Every so often, there’s a bit of Hollywood Magic saved for just video games, and I’m a sucker that falls for it every time. This October, that magic spills over into Alien: Isolation, and I’ve had an eye out on it for quite some time.
Pre-Order Alien Isolation for the PlayStation 4
Pre-Order Alien Isolation for the Xbox One
Pre-Order Alien Isolation for the PlayStation 3
Pre-Order Alien Isolation for the Xbox 360
Why’s that you ask? I used to watch a lot of movies, and owned a lot of DVDs (at one point, my wife and my collection probably pushed around 1800) with the Alien Quadrilogy amongst them. With a kid, I’d be lucky if I watch more than one movie every two weeks, but I still get the chance to game as part of this gig. Sega’s Aliens based games have become as much a storytelling as a game, and Alien: Isolation will be no different. The events of Isolation take place between the Alien and Aliens’ movies and feature you playing as – get this – Ellen Ripley’s daughter. Yes, you play the game out as Amanda Ripley, who is sent up to a space station to obtain the flight recorder of the Nostromo. Amanda, as you’ll recall died between the events of the first two films. She aged and passed away while her mother was in statis (the events of Alien and Aliens happen almost 60 years apart.)
Here’s where things get interesting. The game is a survival horror game with an unkillable object: The Alien. There is only one single Alien in this game that has infested the space station, and the weapons you find along the way can only kill the secondary enemies. How, pray tell will you outlast the Alien? Stealth. The purpose of the game is just to survive and succeed in your mission – Not to decimate everything before you. In order to succeed, you must use the environment around you to outsmart and send the Alien off your scent armed with just a flashlight and motion tracking equipment (which of course, only serves to notify the Alien of your coordinates.) You can open doors, or cause disturbances while the Alien keeps you in hot pursuit. Your only guides will be audio clues let out from the Alien’s cries or motions, and the odd visual. You have full range and ability to crouch, hide and take cover while you’re being tracked down like a fresh piece of meat. Developers Creative Assembly have also studied the first Alien film extensively to make the atmosphere and the ambience of the game that futuristic, yet 70s look we got out of the first film nearly 40 years ago.
If all that didn’t sound neat enough, perhaps the Pre-Order bonus will. Pre-Order Alien: Isolation for qualifying systems either
in-store or online, and get upgraded immediately to the Nostromo Edition, which features DLC of the original cast moments after Brett’s death to try and sequester the alien into the ship’s airlock. The mission is entitled Crew Expendable. To top this off, the original cast (with the exception of Ian Holm) has reunited for the first time in 35 years to voice their respective characters. You’ll hear the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright and Yaphet Kotto reprising their original characters and can play as Weaver, Kotto or Tom Skerritt’s characters in the film for this mission.
A cool game gets perhaps a cooler Pre-Order Bonus.
Alien: Isolation is available October 7th, with the Pre-Order bonuses being available for the following systems:
Pre-Order Alien Isolation for the PlayStation 4
Pre-Order Alien Isolation for the Xbox One
