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Alien: Isolation is a survival horror game developed by Creative Assembly and based on the Alien science fiction horror film series. It was published by Sega and released for Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in October 2014. The game is set 15 years after the events of the 1979 Alien film and follows Amanda Ripley, daughter of Alien protagonist Ellen Ripley, as she investigates the disappearance of her mother.
Unlike previous game adaptations of the Alien franchise, Alien: Isolation places an emphasis on stealth and survival horror gameplay, requiring the player to avoid and outsmart a single alien creature with tools such as a motion tracker and flamethrower. It was designed to more resemble the original Alien film than the more action-oriented 1986 sequel Aliens, and features a similar lo-fi, 1970s vision of what the future would look like. The game runs on an engine built from scratch to accommodate technical aspects such as atmospheric and lighting effects and the alien's behaviour. Creative Assembly intended to make Alien: Isolation a third-person game, but used first-person to create a more intense experience.
Alien: Isolation received generally positive reviews and had sold over two million copies by May 2015. Critics praised the game's retro-futuristic art direction, sound design, and the alien's artificial intelligence, but criticised its story, characters, and long runtime. The game won several year-end awards, including Best Audio at the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards and Audio Achievement at the 2015 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. Several downloadable content packs were also released (source of information from top: Wikipedia).
In the game, 15 years after the disappearance of the Weyland-Yutani owned spacecraft Nostromo, Amanda Ripley (daughter of space-explorer Ellen Ripley who was on the Nostromo) is sent to the space station Sevastopol to search for a flight-recorder to understand what happened to her mother. While investigating, Amanda and others discover that at least one deadly alien/Xenomorph is lurking on Sevastopol, requiring everyone to scramble for survival and gather what they can (while the corrupt "Company" --- Weyland-Yutani --- does everything possible to simply contain and keep the Xenomorph for scientific inquiry and labelling all the human space-explorers as simply 'expendable'). The game-player can use perspective-shifts, motion-trackers, and of course flame-throwers and guns to track, chase, evade, and destroy any Xenomorph he/she encounters on Sevastopol.
The graphics for the game are very professional and realistic, and the motion and gameplay is relatively smooth and continuous. While some of the features (as some critics have noted) are tedious and long-winded, there is nice atmospheric/storytelling context for the game-player to really get involved in the whole dark-side Alien sci-fi/horror-film franchise 'survivalism-metaphysics.'
I compare Alien: Isolation to other survival-consciousness themed iconic action-adventure video-games such as Contra, Mortal Kombat X, Metroid, and Gears of War, and I give it a solid 5/5 stars (since it nicely captures our modern interest in both visual-graphics and relentless action/suspense!).
Given the intricacies of graphics and gameplay intrinsic to the 'atmospherics' of Alien: Isolation, I'd recommend shoppers seek the Alien: Isolation version for the Xbox (since Xbox best captures our love of graphics-gameplay balancing).
It seems video-games parallel our modern fascination with crazy fantasy...
Alien: Isolation (Xbox One) --- Amazon.com
====
A Xenomorph (or 'alien') from the Alien franchise is a large insectisoid-dragon like creature with corrosive acid for saliva/blood, incredible agility and speed, and ravenous claws and jaws. It is a creature of pure terror and malice and must be either avoided or destroyed (at all costs) if it's not being caged/contained for scientific experimentation (which itself is arguably foolish).
Human space-explorers unlucky enough to have to engage with such a creature must do everything possible to survive, evade, and kill these Xenomorphs. Many have tried, and many have failed. Even Ellen Ripley had to perform Messianic-heroism to deal with the Xenomorph species, and other valiant space-explorers (e.g., Daniels, Hicks, Lambert, Holloway) have done what they could to ensure that Xenomorphs simply do not exterminate the entire human species altogether...
A number of fictional scientists from the Alien franchise have done many things (some questionable/unethical) to analyse the evolutionary logic and biological mechanics of the Xenomorph species --- how they survive, procreate, gestate, and of course, consume. The Xenomorphs will survive at all costs and are sometimes even dangerous to kill, so game-players of Alien: Isolation are conscious of the 'brooding atmospherics' inherent to the Alien franchise.
A number of symbolic/iconic features of the Alien franchise are included in Alien: Isolation, perhaps because the game was released soon after the Alien franchise received a serious reboot from original film-maker Ridley Scott after he begun making his prequel films, including the 2012 film Prometheus (starring Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender).
The various eerie planets the human-space explorers investigate in the Alien franchise are equally ripe and volatile for Xenomorph fertilization and Xenomorph hunting-games. We get the feeling that survival is a key 'face' of humanity, and this is pronounced certainly in Alien: Isolation which is arguably the most realistic and cinema-respective of all the Alien franchise video-games.
A motion-tracker will help the game-player detect the presence of any deadly Xenomorph before having to encounter it and kill it. Keep in mind that your timing of detection must be wisely-correlated to anticipation of encounters, lest you look at the darn thing right before it leaps on you and kills you!
A Xenomorph is equally eerie and ravenous, so you really get the sense that survival is a primal and honest 'sense' of the human experience. That's what makes Alien video-games so visceral, and Alien: Isolation is the most 'intelligent'...
As you encounter a Xenomorph, you better be sure your reflexes, will to fire, and gun-control are well-coordinated so your first response to such an encounter is "KILL, KILL, KILL!" Heck, video-games are supposed to engage our sense of self-control anyway(!).
A scene from Alien: Isolation may require you to avoid both a conflagration/fire as well as a lurking hideous Xenomorph. This game will sharpen your reflexes and sci-fi imagination as well. If you're a fan of the Alien franchise, or even if you're simply a fan of combat, you'll appreciate Alien: Isolation for all its glory and gore.
A good parent will want to supervise their kids' gameplay, in case your youngster is sensitive about graphic action, horror-storytelling, and monsters in general! Once you get the hang of this exciting game, Alien: Isolation will surely become your ultimate sci-fi Christmas video-game gift-purchase (before it simply becomes...'classic').
ENJOY!
====
Unlike previous game adaptations of the Alien franchise, Alien: Isolation places an emphasis on stealth and survival horror gameplay, requiring the player to avoid and outsmart a single alien creature with tools such as a motion tracker and flamethrower. It was designed to more resemble the original Alien film than the more action-oriented 1986 sequel Aliens, and features a similar lo-fi, 1970s vision of what the future would look like. The game runs on an engine built from scratch to accommodate technical aspects such as atmospheric and lighting effects and the alien's behaviour. Creative Assembly intended to make Alien: Isolation a third-person game, but used first-person to create a more intense experience.
Alien: Isolation received generally positive reviews and had sold over two million copies by May 2015. Critics praised the game's retro-futuristic art direction, sound design, and the alien's artificial intelligence, but criticised its story, characters, and long runtime. The game won several year-end awards, including Best Audio at the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards and Audio Achievement at the 2015 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. Several downloadable content packs were also released (source of information from top: Wikipedia).
In the game, 15 years after the disappearance of the Weyland-Yutani owned spacecraft Nostromo, Amanda Ripley (daughter of space-explorer Ellen Ripley who was on the Nostromo) is sent to the space station Sevastopol to search for a flight-recorder to understand what happened to her mother. While investigating, Amanda and others discover that at least one deadly alien/Xenomorph is lurking on Sevastopol, requiring everyone to scramble for survival and gather what they can (while the corrupt "Company" --- Weyland-Yutani --- does everything possible to simply contain and keep the Xenomorph for scientific inquiry and labelling all the human space-explorers as simply 'expendable'). The game-player can use perspective-shifts, motion-trackers, and of course flame-throwers and guns to track, chase, evade, and destroy any Xenomorph he/she encounters on Sevastopol.
The graphics for the game are very professional and realistic, and the motion and gameplay is relatively smooth and continuous. While some of the features (as some critics have noted) are tedious and long-winded, there is nice atmospheric/storytelling context for the game-player to really get involved in the whole dark-side Alien sci-fi/horror-film franchise 'survivalism-metaphysics.'
I compare Alien: Isolation to other survival-consciousness themed iconic action-adventure video-games such as Contra, Mortal Kombat X, Metroid, and Gears of War, and I give it a solid 5/5 stars (since it nicely captures our modern interest in both visual-graphics and relentless action/suspense!).
Given the intricacies of graphics and gameplay intrinsic to the 'atmospherics' of Alien: Isolation, I'd recommend shoppers seek the Alien: Isolation version for the Xbox (since Xbox best captures our love of graphics-gameplay balancing).
It seems video-games parallel our modern fascination with crazy fantasy...
Alien: Isolation (Xbox One) --- Amazon.com
====
A Xenomorph (or 'alien') from the Alien franchise is a large insectisoid-dragon like creature with corrosive acid for saliva/blood, incredible agility and speed, and ravenous claws and jaws. It is a creature of pure terror and malice and must be either avoided or destroyed (at all costs) if it's not being caged/contained for scientific experimentation (which itself is arguably foolish).
Human space-explorers unlucky enough to have to engage with such a creature must do everything possible to survive, evade, and kill these Xenomorphs. Many have tried, and many have failed. Even Ellen Ripley had to perform Messianic-heroism to deal with the Xenomorph species, and other valiant space-explorers (e.g., Daniels, Hicks, Lambert, Holloway) have done what they could to ensure that Xenomorphs simply do not exterminate the entire human species altogether...
A number of fictional scientists from the Alien franchise have done many things (some questionable/unethical) to analyse the evolutionary logic and biological mechanics of the Xenomorph species --- how they survive, procreate, gestate, and of course, consume. The Xenomorphs will survive at all costs and are sometimes even dangerous to kill, so game-players of Alien: Isolation are conscious of the 'brooding atmospherics' inherent to the Alien franchise.
A number of symbolic/iconic features of the Alien franchise are included in Alien: Isolation, perhaps because the game was released soon after the Alien franchise received a serious reboot from original film-maker Ridley Scott after he begun making his prequel films, including the 2012 film Prometheus (starring Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender).
The various eerie planets the human-space explorers investigate in the Alien franchise are equally ripe and volatile for Xenomorph fertilization and Xenomorph hunting-games. We get the feeling that survival is a key 'face' of humanity, and this is pronounced certainly in Alien: Isolation which is arguably the most realistic and cinema-respective of all the Alien franchise video-games.
A motion-tracker will help the game-player detect the presence of any deadly Xenomorph before having to encounter it and kill it. Keep in mind that your timing of detection must be wisely-correlated to anticipation of encounters, lest you look at the darn thing right before it leaps on you and kills you!
A Xenomorph is equally eerie and ravenous, so you really get the sense that survival is a primal and honest 'sense' of the human experience. That's what makes Alien video-games so visceral, and Alien: Isolation is the most 'intelligent'...
As you encounter a Xenomorph, you better be sure your reflexes, will to fire, and gun-control are well-coordinated so your first response to such an encounter is "KILL, KILL, KILL!" Heck, video-games are supposed to engage our sense of self-control anyway(!).
A scene from Alien: Isolation may require you to avoid both a conflagration/fire as well as a lurking hideous Xenomorph. This game will sharpen your reflexes and sci-fi imagination as well. If you're a fan of the Alien franchise, or even if you're simply a fan of combat, you'll appreciate Alien: Isolation for all its glory and gore.
A good parent will want to supervise their kids' gameplay, in case your youngster is sensitive about graphic action, horror-storytelling, and monsters in general! Once you get the hang of this exciting game, Alien: Isolation will surely become your ultimate sci-fi Christmas video-game gift-purchase (before it simply becomes...'classic').
ENJOY!
====
