The Low-Fi Sci-Fi Of Alien: Isolation

Been following this game for a while, really hoping that they can deliver the experience they're pitching.
 
Sweet Jesus! I am not a horror genre player but that game just screams "Play with all lights in the house on!" and I want to play it. I know, I know it only looks good until it releases but I think just the lore from the series would draw me in. I'll keep an eye out for it as it gets closer and will wait until reviews, but I like it so far.
 
You wouldn't think it would be hard to make a good game on this franchise, but they've proved that wrong many times. I'll just go ahead and expect nothing from this and whatever I get will be gravy.
 
I'm sure anyone who grew up (or was around) in the 80's will love the angle they are taking. Will their younger players even recognize the older technology? That will be an interesting dynamic to see!
 
Hopefully this redeems the franchise. Oddly, one of the best Aliens game I enjoyed was the old Doom (Doom 2?) mod.

If they screw this one up - Game over, man. Game over. Hail HYDRA!
 
There will never be a good Alien(s) game

Let me break it down to the concrete truth of this, there is almost no action in Alien movies, unless you count the POS that was the last few, but Alien, Aliens and Alien 3? Almost no action

What these movies do is SUSPENSE, they build, and build, and build for a hour, and then BOOM, QUICK action sequence, just to start building again

Lets look at Aliens for example shall we?

The planet gets colonized, the aliens get found, Ripley gets found, they lose contact with the facility, they send her in with marines as an export, they explore what they can of the facility, they find newt, they talk about what happend, how many people etc, then they find all the locators, and they send in the marines to go look, and then the first action sequence happens.

It took an hour and fourteen minutes of building, and building, and building, to get the FIRST action sequence, which is over in six, repeat, SIX minutes.

We are now at an hour and twenty minutes in, then they get back into the building because they come out at night, then they spend 35 minutes to think up a plan to get the dropship , there is a tiny brief action sequence with Ripley and the face hugger, and the gun scene, neither taking up more than 4 minutes of time together.

Then comes the big action sequence of the film at a hour and fifty five minutes in, they make a run for it, lose newt, Ripley goes in, saves her, meets the queen, blows up the eggs, gets chased by the queen, gets back to the drop ship, escapes back to the mother ship, bishop gets torn in half, she fights the queen in the mech loader and wins, action sequence over at a total of 35 minutes, ending two hours and thirty minutes in. The film wraps up in a minute and a half, and the movie is now over.

So out of 152 minutes, we got 45 minutes of action.

This is the problem, because today's gamers? They only remember the ACTION part of the Alien movies, they don't remember the talking, the suspense and world building, getting into the mindset of the characters etc. So when companies make a game off the Aliens franchise, what do they do?

Appeal to the lowest common denominator, fill it with action, action, action, when the Alien movies, even Aliens, was all about building suspense, the 35 minute battle at the end of Aliens wasn't them attacking, it was them RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES!

When they took on the aliens head on, they were alien chow, they had to escape, run, flee, and this is what the games get wrong, they make the aliens just cheap cannon fodder, easy to gun down, no threat etc.

If this alien game is going to capture ANY of the tone of the movies in the new game, two series I would deeply, and I mean DEEPLY recommend the producers look at, is the Metro series, and more importantly, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, a game where you can sometimes go HOURS without fighting anything, a game that builds incredible suspense, that immerses you in the world, that makes you feel frightened and alone, that every single sound that happens causes you to be on high alert in order to stay alive

This is my hope anyways, and if not, well, I can always play Stalker Pripyat for a 9th time
 
I'll probably wait for a sale, but, I intend to buy the game at some point.
 
If this alien game is going to capture ANY of the tone of the movies in the new game, two series I would deeply, and I mean DEEPLY recommend the producers look at, is the Metro series, and more importantly, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, a game where you can sometimes go HOURS without fighting anything, a game that builds incredible suspense, that immerses you in the world, that makes you feel frightened and alone, that every single sound that happens causes you to be on high alert in order to stay alive

I thought that's what this game was to do. One alien stalking the player. A lot of suspense and stuff.

The action was cool, but it was the build up that made the action scary. It built up. You knew shit was coming, but you didn't know when or where. A lot of close calls. You're right - the thing with the Alien movies (old ones) was the suspense and build up. You don't see a lot of those slow, suspenseful style movies in the sci-fi genre lately. They put that fear into your mind, so that it brews. It plays mind games with that fear. To the point where you do hear that sound behind you and are startled. Plain action movies can startle you with loud sounds and sudden action things. Aliens (and some other movies) make you startled with small sounds because you fear what they bring. :) Fuck, I hope they make a great game. Surround sound, Oculus Rift... Expected shit pants. I would love to see someone make an 'Alien' like game like that. VR, Surround sound, slow and terrifying. Half the game you are hiding and surviving. Even with a weapon, you couldn't win...
 
That video basically shows another Doom3 flashlight debate
 
Depends how they do the action in the game. If its a few 4-5 Aliens and nothing but build up then yes it could be good. If they just throw a couple 100 of them in a small ship then w/e game will be another one in the budget bin.
 
I thought that's what this game was to do. One alien stalking the player. A lot of suspense and stuff.

The action was cool, but it was the build up that made the action scary. It built up. You knew shit was coming, but you didn't know when or where. A lot of close calls. You're right - the thing with the Alien movies (old ones) was the suspense and build up. You don't see a lot of those slow, suspenseful style movies in the sci-fi genre lately. They put that fear into your mind, so that it brews. It plays mind games with that fear. To the point where you do hear that sound behind you and are startled. Plain action movies can startle you with loud sounds and sudden action things. Aliens (and some other movies) make you startled with small sounds because you fear what they bring. :) Fuck, I hope they make a great game. Surround sound, Oculus Rift... Expected shit pants. I would love to see someone make an 'Alien' like game like that. VR, Surround sound, slow and terrifying. Half the game you are hiding and surviving. Even with a weapon, you couldn't win...

To get really good suspense you have to look outside of sci-fi horror which isn't really very good at suspending disbelief anyway since it's usually absurdly high-techie and unrealistic. It's also pretty old (and I was waaay to young to see it when I watched it on DVD) was the Blair Witch Project. That movie was hugely scary and full of suspense and some pretty good acting too. I won't spoil the ending, but it was a lot of fun to watch in the dark (well fun the second time I saw it when I was older). I've never seen the Aliens movies though since they're pretty ancient history so I don't really know how good they are, but they do seem sort of goofy unrealistic horror and that would probably spoil a lot of it.
 
I've never seen the Aliens movies though since they're pretty ancient history so I don't really know how good they are, but they do seem sort of goofy unrealistic horror and that would probably spoil a lot of it.

Ancient history? Man, making me feel old here. Well, you may or may not like the original Alien and Aliens, I can't say. But 'goofy'? Wow, you couldn't be more wrong on that count.

Do yourself a favor sometime: Pop in a BluRay of Alien and watch it at night, by yourself, on the biggest TV you can and with a decent sound system. If that doesn't give you some "really good suspense", I don't know what will. Then go ahead and watch Aliens. One of the best action/sci-fi movies ever made, IMHO. And exactly for the reasons that ShamisOMally gave earlier. It's the great world-building, the great characters, the suspense. . . When the action does hit, it hits hard. Also, it's one of the most quotable movies ever. These are both landmark movies and anyone interested in sci-fi horror should see them at least once. Then go back and see the 'Director's Cuts'. :)
 
Ancient history? Man, making me feel old here. Well, you may or may not like the original Alien and Aliens, I can't say. But 'goofy'? Wow, you couldn't be more wrong on that

CreepyUncleGoogle trolls every thread. He is best ignored. He knows damn well what the Alien movies are... unless he's 13, which actually makes sense.
 
I've actually never seen them, like most stuff that is on VHS tapes or 8 tracks or whatever else used to exist in the olden days. I'll try to find a copy but I don't have a BluRay player or a screen bigger than 14.1 inches at home. Seriously though, the movie came out in 1986 :eek: which is 28 years ago....28 years! That's before most of the people on Earth that are alive right now were actually born! That is one really old movie.
 
There will never be a good Alien(s) game

Let me break it down to the concrete truth of this, there is almost no action in Alien movies, unless you count the POS that was the last few, but Alien, Aliens and Alien 3? Almost no action

What these movies do is SUSPENSE, they build, and build, and build for a hour, and then BOOM, QUICK action sequence, just to start building again

Lets look at Aliens for example shall we?

The planet gets colonized, the aliens get found, Ripley gets found, they lose contact with the facility, they send her in with marines as an export, they explore what they can of the facility, they find newt, they talk about what happend, how many people etc, then they find all the locators, and they send in the marines to go look, and then the first action sequence happens.

It took an hour and fourteen minutes of building, and building, and building, to get the FIRST action sequence, which is over in six, repeat, SIX minutes.

We are now at an hour and twenty minutes in, then they get back into the building because they come out at night, then they spend 35 minutes to think up a plan to get the dropship , there is a tiny brief action sequence with Ripley and the face hugger, and the gun scene, neither taking up more than 4 minutes of time together.

Then comes the big action sequence of the film at a hour and fifty five minutes in, they make a run for it, lose newt, Ripley goes in, saves her, meets the queen, blows up the eggs, gets chased by the queen, gets back to the drop ship, escapes back to the mother ship, bishop gets torn in half, she fights the queen in the mech loader and wins, action sequence over at a total of 35 minutes, ending two hours and thirty minutes in. The film wraps up in a minute and a half, and the movie is now over.

So out of 152 minutes, we got 45 minutes of action.

This is the problem, because today's gamers? They only remember the ACTION part of the Alien movies, they don't remember the talking, the suspense and world building, getting into the mindset of the characters etc. So when companies make a game off the Aliens franchise, what do they do?

Appeal to the lowest common denominator, fill it with action, action, action, when the Alien movies, even Aliens, was all about building suspense, the 35 minute battle at the end of Aliens wasn't them attacking, it was them RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES!

When they took on the aliens head on, they were alien chow, they had to escape, run, flee, and this is what the games get wrong, they make the aliens just cheap cannon fodder, easy to gun down, no threat etc.

If this alien game is going to capture ANY of the tone of the movies in the new game, two series I would deeply, and I mean DEEPLY recommend the producers look at, is the Metro series, and more importantly, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, a game where you can sometimes go HOURS without fighting anything, a game that builds incredible suspense, that immerses you in the world, that makes you feel frightened and alone, that every single sound that happens causes you to be on high alert in order to stay alive

This is my hope anyways, and if not, well, I can always play Stalker Pripyat for a 9th time

The main thing that sets this Alien game apart from the others is that it's not focusing on "action" it's not focusing on the second film, rather it is strongly focused on the first Alien film, which was by far the most suspensful one of the series and wasn't really an "Action" movie at all.

The game is not about the Marines, it's not about going in and fighting aliens. It's you playing Ripley's daughter and being hunted by a single Alien (like the first film).

It looks from the videos to play a lot more like say, Amnesia, which is why I am excited for it.

Now if they'd just get the Oculus out in time and the game would support it.
 
To get really good suspense you have to look outside of sci-fi horror which isn't really very good at suspending disbelief anyway since it's usually absurdly high-techie and unrealistic. It's also pretty old (and I was waaay to young to see it when I watched it on DVD) was the Blair Witch Project. That movie was hugely scary and full of suspense and some pretty good acting too. I won't spoil the ending, but it was a lot of fun to watch in the dark (well fun the second time I saw it when I was older). I've never seen the Aliens movies though since they're pretty ancient history so I don't really know how good they are, but they do seem sort of goofy unrealistic horror and that would probably spoil a lot of it.

Biggest troll ever. I thought Blair Witch Project was a comedy. Nothing scary about it, nor was the acting any good.
 
Biggest troll ever. I thought Blair Witch Project was a comedy. Nothing scary about it, nor was the acting any good.

Blair Witch was a very scary movie. Maybe you watched one of the paradoies of it that are on the internet? Really though...when they were in the tent and there was all that noise outside or the part where they got the stationary camera out to film the creepy stuff in the trees...yikes the tension! They built it all up right until the end which is a lot more scary than seeing some unbelieveable yellow construction tonka truck construction robot fight a rubber puppet space creature with so many spikes you'd think it was a custom dildo.
 
At this point, I'd be thrilled to have a re-engined and re-textured AVP2 remake.
 
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