This isn't going to be a review of Alien Isolation in the traditional sense for a few reasons. Firstly, I haven't played enough of the game to write a fair and decent review, and secondly, frankly I'm not sure I have much to say other reviews haven't. (In short, retro-future aesthetic is fantastic, game is terrifyingly scary, feels like the original movie, but is very hard and at times unfair). Instead, I want to talk about the game in relation to something that's often bothered me in video games, and that this game finally seems to get right.
I've had an issue with modern gaming for some time now. Not all modern games, but those that aim for that filmic realism, that really want us to make us feel like we're living a film and that the characters are real and breathing, and in short, that's because you straight up murder an awful lot of people in almost every game.
Now, this isn't me being concerned about video game violence. Defeating enemies is a natural part of both an adventure story and a challenging video game, but the issue I have is when a game is trying to make us believe in its world, gunning down two hundred faceless grunts every level begins to feel a little hard to accept. In a more fictionalised world setting, I find I don't mind it so much. For example, Assassin's Creed has some pretty strong gameplay elements and the world is clearly stylised, so it bothers me less than in, say, the Uncharted games where I'm supposed to feel the characters are living, breathing, real people, but that guard number one hundred and seventy six still thinks it's a good idea to attack me after seeing me kill one hundred and seventy five of his previous team mates, and he never stops or hesitates or acts in any way human.
In Alien Isolation, that seems to be changed. Obviously, your primary enemy in the game is the Alien (more on that in a few paragraphs), but its an early encounter with the human enemies that I found very impressive. The game takes place on an old, damaged space station in which the citizens have all begun to riot after an Alien (with a capital A) got on board and started killing people, one by one, as the aliens of that franchise are known to do. The game obviously owes a lot to Bioshock and Systemshock, with disturbing graffiti written on the walls, messages left behind implying the downfall of this place (although unlike in Bioshock, the space station was never a utopia) and small groups of survivors who will do anything to protect themselves. What's different is that these people are doing this out of fear, not some kind of crazy cult group or anything like that, and they behave like it.
Early on in the game, you stumble in to a room with another woman in it, trying frantically to open a door. She sees you, panics, and fires off two wild shots before running away to get help. You have a chance to hide before she returns, three others in toe. What makes this encounter interesting, however, is as you hide in the shadows, you listen to them talk, and these people aren't enemies out to kill you. They're civilians, terrified, and they argue about what best to do, and decide their only option is to kill you to stay safe. And as they patrol looking for you, there are no stereotypical taunts, no warnings, they just have tense, frightened conversations, even at one point when I was playing one went up to the only female in the group, to ask how she was doing in a friendly, concerned, older brother manner. And I realised, to these people, I was the bad guy. They were just as frightened as me as I had to avoid them.
I tried to sneak around them, cutting through a command room, but as I went to exit, I heard footsteps approaching. With nowhere to hide, I crouched by the door. At this point in the game, I had no weapons, only my trusty wrench, which I could attack with if forced. And as I saw a man walk through the door, he spotted me. But he didn't respond with the usual 'open fire' habit of an enemy in a game. Gun shaking in his hand, he yelled at me, asking hysterical questions and barking orders. Who was I, don't move, and so on. I knew at any moment he'd fire. I knew that he was innocent, really. The Alien had pushed him to this. But I had no choice in that moment. I struck out with my wrench, hitting him in the face before he could fire. He stumbled back and I beat him to death to save my own skin. And then I ran as the noise attracted the others.
And I heard the girl scream. And then she yelled out to me, about how I had killed her friend, and how she was going to make sure I paid for that. You could hear tears in her voice. I hadn't wanted to kill him, I had been caught out and couldn't sneak past, and now they were out for blood.
Eventually, I separated them all out by sneaking around and killed each one. But what made this encounter so memorable and so well crafted was that at no point did these people feel like random cannon fodder, and the situation I was forced in to was regrettable. I felt bad for killing them, I felt pushed to the edge of my survival skills, I felt this really was 'kill or be killed' between two groups where neither were at fault. This felt like a real encounter with real people that was horrifying and desperate.
I actually looked up online later and found out it is possible to bypass that bit without killing anybody, but I had messed up and had been left with no choice, adding more fluidity to the game. But it really stuck with me as a moment that felt like it could actually belong in a film, where the enemies felt real and every death and every fight felt meaningful.
This carries over to the Alien itself. In the game, there's only one, and it hunts you relentlessly. It's a terrifying creature that you can't kill and you can't stop. All you can do is run and hide. Again, encounters with the Alien feel meaningful. They're terrifying and it's not just a generic monster, it's a character, a horrifying presence that sends chills down your spine whenever it appears.
And that's what I find games lack when they try to be realistic. Encounters that mean something. When fights become generic it no longer means anything, and it no longer feels realistic or believable, even in a fictional setting. And it's why I've been turned off so many modern video games. Alien Isolation feels like it finally gets it right.
This design ethos feels like it spreads elsewhere in the game. Essentially, it feels they worked very hard to make the world feel very solid and believable. Everything is clunky and seventies sci-fi themed, but also has a very noticeable presence. Your flashlight can give you away, even the sound on your trusty motion tracker, a real life saver, can actually work against you and alert the Alien to your presence, everything is thought out to make this feel like sci-fi, but real sci-fi. You really could believe you're there.
Even if you're not you. Another interesting point with the 'solidity' of the world is the presence of your body in the game. This is a first person game, and you're playing Amanda Ripley, daughter of the heroine of the Alien franchise. You're a reasonably petite young woman, tough, certainly, a mechanic by trade, but no fighter. You see your body when you look down and your arms are a constant factor, never hidden away. I remember feeling a specific shocking feeling of a helplessness at one point when I used my melee attack against one of the rogue synthetics on the ship (another fantastic design idea; the company that runs the space station is so cheap they make non-human looking synthetics, and then market them as being easily identifiable to fight prejudice against androids, a brilliant little bit of lore building for the Alien franchise), and fully expecting it to be a case of 'how many melee hits does this thing take', instead it simply caught my wrist. And I saw Amanda's arm there, my arm, a dainty, skinny, feminine wrist overpowered by the huge masculine robotic grip of the android. I can't ever remember a game that made me suddenly feel so much like I was in another body (and indeed, I remember reading some fascinating experiences when people played this game with the Occulus Rift thanks to that presence).
Out of those who are interested, the android easily bent my arm out of the way and then thoroughly beat me, but I managed to break its grip and run away. But the point is that it was a really interesting gaming moment, to suddenly feel that you're in somebody else's body, and suddenly feel a physical helplessness like that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have pretty skinny arms too, and would also probably get overpowered by a killer robot, but I never expect it in a video game. I'm too often used to being the toned, muscled hero who can take down anything. And again, it made my character feel so much more real.
I'm not saying this is perfect for every game, by the way. It fits a horror game like a glove. Probably not so much an action game. But I found it fascinating and worth writing about.
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