Alien Isolation on GOG - https://gog.la/alien2 Alias Isolation - https://github.com/aliasIsolation/aliasIsolation/releases It's a dark and smokey game which YouTube compression does no favors for, but it eternally looks recent to me.

Or Prometheus I love that movie

How many Guinness Book of World Record Gaming Editions have you deposited in AirBnbs so far?

When's the Darktide review? It looks like a lot of fun.

Are you ever going to review 8 Crazy nights starting Adam Sandler?

You should do a video on the rusty lake series!

I'm an Australian Electrician. And this game really nails the feel of working in someone's roof after finding a 7ft long snake skin.

@Broba Fett Sometimes they camp out around your toilet

Of course you'd scare easy sparkie scum This comment was made by the alpha plumber gang

@Sivrn Val Uru? We not in Myst

LOL

I work in an auto shop that is really open and one time a really long like 6 to 7 foot black snake slithered up into the rafters while we were putting an engine into a truck. So we have this v8 engine hanging on a cherry picker having to do some pretty precise motions to get it connected to the trucks transmission while also knowing a snake could fall down from the roof onto us at any second. I know black snakes are non venomous usually pretty chill and just like small animals, but they still stress me out when I see them.

I got to learn first-hand that the Alien can get you in the early levels when I accidentally bumped the "swing wrench" button just after getting into that tram you have to wait a long time for. I hit the wall, making noise, and the Alien nearly immediately dropped from a nearby vent and bum rushed me before I could react in time to send the tram off. I didn't just shit a chicken, I shit the whole roost.

many pants were shat playing this game

If you play on hard or nightmare, and I've tried this because I was curious, just after axel dies it either drops just as you're getting in the tram, or I did have one instance where it dropped before the doors of the tram opened and killed me. I've seen some get spooked by it happening and chalking it down to being scripted. No, that could 100% kill you right then and there, it's just... you'd think it would be scriped but nope.

Not bad.. not bad :'3, I feel your pain partner

@Syler Fleck That is a phrase, yes. "Shit a [insert extraneous object here]" is fairly common phrase structure to denote stress, tension, or fear. The most common variation of which is "shit a brick", or "shit bricks". "Shit a chicken" is less common, but not unique to me. Seems to be more prevalent in rural folks, from my experience.

Shit a chicken? Is that a phrase or did you come up with it yourself? Either way I'm stealing that

I still cannot believe this game is 8 years old... It looks so good and was so good mechanically/story wise it's hard for me to realize

@Ben Richards 2010 ended a long time ago fyi I can play it without jank or a single bug, check out Anomaly. What you describe is stuff from the far far past.

@Homuya Stalker's gameplay consists of dodging bugs and working around jank.

@Homuya 🤨

I enjoyed the mechanic the most where you can run around a table and the alien can't catch up to you. Alien Isolaten is just another boring walking simulator with a terrible checkpoint system *yawn* If you want actual spooks and proper AI play Stalker. You even got gameplay. 10:05 is a good example. The tram is not agonizingly slow and there is no tension because you know this was meant to happen. You know there is no other way around. You know its just a bunch of scripts doing their work. Boring. No mechanics, just linear walking simulator design. Kudos though for making the alien actually come out if you wait long enough.

@ArcaneAzmadi Inquisition was actually a cross-gen game. Hard to believe.

It felt like a love-letter to the original film which is all most people are asking for out of a movie-game.

@Bread And Circuses Sorry! I don't talk to people with disorders ❤ Have a good one!

@Son_Of_Perdition oof... we're living in the Matrix. Things aren't what they seem to be face value.

@Bread And Circuses Just thought it sounded cool lol didn't know it had religious significance until years after picking it

@Son_Of_Perdition What's with your username?

@Daniel Munoz Hey now, Aliens was just as good as Alien and in a lot of ways I consider it a stronger film. But... yeah everything from 3 onward was just bad... Prometheus was good but it's more of a loose spinoff movie than anything else...

Fun little fact: story was written by Dan Abentt. For those who do not know him he is one of the best Warhammer 40k writers. His most famous 40k novels are Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenhorn. If you wondered why story is this long you just need to read one of his books to see.

Now we just need William King to write the story for a video game.

@MandaloreGaming talking about industrial levels of books and book length brandon sanderson fits the bill

@jic1 I can't afford the figures so yeah. Books, Games and fan content for me.

@iñigo montoya have you tried the Ciaphas Cain novels?

@samzilla567 well..I dabble in reading the Tomes

I loved The Empty Man. We need more horror movies where the characters take one look at spooky shenanigans going on and say “Screw this, I’m out.”

My experience with the movie is this. I work at a movie theater and when It came out I didn't hear much about it and the trailers made it seem kinda generic so I didn't have any plans to see it. Then one day we were really slow up front so I went in 10 minutes early to clean the theater it was playing in and saw the absolutely insane ending with no context whatsoever. I was intrigued though and thought "oh yeah I'm definitely seeing this tommorow". But turns out that was the last day we were showing it and it hasn't popped up on any of the streaming services I have so I've yet to see it.

Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

@Thunder Soul No idea what you're on about. We're both using YouTube by the way so what is your point.

@Matthew Rawls i also highly recommend soviet Sherlock Holmes (приключения шерлока холмса и доктора ватсона) it is on youtube but no subs, and Kin-Dza-Dza - it is soviet sci-fi isekai and it is also on youtube and has good english subs.

@Matthew Rawls Honestly tho, how does one go from reading "a soviet movie" to thinking "Amazon is the place to buy/watch that"? One born every minute, as they say...

If I remember correctly the Alien actually has 2 AI's. One that always knows where you are, and one whos job is to find you and actually controls the Alien, the first one just gives it hints. That's how they deliver the combination of it being unscripted and yet still able to perform.

@Igor Igor lol you’re getting ratio’d after ratio’d. Just shut up

@Igor Igor Confidently Wrong.😂😂😂

So the first AI is basically the Alien's nose?

@Igor Igor alot of games do design their npc ais that way, but not all of them. The kicker for Alien isolation is how well the omniscient and blind AI systems work together to create a seemingly intelligent alien.

The second AI is like the Director in Left4Dead. The Alien has it's own AI that controls how it reacts to its immediate surroundings. The Director works on a strategic level and manages the overall tension in the game. For example, if you haven't seen the Alien in a while, the Director will nudge the Alien to look in your general area but it won't tell the Alien exactly where you are. The Director also handles the music selection and keeps the Alien from wasting time looking for you in areas that you haven't unlocked yet.

I love this game! I was expecting to see jaggies but I'm glad you have Alias Isolation installed. It's still a great looking game almost 9 years later and would look modern if raytracing were added. I play through it at least once a year. Plays great on Steam Deck as well with Alias Isolation installed, though you might want to cap fps to 50 to lessen the fps variance.

Absolutely loved this game, although I did experience a lot of frustration with the medical bay. Still, I can’t wait to replay it in a few years. In my top 10 fav games for sure.

To this day it’s crazy to me that it took Creative Assembly, a strategy game developer, to make one of the best alien games.

@Louie Cartoon strategy games require a lot more effort AI wise for unit pathing and reaction so yeah, that’s probably a good skill that translates well to other genres like horror.

Angry Joe lol

it must have been the learned habits of creating AI in war/civilization games applied to the Alien genre, its interesting, makes me wonder what would happen if we had more video game developers jump around genres

This game is so great I've bought it on every platform that has it available, I think multiple times on PC. At some point I have to actually complete it

Just watched the empty man, and holy hell! Thanks so much for the recommendation! That was a great movie and the first one in a while that gave me the creeps with such an intensity

A game I adored as a kid (mainly because I had no other games and it came with map editor and multiplayer) was Time Splitter 2. Would love to see a video on that. I remember watching a playthrough of Alien Isolation when it came out, and I still think a lot about it. Such a tremendously atmospheric and beautiful game

A Sseth and Mandalore video in one day. What a gift.

@Antonio Lucas Furtado sseth is danish. I noticed wile watching his videos it was danish candies and smokes. Then I slightly noticed an accent

@Shiramizu he's actually a Ugandan polished immigrant...

Yes, he has been busy

@WatchingEqualsExp thanks

@Elven At Heart SsethTzeentach is another youtuber who reviews video games, but unlike Mandalore, does it in a more comedic way. Also, his humor is what some call "edgy" in case you care about that. You're also probably wondering why people mnetion that Mandalore is on his meds again. That is because Seth and him are quite similar which caused people to joke that they're the same person, but Mandalore is just Seth on medication.

This game does a great job with it's atmosphere. I literally have not made it to the alien yet because the environment scares the shit outta me .

I've completed the entire game and only through this video learned you can actually melee with the wrench. I thought it was something they had removed during development, given the animations when you find it and when you get grabbed by a lying Joe.

We got this for my dad, purely for the level of recreation the team went through, Figuring, even if he can't quite get through the game, He'd have fun in this Nostromo-look alike.

I played this on nightmare mode on my 1st go. Absolutely worth it.

Marlow's encounter with the space-jockey was also key to resolving a plot-hole in the original film series. The crew of the Nostromo visited LV-426 because a signal was detected. Decades later, LV-426 was colonized without finding the derelict until it was too late. So between the two events, the signal was deactivated. Marlow turned it off.

@Josias Lourenço another bot another report Spamming religious trash using bots isn't gonna get you into heaven

@Shredjward bug propaganda... We should put a gun to the traitor's head and blow his fucking brains out. Fucking bugs and their fucking worshippers... #StarshipTroopers

@iñigo montoya Perhaps. Although the signal device appears to be biomechanical, much like the rest of the derelict, so it might not break down so easily. Either way, the game out right states that Marlow deactivated the signal.

@iñigo montoya Nothing man-made, sure, but who knows what kind of future proofing aliens have? We don't even know what the thing is made out of to guesstimate how long it'd take to decay meaningfully, either. I reckon we can probably just handwave this one.

wait is that a plot hole? like,nothing survives decades without maintenance, specially electronic equipment.

One of the most under rated games of all time…and arguably the best survival horror game ever made

If 19:30 isn't scripted then it's probably the single greatest scare I've seen in a game

The Alien is a really good dynamic enemy, except like you said "when it wouldn't f*** leave". Forcing you to confront the alien seems like a good idea for gameplay, but it just isn't. Takes away my immersion and agency. I want to be able to hide like a roach until it leaves. That would be smart and it would be a way for me to control the level of stress I am willing to put up with.

The one thing that always made my heart skip a beat is how thin and fragile Ripley's arms are. Prime waifu material.

Sseth and Mandalore have such inconsistent upload schedules that they've somehow finally gotten in sync

Well, they are one guy, so it makes sense

Hebrews 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, James 2:24,26 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

sseth posts and then takes his meds

Which one is the alpha womb?

@I want to die FUCKIN WHAT?

Yup, i just played this last summer and christ this is truly the most authentic movie game there is. I really, really want a sequel done by the same team. They really get alien 1&2. Rest of the movies we can forget utterly and completely. Maybe predator we hold in our thoughts. Nothing more.

I would argue that Axl is useful for moving the plot along. He establishes that not every human NPC you encounter is going to be friendly. It only makes sense that Ripley would ask the first human she comes in contact with what's going on too so I don't see the elevator as unnecessary exposition.

If Axl was a shaky ball in a corner muttering about "a killer" and how everyone's gonna die THAT would have been better imo

I'd say it also highlights reasons Ripley may not want to just group up with others, which is probably called out as a weird pothole. Sometimes it's easier to go alone and not have to worry about loose canon characters and conflicts of interest and trust. My only real complaint about him is that from the second you meet him you're instantly thinking "Oh, he's going to die..." Ik that's more of a meta-issue but since they taught you the majority of the game before you got a tag-along it only makes sense to dispose of him as dramatically as possible so the player can get on with the rest of the game. I also don't have a problem with him taking control and leading Ripley around as Ripley hasn't been established as the typical "I am a leader who can handle everything" type of player character. It makes sense to me that she would defer to him since he's far more experienced with living and surviving on the hellhole ship.

@klyxes ....Which relies on the premise that I'm going to sit there and listen in on their conversation or else we are back to square one where I'm confused as to why people are shooting at me. OR....we just sit through the 3 seconds of dialogue Axl delivers while traveling to another part of the map. I understand. You've decided you have an opinion about a video game. And that it matters. Which is why you will argue about this completely inconsequential plot point from a game that was made almost 10 years ago. You'll do it forever because anyone with enough misplaced confidence can argue anything for any length of time on the internet. I just don't know what you want me to "do" with that. I just don't care enough that you like arguing with strangers.

@Horsemanray just change what they say, introduce the armed survivors as aggressive and why. They're jumpy because they're talking about something killing them and unable to trust others. Later on show the survivors who don't want to kill you. Simple. A guide like how axl was done is lazy storytelling, as it is something similar to an exposition dump

@klyxes Unless you try interacting with them and then you get to spend the rest of your time trying to infer why people are shooting at you until the next cut scene.

Colonial Marines multiplayer is my favorite game of all time if you actually know how to play the alien, there is nothing like it. Makes fire team not only a terribly made game( which I can't even put in for a bit of fun) but it also makes it half and game and half and experience

brilliant game, not perfect, but i would love if the team who made this one would be allowed to develope a new AI game, or some other with a different theme, like john carpenter's the thing

"Beyond just being unnecessary, it's redundant." what a beautiful sentence

It helps no one to be reductive.

@Milky Ways that’s the definition of redundant. Unneeded repetition.

Dont get it, arent redundant and unnecessary basically the same?

I’m somewhat of a grammar nazi and I didn’t even catch that. 😂

'It's like poetry. It rhymes.'

I bought this game some years ago but i still refuse to play it yet until i get at least a RTX 3050 so i can play this at ultra, this is still one of the most beautiful games i've seen

The sadest thing about this is that you CAN make a good aliens survival horror, yet no one thought about having this team make a collonial marines game

Hey Mando great review as always, I don't recall if its on The List but are you playing on doing a review for Freespace 2? That would be awesome!

First time watching i did not realized you actually placed a VHS recorded back play in there; you absolute mad lad.

i never managed to finish this game myself, although due to no fault of its own- its just that when the alien first shows up and is hunting you, i was so utterly terrified that i turned it off and never played it myself again. hearing that sound of the alien running and chasing you in this video activated my fight or flight. its the only horror game that ive never been able to go back to, they really nailed it.

I got jumpscared once or twice but mostly unleashed anger after getting killed by the alien.

Hebrews 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, James 2:24,26 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

I just stopped at the end bits bc the alien is just annoying

It says a lot of how GOOD this game is that your experience is a common one. There are both Steam reviews AND professional reviews that amount to "Total time played: 6 hours. Couldn't finish it. Best horror game ever." So scary it beat the players.

I was fine till the facehuggers appeared. Absolute nightmare fuel haha. Got it finished but not keen for a replay.

I remember being absolutely blown away by the design in this game. The UI felt so diagetic and well put together and really remains a shining example of how set design and UIs should be done.

Fun fact: this game was originally developed for the Playstation 3 and Xbox360, and was a cross gen release when it was ported to PC and 8th gen systems. That alone should tell you how impressive it really is visually.

I didn't particularly like how the alien was tethered to the player, it became quite obvious in just the few first hours. It also doesn't make sense to me that, on a space station where there are many people still alive, the alien would be particularly interested in you. As far I know, there's nothing in the alien lore to suggest that it is capable of "enjoying a challenge" or anything other than just wanting to kill, eat, recreate

It's not tied to the player for lore reasons. (though you could probably connect it to the mid-game twist) We can use the mod, but it would have been nice if they made how "sticky" the alien is a configurable option.

The best horror game who doesn't lose its colors

During my first playthrough, I spent most of the game thinking that the alien couldn't enter the vents and I was safe there. Seeing him suddenly crawling towards me in a vent about 12 hours into the game is probably the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me in my life.

@M. Black The alien AI is a masterpiece because it actually learns as it encounters you and even when it doesn't see you the AI learns from your actions, if you keep hiding in the lockers the AI will have the Alien start checking lockers. I think it's a double layer AI so you have the core alien that governs it's own actions and responds to stimuli while the other AI is more of an overwatch that will unlock parts of the aliens learning tree and will also spawn the alien near you, apparently when you haven't seen the alien in a while the director AI will spawn it near you to intentionally scare the shit out of you. There are so many video's and reviews that literally just praise and AI and don't talk about the other parts of the game, it's quite the feat.

I played Dead Space before I played AI, not to mention having seen the Alien movies as well, so I had a really hard time accepting that entering the vents could sometimes be helpful out of sheer terror.

I always broke line of sight with the alien, even behind the legs of a table while I hid under it, just to be on the safe side. During my first playthrough of the hospital escape sequence, I was doing precisely that when it dropped to the floor and looked underneath to narrowly miss me. Needless to say, my paranoia only got worse after that.

I literally had the exact same experience oh my god

In the first movie the second guy to die does so because he gets outmanouvered in the vents.

I actually died to the alien at the first possible opportunity before the tram when I played the game for the first time. When your NPC friend got snatched by it I thought it had been alerted and I needed to run away, but running makes noise that can quickly attract it. I may have actually died a few times before I realized that your ally being eaten didn't actually mean you were in immediate danger and proceeded down to the tram quietly.

Weird. I ran away in that part, and the noise didn't attract the Alien.

The exact same thing happened to me lol

I didn't realize that was possible.

Mega props for the VHS gag. Nobody else on youtube game circuits puts the thought and effort into the audio design as you do.

I actually really liked that the story just wouldn't freaking end. Because it's like a nightmare that won't end, you know? You just want it to end, but it won't stop. The shame is that the horror element wears off. But I personally never really thought this game was strong in the horror sense. It was more of a tense game, if that makes sense, not scary. I wasn't scared so much as I was anxious. And I think the game did keep its tension to the end.

I think bad pacing is bad pacing. If a game doesn’t end when it should my reaction is usually just boredom or annoyance.

I wanted the game to end because it was bad. You sound like you are coping...

"You just want it to end, but it won't stop." "It just won't STOP!" *Bong*"We're under attack!" "I know...."

10:07 it was worth to play this game even just for that scene :)

Mandalore causally flexing his VHS style editing abilities. That was honestly one of the best, most authentic VFX edits I've seen. I legit felt like I was watching an old VHS.

Marble Hornets-level

@Israel Storey oh nice! Shout out to Noodle then, that was so clean!

At 35:43 he has a brief credit saying that Noodle has a setup for the VHS stuff. So he had him actually put a clip onto a VHS tape and record it, rather than just trying to emulate it with editing.

The reason the music syncs so perfectly is because it uses Wwise. Wwise can essentially link specific events in the game to specific parts of music or tracks and dynamically switch between them immediately. Some of the Total War games also use Wwise and it's why the music there so perfectly flows between ambient idle in battle, to more tense build-up during the first charge into the enemy army, into full on battle music after contact is made. All of that is done entirely unscripted obviously and the sound engine itself handles all of it based on what's actually happening in the game. So, the music changing from scary horror running away music to something more intense and action-like when you turn around to fight the alien is because the sound engine picked up your actions and is suiting it. I'm sure other audio engines also use this capability in a similar way, but I've personally modded with Wwise and it was really impressive how easy it was to use and how effective it is too.

The 2137 joke in polish at 6:28 is a God tier meme. How on Earth Mandalore is fluent in contemprorary polish meme templates?! Well done sir :)

Jprdl... I was wondering why he said prosze. Thanks for reminding me.

@Polo the polish pope died at 21:37, which is now called by the Catholic community as the "Pope's Hour". It became a meme together with some smug-like expression of the pope and circulates as kinda underground-but-not-really meme.

@Polo Pope John Paul II was polish and is basically a cult figure there. His hour of death 21:37 is so widely known that it became a giant meme

@Polo it's a polish 2137 meme which is about death of polish pope

I don't get joke :(

I always found the Working Joes were scarier than anything else in the game. With the alien you know you can't kill it and need to hide. But a blank faced robot briskly walking at your proclaiming it's intentions to help you is horrifying

Can you still enable the mic in this game so noises your actual mic picks up can alert enemies?

I play it right now on a exemtremly mediocre PC connected to a 4k TV and it looks fantastic. High Immersion. Aged very well overall. Recommended even for those how don´t have high end graphic hardware.

Thanks for watching and commenting text me I have a gift for you 🎉🎁

It says a lot about how great this game is that even just the xenomorph jumping at the footage gave me a start and brought back flashbacks. The best horror game ever made, IMO.

I liked Axel as an intro because when he's killed off, it makes the "isolation" feel all the more present

I love how you included Polish Pope and 2137

Let's celebrate these devs! Only through genuine love and passion for the franchise could they have made such an incredible game starting on the 360 TWO CONSOLE GENERATIONS ago.

@Tim Be real, nobody reads the credits except for making youtube videos or flexing in the comments. There's a reason that the actual people who make stuff are at the bottom of the ladder. And it's not because they are as popular as the company name they work under on.

@Bell Drop that's what credits are for

@JimmyBoombox That's just the studio. A brand name. They might as well have changed everyone that worked on this game and still can call themselves the same name.

@Bell Drop Creative Assembly are the devs aka the people that make the Total War games

@Xenon - Yeah! I have it on my Sony Xperia smartphone and it runs and looks great! I was actually surprised by that! I would recommend to get a Xbox controller and connect it through bluetooth to get a better control experience out of it!

Oh god the alien sprinting sound was pure terror. I've finished the game and I STILL jumped TWICE watching this video.

ikr. The alien sprinting sound usually is followed by "welp! I died again...".

I loved this game and really wish there had been a full blown sequel.

It's a totally different type of game and if you go into it saying "this is going to be shit because it's on a phone" you're certainly going to agree with yourself and decide that it's shit, but there's a short (hour or two) phone game that acts as a mini pseudo-sequel. There's not much to it, but it's only a few bucks and it's the only phone game I didn't uninstall in disgust after about 5 minutes of playing. For what it is, it's very well-made IMO. It's called Alien Blackout or something and I played it on an Android phone like... dunno, 4 years ago.

It deserves a sequel so hard, what a great game. Cant believe it honestly

It deserved it. One of the best games in the last 20 years.

Be Creative Assembly. Make one of the best horror games off the tail end of your most disastrous launch. Refuse to elaborate. Go back to making strategy games.

I'd love to see a review of Half-Life, including the fan remake Black Mesa.

Honestly, one of the best things about this game is the fact that so many people can play it and have different experiences. I know the AI can be a bit flakey at times but the fact that it can take so many variables into account and not become a complete mess is amazing. There are some good articles out there interviewing the creators about all the things the AI does and take into account.

@NekoiNemo Looks like your comment got removed by Youtube. People can't respond to something they can't read. Happens sometimes.

@Cass Huh, weird - the moment i specify what's wrong with the game - everyone just went really quiet with telling how great the game is and just quietly upvoting other people fellating the game...

@Cass Oh, i did. But because nobody wants to read comments not fellating this shitshow of agame: nobody has read it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyIA-SRJGco&lc=UgypfOp_FrcsWsrYtNh4AaABAg.9irOkQ0EoA19izWKhlEv0j

@NekoiNemo It might help if you actually specified what you don't like about it. Otherwise you make it look like you're just trolling.

@Moon Tiger I would take the suicidal survivor AI of DR 1/2 nay day over the cheating RNG-based Artificial Idiot of this game. I beat DR 1, 2 and Off Record, and never once in any of those games, even when AI spazzed out, never did it fall as low as this game's baseline AI (for the xenomorph, the human/synth AI is inoffensively mediocre, not "broken")

This game is a damn gem. From the plot, environment, sound, level design, visuals and gameplay, It was just a blast. Such a damn good horror game done right. Would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Horror/Aliens Movie or Lore.

I was actually killed when I ran into the tram. It really surprised me

I feel in some ways that this game was made to be the "anti-let's play" game. It has very slow stretches purely for pacing and atmosphere that doesn't necessarily make it entertaining to watch someone else play it. Also it avoids having too many scripted jumpscares that the let's-players can overreact to. And that's probably why I love it!

dude i watched 3 let's plays of that game

(Spoiler Warning) I always interpreted the 'tether' as there being multiple xenomorphs on the station, just in different areas. Especially since it seems like it's in places it really shouldn't be able to sometimes. Made a lot more sense as a theory by the end of the game.

That does make sense, since one xeno cant cover an entire station the size of a town, so multiple ones make you think it's the same one stalking you when instead they're doing it in shifts, covering different areas at once.

The alien reminds me of me going as fast as I can go 😅

How do you get the cutscene framerate to be smooth? Mine is always choppy. It’s like 15fps.

The VR mod had huge potential but sadly it was abandoned. Also, as a Pole - mad props for the 2137 joke :D

Personally I think they mostly added Axel to give you a little bit of false security if you were me, a 15 year old in a dark room looking for literally anything as a saving grace lol. When I was younger I cannot explain the dread that everything in this game made me feel because it has never been reproduced, but having Axel around made me feel safer in those few moments than I have ever felt again playing this game, I didn't give a fuck what he was saying cus he had a gun and he was on my side. I'm sure it was because he was some sort of order amongst all the chaos even thought it was tiny to younger me going through for the first time, if Axel was in front of me telling me what to do it meant the alien couldn't appear from the abyss and karate chop out my carotid artery (right?) and that is relative safety for alien isolation even if it is false lol. Works really well when the alien ends up steve irwin-ing the shit out of him, essentially blowing out my nightlight and sending me straight into 'cowabunga it is mode' A.K.A the good ole' Joestar secret technique. Needless to say I died a lot that night. This is a huge bias considering if you're not a 15 year old coward playing for the first time it's probably just going to be exactly what you said, but for me it was sort of a, 'welcome to the jungle' moment. I think this was the first horror game I decided to actually beat as well so more bias lol.

I was 17 when this game came out, and while this was my first real horror game as well, I was already a huge fan of the Alien universe. In fact, Alien was the first horror movie I ever watched as a kid- rented it from my local Block Buster. I had a pretty good idea what I was in for, but it was all new to me. When Axel guided me around the tutorial area, I appreciated the handholding as I knew I'd probably be all on my own soon- that "welcome to the jungle" idea you mentioned. As a character he wasn't violent or malicious, he was scared out of his mind and trying to survive. He had a convincingly human reaction to the whole situation in front of him, and his treatment of Ripley spoke of a genuinely paranoid and isolated man. I especially appreciated how he warmed up to Ripley just a little bit before he died. He tried to make Ripley understand the gravity of the situation they were both in now. He wanted her to make it out, but she needed to accept a grim reality first. While he was shortlived, I enjoyed his company. His departure not only helped to set the stage for how I would need to play the game, but also the tone of the game: being alone. Deprivation of the human element is what makes most horror so compelling, and by taking away a character in the new, main setting of the story establishes that survival is all on the player. Glad I wasn't the only one who enjoyed Axel!

I'm what most Alien franchise fans call a Filthy Heathen. I loved Prometheus because it wasn't just a generic action movie like all Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien V Predator, etc, etc. It had real thought, exploration, characters, purposes, etc. It dealt with heady concepts, didn't necessarily pull them all off but they gave it a go and of course it had Fassbender who is excellent.

I just want to talk about my favorite part of this game. Towards the end of the game you're used to seeing paranoid human survivors who shoot at everything in sight. It's a station full of conflict. But then you get to a small room with a couch and a viewport with view of the planet. There's just one lone human survivor just sitting on the couch and staring out the window. He knows he's going to die and is choosing to accept his death in peace.

You should use REshade ... not only you can FrameLimit but add a bunch of new effects to the game for it too look much better.

In college, I remember watching a friend of mine throwing out his shoulder playing this game while drunk and eating pizza because he was startled by a Working Joe. He catapulted himself backwards out of his seat. Good times.

Jumpscares never bugged me I just got angry cursing out loud when the alien catches me

Kek

@domino2515 that made me laugh

I used to play this game with friends and we'd switch controllers when one of us died. One of our friends, while playing, went to hide in a vent; we were unaware the alien could go into the vents you can go into. So when the alien went into his vent as he was checking the radar, he got scared so bad he literally screamed at the top of his lungs as if he was literally getting killed by the alien in real life. Like straight up "AAAAH AAAAAAAAHH AAAH!!" It was the funniest shit ever lmao

One of my little brother and I’s favorite shared memories is when we rented this from Family Video. As I was playing on our Xbox 360, I tried to mess with him, going “oooo It’s right there!” every so often randomly. This backfired when I climbed into a vent to hide from the alien, unaware that it could hide in vents. “Oooh it’s right there! Hahah- OH SHIT IT’S RIGHT THERE-“

I absolutely love this game to death but, I can't agree enough on how stretched out it felt The entire latter half of the game was just me going, "Is this it? is it finally over..?" Only for it to be like, "Nah, bro, you thought Ellen had a rough time? We're not even CLOSE to done." in a way, it kinda made me love the game even more. It really makes you FEEL like the whole universe wants you dead.

Gotta ask now, what did Ridley Scott think the Alien ship was

I think a good step this game could take forward is implementing VR officially, it's already so immersive that adding that extra level would be perfect. There is a mod to support VR but I don't know how well it works. In any case, out of all the Alien games that haven't lived up to expectations over the years it's very refreshing to finally get one that absolutely nails the environment and fear of the original film.

My favorite game ever. It's a damn shame it didn't get a sequel :(

I'm happy it was a commercial disappointment. I don't live in a world where a sequel exists and a bunch of low standard gamers, coping and acting like that it's a masterpiece. Every cheap trick in the book to artificially extend play time is here

I know it’s not what you meant, but the mobile game Alien Blackout acts as a sequel to the story and is pretty cool. It’s just a completely different style of game

I don't think it need it, tho. Put CA making another horror game would have been nice.

Without a doubt the most terrifying horror game I have ever played. The atmosphere, the alien itself, the 1980s sci-fi theme, everything is amazing. I always love to talk about the A.I. The Alien uses something called a "Director", which is essentially two AI's working together. One is the A.I. of the Alien itself, and the other is a sort've invisible man guiding and monitoring the player and the Alien, if the stress/activity seems low, it'll up send the Alien to where the player is or make him fall back if he's been near the player too much. It's a brilliant system and is also used by Left 4 Dead 2. All encounters are always different and random which is perfect for a horror game.

Left 4 Dead is criminally underrated for its AI. This whole Director idea is really solid and something only old Valve could come up with. It's a shame there's only Alien: Isolation that actually iterated on it and used it, at least I can't really think of anything else.

plus the director actually tracks how you've been dealing with the alien and will unlock certain abilities for the alien to directly counter your favorite tools

This is definitely one of the best horror games I've played imo. And we will most likely never see such a faithful recreation of the original movie in video game ever again.

1:30 I was quite amused at the feet being pixellated.

It's amazing that the aesthetic, pacing and atmosphere are so good, considering that the game was made by a company that only makes strategy games.

Amazing review of one of the best horror games ever made. As always.

Like Mandalore says, there's plenty of things the devs just barely missed the mark with, but what you get in game has a level of polish I'd love to see in the majority of games coming out now. It's a triumph of horror gaming and I hope future development teams look at this game for how to make interactive systems of conflict integrate with an immersive experience.

@The Epic Duck or kojima. The second he got booted, the mgs lineage went downhill

@MumblingSolipsist This exactly: a legacy name is not a guarantee. A good example of this could be Bioware an rpg darling who's hit some hard times with its talent loss. Hope it can turn around with new talent.

@warlockd Company names generally mean nothing, it's like animation, what matters is who's working at the company when a game is being made.

Meanwhile 2042 and Pokemon today

I am just amazed the developer of this game made it, considering they are more of a one shot pony dealing with only total war.

I love how the game feels like it came out in the 80s, that is, if we could have had graphics like that in the 80s, it goes beyond being a product of its time

for the longest time I thought this game came out in 2017 and was like yeah its getting old but still impressive, that was until I heard you say it was from 2014 and spat out my water, what in the Lovecraftian fuck did dev team do to make a game like this, I'm just impressed and having an existential crisis over times unhating march, anyway, another great video.

Glad to see you give EDF the respect it deserves as a seminal piece of gaming history.

17:17 nice Mandalore branded Easter egg there. Every electrocution in a game I expect to hear marv screaming “That would be funny” No it wouldn’t. :P That first medical area with the alien was one of those “it just wouldn’t leave” moments for me. It was very intense and memorable but it took way too long because the thing wouldn’t leave me alone.

I had no idea it was this studio's first run at a first person game. They really knocked it out of the park in a way I didn't think was possible. This will eternally be my favorite survival horror game and I am heart broken that we will likely never see a proper sequel.

@Delco in my opinion AAA games which has a lot of people tends to have a lot more conflict on which direction they should go, maybe a lot of back and forths. while small game developers tend to stick to their plan and push through with their decisions.

@Rame_mac It reminds me of Cyberpunk 2077 where AAA studios filled with 500 or so people struggling making a first person games, yet games like Dying light 2 and Ready or Not easily do that...

@Rame_mac I mean, they did have the same creative director that worked on God of War 3 on board, Stig Asmussen, and Respawn is just an amazing studio in general.

there was a interview with CA and NoClip, CA are aware of the calls for a sequel, and it it appears it isn't out of the question, they seemed to have a lot of love for AI

As a studio maybe but the people involved perhaps. The game seemed pretty indie which makes it aparent to have some passion here and there. What do you think

Fireteam Elite is unironically one of my favorite games of the past two years. It's surprisingly satisfying and fun.

Can you do a review of the armor core series since the new trailer came out?

I remember the game feeling overly long and weirdly paced the first time I played it. But then I went and played System Shock 2 and then came back a few years later and replayed Alien Isolation and played it with the expectation that its an light immersive sim shock-like and it felt the right length and less weirdly paced.

Really great review. I love the game and would even go as far to say that it’s in my top five, but I totally agree with the criticisms you’ve raised. I’d be down for some kind of performance enhancing, or NexGen upgrade, as playing this with less bugs and things like ray tracing would be as good as a sequel at this point

Man I remember this game coming with my R9 270X, and being floored with how good it looked and how well it ran. Whoever at AMD thought of that promotion should be commended, since it really did give an impression the card you just bought was a massive upgrade. (Or at least more then it probably actually was)

One of the greatest games of all time, IMO. Wish I could experience it again for the first time.

I absolutely love the ernesty at the start of these going over the technical issues and fix ups. Like hey, you deserve to enjoy the game, heres some things that may get in your way. Its so nice to know in advance.

This is a very good review by my book, also for first time players to know that an FPS limit is needed and that "Hard" is actually the recommended difficulty, which I agree with seeing how enemies can be unrealistically bad sighted on lower difficulties which eats into the immersion. The downside is that the Xenomorph will also be very clingy if you don't distract it.

The AI has 2 parts: "The Director" - the Director always knows where you and the alien are, but only in terms of which Room you are in. After X amount of time it will send the Alien towards your last location, depending on several parameters. "The Alien" - doesn't know your location if it's not near you. If it's in the same room as you, it will find you after X amount of time, no matter how you're hidden.

Honestly even with the pacing issues and the fact that it definitely should have ended about 5 hours earlier than it did, I still consider this game to be the greatest survival-horror game of all time. The lows are never low enough to eclipse the insane highs this game can reach.

This game was surely way ahead of its time. The AI was absolutely fantastic which really made you feel tense all the time and the sound design is one of the best I have ever experienced. Add to this the visuals the game offers and you will know how much of a must play experience this game offers. Sad that since then we have had barely any good games.

While I think at times the pacing can be a little too drawn out, I think it works out well enough on the individual sections of the story. Its still one of my favorite games.

I got to play this in VR. Holy cow, that was terrifying

On lore stuff- I like that both eggmorphing and actuall queen are both a thing Xenomorphs do. It's just "situation sensitive"- if there are no conditions for queen to be sustainable they do eggmorphing. If the thing resists for longer- then the queen is formed, being more efficient and faster at breeding than turning "prey" into eggs. It's a bioweapon and "perfect" one at that so it deffinetly has this sort of adaptation feature to not fail right after deployment and be easier to store

@Masterzoroark666 yeah, check it out, it's available either digitally or in printed format, I only used the digital stuff. It looks pretty neat!

@Aidan Matthew Galea well true that, I guess. Though generally I would call the way Xenomorph biology functions a very confusing thing, especially with the stages of the development.

@Xenomorthian "HBO's Chernobyl"... you know that Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe was real and not a TV show plot, right?... right???

@Glambrax Intresting. I do like both ideas for how Xenomorphs are bred- both the eggmorphing and drone molting into a queen if nescessary. I remember first time I got to know about the molting idea was from Alien vs Predator (2 I think) where you turn into a Queen at the end of Alien campaign (god damn, I need to remember to draw 6)

@Happy Krieger THE WAR OF SIMPS!!