Alien Isolation: Nominated for the “Even Better Than I Expected” Award 2017

I have just finished the game after about 21 hours and think Alien Isolation is excellent. Everything looks like it should (Based on the films) and while playing you get the same scare you do from the films. They have nice space views (when you find windows) and most things are clear enough to figure out without too much thought (I did on one occasion go the wrong way). The station is relatively open to explore at times and still has moments when you are trapped trying to make your way through an area (I think it is a nice mix of situations). I have can honestly say I have been satisfied with this game.

As for the things I would done differently if I were making this game I have made a small list as some people might find them 'good to know':

1) I would allow for the Alien to die with any weapon you have (after the correct shot (fire arms) or damage taken (blast or flame weapons)).
2) The Alien should not charge at you when fleeing from the flames of the flame thrower.
3) I found one large door/wall that I could not get right up against and I think that should be corrected as it did break the seamlessness of the experience (I was randomly exploring so I doubt it will be noticed by many people).

I also found a quirk were you can hide for a long as you want under desks from the Alien but the Robots will find you under these. I would not change this in game as I have stated above you can not damage the Alien at all so it's kind of a nice compromise with how the game works.

I also noticed that some people have said the game is 'too long' but I think that the length actually aids in the experience. Simply because it allows for you to adjust to the scenario of an Alien monster you have to evade while completing objectives and makes you more a part of the experience. This also allows for you to improve your responses to the Alien and make it more of skill based progression than a 'run-luck' event between save points (I did save at every opportunity having said that).

I also liked that the game gave you a sense of urgency without actually introduce timers (I did not test to find out if you can run out of time during certain events). I found the game in general did a really good job of allowing natural reactions actually progressing the plot and add to the experience of playing the game. I think this is my favourite Alien game to date.

Hope this is of use to people who are thinking about buying Alien: Isolation.

Additional:
I completed the Nightmare difficulty (while finishing off the achievements) and thought I’d added some details on this mode:
The is no hud, which means the Flashlight can run out of battery at any moment (I went through the entire play through thinking that it did not work and then discovered it worked when trying for the 100 deaths achievement).
The map and objective location indicator (on the map) do not work so basically you are reliant on the tracker.
The tracker fluctuates too so it goes off for a fraction of a second every second ish (sorry I did not time it).
Last thing of note is the Med Kits are a waste of time because if you get injured you just die before you could use a Med kit.

The only crafted items I used were:
Noise Maker x 1
Smoke Grenade x 1
Molotov's x 4

I would also suggest:
Flamer ammo is limited so I think saving this for face huggers only is a good idea.
I also think that the ‘Kill no Humans’ achievement goes well with this since you have very limited resources and ammo.

I just completed the game (and started the game +) so though I would update my review as an informed review:

I Very much recommended and I am very happy they decided to do a remake of this game. I really liked all the improvements made to the game and it makes it almost feel like playing a fresh new game, even though I knew the story going in. I think if all remakes were this good, we would almost never need to buy new games again and just enjoy the quality of a great game and story. Anyway I do not want to say too much about the game as that could spoil it for some people.

The only real technical issue I had with the game is when starting it up after the first time of playing. If I use the buttons to skip the developer logs at the start the continue menu does not load correctly for me however, if I wait patiently for them to play then it loads without issue. I also had the game freeze on me once but load back up and it was fine. The last thing is, sometimes opening doors would open fine but what was behind them would take a sec or so to load, which is not a big issue but would have been nice for it not to happen. I suspect most / all of these are because I am still using a NVIDIA 1070 and similarly old CPU and motherboard (Not even windows 11 compatible).

Lastly I'd almost describe the credits as fun since they have given you buttons to push, which certainly makes them more interesting than normal credits (I hope this becomes a thing in games).

-------Original Review-------

At present it is very much a yes from myself.

Started my first play through yesterday on impossible difficulty. I only made it to roughly chapter three before dying in the most stupid way as I forgot to use my tools and panicked in a vacuum, which is not a successful combination. To top it off I had not saved since I assumed the saves would not work however, it seems in this version, you can in fact save and when you die in impossible difficulty you can continue in Hard difficulty instead of start from the start again. I quite like this since I am happy to finish on hard before considering trying impossible again. Though since I did not save I might as well have started again xD.

Any how, as for the game in general: it looks better and the story from what I remember of the original has had a bit of a boost in the story telling and I like these improvements. After tweaking the controls I find them as good as I remember though I think I need to tweak some more as I keep naturally pressing F for the lifting tool, which I currently have bound to the quest beacon.