3.5/5 ★ – Standingonrocks's review of Alien: Isolation.

I'm a fan of horror games, and recently I've become a fan of the Alien movies. After hearing about how good this game was, I picked it up cheap and was excited to jump in. After finishing the game, I can say that most of the acclaim it's received feels valid, but I do think it has some extremely serious flaws that bring the game down dramatically. As usual I'll start with my positives. First, the atmosphere is absolutely impeccable. Sevastapool is an amazingly well realized place, and for being a 10-year old game the environments still look absolutely stunning. The space station is a fantastic recreation of the original movie. It also sounds absolutely spectacular. All games should strive to have sound design this incredible. The station creaks and groans and hisses as it falls into dereliction. I can't say the same about the characters, who aren't very well animated. The gameplay when it's fresh is fun and thrilling and the moments of being hunted by the Alien can be absolutely heart-pounding. Until you die. Then you die again. Then you die again. Then you die again. Then you die again. and again. once more. Maybe at this point you'll make a little progress, just to die again. This is where the game just ultimately fell apart for me. The Alien is a formidable foe, but on the "recommended hard" difficulty, the thing is just tied to you. You can't go anywhere without it following you. It loses all tension and quickly goes from being a hunter to a nuisance. This manages to take the game from thrilling to fairly annoying. Couple this with the fact the game just goes on, and on, and on. You'll be backtracking through areas, all while avoiding the omnipresent Alien, who will not ever leave you alone. You'll die checking computer modules, you'll die walking, you'll die saving, you'll die hiding. Hell, I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it now. There are some absolutely awesome set pieces and at times I was completely awed. But it's hard to balance that with the frustrations I had with it. It's good when it's good, but it's real bad when it's bad. I know the standard internet advice is to "git gud". The problem is if I'm not having fun than I just don't care. The Alien isn't "gud", it's cheap. For note, I played this mostly on the Steam Deck. It's really incredible how smooth and good it looks on the system, but the later half of the game is better experienced on a big screen.