripley, daughter of the character played by Sigourney Weaver in Alien, arrives at the Sevastopol space station to retrieve the "black box" of the Nostromo ship, whose fate and that of its crew (and Amanda's mother) has been unknown for 15 years. Upon arrival at the space station it becomes immediately clear that Sevastopol is facing serious problems: communication is problematic, many of the systems are out of order and the image betrays scenes of chaos and abandonment. Something has happened. Something is happening inside the station. Something powerful, deadly, malevolent and ruthless. Something that will soon make you wish the subtitle told the truth, that you could enjoy at least a few moments of blessed isolation.

Alien: Isolation can be briefly described as a first person stealth/horror game. The action element is there - mainly concentrated towards the end of the campaign - but its quantity makes the title quite different from the new stream of horror/action games like Dead Space or (the more recent) Resident Evil. Creative Assembly, the game's developer for Sega, has put an absolute emphasis on the stealth element and avoiding direct encounters at all costs. Many times we as reviewers mention in our presentations of stealth games that "combat is the last resort", but rarely is this phrase transmuted in such an emphatic way as it is in Alien: Isolation. Amanda Ripley may be a colleague of Isaac Clarke, but her approach to problem solving is a far cry from the "slash all, shred all" approach of the Dead Space protagonist. The daughter of the ultimate badass Ellen Ripley lacks her mother's fighting skills and relies on her agility, stealthy approach, and smarts to avoid the multiple dangers lurking around every corner of the Sevastopol space station.

All of the above is mentioned so that you have a clear idea of the kind of gameplay that awaits you if you buy Alien Isolation because, looking at the reviews that have already been published online, I have the feeling that a lot of people expected something different from the game and were disappointed when they found out that they won't be spending their time slaughtering hordes of aliens with assault rifles. Again: combat (should) be the absolute last resort. Really. Especially in the first 2/3 of the game, facing enemies will kill Amanda by 60% (vs. humans), 80% (vs. androids) and 250% (vs. the alien). For fans of traditional stealth/horror games, the gameplay of Alien: Isolation will,I think, come as a pleasant surprise since it's not usual to see big budget games avoiding action, knowing that they will lose sales from the general public who are satisfied with noise and explosions. A brave decision by Creative Assembly and certainly worthy of praise. I have to admit that I didn't expect Alien: Isolation to have much more in common with Amnesia: The Dark Descent than it did with Dead Space either!

But before you run to the stores or hit "Add to Cart" on Steam, let me make it clear: the game ultimately fails to reach the levels of tension and fear that made thousands of players shit their pants playing Amnesia. It comes close at several points, particularly when the alien first appears, and Amanda's secondary antagonists, the androids controlled by the Apollo artificial intelligence system, prove wonderfully creepy with their cold robotic voices and the polite speech they use as they crush people's heads with their bare hands, it's just that the sci-fi setting means that Amnesia's sickeningly heavy atmosphere is missing. Otherwise the two games share several gameplay commonalities, namely the emphasis on exploration, collecting supplies and gaining access to initially locked areas of the wider map. The difference lies in the way each game chooses to solve the problems posed to the player: in Amnesia we had the solving of simple adventure-like puzzles, in Alien Isolation progress is achieved mainly through exploration and the acquisition of new gear.

The atmosphere though, especially if you're part of the generation of 80s kids who grew up with H.R. Giger's creations haunting their dreams, is amazing. The retro aesthetic of the Sevastopol space station is a faithful replica of the sets of the first Alien movie, the computer terminals are strongly reminiscent of the first home computers of our childhood, even the cartridge that appears when we save betrays Creative Assembly's love for the era and the movie it was inspired by as well as their great attention to detail. Even some graphic effects (which you can turn off if you don't like them) like film grain and chromatic aberration help to make the image we see look like it's straight out of an edited videotape. On top of that, it's worth mentioning that the sound is superb, with creepy sound effects and evocative music tracks used perfectly throughout the campaign. Equally impressive proved to be the developers' work on the purely technical side of the graphics and optimization: Alien: Isolation has great graphics and despite this it ran on the now quite old test system at a locked 60 fps, at a resolution of 1680×1050 and with all effects at their maximum level of detail! Creative Assembly's experience as a PC developer is clearly evident.

In the end, the only substantial negative I can attribute to Alien Isolation, and I'm honestly sad to have to mention it as a negative, is its long duration. You'll need at least 15 hours to complete the game, and the truth is that at a certain point the experience gets "watered down" due to repetition. Despite the developers' efforts to introduce new elements to the gameplay through the gradual provision of new tools and weapons, the environments start to repeat, the enemies no longer inspire the awe and fear of the early hours, and the final stages of the campaign will turn into a chore for most people rather than the tension-filled finale that an otherwise quality game deserves. So be it, nobody's perfect. I personally enjoyed most of my time with the game, I highly recommend it to fans of the movies and stealth/horror games in general and to those who would like to reward the company for providing a truly thoughtful PC release on every level. Hopefully the game will sell well and we'll see a sequel soon. It deserves it.

Alien: Isolation is available in Greece from Zegetron, which we thank for providing the review code.

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