25 years. It took a good quarter of a century to finally be entitled to a title whose aim is to pay homage to a masterpiece that marked the history of cinema, namely Alien: The Eighth Passenger. For The Creative Assembly, there is no question of adding a new ball to the long list of daubic video games stamped Alien. You have to be up to it, stick to this original myth. This is why Alien Isolation ignores the sequels to stall 15 years after the first feature film in the chronological frieze; Amanda Ripley (daughter of) still has no news either of her mother or of the Nostromo, who disappeared body and belongings. Until the day the Company tells him that the ship's black box has been found and brought back to a commercial space station called Sevastopol. We will avoid being too specific so as not to spoil the pleasure, especially since you will be able to search to find out more about the scenario, but Ripley Junior will very quickly find herself alone in the heart of what seems to be a gigantic shell. empty. With, as a bonus, the joy of being hunted down by one of the most deadly organisms in history, mysteriously released in a Sevastopol that serves as a sheepfold...
RIDLEY SCOTT APPROVED ?
Undeniably, the choice of the background of Alien Isolation is most relevant. While taking advantage of a kind of chronological vacuum to have a free hand, The Creative Assembly manages to stay very close in time to the Eighth Passenger. question of authenticity. And at this level, we can't really complain. By extrapolating from the Nostromo visuals, film sets, sketches, photos and all the material made available by Fox, the studio has created a Sevastopol that is ultra-coherent with the science fiction universe developed by Ridley. Scott in 1979. And that goes first through a high-level artistic direction, which seizes on this particular aesthetic (pale light, contrast between the dark metallic corridors and the dazzling white of the living areas, play on shadows) and succeeds to make it a fabulous setting for more than twenty hours of play. as in Dead Space, in the more or less propagandistic posters displayed on the wall. In the same way, we discover post-its demanding the repair of the air conditioning system inside certain lockers.Clearly, Alien Isolation's music lives up to its template.
But beyond the visual side, Alien Isolation has also been able to appropriate much of what makes the salt of the very first film in the saga, namely its atmosphere, heavy, even oppressive. We told you about the shadow games a little higher, but it's all the lighting of the game that is to be highlighted. Not only does it help maintain this bond of filiation, but it is also the key to the flippe. Darkness is obviously a mainstay, but so is light: artificial and pale or flashing and anxiety-provoking, it is not always (not often even) a source of comfort... Ditto for the music: based on the original recordings of the film, well-kept in the Fox archives for more than twenty years, it seems not to consist of clear and sharp stretches, corresponding to such a place or such a moment of the game, but rather of a long line symphony that will adapt to the situations you will face, even if it means becoming almost inaudible at times. Clearly, the music of Alien Isolation lives up to its template and it is, as in the great titles of the genre, one of the main vectors of your angst.BUTTOCKS THAT MAKE BRAVO
Ah yes, because it's time to specify it, Alien Isolation glues the rags. But something good eh, viscerally, especially in its first third. Obviously, don't go sticking to it at three o'clock in the afternoon at Tata Hortense with the whole family around and the sun streaming through the window. Launch the game at night, with headphones on and it will immediately be much better. The choice of the first person camera is of course a determining choice to raise the pressure. The deliberately irregular rhythm of the soft and its general atmosphere also follow this idea. We will again quote the first Dead Space, but it is a rather prestigious ancestor so let's go cheerfully: Creative Assembly's game leaves you simmering, what's more in your own juice. It leaves it to you to guess shadows where there are none (necessarily), the sound design and the lighting take care of the rest. The noises in the vents, Amanda's breathing... But, for us, what makes Alien Isolation a nerve-wracking experience is above all the fact of making the player so inferior to the beast that is tracking him down. Creative Assembly's Xenomorph is once again the deadly menace of 1979, it's everywhere and nowhere: if it finds you, it's screwed. Don't try to escape, he runs faster than you. And that's where the fear comes from, the realization of his terrible vulnerability. INTELLIGENT ORGANISM
Most of the game (again, we prefer to remain vague) is therefore to make your way through a Sevastopol in ruins, and therefore to escape from particularly hairy stalking situations with the creature on the heels. Ripley's main ally? Mom's detector, its characteristic beep-beep and at the same time so disturbing. It allows you to locate the Alien in a radius fairly close to you, at least as long as it is moving a minimum, as long as you hold your gadget out and nothing disturbs its display... Apart from that , you can tinker with some distraction tools (noisemaker, smoke bomb) thanks to a fairly simple crafting system, but their usefulness will be limited against the creature and the aiming/throwing system was a bit broken at the time of our test. We preferred to do without it in most cases. No, reliability, so to speak, is the hideout. Under a desk, in a locker or closet, or in a ventilation duct. Alien Isolation is a game of patience, you will have to take the time to survive. If it would probably be a bit too much to say that the Xenos has no movement pattern, we can however declare that it is very random and sometimes ultra-surprising. It is not uncommon to see the beast pull itself into a pipe only to come back just as dry to pick you up if you had the pretension of sticking a head out!Alien Isolation is a game of patience, you will have to take the time to survive.
So you're going to have to watch. Long, but not too long either. Waiting for the right opportunity to get out, change hiding places, progress towards your goal. To detect a regularity in his behavior, in his cries. And if you get caught, understand why and how. Because you're going to get caught, that's for sure, the mechanics of "Die and Retry" are indeed present in the gameplay of Alien Isolation. But the save points are quite regular and a bit like in this dear Dark Souls, death here is a step rich in lessons. You will thus discover what is authorized for you in terms of noise and movement, at such and such a distance from the animal. You will discover for example that if he comes to inspect twice a closet in which you are, the second will be fatal. And I'm going to stop there because it would be a bit of a business nicker to continue to shell out the situations. Just know that no place, no animation, no script will keep you safe for long. And that is really great in terms of intensity. The problem arises when the Alien's highly sophisticated AI becomes patchy; when he does not see you immediately from 3 meters away but targets you from more than 10 meters behind glass; when, in two identical situations (namely hidden under a desk), he will only catch you once... It's a minority of cases, but they weigh down the experience a bit.UNFINISHED BUSINESS
And it is generally by its technical finish that the game of SEGA fishes elsewhere. Without reaching heights or bursting retinas, Alien Isolation surprises with its visual cleanliness: no nasty aliasing, no yucky clipping, and it remains accessible to all PC configs, probably because of the PS4 and Xbox One versions. The rendering of particles, dust, lighting and even the fleet is particularly appreciable. Quite uneven on the texture side (some are sometimes amazing, however), the software disappoints when it comes to the artificial intelligence of the NPCs, the management of their movements and the non-existent lip sync. Same observation on the collision side, especially for the Xenomorph whose model is quite colossal: it is not uncommon to see its multi-mouthed mouth protrude through a locker or to see it struggling in the most confined places. We quoted you a little earlier the completely WTF jet system, but this could be extended to the precision of aiming in general, since you will have to be exactly in the axis of an object to be able to use it, at least risk of having a hard time opening a locker door at a crucial moment... Here again, a detail but Ripley makes a MONSTER mess by hiding in a closet, no matter the situation! It hurts the immersion a little, just like the fact that the Alien doesn't give a damn about androids gabbling in its path. Pity.
