Alien not Aliens: Why Isolation is the right move

TechRaptor - Last year I played through Aliens: Colonial Marines. Like many out there I hated the game; as a shooter it was unrefined and boring, as an Aliens game it was awful. It felt like it was made by a team who had never watched the James Cameron classic and who had no understanding of the Alien universe. This was made even more upsetting due to the expectations created by misleading pre-release footage, and the developer constantly professing a love and respect for the franchise.

[giovonni]

Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.... In the case of Aliens I can't help but be fooled because the last great Aliens game was on Atari jaguar. That's was like 96? Damn!!!

[Ser]

AVP2 on PC was pretty awesome back in the day.

[NeXXXuS]

The aliens game for Sega Genesis still freaks me out...

[0ut1awed]

It's sad that Colonial Marines was a flop. That is really the only thing I wanted to see in a game from the franchise. It was always my favorite part of AVP and AVP 2 on the PC back in the day.

Not to mention Aliens with the colonial marines is by far the best one.

That said this game looks like it will capture the essence of the original Alien pretty well via that type of gameplay.

[TekoIie]

This is looking to be the most promising use of the property in a LONG time :)

[Blacklash93]

It kind of puzzles me how all the attempts at properly adapting Aliens entirely misinterpreted what the movie was about.

Aliens was about desperation, survival, and escape just as much as the original film was. The only big difference being that there were more Xenomorphs and humans for them to kill. They were always in control until the characters decided to flip the "**** it" switch and blow the place up.

Heck, most everything since the main films forgot that the Xenomorphs are actually supposed to be intelligent and powerful predators, not tactless fodder.

[toxic-inferno]

And that's why this game looks like it could POSSIBLY be the game changer the franchise needs.

Honestly, first time I watched Alien, my first words afterwards were "We need a game of this". As soon as I finished watching it, I could imagine a game where you were stuck aboard a ship or station being hunted by a single Alien, with no way to kill it. And finally, it feels like that is becoming a possibility!

[curtis92]

I hope people realize Gearbox has NOTHING to do with this. It's the same franchise but that's about the ONLY similarities it will have to A:CM.

[moujahed]

Sega just needs to team up with Santa Monica Studios or some other company to actually make their games worth it.

[Concertoine]

I hope they have puzzles or audio logs or something to immerse the player and keep them thinking.
So this looks fairly linear, (maybe more like bioshock or dead space kind of nonlinearity) but what if it was like metroidvania style and you had to find your way off the ship yourself (you dont have some guy interrupting you constantly to tell you what to do), and the alien AI hunted you down dynamically while you progressed.
also this is really off topic but if youre a fan of this, check out this game, its very reminiscent of 70's-80's sci fi horror:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[TheFutureIsBlue]

=o Yeah that Routine game looks awesome! Can't believe I haven't heard anything about it until now.

[Concertoine]

look up the mechanics of the game, that's where it gets even more interesting. there's permadeath and it's all about seeing how much you can uncover and explore before dying.
i wish more people knew about it D:

[Amigaengine]

that looks amazing

[TheFutureIsBlue]

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

All they have to do is watch this movie and copy that into a game...please be good! The reason why people hope for a good Alien/Aliens game is because the movies were SO DANG GOOD! Alien and Aliens are great and are easily in the top 5 when it comes to scifi movies for me.

[moujahed]

Yea but much like how the author of this article tried to point out... It will be hard pressed to convert a suspenseful movie experience that is all about running and survival to gamers who just love killing things. If they take notes from Silent Hill or a puzzler then it may work better

[TheFutureIsBlue]

http://www.gamespot.com/vid...

This is good to go by. Maybe the items won't become weapons, but you will have to use them for puzzles.

[Dfooster]

Intrigued by this title but I would really like to know how the formula we know about in the brief gameplay videos released thus far will translate over the course of a full game. Repetition and linearity are my major concerns so far.

On the plus side they appear to have nailed the atmosphere of the alien movie, I just hope when it comes to playing the full game that there's a little bit more to it than what we know other than moving from one area to the next with the only goal being to avoid the alien and flip a few switches.

It will be interesting to see how the developer can come up with ways to mix things up with the gameplay and how they handle the pacing.

Personally I hope they take stock of the first hour of the alien movie and implement some of that. Like the relationship between the crew members, and how the alien got onboard the ship and bring some of those parts into Amanda's story without it being a direct retread of the alien story.

Introducing some action elements into proceedings wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea either, as long as it's done well and the viciousness of the lone alien doesn't feel out of place with any action parts. Maybe a run in with a couple of facehuggers could be the answer as they are still a major threat in the aliens movie but previously in games have just served as an easily dispatched appetiser for the main enemy, but here they could be something that can be taken down but could be a real challenge which would only heighten how god damn powerful the alien proper is that's hunting you?