Recent reviews by >f7> KorbenD

One of the most addictive and fun games I've played in years. Although there isn't a huge variety in mission types, the changing weapons, environments, and enemies keeps things fresh.

The game itself is quite fun, with gameplay more than a little reminiscent of Left 4 Dead. That is, when it works.

First off, there's a launcher. There's no good reason for a game to have a launcher. Steam is the launcher. Put the settings into the game.

Once you launch it, there are four intro screens that you can thankfully skip, but one at a time. Then there's an animation that you can skip by holding space. Used to be press Esc, but now it's holding space. Then you get a title screen asking you to press space to start the game. I wanted to start the game when I clicked PLAY.

Then you can select a player and load the game. Loading times are terrible, even when the game is installed on a fast SSD. While it's improved some, after launch disconnects and cryptic error messages were rampant. The only major bug left is a doozy though. About 1/4 of the time, the game will crash to desktop immediately after loading a level. Then you have to go through the entire process of getting into the game again. Run the launcher, click play, space, space, space, space, hold space, space, select character, wait for the long loading time, rinse and repeat.

The game would be great if it would simply work consistently.

Update after several patches:
Game is far more stable, and I can't remember the last time I've had a crash. Story seems to be getting filled out a little more also.

It still uses a launcher and requires far too much interaction to actually get to the game, but other wise it works well.

Get Stella instead.

This emulator is incredibly picky about the controllers it recognizes. It won't work with the Legacy Engineering Atari joysticks or the recently released Atari VCS joystick. It does work with XBox controllers after some configuration, but that's about it that I could find.

Stella works without changing a single setting, and supports many more 2600 games.

Worthy sequel to Borderlands 2, though it doesn't have the same must-have DLC that its predecessor had.

Still great 2+ years on.

There have been a large number of games based on the Alien franchise over the years.

Atari 2600 (actually a better version of Pac Man than Atari's official one)
Three versions of Aliens for the C64 and other PCs of the '80s, with only the Activision release having any real success.
Several Alien 3 games, and also several Aliens vs. Predator releases.

But back in 1984, Argus released Alien for the C64. It wasn't a platformer. It wasn't a first person shooter (which hadn't even been invented at the time). It wasn't even a puzzle game really. What it managed to do, with the most rudimentary graphics, interface, and sound, was be scary.

In the game you chose various members of the Nostromo crew and had to search the ship to either kill the alien without damaging the ship too much, blast it out the airlock, or if there are 3 or fewer crewmembers remaining, set the autodestruct, catch the cat and escape on the shuttle. Of course the alien is moving from room to room as well, and encountering it opened an animated screen showing the monster with loud sound effects.

I've played basically every game based on the franchise, and the only one that ever got the tone of Alien was that little C64 game. The rest of the games took their cues from Aliens and made the creatures easily killable cannon fodder. The games might have been exciting and less fun than they should have been, but the developers seemed to think the subject matter was enough to work. "Let's take a mediocre shooter and put aliens and predators in it!" None of the games have been scary.

Until now.

Alien: Isolation had a lot of hype before its release. So did Aliens: Colonial Marines, and we know how that one turned out. Like ACM, AI had some great preview videos. It had people who had played the demo raving about it. But there was still the expectation from a lot of people that when the final game came out, it would fall on its face like ACM did.

It didn't.

Alien: Isolation is by far the best single player game I've played in years. The story is well thought out and meshes well with the film. It basically ends up being a 12-18 hour long horror movie. However, I don't think that everything with Alien in the name requires a character named Ripley. They could have easily written this with any generic new character and lost almost nothing except a small emotional part nearing the end.

The graphics engine is well optimized for its setting, with the gloomy corridors, harsh single point lighting, smoke and fire well represented. The flamethrower effect is probably the best I've seen in any game. It also runs well on fairly low end video cards, but keep in mind DirectX 11 is the minimum supported. On the two cards I tried (GeForce GTX 680 and 980 at 1920x1080 144hz vsync on) there were no instances of stuttering or slowdown that I could see. The art direction followed the design of Alien slavishly and it works. Like the set of the Nostromo, the interiors of Sevestapol station look functional, lived-in, and real.

Load times were good, with levels changing in about 5-7 seconds. The save system may drive some people nuts, but the relative rarity of the save points, coupled with the fact that it takes several seconds to save with you being vulnerable the whole time, adds even more tension to the game.

The alien itself. It's BIG. Like really big. I'm not sure how they did it, but in a lot of games it's hard to get a sense of scale when you see something in the game environment, but they absolutely nailed it. It's about 8-9 feet tall in the game, which is fairly close to the height of the original actor in the suit. Bolaji Badejo was 7'2", and the head of the costume added another foot. It's also smart. If you move something, bump into things, open doors, it will notice. If you keep hiding in an area, it will start to examine the area more closely. If you hide in lockers a lot, it will start checking them.

Lockers.

You will see a lot of the inside of lockers.

The human and android AI isn't quite as good, with some glitches, but nothing game breaking. If someone shoots at you, hide. Not just from the person shooting, but what that sound inevitably attacts . . .

Now, sound. The sound design on this game is nothing short of amazing. I'm not sure if there are awards for sound design and editing in games, but if there is the team on this game deserve every one of them. The creaks and groans of the damaged space station are incredibly immersive. The movement of the alien through the vents and its footsteps when it's walking around are suitably creepy. It also has a number of vocalizations that can clue you in on its mood. The muted sounds in space owe a debt to Gravity. Basically, if nothing is touching your suit, you don't hear it. The other sounds, sirens, klaxons, doors, keyboards, welder, etc. are all spot on. This game absolutely screams for a 5.1 or 7.1 system.

Very highly recommended.