Alien Isolation negative reviews

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matt
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Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by matt »

Neverending Nightmares is currently beating the Xbox One sku of Alien Isolation on metacritic. :)

I read the IGN review, and it seems like my fears of brutal difficulty and no pacing because it's so long were confirmed. :-/

Maybe this means people will buy Neverending Nightmares instead? :) Probably not. I'd be curious to get your thoughts on the game next week. I preordered it, so I'll probably do a developer video when I get through it although it sounds like a frustrating slog since I don't like challenging games... :-/ Hopefully there is a "very easy" mode.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

Oh man, that's too bad, sounds like a pass from me until a price drop. For a AAA title with a AAA price, I was only going to pick it up right away if it was the best thing since Alien vs Predator 2 (the old PC game).

From that review it definitely sounds like it would have been better as a shorter game. I was worried they'd be padding out the gameplay when they originally talked about the 15-20 hours. Hmmm, there's a lesson to be learned here. Now if only the general gaming populace would get on board and realize that hours does not always = value!
ranger_lennier
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by ranger_lennier »

At present, the reviews are quite mixed, with IGN's being the very low end of the scale. The Escapist gave it a 90/100, with Jim Sterling calling it, "one of my favorite horror games ever", and "terrifying in a near-perfect way".

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... ion-Review

I honestly have no idea whether I'd love it or hate it, but I want to try it at some point.
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

Yeah I just checked out the Rock Paper Shotgun review, whose opinion I generally respect, and he seems to love it also. Now I'm torn. Maybe I'll compromise and buy it the first time it goes on sale. I'm playing Wasteland 2 right now anyway, so that's going to be plenty of game for the forseeable future.
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matt
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by matt »

It probably works out to how well you deal with brutal difficulty. I preordered it, so I will play you and let you know my thoughts, but I think I'm going to be in the camp who gets frustrated, which will ruin the mood. :-/ I guess I'll find out when I get a chance to play! I usually game on the weekends, and this weekend is IndieCade, so we'll see how much time I get to log. Next week is Borderlands: The Pre-sequel and The Evil Within, and I suspect my wife will want to play non-stop Borderlands for the rest of the year. haha
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
ranger_lennier
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by ranger_lennier »

The IGN review noted that there were three difficulty settings available from the start, and that the game recommended playing on the hardest one. The reviewer highly recommended not doing this.

It seems like they had a difficult balance to strike trying to make the alien unpredictable without being unfair. Everyone seems to agree that the game can be unfair at times. But maybe it's not even possible to do both.
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matt
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by matt »

I'm not sure it's possible to make a fair and predictable enemy, which was one of my worries from the outset with the game. If you can't understand or predict what the enemy is doing, then you don't know how to improve your behavior to beat a particular section. Tweaking your behavior that got you 90% of the way there might not get you anywhere close if the alien randomly chooses another tactic or spawn location.

I'm going to pick up the game today, and I'll be playing on the easiest setting, but I suspect I'll still think it's unfair. hahah It also sounds like they could have been more generous with the checkpoints and have autosave, but I guess they wanted to keep it "old-school".
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
ranger_lennier
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by ranger_lennier »

I suppose we should be specific about what we mean by "unfair". We seemed to be implying that in a "fair" game, players could develop their skills to an extent that they would be successful 100% of the time. But obviously this definition wouldn't work for a multiplayer game. A human opponent can be unpredictable without being unfair. And in a way, this is how the developer has described the alien. It has a specific set of capabilities (sight, hearing, smell, some sort of AI), and it hunts you using them. It doesn't cheat, such as by magically knowing where you're at. Of course, that still means that you could not do anything "wrong", but still get caught.
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matt
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by matt »

Well, I think multiplayer game design is totally different than single player game design, and as such, multiplayer games play out differently. If you die in a multiplayer game, there is very little punishment. If you die in Alien: Isolation, you have to go back to the last save point, which can irritatingly be on the other side of a level load, and the level loads are sloooooooooowwww.

The fact that it punishes you severely for things that aren't your fault is what feels unfair. In multiplayer games, the punishment is not severe. Also, I would argue that it would be better if the Alien cheated, so it can do more interesting things. I'm not sure if it does or not, but if you are hiding in a locker, you might want to increase the probability that the Alien would walk by if it is nearby because that's scary.

I'm not sure if they do though. I am playing on easy, and mostly the Alien just wanders around randomly and I spend time looking at my motion tracker. It seems like they have some scripting for the Alien because he was hiding in the exact same spot that was basically a trap based on the design of the level. I'm not complaining, but I was just surprised.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
ranger_lennier
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Re: Alien Isolation negative reviews

Post by ranger_lennier »

Of course there are exceptions, like strategy games for more than two players, but you're right that multiplayer games usually keep you in the action. But I still think there's some tension between a desire for enemy AI to behave with human-like intelligence and the desire for enemies to never kill you unless you make a mistake. I'm just going by the developer description, so perhaps they're overhyping their AI, but they definitely described the Alien as an intelligent, complex hunter.

Here's an interesting review, "‘Alien: Isolation’ Is Proof Great Games Don’t Have To Be Fun"

http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/2014/10/re ... to-be-fun/
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