Alien: Isolation – Hands On Preview

 

Many folks got to grapple with a Xenomorph recently at the Birmingham NEC where the Indie, PC and new gen console event EGX Rezzed took place. The creature in question belonged to current licensee holders SEGA and British developers Creative Assembly (Fun fact: they also made the excellent Stunt Car Racer and Shadow of the Beast in 1989). The Xenomorph thankfully existed in the virtual and frightening world of Alien: Isolation. A title that suggests and delivers (for the most part) the type of ride you’d expect.

Alien: Isolation was certainly a popular game for the show predominantly as this being the public’s first look and playthrough of the new title. Thankfully as this wasn’t SEGA’s first rodeo they knew it would be a draw for the event and were kind enough to put on lots of kit to allow all the franchise’s fans to play, albeit after a hefty wait. During that waiting time I got chatting with a couple of the helpers who tried to reassure me that this isn’t Colonial Marines, and who seemed quite happy to hear that I hoped it wasn’t, then elaborated on the games style and premise to support what I was about to play.

Alien: Isolation is a singleplayer narrative with heavy stealth, scavenging and story elements. It’s not for the gung-ho/have-a-go Hudson’s of Cameron’s Aliens; it’s for those who like the cat and mouse style of Ridley Scott’s original Alien. To be clear (from the demo at least) you’ve no Phase-Plasma Pulse Rifles (or independently targeting particle beam phalanx for that matter), it just you trying to escape a monster. I must clarify on a point as I say “cat and mouse” this cat in this analogy is more of a Bengal tiger than your average tabby …and its 7-feet tall …and has two mouths.

Three flavours were available for showing: Xbox One, PlayStation4 and the PC. Regrettably I didn’t get to check out the new gen console versions of the game due to the mighty queue, but the pay off for that wait was 30-minutes of interrupted game time with the PC version.

Very little of the story is given away in the gameplay but from what was on show you play Amanda Ripley (daughter of chief film protagonist Ellen) and for reasons not explained you find yourself dumped on a space station and instructed to escape. As you navigate through the poorly lit interior you encounter scenes of gore – such as disembowelled crew members or a ripped in half synthetic (sorry, they prefer the term “artificial human”). Hatches have been welded and tables and chairs have been piled to create barricades against doors to stop something. To paraphrase a quote, it didn’t make much difference. Thankfully (sadistically?) that something doesn’t take long to show its phallic mug. It’s an Alien naturally (or Xenomorph if you prefer). Just one, but it’s a big one. Being a bit of a franchise fan (yes, I even like Alien3) it appears to be a beefier version of a drone and true to historical close encounters it doesn’t like you.

At points (thankfully after a checkpoint has been reached) it roams the halls looking to cause you grief (i.e. kill you in horrible ways) – and it does! Noise, light, really anything attracts it so you have to be vewwy, vewwy qwiet. This often and frequently led me a cropper. You see, I’m not much of a stealth person, sure I’ve played a lot of Thief and Metal Gear, but the atmosphere was so well created that at times I didn’t even move for fear of attracting this eyeless monster. When I did pluck up the courage to move frequently it was on me. I even, so I thought, managed to hide in a locker for 10 seconds quietly only to have the beast rip the door off and eat my brains. Speaking with other players afterward, they found the experience to be particularly “hardcore” and “unforgiving” but acknowledged that the game is still months away from launch and perhaps playing in your own home at your own pace and having time to learn to work with the controls is certainly key.

Speaking of controls the game makes use of quite a lot of keys to allow you to navigate the world. As well as basic movement you also have the ability to peek which (in hindsight realising) may be the most useful function to use as holding the button not only allows you to peak left and right, but also over counters and objects. When in this peaking stance and positioned correctly you are almost invisible to the marauding beast (almost).

The main tool at your disposal and you’ll be using most is a motion tracker (an excellent idea created for the film Aliens). For those not familiar it gives you top-down two dimensional radar of all movement. For the game, it’s been tweaked to give you a more accurate 130 degrees forward arc and sectors for sides and behind that allows you a much better reading of your surroundings (which was missing from the cinematic version). See a white circle or hear a ‘ping’ on the device and you have some company.

When you do, you have to quickly familiarise yourself with your surrounds and make like Anne Frank and hide quickly! The tracker also has provides you with a waypoint and objective markers which I relied on immensely to navigate the often pitch black environment. A nice little touch is that when using the tracker, your eyes look at the device in the corner of your screen so the rest of the characters view goes out of focus. You can also shift focus (while still holding the device) back to the environment which gives a truly great sense of immersion (which really should be applauded).

 

Another item at your disposal is a torch which is again an essential piece of equipment in the dark recesses of the space station. Because lighting is such a key feature of the game some rooms you’ll find that the torch doesn’t work well (the light can be too dispersed), so you have the ability to focus the beam into a smaller spot. This trade off of seeing everything close or to focus on one specific area is again another nice technical touch. ‘Faffing’ around with tools does add to the drama as you fumble around to turn your torch off and peak at the same time.

While talking technical stuff, the graphical point of view of the game is stunning. The environments are detailed, lived in and dirty thanks to some super high textures and bump mapping. It’s so striking in fact that you could, like in the film, believe the alien could easily be hiding behind a bunch of pipes on the wall – if you were unwary enough. As mentioned lighting sets the scene and atmosphere perfectly. Yellow warning lights spin casting shadows across old CRT-esq computer screens – which in turn produce that green eerie terminal hue. Electrical panels on the station also shower sparks and that trademark smoke fills the air.

What the game didn’t show and I suspect we’ll see more of towards launch, are that the controls allude to more than just stealth. You also have the ability to ‘shoot’ and ‘melee’. Could this mean we’ll encounter aggressive humans/androids, facehuggers or smaller aliens perhaps? Although heavily touted but absent (or I just missed it) were the crafting and scavenging aspects. You do find a plasma cutter which opens up new paths to how this can be upgraded or combined with other tools wasn’t clear. Perhaps it will work the same way as the most recent Tomb Raider game in which once ‘levelled up’ you can go back to locations already visited and explorer further.

 

Music is atmospheric (to match the tone); however I got more of a sense of James Horner’s Aliens inspiration than Jerry Goldsmith’s original Alien score. Bumps, thumps and crashes are designed to make you jump and build tension.

Overall I have to say the demo at EGX Rezzed is a good introduction to Alien: Isolation. It was tense to play but alas not that scary, to me, and very reminiscent (in a good way) to Red Barrels night vision survival horror Outlast in its experience. How replayable the full release will be or if the game can hold this pace across 5-6 hours (I assume) I don’t know. Maybe the premise and story will mostly draw people in as this era of the Alien franchise that’s untapped and has potential.

…mostly.

Alien: Isolation will be released on Windows PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on October 7th.