Good morning one and all,
So.... As you all know I was at EGX London and got to play with Alien: Isolation
Firstly we had a long queue, It wasn't too bad as they had had a large number of consoles to play it on. Unfortunately we were playing on the Xbox One and not PC but I can live with this. During the queue we got given a lovely Alien: Isolation comic book, published by Dark Horse Comics, some other freebies, During the discussion I was told it was "Very Scary game" to which I replied, "Nothing could be as scary as having to sit through the shock of Colonial Marines" I don't think he was too impressed, He was one of the few people there from Sega but they deserved it
We were taken through and shown a video of it first of all, talked to about the game and told if we make it through the challenge then we can win a free T-shirt (I mention this due to what comes later) and at the end we were told to "Prepare to die a lot" which made perfect timing for my phone to go off in a quiet room. Nothing unusual but when your ringtone notification is this.. it makes sense why everyone was laughing.
http://picosong.com/9zEK/
This set the mood for the game and I was still chuckling as I went into the game room.
We Basically got a Tracker, a flamethrower with 2 shots only (and only scares the Xeno, not kills it) and if you look around enough some flares (which I found)
the airlock opens and you have to hide, STRAIGHT away, Xeno approach the end of the corridor which is a T shape. First time I went through I was standing there, looking at a Xeno which charged and decided my face was yummy...
DEAD...
Great, we go again and I sneak up to it. Xeno goes passed the corridor without noticing me and I go the other way, crawling and sneaking. I kept my tracker on and noticed he disappeared, did a quick 360 and he wasn't near me. Good... I moved ahead into a room and checked the tracker again.
Beep........................beep..........................beep..............beep........... beep.....beep...... beep.....beep beep *FUCK* *RUNS* beep beep beep beep *STAB* as an Alien tail slices right through my stomach from behind,
DEAD AGAIN
Okay, two attempts, two deaths, second time wasn't too bad, I actually made it somewhere.
So Attempt 3, I snuck around and he was moving some distance to my right on the tracker, then went in front and then popped out of a vent next to the box I was hiding behind.... SHIT... Flamethrower... wait no... thats the melee button... OPPS. wrong one as I sat there, I tried to batter a Xenomorph with a piece of piping... Do I need to tell you what happened next? that's right...
DEAD.
A couple more attempts and I get closer, on my Last attempt I did it. I snuck around.
Rather than going away from the Xeno, I stayed behind him, he once turned to come back the way and I hid, went passed him and followed him again, I got to the end.. Woohoo... Ten seconds away from completing it and getting a free T-shirt...
*Tap Tap Tap on my shoulder* Sorry, Time is up. I had near enough completed it but I had run out of time. No T-shirt for me.
So... Overview.
Graphics are surprisingly beautiful, Dark, horrifying, the light provided by the fires are amazing and the attention to detail is superb, it is truely like it was in Alien (the first movie)
The Xeno, C-A have spent so much time into this and I am glad they did, from the limited 10-15minutes I got I could tell it was random, each time it was different, he never ever jumped around or AI Cheated as far as I could make out. if you did truely get away from him you would get some peace.
Now if the AI is set to steer back to you once he gets further out. Possibly. I was only in a small space so who knows but the video below shows you can go sometime without seeing him.
You'll also 15.25 you'll see the amazing death. This is the level we played and the challenge, apparently someone did it in less than 45 Seconds, I am shocked by this tbh.
Watch the gameplay they posted it does really give you the feel of what it was like.
The only thing I think this game will suffer from is the repetitiveness of going over the same bit each time and dying a lot but this could be made better with more checkpoints.
This is definitely worth a watch.