A GAME MOST ALIEN

OWell it's been awhile... AGAIN, since I posted on here. Been busy building up to a number of things and... rebroke a rib! Myself! Squeezing my chest too hard from pain one 4am a few nights ago and... SNAP! ARRRRRG!

BUMMER!

Anyway I acquired a new game rather surprisingly from an unexpected source. A brother!

I attended a birthday party recently of my youngest brother's girlfriend and my family also attended. When I walked into the rather plush flat they lived in the brother in question ushered me to a bedroom telling me he had something to show me. As I turned the corner I was presented with a PC case turned sideways on with a large window. I spun in a circle saying "I don't believe it!" Then I stated to spot some familiar labels bearing the word Corsair before reposting my statement. I studied something and then glanced at the front of the case and uttered the statement again.

He looked puzzled and said... "what?"

His eyes widened in surprise and he smiled as I explained I had also just built a PC. I told him that I had narrowed down my choice of case to one of two Corsair models. The one he had chosen is still in my Amazon wishlist and I chose the Carbide 230T! Now in shock I them pointed at the CPU cooler and said "... and that is a Corsair... H80 or H100? Which is also in my wishlist but had ended up with a fan cooler for now."

I said I suspected he had done like most people and got an Intel CPU and he surprised me by adding it was a six core AMD. "Oh FX-6300?" I said and he smiled and said "yes!"

We then compared notes and he said "git!" with a shocked face when I pointed out I had Crucial MX100 SSDs. He knew I had only recently built it as those drives are new.

Later he came over to me in a room filled with dancing bodies and says he had something for me and that tonight I would very much envoy it. I should have guessed because as a young kid he was very big on a number of things and two in particular. One was the films of Predator and the other was Aliens.

He disappeared and returned with a copy of the only just released Alien Isolation and was shocked. Turned out Amazon screwed up the delivery, go figure, and he had no patience to wait and acquired it by other means. Well I did say he was big into these things?! I could not believe that a game I was only reading a preview of in my last PC Gamer magazine was sitting in my bag! The review copy of PC Gamer is not even on sale yet!

On my Kaveri A10-7850K I have now played the game for the last 48 hours nearly, on 1080p with ultra settings and with... err 8 or 16 x Anti-Aliasing and it is smooth as silk!

What I have found odd is that they claim this is next gen but I also read it looks like it does on my PC on the PS3 also?! Impressive if true! But hardly next generation.

However the game is extremely good for the most part and looks this too. They have recreated the style and feel of the Nostromo even though it is not, it's a space station called the Sevastapol. If I have to admit it is a little too much like the film! Readers may now be thinking me bonkers but... there is a slight graininess that I am sure was deliberate to make it look like the grainy seventies first movie? I don't care though. Also the computers still appear to have CRT screens which wet now know is silly. Space ships are big on weight saving and the early movie should have realised that super light flat LCD, LED screens would be all the thing.

Oh and it is hard. Very hard.

But at this point I must highlight some very bad reviewing of others where this game is concerned. Like only one scripted alien appearance and then after that is like a real thinking being? Err well I saw it three times! Only the second time, the first time around, I missed it. But in the room where the revolver was and after dying and returning to the room I saw a body doubt against the glass. It was extremely quick and the first time, like I said, I failed to see that.

It is also scary but not as much as they make it out to be. In fact it was for the first few hours and mostly not even the xenomorph! In fact after returning back to the top of the stairs where some people are being systematically despatched by the lethal hunter I then got killed several times. Oh OK yes a bloody lot! Being killed by said alien was not as gruesome or as scary as I thought it was going to be. After this out ceased to be scary.

However the moments your listening intently for the slightest sound to hopefully work out where the alien is in the roof  vents are intense. Very intense! Crammed up against a wall behind some boxes and crouched where I had just sprinted to while Mr Morph was chowing down the alien had leapt into the ceiling. I inched forwards bit by bit only to hear the alien thinking is way through the vents getting every louder as it was obviously closing in on my location. Whoops!

It's flecking hard! Did I mention that?

I got past this but by doing what they said you cannot do... outrun the alien! Oh yeah well I had the help of a button, does and elevator yes but still!

I then thought that the whole game would now be this inch by inch process but then I was in a level with those creepy androids and no alien! That's not a bad thing! Except for the fact that they are near impossible to kill! You start wondering what the point of a revolver with extra chunkiness like a hand canon is for.

I am also probably missing something but it's hard to work out where your supposed to go next. Yes I have the motion tracker and it does give you the general direction you need to do. But you end up staying to wonder if you missed something you needed earlier in the game? In the sections the Xenomorph now patrols with its super senses making you not want to return to check!

I find myself doing several sessions of around an hour and not progressing very far. Well not progressing at all. But where some have bemoaned to reviewers on youtube that it is "boring" based purely on the video review and sounding like ten year olds it is not. Not yet and not playing the parts they watched. It may become so before long but I am sure it will remain installed on my system and at the worst get revisited from time to time to get past the difficult bits with a new idea?

It has way more going for it remaining installed than Dead Island Riptide which I thought was so bad I will not go anywhere near the second installment. It has also got more of my attention since installed than Kingdoms of Amalur, surprised me, but not for long as I am sure the two titles will get most of my attention until Dragon Age Inquisition is out? Or I install Mass Effect 3?

If you don't like puzzles or stealth you won't like this. If you have to have guns, bows, swords or machetes then you definitely won't like this.

If your a fan of the Alien films in anyway... well then you should buy this!

Oh and for the record.. this copy is the Ripley Edition which comes with two DLCs, so you have to download them. Is not listed on Amazon but there appears to be A Nostromo Edition too. Not sure what the differences to the editions are. You can play the Sigourney Weaver character on one of the DLCs and all the original characters appear to be there?

Oh and you might find it refuses to disengage from the rewiring of power sections? Mine has a few times, annoyingly.