We have taken a closer look at the latest Alien game.

You play as Amanda Ripley in Alien Isolation, daughter of Ellen Ripley. Your mission is to find the flight recorder of the Nostromo, which is is being held aboard the Sevastopol Station. That sounds quiet easy, but there is this Alien on board.

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Creative Assembly creates something in this game that’s missing in all the other alien games: The respect and the fear of this perfect killer! This game remembers you, that just one of these creatures was able to kill the whole Nostromo Crew. Amanda is completely helpless like her mother was. The developers have created an enormously atmospheric game. The atmosphere of the cinematic example is captured excellently.

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The player has only flash-bangs, smoke grenades, health packages or Molotov Cocktails to dispose. All weapons must be assembled from resources. But first you have to find construction plans – a search which is often associated with risks.

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The game can only be saved at fixed memory stations. So you have to decide, if you prefer to go further or back to the savepoint. This element provides additional thrills.

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The Alien is unpredictable in this game! In many situations it’s scripted and staged threatening. But the developer has still an ace up his sleeve. The Alien moves completely free through the station thanks to clever AI routines. Thereby it relies on his senses primarily. The deadly creature benefits of a well-trained hearing and sense of smell in the hunt. Creative Assembly catches the deadly and unpredictable creature like in no other game before. The creatures’ personality, its impulse to kill and the brutal, animalistic violence come to their best advantage in this game.

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In addition to the Alien many other threats are lurking inside the station, trigger-happy agents up to aggressive droids. A good idea could be just to throw a Foley in a group of enemies. Not only to distract them, but also to let the Alien do the dirty work for us. Instead of watching the carnage, you should escape quickly before being the next one.

In Alien Isolation you should crawl under tables or hide behind boxes. Also you should carefully peek around corners or the top of edges. But it does not matter, wherever you hide: It is always associated with a high risk. In addition, the player can hold Amandas’ breath. At this point we realized that we also looked at the screen, trying to be as silent as possible.

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The player finds the well known Motion Tracker early in this game. This is one of the most important and valuable gadgets Amanda Ripley can get. We gain access to new areas with the help of the plasma cutter, which is also known from the movies. The world itself can also be use for distractions or for protection. E.g. through the wiring of an electrical box, the player can fill a room with fog and use it as cover.

We have waited so long and now we have another good Alien game, finally!

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The developers of Creative Assembly have understood how to capture the dark atmosphere of the classic movie and they did it quite impressively. They deliver an excellent survival horror game with Alien: Isolation. Other games have hundreds of aliens. This game has only one, but the right one. No other game let us fear the Alien. Tension and panic go hand in hand and are here very close to each other. We think, this is one of the best horror games we have played this year.

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Tested and written by Pascal van der Meer & Marcel Krafczyk

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