Fancy Clown
Member
Big fan of Alien and Aliens, kinda like Alien 3, hate everything that's come after...I don't know why I waited on this game, and I don't know why it's taken this long to make a game that captures the vibe of Alien so well.
I came in to the game expecting Outlast in space. Ya know, pants shitting first person horror in dark corridors where you have to run around and occasionally hide from things while you scrounge for batteries...I was not expecting to get Bioshock in space. Everything from the setting (giant fantastical city with social strife and audio logs) to the level progression seems heavily inspired by the game. Which I am okay with, because I actually like this game much better (but that's a topic for another day).
I mean, you still hide from things, and scrounge for stuff, but it really didn't feel like Outlast or Amnesia. For instance, it's almost never pitch black in this game. I think I replaced one battery in my lights the entire time. It's also not scary, apart from a couple jump scares, but it is very, very tense.
What I loved the most about this game (besides the absolutely perfect atmosphere), was how it managed to sustain a 17 hour game with very repetitive mechanics through the sheer craziness of its scenarios and pretty good pacing. It has a nice slow start to introduce you to the world and mechanics (and one horrible, horrible, sneaking encounter/tutorial against humans early on. by far the worst part of the game), and then it just throws you through the gauntlet. Chapter 10 might have been the highlight of the game, culminating in sneaking from the alien in a spinning space pod that has been ejected from the station as blue strobing lights flash and everything is off kilter.
That's where I thought the game would end...but it keeps going and continues to throw awesome and unexpected things at you from the terrifying working joe repair shop, to a nest filled to the brim with Aliens and facehuggers (I take it back, this was the highlight), and a bunch of other things.
The only chapter I outright disliked was 17, with that awful section where you have to continuously travel back and forth doing tedious tasks as the Alien besieges you, especially since by that point in the game I had very little flamethrower ammo.
The Alien itself could be a huge pain in the ass sometimes, seemingly randomly popping out or detecting you in lockers for no reason, but when it works, it really works, and provides about as an intense gameplay experience as you could hope for. I do think that hearing it tromping around absurdly loudly in the vents all the time took away from the tension though, as when it's up there you know you're safe for the most part. But I understand why they did it.
Sevastopol felt like the true hero of the game, as I exploring it and learning about its backstory and denizens more than Amanda's search for her mother. There was enough variety in the environments while still managed a singularly cohesive, oppressive aesthetic that was quite impressive.
I loved my time with this, apart from a couple frustrating encounters, and would absolutely buy a sequel (I'm really hoping it sold enough to warrant one) although at this point I'm not sure what more they can do as this kind of touched on everything I wanted out of an Alien game.