I fully expected to review Mario & Luigi: Dream Team today, but I didn’t finish it in time because the final dungeon goes on for far too long. So as an emergency replacement topic, let’s talk about the weekly sale at Play-Asia!
Alien: Isolation is one of the best modern survival horror games I’ve played, both for its unrelenting tension and the way it brings classic survival horror gameplay into a modern game.
If you’re a survival horror fan and you haven’t played it yet, you really should. And if you’re a fan of the original Alien movie, this sale will especially appeal to you, because it’s the Nostromo Edition. The Nostromo Edition lets you play as Ripley, Dallas, or Parker and try to survive one of the key moments of the film.
Play-Asia only lists the Xbox One version as part of the weekly special, but a search shows that the PS3, PS4, and Steam versions are also available at discounted prices (sorry, Xbox 360 players), though the deal isn’t as good. The Nostromo Edition is difficult to find anywhere else.
For those of you who have already played it or don’t care, Alien: Isolation isn’t the only game on sale this week, just the one I can speak about the most.
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is a game I intend to play someday, though I have low expectations. I have yet to play the original Devil May Cry games, let alone the reboot. I’ll try Final Fantasy Type-0 HD eventually, but although the deal is tempting, I don’t have a PS4 or Xbox One yet to play it on. I already have Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, I’ve heard mixed things about Natural Doctrine, and while I may play the Tomb Raider reboot someday, I don’t have a PS4 to play the Definitive Edition on.
My vote on what to buy from this Play-Asia sale goes to Alien: Isolation, but share your thoughts on the rest of the weekly special items in the comments below.
It’s been a long time since I started playing Alien: Isolation. I liked it immediately, but a personal hiatus from horror caused a massive delay. Now, at last, I’ve beaten it… and I can say without hesitation that every survival horror fan should give Alien: Isolation a try.
For fans of the original Alien movie, Alien: Isolation is a tribute at its finest. Instead of feeling like fanservice or a successor in name only, it captures the tone and aesthetics of the film with startling attention to detail.
When it comes to survival horror, Alien: Isolation provides a modern spin on classic mechanics. Unlike modern survival horror games like Amnesia and Slender, you don’t play a helpless protagonist. You have weapons, and you can fight–but pick your fights wisely, because you’re far from a powerhouse and too much noise could attract the Alien’s attention. It brings back the fight-or-flight elements many horror games have lacked lately. Locked doors, backtracking (oh, it feels so good to return to an older area and see a locked door you now have the means to open), minor puzzles, and scattered notes to help tell Sevastopol Station’s story all revive the mechanics of classic survival horror without feeling dated.
And what Alien: Isolation accomplishes best of all is instilling a persistent sense of dread and tension. Maybe it isn’t the scariest game. Something like Amnesia (or Justine) might have it beat for brief moments of sheer terror. But if you want a game that will gnaw at you, leave you feeling anxious and unsafe, and torment you with quiet, unrelenting dread, Alien: Isolation is the one for you.
The Alien, the xenomorph itself, is the same sort of menacing presence from the original film. It can kill you in one hit, don’t even think about running from it, and its ability to travel through the space station’s vents means it can get around very quickly and pop up just about anywhere.
You’ll spend a lot of time hiding, sneaking, watching your motion tracker (but be careful the noise doesn’t attract it!), and possibly using distractions, but if you try the same trick too many times, the Alien will eventually catch on. Yeah, it’s smart. Just what you wanted to hear, right? Conventional weapons don’t work on it… molotov cocktails and the eventual flamethrower will make it back off, but only for a short period of time. Everything about the Alien is designed to make you feel vulnerable and paranoid.
I mentioned combat earlier, and that’s because the Alien isn’t your only enemy. Many other human survivors are hostile, and Sevastopol’s resident androids, the Working Joes, are out to politely kill you. They’re also deliberately in the Uncanny Valley.
A lot of the Joes’ dialogue falls somewhere between black humor and pure nightmare fuel. As they calmly say, “You are becoming hysterical” while throttling you or remind you of proper safety protocols while hunting you down, they remind me of the Taken’s bizarre lines in Alan Wake… but much more sinister. As I crawled into a vent and listened to the android outside tell me how patient he is, I was almost as tense as if the Alien was after me.
Almost. At least Working Joes can be killed, if not easily.
In addition to standard weapons, Alien: Isolation has a crafting system. I devoted most of my crafting resources to making medkits, molotov cocktails, and EMP mines, because my lack of stealth skills made it easier for me to risk taking damage than to try to use distractions. Still, the number of craftable items means you can approach different situations in a variety of ways.
So the gameplay is brilliant survival horror and the atmosphere is perfect… what about the story?
As a standalone experience, Alien: Isolation doesn’t have the strongest storytelling. You play as Amanda Ripley, who goes to Sevastopol Station after it obtains the Nostromo’s flight recorder. Her search for her mother is the game’s premise, but even that is overshadowed by the survival story. As a sequel to Alien, however, the story’s little touches and shout-outs make it more notable, but the plot still isn’t its strong point. None of the characters were particularly memorable aside from Amanda’s sheer will to survive, but all the same, it has some moments that resonated with me.
Click for spoiler
For example, I actually felt pretty sad when Samuels died.
Now, one of the biggest complaints about Alien: Isolation is that it drags on a bit. That, I have to agree with. Near the end, its plot twists started to feel less like plot twists and more like forced setbacks to make the game go on longer, which was a little aggravating. I don’t think it should have been much shorter, but a couple of the final chapters could probably have been cut to the game’s benefit.
Even so, this was a great experience and I’m happy I played it. It’s one of the most enjoyable survival horror games I’ve played in a while, and I’d love to see The Creative Assembly explore the genre further. If you’re a survival horror fan looking for a new game that lives up to the classics, I have no qualms about recommending Alien: Isolation.
Happy Halloween, everyone! Not only is today Halloween and the culmination of this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky, it also marks the end of my Pokemon giveaway and the last day before NaNoWriMo!
So fellow video game fans, what are you going to play today in honor of Halloween? Here’s my list…
Yep, at long last, I’ve finally started the original Fatal Frame. You know I love my survival horror games, and so far, Fatal Frame is no exception. I also love ghost stories, so it’s a perfect match, especially with all of the ghost stuff I’ve been talking about lately for my class.
I started Fatal Frame in honor of the Halloween season. What better time to try out a new survival horror game, right? And while we play, we can hope for localization news about Fatal Frame V…
I know what you’re thinking. Have I gone crazy or something? Batman: Arkham City is fun, but it’s no horror game. Heck, Scarecrow isn’t even in it!
Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you play Arkham City for the scares, although it does have some dark moments. Rather, if you’re like me and just played Arkham City within the last year, you haven’t gone to see Calendar Man on each of his special days yet!
Well, today’s one of them. I’m off to see what gruesome story Calendar Man has to tell me in honor of Halloween, and then I’ll be marking my calendar for the next holiday on his list (Thanksgiving?) so I can visit him then.
…I don’t actually mark my calendar. My memory is good enough to keep track of one day a month I have to fire up Arkham City.
Maybe this one’s a stretch. Bayonetta isn’t a horror game, and it doesn’t really have scary themes, either. But think of it this way–after candy, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns, what do people associate with Halloween? Witches! And what is Bayonetta? A witch!
Besides that, Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 just came out together for the Wii U, and they’ve been receiving stellar reviews. I couldn’t stand seeing all those 9/10, 10/10 reviews for a game sitting in my backlog (also known as the place video games go to die) anymore, and I started it up this morning!
So far, it’s a lot of fun. I’m a little uncomfortable with all the religious elements, and fighting angels and whatnot, but I’m willing to stick it out for the fun gameplay and give its crazy lore a chance. It’s not like it takes itself too seriously… and I can’t make a solid argument that it’s anti-Christian when it starts out talking about Umbran Witches and Lumen Sages and kinds of other fictional things.
Yes, again! I can’t praise Alien: Isolation enough, and not only because it’s terrifying. This is the kind of survival horror game we don’t see enough of these days. Even though my progress through it has been almost painfully slow, I’ve loved every minute of it so far.
Its structure, mechanics, atmosphere, and scares work masterfully, and I just wish I had more time to sit down and play it. Today looks like the perfect day to celebrate horror by scaring myself some more.
I fully expected to review Mario & Luigi: Dream Team today, but I didn’t finish it in time because the final dungeon goes on for far too long. So as an emergency replacement topic, let’s talk about the weekly sale at Play-Asia!
