The opening of Alien Isolation immedietly teleported me into deep space with its over the top cenimatics and personal quest that felt like an initmate journey into the depths of horror.
Everything felt like a hazard, the treacherous NPCs, the synthetics at my throat, and the envimorment that's always falling apart.
I truy felt stranded and isolated from all safety ...thrown into a world of chaos and machine supermacy and always...always on the brink of extermination...
The game demonstrated great skill in the design of both alien & Human technology.
The use of cyberlights and smoke delivered me to this floating life boat (desperate & lost in space) that made me wonder when will this slow suffocation end?....is this how astronauts actually feel like ...up there?
Not to mention the amazing level of detail of cyber garbage and the many handles, buttons, levers, and terminals one has to interface with in space.
The flashing alarms and the defeaning noise easily engulfed me into distress and were a constant reminder of my impending doom...always trapped in explosions and inescapable panic!
The game delivers one of most terrifying experience (if not the most terrifying) just for having to face the facehugger that made me jump at every slimy noise or cracking sound ....I caught myself circling myself the nest in orbit imagining its being dispensed out of the vases and turning around suddently ...ready with my flamethrower to incenrate the creature into a crisp. Everytime it found its way on my face truly felt like it was actually on mine as it brought instant/abrupt demise. Only knowing the possiblity of its presence in the same room made me want to lobotomize myself just to lose that thought.
The design of the Xenomorph is fawless for they created the most cunning, agile, indestructable creature found in a video game. Such a powerful being that has no problem exisitng in vaccum is expected to reign supreme in this part of the galaxy. I always was fleeing at the sligtest sight of his shadow or sound ..I don't think I was more careful in a game to dodge his fluids just to avoid his soul-devastating appearance ....in fact only to escape the sound of his dreaful screaming that pulled on my heart denying me air. The motion detector only nutured my terror until I wished I could remain hiding forever ...lost and forgotten to any soul.
As for our doomed protaginist, I was she was rewarded with a better ending after all her countless struggles - it was perfectly realistic to tell the truth yet disappointing neverthless.
I was struck by her lovely nature when she was touched by 'Samuels' facrifice even though he is a machine and by her relentless endevours to save 'Ricardo' ...also a sythetic.
I was convinced Amanda was indeed an engineer for her ingenuity and her excessive use of mechanical tools. The voice acting and responses of both humans & machines were very realistic and spot on.
The music and the sound effects were woven into the game with great finesse too.
It is an underrated timeless game that delivers a very real and long experince of pure alien terror with an ending that stayed with me for days.