Horror strategy: review of the mobile version of Alien Isolation

Content

• Stability isolation (general information)
• Stealth – paradox (genre)
• Cameron is not canon (basis of the first film)
• Balance defect (difficulty levels)
• Ordinary stealth (gameplay, stealth – action elements)
• Attentive smog (game design)
• Tricky nuts (homemade devices)
• Immeasurably Blind (opponents)
• Printed telephone (elements of survival – horror)
• Fire of suspense (light as a resource)
• Souls – horror (horror elements)
• Dissonance of jambs (artificial intelligence)
• Immersive Bitterness (Metroidvania Elements)
• Retrofuturism windows (visual, animation)
• The millstone of the bestiary (plot, ENT, message, without unnecessary spoilers)
• Schematic preset (control)
• Five nights with a xenomorph (continuation and series)
• Gameplay novelization (comic and book)
• Shot checkpoint (conclusions)

Stability isolation (general information)

Stealth – action with elements of survival – horror and horror Alien: Isolation developed by Creative Assembly was released on 10/07/2014 on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. The game was later released for the Linux OS X operating system on the Nintendo Switch platform. The game reached Android and iOS on December 16, 2021. On Android, Alien: Isolation is available on Google Play. This product is not available on the Aurora Store or RuStore. Those who have problems with purchasing on Google Play will have to look for this work on you know what sites. If you have problems finding a working version of the game, write in the comments, I’ll tell you where it makes sense to look. I played the game on a Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S with an octa-core MediaTek Helio G95 processor, Mali-G76 MC4 GPU and 6GB RAM. It ran without lags, bugs or other problems.

Stealth – paradox (genre)

The paradox of Alien: Isolation is that it is an average-quality stealth-action game made in an expensive package with a good variety of mechanics, but at the same time it is a bad horror game. Although the positioning and marketing of the product were carried out precisely as works of the horror genre. But the game will more likely be of interest to the audience of Thief, Dishonored, Prey, Deus Ex than to fans of Soma, Amnesia or Outlast. And even the developers themselves, who for years before had only made strategies, had little understanding of what they were actually creating and how exactly it should work. However, they managed to make a good work that gives an original gaming experience. And by the way, the genre is currently spelled out more correctly on Wiki and Steam than in the game’s PR materials, but on Google Play it’s useless to read the genre.

Cameron is not canon (basis of the first film)

Alien: Isolation takes the universe back to the basics of the film directed by Ridley Scott. A revolver, a shotgun and explosives do not take an alien, and Molotov cocktails and a flamethrower only scare him away for a short time and make him even angrier, that is, they are more likely to irritate him than to pose a threat to him. Just one individual is enough to successfully establish a huge space city – a station for a new – bright home of xenomorphs. The Alien here is a superweapon that a large, successful megacorporation would benefit from owning. And the xenomorph species has a chance to survive, because even though each embryo requires a separate carrier, this creature is a dangerous predator that is difficult to oppose. Cameron’s aliens are doomed to rapid extinction because their cycle of existence is unsustainable.

Balance defect (difficulty levels)

Choosing the difficulty level in Alien: Isolation is important. At Minimum, Low and Medium, we have a clearly expressed stealth – action, where there are enough resources to eliminate all opponents in the location, and the presence of an indestructible Alien and the vulnerability of the protagonist require us to be careful and stealthy. At each new level, the developers tweak the AI ​​of opponents, increase the damage received, and reduce the number of resources produced. On Vysoka we have survival horror, the respawn of the Alien is tied to the protagonist and there are always not enough resources. On Impossible there are a minimum of resources, all markers and part of the HUD have been removed from the game. I consider Minimal the best choice for easy passage, and Medium for testing your skills. I completed the game on Impossible with pleasure, but the balance of difficulty on Hard and Impossible was broken.

Ordinary stealth (gameplay, stealth – action elements)

The stealth and action elements in the game are worked out tolerably, nothing more. And Alien: Isolation will not offer you the best in terms of gameplay; other aspects are performed worse. For the stealth-action genre in this game, the protagonist moves too slowly, and also sometimes stops, catching his foot on an object in the environment as if he had rested against a wall. The main character is a simple technician. Most opponents have a noticeable advantage over her in battle, often attacking in crowds, so in skirmishes you need to show ingenuity and secrecy. It’s worth clarifying that not all people and androids pose a threat unless you poke a revolver at them and don’t break the rules. And at the same time, absolutely any of them can be eliminated. Stealth – action in the game works due to good game design and a considerable selection of homemade means of distracting and eliminating enemies.

Attentive smog (game design)

The game design of Alien: Isolation is based on variety, being in this regard a weak resemblance to Dishonored or Deus Ex. Comparing, for example, with 2014’s Thief, I prefer Alien: Isolation. If your opponents have driven you into a corner, you have locked yourself in a closet, hid under a table and don’t know what to do next, this means only one thing – you have not carefully studied the environment and are not using the opportunities provided to you by the game. For covert passage, you can use the number of floors in rooms, workarounds, multiple ventilation holes, bulky household furniture and production equipment, reduce the visibility of enemies by turning off the lights and turning off air filtration, shrouding the levels in smog, distract attention with built-in sound equipment, and use multiple homemade devices.

Tricky nuts (homemade devices)

The protagonist begins his journey unprepared for survival at the station. Finding means of defense and attack is an important part of the gameplay. Basic items such as a special tool (a heavy wrench for turning nuts, and also a melee weapon) or a flamethrower are provided to us gradually according to the plot. However, it is quite possible to lose sight of the crafting patterns and be left without a valuable homemade device. We can build from scrap materials, for example, a sound generator to distract enemies, a smoke bomb, an SSH device to stun people, or an EM grenade to disable androids, explosives, Molotov cocktails or a first aid kit. We won’t see any interesting, sophisticated devices of the future here; the variety in reality is not that great, but for the average person in the genre it will do just fine.

Immeasurably Blind (opponents)

The variety of enemies in Alien: Isolation is incredibly small. It could be enough for a maximum of five to six hours of gameplay, taking into account game design and crafting all sorts of new devices, but not for the fifteen to twenty that the developer requires of us. Armed civilians and bandits fire at the protagonist with pistols, shoot accurately, quickly, and at a high level of difficulty it is better to take these enemies with cunning than with impudence. In the future, similar opponents will be strengthened with armor and receive more powerful weapons. Androids attack hand-to-hand, they are not taken by a revolver and blind grenades, they do not run, slowly and confidently pursuing their prey. In the future, robots will acquire even greater invulnerability. The stranger does not take anything; he is briefly scared away by the fire. At the end of the game, another type of enemy will appear, which I won’t spoil now.

Printed telephone (elements of survival – horror)

The analogue of typewriters from Resident Evil here is the telephone; saves are the first resource for which you need to fight. The save tube is not located in safe rooms, so you need to save wisely, making sure that there is no enemy nearby, since the “Save” inscription warns you in advance that “The enemy is nearby.” The second important resource is light, which we will talk about later. In the game we have to collect ammunition for a revolver, shotgun, bolter (a powerful single-shot weapon), flamethrower, items for crafting devices such as batteries, fuses, glue, sensors, ethanol and others. Strict resource management for the full disclosure of survival horror elements in the game works at the High difficulty level. However, at the same time, the frequent, annoying spawning of the Alien becomes tightly tied to the protagonist, which is annoying.

Fire of suspense (light as a resource)

Light in the game is an important resource. It is needed not only to see your enemies, but also to explore the environment in order to find crafting, quest and other items. The station is in a semi-working, mothballed state, so the locations are either poorly lit or not lit at all. To get some light, you can turn up the game’s gamma to maximum brightness and forget about this problem for the entire game. I left the gamma preset in the middle – this is the optimal solution for maintaining suspense. In the dark, you can use a battery-draining flashlight, a disposable fireball, or the dim spark plug light of a flamethrower. You can also connect non-working station lighting by using generators built into the walls, utilities in computers and distribution panels, which should not be ignored.

Souls – horror (horror elements)

At the Impossible difficulty level, they take away part of the HUD, the level map, and reduce the number of resources encountered to the tears that a cat cried. As a result, we constantly lack not only the means to eliminate enemies, but even devices to distract them. Without these devices, some parts of the locations turn into real hell and madness with the senseless repetition of their own deaths in an attempt to get a result other than death. The game doesn’t work as a horror game. The Alien is not scary, but rather annoying, just like the same type of animations of the heroine’s death. Approximately from the second third of the game, many corridors and rooms turn into a puzzle with a fatal outcome, where, as if in Souls, you need to remember the possible timings of the enemy, calculating the route and actions in seconds, navigating in space without a map.

Dissonance of jambs (artificial intelligence)

The artificial intelligence of opponents works best on the Impossible difficulty level. Enemies carefully search the premises, look into closets, under tables and beds, quickly notice the protagonist, and also quickly and effectively eliminate him. However, for gamers who want to find mistakes in their behavior, this will not be difficult. The Alien’s vaunted advanced AI ultimately comes down to cheating respawn in close proximity to the heroine. On PC, modders experimented by “untying” the Alien from the main character’s butt, and, as they say, this gave a really interesting gaming experience with an unpredictable xenomorph. Personally, the level of ingenuity of the opponents was enough for me, the behavior of the enemies did not cause dissonance in me, did not interfere with immersion in the game, did not seem unnatural, they drank my blood in moderation and played along in moderation.

Immersive Bitterness (Metroidvania Elements)

Alien: Isolation is neither a metroidvania nor an immersive sim. However, there are weak attempts to give the player a thirst for exploration. The space station where the events of the game take place is mothballed. From the first steps we encounter closed doors with attractive instructions in the style of “we need to restore the power supply, we need a code, we need an ion cutter, we need a pass, we need a URD” and so on. Gradually, the heroine acquires devices that allow her to enter previously closed sections of the station. However, all that the hidden rooms will give us are notes, resources for crafting and, at best, a scheme for creating an improved item, such as a more powerful stun bomb or Molotov cocktail. Backtracking is not fun, finding previously discovered caches can be difficult, and finding out that our new cutter did not fit and the journey was made in vain is a shame.

Retrofuturism windows (visual, animation)

The graphics of Alien: Isolation are excellent by the standards of the mobile market. Detailed textures and an abundance of environmental details, high-quality light and dynamic shadows, competent placement of multiple light sources in locations, the sun hitting the portholes and windows of the space station from different sides, rich lighting effects, glare on surfaces and even the heroine’s wristwatch. The game also features excellent art design, showing us retrofuturism in all its glory, meticulously recreated based on the developments of the first two films in the franchise. The developers have done a titanic job of reproducing the surroundings of a huge space station in authentically iconic films. The animations of the protagonist and other characters are done at a high level, but there are a lot of mistakes, which is especially noticeable in the facial expressions.

The millstone of the bestiary (plot, ENT, message, without unnecessary spoilers)

The plot of Alien: Isolation is not enough stars from the sky, in fact, like cult films. However, the game script is competently, canonically inscribed in the outline of the events between the first and second film. And unlike all the works released after Aliens in 1986, it perfectly maintains the overall level of storytelling, scale, and connection with the original. Also, the script, setting and notes correctly convey the main message of the first and second films about the place of ordinary people in the millstones of the corporate machine. Unfortunately, the characters and lore of this world are better written in the notes scattered around the space station than in the main plot of the game. There is a noticeable lack of quality script hooks to empathize with the drama of the characters. The expansion of the universe and the main conflict, the background to the appearance of Aliens, the growth of the bestiary – we don’t see any of this in Alien: Isolation.

Schematic preset (control)

The controls in the game are responsive, understandable, and do not cause any problems. In the menu, you can change the control scheme, where they offer to replace the standard layout with a standard left-handed one (as if mirroring the buttons on the screen) or set up a custom preset, scattering the buttons as you please. Auto-aim works fine, it is convenient to shoot and use throwing devices with it, if desired, it can be disabled in the game menu. We are also offered to adjust the vibration strength of the phone and the virtual controller for greater immersion. I immediately removed the vibration. I also connected a DualShock to the phone and it was as if I had switched to the PlayStation 4 that I loved so much. Control using the Sony controller is comfortable, the layout was transferred directly from the console, the entire interface changes to suit this device.

Five nights with a xenomorph (continuation and series)

Fans of the game will never wait for a full-fledged sequel to Alien: Isolation, and the franchise is so stormy that it may not be worth the wait. On January 24, 2019, an average quality clone of Five Nights at Freddy’s called Alien: Blackout was released on phones, where we continue to play as the protagonist of Alien: Isolation after the events of the main game. Visually, the product is not bad, the surroundings taken from the original are certainly pleasing to the eye, but the gameplay is mediocre. There are no big revelations in terms of plot here, we just find out how the heroine escaped and where she goes after, once again running away from an alien threat. On February 28, 2019, a lousy and, in my opinion, stupid mini-series by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, Alien: Isolation, was launched, connecting the events of the two games and retelling the first.

Gameplay novelization (comic and book)

In 2019, Dark Horse Comics launched Brian Wood’s Aliens: Resistance, which continues the events of Alien: Blackout. I got acquainted with the comic and frankly regretted the time spent. I didn’t like the work either visually or meaningfully, although I must admit the attempt at scale, eventfulness and action is a component. Writer Keith DeCandido, under the publishing house Titan Books, released the book Alien: Isolation, which not only retells the events of the game, but deepens the characters, especially the protagonist. To be honest, replaying the game in book format turned out to be an interesting experience; I liked the author’s work for the abundance of details, work with characters and the overall style of storytelling. You can buy a book, for example, on Litres.

Shot checkpoint (conclusions)

The mobile version of Alien: Isolation pleases with the most magnificent graphics by the standards of the platform, good animations, a detailed environment authentic for the franchise, a canonical story that maintains the atmosphere of the original, a variety of game mechanics, a beautiful soundtrack that gives you goosebumps, albeit in the background, convenient controls, excellent optimization . By the way, with the exception of the Alien, any character in the game, even the plot one, can be shot, albeit with a return to the checkpoint. It’s a small thing, but it gives a feeling of the reality of what is happening, although adequate dissection is severely lacking. I’m not happy about the problems with purchasing from many users on Google Play, the lack of analogue stores, average stealth – action, mediocre survival elements – horror and horror, broken difficulty balance.