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I like the concepts you bring up in the video, and the game is a masterpiece, but one that doesn’t work right all the time. That being said… I can point out the mistakes you made that lead to you getting caught pretty easily. Most of them were fair, some of them looked a little jank, but if you run or fire your pistol or throw 3 flares at the alien and take off in a dead sprint, it’s gunna get you man. I felt like the gameplay you showcased was more in line with the “simulation” style of game criticism you described.
Well, all games are closed systems. They may be unpredictable to the uninitiated at first but all action can be accounted for. Not saying that's fun or what I want to do, but of course it's possible. I think my thing is I don't want to have to pay too much attention to the 1s and 0s of a game, I don't like feeling like I have to find an exploit or a gamey way to get past something if I'm trying to keep emotionally invested in the hyper reality of the experience. As for my examples, I'm okay with people criticizing them, as they are more gateways to discussion about interesting things than me simply whining. That said, me throwing multiple flares was a joke clip where I was just experimenting with stuff as evidenced by the text on screen and shooting my gun before going into the locker were self attested to as risky possible fatal behavior but that doesn't really account for how the alien can recover while in the middle of a killing animation while i'm slowly crouching in his blind spot. That seems pretty gamey and silly. If nothing else, the game would be better served giving it a behavioral justification for why you've auto failed regardless of using the alien's distraction with another NPC to get away
@@MidnightMedium Though it's noteworthy to mention the xenomorph was based on an er0t!c and s3xual sculpture. The inner jaw actually being a p3n!s instead of a second fang tongue.
20:20 “inconsistent reaction” brother you did two different things. You started walking in the first clip, causing the alien to hear you and change focus, and in the second clip you kept crouching. Not really sure what you’re expecting when you do two different things…
Its knowledge persists across your deaths until you back off a certain cover quota and that quota starts to decay. It's not really ever been expressed how long that is, but that would also be experientially why I sometimes would get stuck on certain checkpoints because he'd start finding me automatically as I hid the same way multiple times in a row after subsequent deaths.
Alien isolation can easily be topped with a second game. Obviously improve the graphics and AI...and animations... Give the player more characters to deal with using the same storyline mechanics as detriot become human. A different reproduction of the alien could happen or be unlocked through player actions. Give the player the chance to escape certain death from the alien with a quick action, thus allowing a kill cinematic with the hope of escape. Add way more fodder for the alien to kill and be distracted with. Add more outer space scenarios.
imma be honest, I never really felt that the alien was too challenging to deal with, I honestly got to the point where I would intentionally summon it to deal with human threats because I can deal with 1 or 2 aliens better than 5+ humans
@@MidnightMedium honestly it was pretty evil, but from a strategic perspective, was the correct move. I mean, the humans can shoot you from across the room, potentially with little warning and instantly killing you. Meanwhile, the alien has to get ontop of you to actually kill you, and despite what you may expect, its surprisingly less stealthy than the humans, given its much larger profile and how loud its footsteps can be. I also did notice a pattern where it would seem to probe and retreat, quite often. I was also a bit of a freak because i spent like 90% of the game crouched down.
Yeah im a crouchy boi but it becomes detrimental after a bit because the alien moves so fast that youll never get far enough unless you strategically walk. I was kind of sad how lil success i had running him into humans!
I’m not going to lie I think the reason you were dying in those example clips is because of how quickly you stood up and began walking, walking still creates noise! I did stuff like that in my playthrough and stayed completely crouched as I snuck around and it worked, even waiting about 5 more seconds to stand worked
Having played it on PC, and on Xbox, I do not think the mod helps much either I must say. The fundamental disrespect to Aliens and Alien³ still exists down to the bones of the thing, it is superficially respectful, but antithetical to what the films put forth.
The issue is you don't seem to realize errors like walking instead of sneaking which is a rather massive issue in judging the feel of being caught by the alien.. It doesn't discredit some other points (such as the alien becoming more aware of you using the same tricks repeatedly granted if say there are arguments against that point). I would learn more about how the game works then go through the game again. It will help a lot with refining your points and fixing up mistakes that do weaken your point (walking/running making noise that attracts the alien). It will I think make you less frustrated overall with the ai while also finding flaws still that you can very much critique.
Eh I'm probably a Simulationist, but I can honestly say I don't care for the Alien's "A.I." in Isolation. Admittedly I've never finished the game because it just becomes frustrating. There isn't anything to master or learn, you either get lucky in being detected or you don't. And that's the problem; you get killed enough by the Xenomorph, it's not tense or scary anymore, it's just a chore to get through areas due to fixed save points. I think my biggest problem is the Xenomorph is ultimately more Jason/Michael Myers than Alien. It would make sense for Jason not to notice you hiding under a surgery table because he's just kind of a dumb brute. But the Xenomorph? Does it not have any olfactory sensors? Can it not hear Ripley breathing? Oh but it can hear your motion tracker. It's just dumb, especially how often it will walk right past you if you happen to be crouching. If the Alien is in the same room as you are, you should be dead unless you got a flamethrower. Also why wouldn't the Xenomorph attack the Working Joes? I mean sure they aren't food/hosts, but aren't they still a nuisance/potential threat? And since when is the Xenomorph immune to damage? That's just lazy/poor design, and no the Alien being immortal doesn't make it more scary. While a small caliber pistol may not be ideal against it, a certain amount of rounds should kill it. The shotgun and flamethrower should definitely kill it. IMO the game would be a lot better if the Alien behaved like a Lion. If it sees, hears, or smells you, you're dead, unless you got a proverbial four leg chair to fend it off. You shouldn't "hide" from the Alien, you should be avoiding it at all costs by locking doors and vents. If anything the Alien should be the entity hiding and trying to ambush you. Let's just be honest - Alien Isolation is a great game due it's art design and atmosphere, but not for its gameplay.
Interesting take. I do think its silly the xeno can take like five shotgun blasts in a row (pretty sure i included that clip). Really think it should at least drive him away or drastically slow him down
I think one really important thing to remember here is that Alien Isolation is a horror game and the Xenomorph in it is a horror monster. And I think that means that some unfairness is actually good. If you feel like you have a perfect strategy and a perfect hiding place, then the monster isn’t scary anymore. It’s just a challenge to overcome. AI in stealth games should be beatable and fair. But the point of horror is to make you scared/anxious/tense, not to give you a fair competition. One thing that makes the Xenomorph scary is that when you hide somewhere, you don’t know if it is still going to find you. Some of the best moments are when you are hiding somewhere, the alien walks over and sniffs around your hiding spot, and then it walks away. Those moments would be much less tense if you didn’t know that there was a real chance that the alien was about to grab you. If you knew that you were safe because you got into the hiding place quietly, then you’d feel relaxed instead of tense during those moments. Obviously there are limits to it. The AI can’t cheat too much or it just becomes too frustrating, and eventually you become desensitized to losing. But the AI occasionally cheating in a horror game seems like a good thing to help keep the tension up.
Man, someone should mod 10 Xenos in the game, the only problem is that the game can't really handle it, maybe turning off the tail's AI would fix it, but would also change the gameplay a bit, but I mean with 10 Xenos on nightmare mode... It would be a fair change I guess.
@@MidnightMedium I'm one of the idiots that got the big box collector's edition with the statue still have it, it wasn't good then and it isn't good now....🤣
Id recommend Normal. Its not so cutthroat and its a game that takes a bit to get used to and Id hate for you to get frustrated. I think Normals pretty well balanced between confrontation and room to escape and all that
The Xenomorphs best sense much like the player is it’s hearing, standing when you are just out of sight to start walking will get you killed almost every time on higher difficulty unless there is an alarm ongoing in the environment. A lot of hiding spots in the game also have things like chairs and other objects on the table above that interact with the player model, if you turn to track the alien under the tables you interact with a lot of those objects and make noise the alien can hear. Not following the alien and letting it pass behind you without looking at it ironically safer in a lot of cases, although what it does to your nerves is another story. 😂 Same with all of the flash bombs, noise makers etc they all make noise that can be heard if you have them drawn. Hiding in cover under the hospital beds also don’t break line of sight of the Xeno if far enough away, they only work if it’s very close. You need to crouch around the edges of the beds and cabinets till it gets closer then crawl under it.
Yeah his hearing is def the strongest. Matt Filer and Tommy Thompson did some experiments turn off the xenos sight and notice he still finds them a lot just based on sound
I feel like in a good amount of the “unfair” clips the aliens alerted by your walking, ive played around with modifying the alien to be blind and it seems to get alerted by walking if your in the same room by it
This game is so good, far underrated at the time. I want this with alittle fireteam mixed ALITTLE. Like horror survival like low ammo but u can kill a xeno. Loved isolation but think it like evil within or resident evil. Low ammo stress I would love. The AI IN THIS GAME IS TOO GOOD
Also, when you pull out the noise maker, i assume it can see the light. The game does a bad job of explaining what's possible. I've never shot any red canisters near the alien, didnt know they could explode and hurt the alien. Never knew i could slow down the alien with the shotgun either.
Yknow i wondered about the light but no evidence its attracted to it in my hand on Hard, even in close. Also on Hard, shotgun doesnt do shit. Shot him five times in a row and he barely paused between each subsequent shot
18:14 - this is actually a weird complaint to me because I had the opposite problem - the enemies were way, way more passive in my experience compared to the first game and it lead to them just kinda boringly standing around a lot of the time or getting stunned super easily
Hmm that time stamp was talking about weak spots and being hard to get ahold of. Were you meaning when I said enemies like goblins were launching themselves at the player a lot?
19:15 I've noticed that once the flare is down and the alien is inspecting it, it can detect you if you stand up and walk, i just assumed it has heightened hearing. Also, on hard mode, if the alien checks your locker once and you're in it and u survive. The next time it walks past you in that locker, it will check, and you will die. The alien will roam in a small pattern around you for a long time. Making it feel like the ai director is giving it a very small area, maybe a few rooms.
Good video - with 21:16 it feels like it might not be a menace guage thing as much as maybe the alien exits its 'shouldnt be aware of environment because Im killing this dude' state (if such a thing exists) too early, or maybe it can freely exit animations to do other things/kill Ripley if needed and it leads to weird/jarring situations like this - but then IDK, because it doesnt do that with multiple human attackers (it will kill them one at a time and not jankily exit out of animations to mass murder them at once IIRC)
I absolutely adore this game and I’m so happy it’s getting recognition again. Having beat the game 6 separate times (2 solo, 4 with friends) I can agree that there are moments where the game can bug but it’s very few and far between. If I remember correctly one of my friends was hiding in the same spot for over 30 minutes (under a desk in the room next to the save station) and eventually the alien made its screeching signal that it found us and ran right to her and killed her. The AI doesn’t like when you camp the same hiding spot. I personally like that it forces you to keep moving. Can’t praise this game enough.
14:56 weird clip to include, you were clearly walking directly at it for a couple seconds with your motion tracker making noise as well, of course it found you.
I wouldnt read into that clip much. The sentence itself is abstract, not calling out anything in the clip, and the clip is texture in this instance, not evidence in a court of law
I never found it unfair. With only a small handful of instances, I always came away with the sense that I screwed up. It was clear to me that I nearly always was the problem. I was impatient, foolish, panicky, or just plain stupid in acting within the game such that it got me killed. The game definitely rides the razors edge of "fairness" in that it's very unforgiving with its unpredictability, but unpredictability does not equate to unfairness. Unpredictability, more accurately, simulates visceral realism. Over my time playing this game, I had to learn how to not just navigate it and play it but, more accurately, survive it because everything you is consequential, and how you naturally learn to exist in that environment mirrors natural learning and adaptation in real life....to a point. That's really hard to pull off, and no game I've ever played has pulled that off like Isolation. No gaming experience was ever as visceral as this one or as entertaining. Period.
I never have ever been caught under a bed/desk by the alien except for when it has a long sightline that would make you clearly visible. Are you sure its because of the director and not just the fact you are sticking out half way because you aren't looking at the Alien in all of the examples provided.
@@MidnightMedium You got to remember there is 5ft of body sticking out behind the camera. I am not sure what the game does as far as clipping goes, but it wouldn't surprise me if ripley's legs just stick through stuff when prone under the cover. Basically, the only way to know for sure that the alien doesn't have a line of sight on you, is to keep looking at it, and if you can see its head (while under cover) with no obstruction in front of you, then it can see you.
I remember buying the game and was so excited and then an hour in pausing the gane and crying cause i was absolutely horrified 😅 damnnear pissed myself
A well researched, structured, and articulated analysis, mate, well done! I don't know if your video compels me to play to see what all the fuss was about, or whether it repels me completely because of the omniscient AI. In any other experience it would probably be beyond frustrating, but if ever there was a setting to capitalize on this system in a positive way, surely it is Alien.
I mean I didnt let on like it was prevalent. In fact, that it came up at all was bewildering because it usually feels so good otherwise. You owe it yourself to play this one. Its one of the best games ever made
When I played it on 360 as a teen I never had an issue no bugs etc. I enjoyed it but i like aliens same with mad max I replay them a lot same with sleeping dogs
Hell yeah! Mad Max is fun-reviewed that one this year actually. Sleeping Dogs is on my shortlist of games that didnt hit mainstream but were still pretty great
