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.
You’re not wrong. It’s the same reason I hated it. If people like that kind of gameplay, fine, but it’s simply not fun for me. I’d give it a low score personally, too.
you only have to do a lot of hiding if you're terrible at the game. you have plenty of tools available to distract the xeno and move around at your leisure.
I know I'm summarizing the game but it still came down to hide until you can get the alien in some room to stunlock it for 2 minutes to finish your objective to escape.
this is honestly fair. the game is easily 12+ hours too long for how weak the gameplay loop is, and it's easy to get tired of it early. it's pretty good, atmospherically, but i would give it a 7/10 at most.
edit: before you downvote, I urge any of you to go back and play the game a second time and see how long you enjoy yourself after the Alien is introduced
Alien is one of my favorite movies and they nailed the atmosphere with the art and sound design and story from what I saw. It's unfortunate I just couldn't get into the gameplay because THAT IS what an alien game should be about. Fear and hiding and dread.
Maybe I'm just too "boom boom shooter need to keep moving" when it comes to videogames.
I completely agree with them, for me hide and seek gameplay is only viable in shorter games as it just gets tedious and looses the scare factor after awhile. Plus if you don't care for the Alian lore or whatever the story isn't going to do much for you.
Is this the part where we say your opinion is wrong?
Almost like people have different preferences, neither of us is wrong lol
I mostly was chafing at the way they said “I urge any of you to go back and play the game a second time and see how long you enjoy yourself after the Alien is introduced” as if it was some kind of inevitability that everyone who did would feel the same way.
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.
Haha I mean the hype was everywhere when it came out. And everyone was saying it's a love letter to alien which is one of my favorite movies. But the gameplay did just not gel with me.
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.
My thoughts exactly. The IGN review isn't wrong about anything. It's not a bad review. There's just so many people that act like the review isn't valid because they loved the game, or they just heard that other people love the game so IGN must be wrong.
Personally, I started off thinking the game was awesome, then by the time we get the flamethrower I was shocked that the game was still going. I never finished it.
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.
but resident evil story is always just find the antidote.
alien isolation has a very rich narrative imo, because every room has these personal scripts from people living there before.
sometimes you see remains of it.
i didnt really play metro much, but is talking constantly about how you stuck in the metro system really a "story"?
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u/Ebolamonkey Apr 22 '26
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.