Alien: Isolation is a First Person Survival Horror game that is now available on PC, 360, XBO, PS3, and PS4. This review is for the PS4 version of the game.

THE STORY

Alien: Isolation takes place inbetween Alien and Aliens. Specifically, the game is set 15 years after the first film. The star and player character of the game is Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Ellen Ripley from the movies. Amanda has been searching for her mother as much as she could by continually taking deep space assignments. At this point in time, Ellen Ripley is in stasis aboard a shuttle floating aimlessly through space after surviving the Alien incident on the Nostromo. At the start of the game, an android named Samuels brings her some good news, and a mission offer. He tells her that the Nostromo’s flight recorder had been found in deep space and if Ripley helps them recover it from the space station, Sevastopol, she may finally get the answers she has been searching for. Of course, it’s never that simple. Once she arrives on Sevastopol, Ripley’s number one priority quickly changes from finding answers to simply surviving the ordeal.

I thoroughly enjoyed Isolation‘s story as a whole. The plot itself was strong. I mean, it’s not a plot-driven game, but Alien movies/games aren’t supposed to be. It’s Ripley vs. Aliens on a space station. There are other elements to the plot, but that’s the core of it right there, and I like it. It’s strong, but simple. I was a little disappointed with the ending, but it didn’t spoil the rest of the game for me. The setting is just as strong. I don’t think an Alien movie has ever taken place on a space station. Maybe Resurrection? That’s the only one I haven’t seen. It didn’t sound that good to me, but I’ll probably watch it someday. Either way, a space station is a great choice for the setting of this game. It’s much creepier than a planet and is a much bigger location than a spaceship could have been. There’s lots more to explore and a lot more room to run. There weren’t a lot of interesting characters in the game, but I’m not too disappointed with that. The Alien movies for me have always been about Ripley vs. the Alien. Those are the two main characters and everyone else is basically Alien-fodder. I like Amanda Ripley, though I wish her character would have been developed a bit more. (Perhaps that could happen in a sequel or DLC?) She’s not a shallow character, but you don’t really get to see depth to her either. The androids always have an interesting supporting role and Samuels is no different. Is he more of an Ash (bad) or more of a Bishop (good) type of an android? I’ll let you find that out for yourself. After Ripley, Samuels, and the Alien; all of the other characters are pretty vanilla.

THE GAMEPLAY

While I really liked Isolation‘s story, I have mixed feelings about the gameplay. The gameplay is sort of an FPS, but there’s not much shooting. Ripley has several different weapons to choose from including the maintenance jack, a revolver, a shotgun, a bolt gun, and a stun baton. The most valuable weapon is probably the flamethrower, though. It’s your best defense if you are forced into a confrontation with the Alien. There are also quite a few tools that Ripley collects and uses to open up different areas of the station or to do certain tasks as part of the story. In addition to the weapons and tools, there are also items to be crafted that will help Ripley in different situations, such as to distract enemies. It’s definitely every bit a survival horror game, though. About half of the time in the game is spent hiding, sneaking, and running from enemies. I chose to run whenever I could, but that was just my personal choice. Speaking of enemies, the main and most lethal enemy is of course the Alien, but there are also evil androids and some bad humans as well. If you ask me, the androids are much creepier than the Alien, even if they’re not as deadly. They don’t masquerade as humans. They’re just robots in creepy human-like shells.

Some of my favorite parts of the game were spent exploring the station, hacking computers, collecting components for the crafting system, and finding collectibles. The collectibles in the game are IDs of lost residents of the station, personal logs on computers, and logs from the Nostromo crew. The computers are pretty easy to find, but the IDs are pretty tricky to locate at times. Of course, if the Alien is around, it’s really hard to collect anything. So return trips will probably be necessary. The thing about the gameplay that I probably enjoyed the most was the retro style of the game. The game is designed to look like it takes place with the same style and technology that the original Alien had, and they pulled this aspect of the game off perfectly. I re-watched Alien right before playing the game and it felt like a seamless transition.

The main part of the gameplay and the entire game that I did not enjoy was the animation of people, usually during cutscenes. The models themselves were great, but the animation whenever they talked was pretty bad. It was distracting and felt like something from a last-gen game. I’d almost prefer that they didn’t even move their mouths, than to see them move their mouths like that. It was also pretty laggy during cutscenes, which made things even worse. Luckily, most of the game is spent in first person, so the fairly poor cutscenes only pop up every once in a while during the game. If there was going to be a sequel, this is the main part of the game that I would work on.

In addition to the main story mode, there are also Survivor Challenges, and some DLC scenarios to play. The survivor challenges are basically maps from the main game with specific objectives for Ripley to accomplish. You can then compare your scores on the challenges to everyone else’s scores. I didn’t really get into these, but I’ve never really been one to enjoy challenge modes in games anyway. The two DLC scenarios out right now depend on where and when you got the game, though I imagine they’ll both be available for everyone to download eventually. The scenario that I got to play was the Crew Expendable mission. It’s a “what if” scenario starring several of the stars of Alien. You can play as Ellen Ripley, Dallas, or Parker. Ash and Lambert are supporting characters. I choose Ripley and was tasked with trying to trap and lure the Alien and save the ship. I liked it, even if it was a bit short.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The best way I can describe Alien: Isolation is to say that is an authentic part of the Alien franchise. They were true to the source material and created a game that fit right in with the Alien movies. That’s saying something. It’s really authentic in every way imaginable. They used sound effects and music and designs from Alien and that was the best decision they could have made. I especially appreciated the audio side of the game by playing the whole game with headphones on. If I was that immersed with just headphones on, I can’t imagine how it would feel to play this game with Morpheus/Oculus Rift on too! I’m sure it would be absolutely terrifying and awesome. So, to summarize: the story was really good, the gameplay was decent, and aside from a couple of near-rage quit moments, I had fun through the entire game. Well, I had fun, but I was also scared/anxious the entire time too!

THE RHODES RATING: 86/100