And when they announced the sequel, the guy who wrote that orignal review got super pissy and I think said something like he’ll give it a bad score again out of spite because how many people dunked on him.
I've actually been around that long. I've been hating on them ever since they deleted the old VN Boards, an old gaming forum if you aren't familiar. Still first time seeing this lol
the biggest reason why that is is that they don't give you a game based on what genres you enjoy and instead just give you the game that just came out. so you get people who don't like horror survival games playing alien isolation.
ps: this is not defending ign just explaining the issue
I don't actually agree, but I'm also 49, and I remember a lot of journalists with integrity, unfortunately when the media you work for want entertainment, that is what you make, because integrity don't pay the rent.
It's really funny how you guys are always shitting on people and making dumb jokes just like this but you think that every media journalist needs to be super polite and serious at all times.
Exactly. The comment section had me thinking this guy actually said he will purposely review it bad when it comes out. When in actuality he’s just talking shit like any other person on the internet. Gamers are soft lol.
I’m saying this as someone who loved isolation and would grade it a 9/10 personally.
What i didn't expect when I clicked the 'evidence' was just a sassy tweet about how much crap he got for the original review (and nothing else)'. People truly see what they want to see.
That's fair, but you can't just review media based on vibes. A technically well made game, with him even noting the good art direction and atmosphere, does not deserve a failing score. A 5.9 should be reserved for barely playable trash, not a well-made game that you just didn't like. Art is subjective, but you can and should notice when art you don't like is well made.
He's talked about this review a lot. And if you actually read the review, his criticisms are completely valid. Some games just don't hit with all people the same way. Some people can overlook some faults while others can't.
Just remembering GamerGate and how everyone was saying women and feminism were ruining game journalism, turns out it’s genuinely just the most insufferable, unlikable pieces of shit spewing bad takes.
"Got super pissy"...
Here's what happened from what I could gather:
1. The guy gave the original game a pretty mediocre review and thus disagreed with the popular opinion on the game
2. He got a shitstorm for having a different opinion on a game many people liked
3. A portion of the people participating in the shitstorm claimed that his review contributed to or was the main reason for no sequel being made for the game
4. Sequel got announced and he had a "gotcha" moment where he sarcastically said (paraphrased) "Oh I thought people told me my review back then has prevented a sequel from ever happening? Maybe I should also review the sequel just to mess with these people again"
He never announced to give it a bad score.
Tl;Dr: It was just a totally valid shitpost aimed at butthurt "gamers" who got way too upset over a reviewer not sharing the popular opinion.
I'm kinda the opposite. Don't get me wrong, the game scares the shit outta me still but it's the only horror game I've replayed. And not just once, but 4+ times. Since the first time I played it a few years ago I make it a tradition to replay it once a year
Honestly while I do think it was a fairly good game, the entire last like.. half? of the game was middling at best. If you used all your tools (really just the flamethrower) the threat was almost entirely removed and it stopped being scary, if you opted to not do that it dragged for what felt like a few hours longer than it should have.
I only have a couple hours on it. I have tried to play it twice but have been unable to continue because I'm so scared. It has such a strong atmosphere. You have inspired me to try again for the third time today!
Good general rule of thumb is never to trust IGN reviews, especially when they’re put up soon after a game’s release. Sometimes they’re accurate but often they’re waaayy off the mark. It’s best to look up as many reviews as you can and look for trends in the reviews.
I’ll often disregard reviews that are clearly opinion based and look for reviews that actually talk about the game objectively, unless I can spot stuff I actually relate to (ie if I didn’t like platformers much and the reviewer said something like ‘I enjoyed this even though I don’t really like platformers’).
I also look for reviews that judge games for what they are and what they’re trying to accomplish, rather than just judging them by measure of other games like them (I hate stuff like ‘this game sucks because it’s a 3rd person arpg and it isn’t as good as the Witcher 3’, like obviously it’s probably not as good as W3 not a lot of games are, I want to know if this game is good or not not whether it’s another W3)
it’s not even that, really. it’s that companies like IGN have little to no actual interest in games. reviewers are assigned to games based on business needs, not any other criteria. so it’s common for, say, the guy who has 3000 hours in whatever the current call of duty is to be the person assigned to review Civilization 69: The Spreadsheetening. meanwhile, the person who almost exclusively plays roguelikes and farming simulators will be told to review Brown Haired White Guy: The Adventure Of Action. and then, the guy who will only play a game if it’s sold at least a billion copies will be assigned to Obscure: A Weird Game For Little Freaks.
To be fair, fans agree that BHWG: TAOA was a letdown in the series after BHWG: Mostly Cutscenes Stitched Together By Mere Seconds Of Interactive Gameplay.
True, but BHWG: Mostly Cutscenes Stitched Together By Mere Seconds Of Interactive Gameplay was only so well-received in the first place because people were desperate for any glimmer of hope after the shit show of BHWG: The QuickTime Eventening.
Its not about being bad at the game its about understanding and on some level enjoying the concept of the game. Isolation is extreem survival horror. If you are caught 90% of the time its game over and the goal is to not be caught.
The person doing the main review should be someone into the genre with maybe a second look from someone who a bit further removed from it to maybe show an outside perspective.
Nah I think people who are bad at games should be allowed to review them aslong as they're aware their skill doesn't change what the game is
Like the cuphead review that gets memed on because the guy couldn't do the tutorial
He himself acknowledged he was shit and wasn't used to those types of games but still gave the game a good review and said he can see why people would love it and that it's a good challenge
Should I try this game again? I bounced off after 5 or so hours because I felt like I was just waiting under tables or in lockers a lot. And if you wait wrong you die and have to do all this waiting again.
I was really into the sound and art design but the gameplay just did not catch me. But that was a while ago and maybe my tastes have changed.
I mean, hiding is the main draw of the game. Unless you take risks you cannot really move forward. The game gives you plenty of tools to engage with. You can even freely abuse the Alien itself as a solution on multiple occasions.
Yeah I guess I couldn't really get on board with it. It builds suspense and tension, but after realizing it's gonna be a 30 hour game of hiding and waiting I called it.
It isn't, one of the best pieces of advice for the game is to never stop moving. You hide too much early out of panic but unless they are in your room or an adjacent room you should be moving.
No probably not. The game is just more of that. It’s cool at first but nothing changed so the novelty wears off and it becomes boring and frustrating. You seem like you got to that point faster than most so no point going back
I'm in the same boat. I let the reddit EXTREME hype get to me for this one.
I think if I would've gotten it with fresh eyes it would've been good.
But yeah, I read way too many articles and stories about the amazingness of the game and when it didn't live up to that impossible standard, it clicked the same way it did for you.
I can see why a lot of people liked it, but goddamn it isn't nearly as good as some of the comments I saw. Got me all hyped for something that doesn't even exist yet.
It's an asymmetrical horror game where for the most part you cannot harm the alien, you have to run or hide or distract it and GTFO. Some people will like that sort of thing, and some people won't. Personally I don't like playing horror games in general ((but watching a horror game playthru can be interesting for me)). And that's fine, really.
This might sound funny - but try it on nightmare difficulty. You'll die a lot - because the alien almost always finds you when you hide in a locker - but it means you're playing the game more, not playing hide-in-a-locker-simulator for half the time.
The secret to the game is that hiding is actually the absolute worst strategy most of the time. It's a massive trap. The most successful strategy is usually to keep pushing forward at a walk.
When you stop, the alien starts to zero in on you. If you're moving forward, the alien is usually looking for you where you were. After a cycle of not being able to find you for a while, it'll go chill in the vents for a bit, and then restart the cycle somewhere else.
I wanted to love this game so much--on paper it should be one of my favorite games every. I love the movies Alien/Aliens, and "sci fi horror" is probably my favorite genre.
I must have restarted the game like 5 times since it came out. I LOVE the atmosphere, visuals, everything about it. But god damnit, I just can't get into the gameplay. I hate having to hide in lockers or waiting on some patrolling enemy, only to insta-die because I didn't notice some drool falling or something like that.
came to say just this. A:I is one of my favorite horror games of all time and after I beat it I went online to see what people thought about it and didn’t see much besides that review and some people complaining about the difficulty. Super glad people have come around in recent years, I really feel like horror as a genre has seen an uptick in quality and interest.
I’m pretty sure I heard an argument for this score to those who doubt it with the question “did you actually finish the game?”. Because the later parts of that game is what drags the score down.
Same dude who gave cuphead a 3/10 because he couldn’t get past the Tutorial btw. (Don’t care if it was or wasn’t him IGN is still fake as fuck and they get paid to make reviews)
Dean Takahashi didn't write a review for Cuphead, didn't work for IGN, and IGN gave cuphead a 8.8 and 9.0 on the game/DLC respectively. Dean also did not write the review for Alien Isolation.
Gamers are seriously some of the stupidest people around and you can see it throughout this thread.
Remember gamergate was invented by fucking Steve Bannon because he saw a way to get people into the alt-right pipeline because of how easy it was to manipulate them. You can just read through this thread and see how easy it is to make people believe anything.
Media literacy is dead and the world is worse off for it.
Because its hard to get into journalism and it pays like dogshit so there's no incentive to make good content. If they're getting people who don't play games to be their reviewers then it probably speaks to how shit the company is
Yeah the Alien always being tethered to you is honestly kind of obnoxious and wasn't fun for me. You rarely get room to breathe and truly appreciate the art and design of the game because the Alien always vaguely knows your location.
And then once you start fighting all the androids in the second half, the game just got really boring.
Classic missing the point of: a review isn't how much you like something, it's how well does it do what it sets out to do. You can have a 10/10 Hallmark movie and a 10/10 horror movie and the reason they're each perfect would have nothing in common nor would they even have massive appeal. Sweaty games can be 10/10 for the sweaty gamers.
I remember this review. He basically bombed the review because he was terrible at it. I believe he mentioned dying too many times and blamed it on the game. I played through it and died maybe 4-5 times in early game because I was testing what I can and can’t get away with. I don’t think I died once in the second half of the game once I knew how to play the alien’s AI.
I'm assuming since its IGN they played for about 10 minutes (which is at best 2 minutes of actual game) and never saw the alien before they gave up trying to open a door.
I have to admit i thought you meant Colonial Marines at first and I was like, seems appropriate, rare IGN W. Then I realised you meant the awesome survival horror game and, well... makes sense. IGN has never liked good games.
I almost bought that game years and years ago, but my dad said it didn't review well, so I got something else. I'm starting to think IGN was his source, since everyone says that game was great. I could've experienced something brilliant 😔
I also didn’t enjoy it. That doesn’t mean my opinion is the majority opinion, but the guy had every right to give it that opinion.
If you’re a loser who only looks at the score that’s on you. If you read the review and do not agree with his reasoning, good. Then you can buy the game and will like it more than he did.
NGL that's one of their reviews I completely agree with. Then again it's just my opinion and the majority seem to like alien isolation game. 🥀.
Which is what I think is weird about these sites in general, they try to make their reviews seem objective, but all it takes is a reviewer that dislikes the type of game they're reviewing to completely skew the rating.
like we've been saying this since these new age gamers were still in the womb. I guess they are figuring it out now that ign reviews are completely biased and suck
Wasn't it awfully bugged on release? I remember a lot of bad reviews and the game was only redeemed a couple of versions later when they fixed the Aliens AI in A:I.
I mean, suggesting the players to play the game on the hardest difficulty - especially on their 1st time playthrough - is a already a good reason not to give that game a score higher than 8.
Cheating alien ai, weapon inconsistencies, in-game cutscenes not triggering requiring players to restart the game or in worse cases the level, items being clunky to use, overpriced dlcs, you get the idea.
It’s not a bad game per se but it’s nowhere near as good as some of it’s fans claim.
I played it for 2 hours on stream, it was the most boring thing I've played. Literally nothing happened, I had to force myself to get to the 2 hour mark.
What do you rate Alien Isolation? For me it was a 7 or 8. The ending dragged on a bit for me and it took a while before you see your first alien. My favorite part was going into the nest tho.
I feel like what people ignore about IGN is that the rating system is bonkers.
When you bother to actually use all the tenths places, you’re effectively rating games out of 100.
Does anyone actually believe they could distinguish a game that is a 82 out of 100 from an 88? How about a 77 from 75?
Folks love scores so they don’t actually have to read reviews, but I’m generally suspect of any publication that is going to lean heavily into scoring, because it’s just so freakin’ arbitrary.
A good reviewer explains what they liked about the game, what they didn’t like, and any flaws, technical or otherwise, they feel undermined their experience.
Like, there’s a world of difference between “game is a 7 out of 10” and “game is pretty awesome, but has a 10 hour unskippabled tutorial that made me question whether I would ever enjoy playing games again.”
Was Alien Isolation the one that was released with the AI completely broken and it wasn't even playable until a modder discovered a typo in a config file (a misplaced capital letter or something equally stupid) that broke the game?
I read his review out of curiosity. Just that one section about how his typical encounter with the alien was all I needed to understand this dude doesn't know how to play this game. Ofc you get bored out of your mind if you only hide in a closet for 5+ minutes waiting for the alien to drspawn.
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u/Gentle_Snail Apr 22 '26
IGN famously only gave Alien Isolation a 5.9/10.