Alien Isolation is my GOTY hands down - Don't Listen to IGN

I take issue with those critics who regurgitate the first half was good second half dragged on criticism, at least with having now played it myself. In my opinion it wasn't that it was repetitive it was just that the horror element looses it's charm with time, that happens in many games though, but I still found the game to be fun regardless. And it's not as if the game was still not scary through and through, you gotta work for that. I myself do it right, playing late at night, alone, not distractions, headphones a must. It'll still remain a tense and thrilling horror experience to the end if you do it right.

The first half of the game the player is almost entirely powerless with little to fight back with, either to defend against the alien or to take out hostile droids, while in the second half there's much more at your disposal to not only fight hostile droids and humans, fend off the alien, but also new tools to backtrack into previous areas to explore new areas you couldn't get into before, maybe uncovering new logs or tags or materials and whatnot. I really enjoyed the space walk moments in the game as well, really gives an impression about the massive scale of the space station, and the playthrough section of exploring the derelict ship was a nice touch.

I was pleasantly surprised to have discovered the hive and it goes a long way in forgiving the game feeling cheap for having the monster always on your heals to discover that there's numerous aliens on the ship all along. There were some challenging sections which were frustrating to have to play through again and again until you get past them, figure out a strategy, find save stations, etc. But, I'm a gamer. Live, die, repeat. That's what we do. In some ways this also works as a strength with exploration. You can continue onward to get to that next save point like a wussy or you can say "hey, I wanna check out that room I didn't get into back there", where upon you may risk losing progress to go for those extras, but that adds thrill.

Also, I'm sure a great degree of my satisfaction comes from my excitement that a satisfying, good Alien game has finally arrived after many many years. They did an excellent job in the art design of the game making it feel like it belongs in the universe. There's so much little details that make this game so great in its design, helping add to that authenticity. The audio for it is great as well, playing with headphones makes for an even more thrilling and immersive experience. I also got it for $30 and value plays into the satisfaction.

My only disappointment playing it was the Nostromo Edition DLC, I feel less inclined to want to get any DLC for it now.

@lamprey263: You're legit, bro. There's been far too many haters of the game lately on SW.

Its not my type of game I prefer Evil Within

If the game looked that impressive you wouldn't have resorted to using 2 non-ingame cutscene shots in your original post.

Thanks. And yeah, there's been a lot of bashing of many great games on here, but it is system wars. It wouldn't be such a fun, stimulating, and sometimes amusing place to come to if we weren't so passionate about our views and almost to a fault.

And I forgot to add but I was thinking about how I've read critics that criticize Alien Isolation for backtracking. What I find kind of interesting about this criticism is look at a game like Metroid, where backtracking is a key element of the game design, and some people bemoaned how the game Metroid: Other M locked out backtracking at certain sections of the game. Backtracking is one of the games celebrated and key features. It's just not a double standard I find interesting, it's that the Alien film ended up being a source of inspiration for the Metroid game's creator (Yoshio Sakamoto), a game series which itself had backtracking as a key feature and now here's an Alien game sporting backtracking, it's all come full circle.

It's pretty good... I'm only around halfway through, but i've been enjoying it... Definitely not GotY material.

I don't think Alien is the best looking game ever technically and could probably be done similarly to PC max setings fine on the PS4 if they put a bit more effort into the port, but the game still looks amazing

As bad as it sounds to admit it, this game is one of those that makes it pretty clear if I should take someone seriously or not.

Talk shit about Alien Isolation? You can GTFO of my face.

I'm not 12 years old so shit like gore or spooky settings are not, by themselves, gonna make me uneasy. The way you do REAL survival horror is to create tension, and Alien Isolation and Zombi U created tension up the ass. Funny enough those two games got a lot of shit and some pretty negative reviews. Goes to show how much mainstream gaming knows about horror....

The **** are you talking about Alien Isolation is gorgeous. The environment detail and general look is a goddamn work of art.

Good thing you don't review games this is an average game at best.

Name 10 better survival horror games post PS2 era

Played it for a bit and I was very impressed by the atmosphere. It's on my to do list after I'm done with Dragon Age.

@ferret-gamer said:

@Pray_to_me said:

@SuddenlyTragic said:

@Pray_to_me: Well the version I'm playing couldn't be achieved on any console, whether it be 360 or PS4. See it in motion in 1080p, 60fps, and maxed out settings then you'd be hard-pressed to find a console game that looks better. Please name five console games that look better, I'd love to know because I've pretty much played every worthwhile next-gen title out there and haven't seen anything that looks this good.

If the game looked that impressive you wouldn't have resorted to using 2 non-ingame cutscene shots in your original post.

I don't think Alien is the best looking game ever technically and could probably be done similarly to PC max setings fine on the PS4 if they put a bit more effort into the port, but the game still looks amazing

It's just not that impressive.

I will likely rent it

Unfortunately survival horror is normally mediocre in this era.

Exactly. I tend to play a lot of my PC games on my TV (I have it connected to both a monitor and TV via a long HDMI cable), but this was one I had to use the monitor for. It really adds to the immersion sitting a couple feet away from the monitor so you have virtually nothing else within your line of sight besides what's on screen. That, plus as you said, headphones. And all the lights out. This game nailed it with the atmosphere and playing it in this manner completely kicks it up to another level.

Only reason I restricted it to post-PS2 generations was to avoid sacred cows. No matter how badly some of the cult classics aged, there is no point in arguing against them once they reach near criticism-free status.

Potentially good game ruined by the lack of a decent save system.

Survival horror is barely alive. The genre is really disappointing now and alien is the epitome of mediocrity

From what I've seen the game absolutely nails it in the audio and visual design.

It may not have the best technical graphics, but it sure makes up on that with a fantastic art style.

"Don't Listen to IGN"

That's the best thing I ever did. If I did listen to IGN I would buy COD every year and miss out on all the interesting shooters.