Ok, so now that I'm rested and relaxed I can give a bit more of an indepth breakdown. We livestreamed till about 9 in the morning, at which point I went to sleep (my friends had since crashed out). I'll probably livestream next time I play as well, under the same channels, because doing so was a lot of fun.
I used 3 PCs to do my live streaming. My primary PC, the one running the game itself, was using the rift as the only connected display to try and help reduce judder as much as possible. This PC was running OBS to broadcast its monitor feed to twitch on one account. Because I didn't want to further stress the machine, I used a steam machine from Dev Days to run a webcam and mic stream to the second twitch channel. Finally, for the benefit of other people in the room, who couldn't see my rift output even if I had another monitor connected, we had a third PC hooked up to the television, streaming back the twitch feed to our TV.
The game itself is kind of bipolar so far. The first 4 or 5 hours -- which took us about 7 hours to do because we got stuck for an hour twice -- are a real trudge. Lots of exposition, slow dialog, boring non-alien enemies. Anything that isn't an alien in this game kinda blows, using stealth around them is dull and feels unrewarded. These segments are also much more scripted and thus lacks a lot of tension. It feels like you're kind of just blundering about until you can figure out the correct combination of moves to make to get through them. And it this section keeps going for so long.
I guess, in a way, they're trying to emulate the pacing of the original movie, which had a very slow build up in the beginning (you don't see the alien in the film for the entire first hour), but it doesn't work as well in a video game.
The second half of the game (thus far for us) is, however, thrilling. Being hunted by the alien is an exhilarating experience. This portion of the game feels unlike any game I've played, especially with VR. The game itself is built with a huge focus on controlling your display, rather than combat. If you look at the controls for the game, a surprising attention is given to the ways you can lean and peak, giving you much finer control over your vision than you'd normally expect. Obviously, this translates wonderfully to VR, where you have the ultimate control of your view.
That makes this game a perfect candidate to demonstrate the ways in which virtual reality can greatly expand and improve a gameplay experience. So much of the gameplay around the alien involves hiding and watching the alien from far away. The general structure of the game is that it drops you into large maps periodically, and tasks you with an objective, usually getting from one side to the other (and sometimes back) with often nothing but the single alien in the area hunting you. These segments are essentially challenge levels, as there are usually very sparse save points in each segments (maybe 1 if you are lucky, frequently none at all). This recalls a very oldschool sort of mindset, which I expect many reviewers couldn't gel with. As a retro gamer myself, however, I adore this setup, especially when the gameplay feels this good and rewarding.
The alien hunts you relentlessly in these segments, and unlike non-alien enemies, the alien feels very random. He doesn't patrol set paths, and thus you find yourself watching him for long periods of time until a window of opportunity opens. The AI for the alien is really fun to mess with in my experience. He's inquisitive, and will go around the area you're in looking in doors or exploring nooks and crannies. Even when hiding, your motion is tracked and this gives you the ability to look out at angles of slits to watch the alien.
The alien is pretty much unstoppable and giving yourself away is pretty much instant death. You can give yourself away in realistically any way you can imagine. Within the context of VR, that takes on added dimensions. When you are hiding in a locker, for example, you can move your head to look around the slits at angles. But, just like in real life, if you move your head too much, you can actually bang it on the door, which creates a noise for the alien to hear. The nature of the alien naturally inspecting locker doors leads to some incredibly tense situations. Hiding in a locker, as the alien sniffs the vents, you find youself frozen in terror, concentrating on not moving an inch in real life because you don't want to tap the locker and give yourself away.
Given the terrific graphics, which approach a degree of photorealism compared to the sets and alien of the films themselves, these situations, when they all come together, form a very powerful experience. I haven't ever felt so enthralled or invested in the safety of my character. The lack of save points in individual levels provides a tangible punishment for losing beyond the way your heart begins to race and palms sweat - losing means also losing 20 or so minutes of your time.
I expected to be horrified out of my mind, and at times the game can be that way, but it's more about being on the edge of your seat, feet cold, with an intense sense of dread about you for hours on end. This is compounded by the audio, which is terrific and dynamic. As the alien approaches and you slowly get figured out, the music dynamically approaches crescendo, building terror. The audio, with a good pair of headphones, also lets you further track the alien, as it uses stereo to great effect. The alien walks like someone who is stepping too hard on the top floor of an apartment. You can hear his weight in each step as it lumbers around the ship, giving you context into where it is. Sometimes, it'll climb into vents too, and you can hear scratching moving from above you. This is pretty much nightmare fuel, especially when you're standing still, hiding, after having lost sight of the alien and you can hear it approach.
This actually becomes physically exhausting after a long period of time. We had originally intended to livestream the entire game in one sitting, but we all eventually felt we needed a break, for our bodies. This has felt like a very new, very different kind of gameplay experience, and easily one of the very best things you can experience in VR.
Aside from the very slow, pretty dull opening, the game has been terrific. As I understand it, near the end, it becomes more like the opening again and that sounds like it'll be a shame. Because being hunted by the alien is one of the freshest, most rewarding experiences I've felt in a long time. I'd say, thus far, I'm agreeing with a lot of the 8/10 scores - the problems are in pacing, definitely not mechanics. Honestly, going forward, I don't think I'd ever want to play this game without VR - I feel VR makes this a pretty transformative experience.
