Is this the worst game review ever?

[hypercybermegatron]

I'm hooked on Alien Isolation

I can't believe I've only started playing it now, it's unlike any game I've played before.

Admittedly it's slow paced and requires patience but this is such a refreshing departure from the fast-food type generic game experiences where you just blast and bumble your way around to get through to the end, and get the game out of the way and move on to the next burger.

I haven't finished it, I'm at the point where I just got the flamethrower but the experience of playing this game has left me with such a positive impression that I, and yes this term gets bandied a lot this days, would go so far as call it a masterpiece.

This is a profound gaming experience.

The story, music, graphics, AI, game-play mechanic all work together well to create an experience faithful to the original movies. The analogue glitching effects are such a nice touch, the ambience and sense of horror penetrate my mind when I'm wondering around Sevastopol Station trying to survive; I lose sense of the outside world.

However, WTF is this abomination exactly?

Imagine professing to be an "official" game reviewer and putting out garbage like this? In summary, it's just one giant whinge that the game is too long for this dimwitted reviewer of feeble intellect and diminutive attention span. Disgraceful.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/10/03/alien-isolation-review

EDIT: Finished it today. Incredible game. If I played it in VR I think I would die irl.

[Solrac-D]

I don't think that review (from 2014) had access to the VR mod. I wonder if he would have a different outlook when the Alien towers over him and spears him?

[Dayve]

Originally posted by hypercybermegatron:

I'm hooked on Alien Isolation

I can't believe I've only started playing it now, it's unlike any game I've played before.

Admittedly it's slow paced and requires patience but this is such a refreshing departure from the fast-food type generic game experiences where you just blast and bumble your way around to get through to the end, and get the game out of the way and move on to the next burger.

I haven't finished it, I'm at the point where I just got the flamethrower but the experience of playing this game has left me with such a positive impression that I, and yes this term gets bandied a lot this days, would go so far as call it a masterpiece.

This is a profound gaming experience.

The story, music, graphics, AI, game-play mechanic all work together well to create an experience faithful to the original movies. The analogue glitching effects are such a nice touch, the ambience and sense of horror penetrate my mind when I'm wondering around Sevastopol Station trying to survive; I lose sense of the outside world.

However, WTF is this abomination exactly?

Imagine professing to be an "official" game reviewer and putting out garbage like this? In summary, it's just one giant whinge that the game is too long for this dimwitted reviewer of feeble intellect and diminutive attention span. Disgraceful.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/10/03/alien-isolation-review

Yes, that's the famous hatchet job IGN did on this game, where their reviewer didn't understand that the alien can hear noise, so he kept making noise and dying and then complaining that he died.

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by Solracd:

I don't think that review (from 2014) had access to the VR mod. I wonder if he would have a different outlook when the Alien towers over him and spears him?

I don't think it would have made a difference, seems like he just couldn't be bothered playing it properly. Having said that, I wish I could try this in VR mode. If I ever get my PSVR to work on PC (a hack does exist) this will be the first game I'll try with it.

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by Dayve:

Yes, that's the famous hatchet job IGN did on this game, where their reviewer didn't understand that the alien can hear noise, so he kept making noise and dying and then complaining that he died.

I didn't realise this review was so infamous, so it should be. No wonder people think IGN is horrid.

Moving around quietly is something you learn to do early on in the game, it literally tells you to avoid making too much noise and move slowly. It's integral to the design of this game; it forces you to play it slow and steady, there is no alternative, and that's something I appreciate as part of the genius of this game's design.

I wonder if IGN get's paid for favourable review scores and Sega didn't pay pizzo when Alien Isolation was released?

[Dayve]

Originally posted by hypercybermegatron:

Originally posted by Dayve:

Yes, that's the famous hatchet job IGN did on this game, where their reviewer didn't understand that the alien can hear noise, so he kept making noise and dying and then complaining that he died.

I didn't realise this review was so infamous, so it should be. No wonder people think IGN is horrid.

Moving around quietly is something you learn to do early on in the game, it literally tells you to avoid making too much noise and move slowly. It's integral to the design of this game; it forces you to play it slow and steady, there is no alternative, and that's something I appreciate as part of the genius of this game's design.

I wonder if IGN get's paid for favourable review scores and Sega didn't pay pizzo when Alien Isolation was released?

The way it works with gaming journos is they get invited to various events by developers/publishers where they show off their game to the journo so they can write about the upcoming game.

The developer/publisher pays for the journo's travel, a 5 star hotel, the room in the hotel will usually have a TV + console + collector's edition of the game in it for them to play (which they get to keep and take home with them), then they are invited to the event where they are treated like a celebrity by the developers/publishers.

It's unspoken, but the journo knows if he/she does not give a glowing review for the game they will not be invited to these events in the future.

Basically they get bribed. All this crap was exposed during GamerGate. I don't take gaming journos seriously anymore and haven't for almost a decade now. They're corrupt and obsessed with political ideology.

I doubt SEGA were bribing journos like this back when this game came out because back then (maybe today too, I don't know) SEGA was barely breaking even on all the games they published, even the successful ones.

[MightyBigFish]

Originally posted by Solracd:

However, WTF is this abomination exactly?

Imagine professing to be an "official" game reviewer and putting out garbage like this? In summary, it's just one giant whinge that the game is too long for this dimwitted reviewer of feeble intellect and diminutive attention span. Disgraceful.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/10/03/alien-isolation-review

I wouldn't disagree with him as I found it got samey after a while. But downloading the Unpredictable Alien Mod fixed that for me - both giving me longer breaks from Steve while finding him more scary as he prowls the floors and can creep up on you. You don't get the thud-and-trill warning so often as he drops in. Instead, you enter a room and with no warning he steps through a door and catches you.

That flamer is not a panacea either. He learns it!

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by MightyBigFish:

Originally posted by Solracd:

However, WTF is this abomination exactly?

Imagine professing to be an "official" game reviewer and putting out garbage like this? In summary, it's just one giant whinge that the game is too long for this dimwitted reviewer of feeble intellect and diminutive attention span. Disgraceful.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/10/03/alien-isolation-review

I wouldn't disagree with him as I found it got samey after a while. But downloading the Unpredictable Alien Mod fixed that for me - both giving me longer breaks from Steve while finding him more scary as he prowls the floors and can creep up on you. You don't get the thud-and-trill warning so often as he drops in. Instead, you enter a room and with no warning he steps through a door and catches you.

That flamer is not a panacea either. He learns it!

I think any game around could be argued to be "samey" after a while, it's certainly not something that occurs to me when playing this. I'm playing on normal level, personally I think the difficulty balance is fine.

The important thing for me is the flow of the game and I get reason for using the Unpredictable Alien mod, but it's hard enough for me to handle a somewhat predictable Alien with audio cues, and the flamethrower is my get out of jail free card of last resort so I don't think I'll be trying that mod! But sounds like you found it useful so glad it helped your experience with it.

[Dayve]

Originally posted by hypercybermegatron:

Originally posted by MightyBigFish:

I wouldn't disagree with him as I found it got samey after a while. But downloading the Unpredictable Alien Mod fixed that for me - both giving me longer breaks from Steve while finding him more scary as he prowls the floors and can creep up on you. You don't get the thud-and-trill warning so often as he drops in. Instead, you enter a room and with no warning he steps through a door and catches you.

That flamer is not a panacea either. He learns it!

I think any game around could be argued to be "samey" after a while, it's certainly not something that occurs to me when playing this. I'm playing on normal level, personally I think the difficulty balance is fine.

The important thing for me is the flow of the game and I get reason for using the Unpredictable Alien mod, but it's hard enough for me to handle a somewhat predictable Alien with audio cues, and the flamethrower is my get out of jail free card of last resort so I don't think I'll be trying that mod! But sounds like you found it useful so glad it helped your experience with it.

You've got it the wrong way around - unpredictable alien mod makes the game easier (you see the alien a lot less, which also makes it more scary because you don't get used to dying every few minutes).

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by Dayve:

You've got it the wrong way around - unpredictable alien mod makes the game easier (you see the alien a lot less, which also makes it more scary because you don't get used to dying every few minutes).

Thanks for the clarification, I see.

I'm quite happy with normal difficulty, it's the sweet spot for me. Early on in the game was making the mistake of making too much noise and died a bit but I then started relying more on the motion tracker and got a feel and found a rhythm for moving around undetected, so constantly dying was no longer a problem. It's certainly one of those games I need to focus and be "in the zone" to play properly.

[Dayve]

Originally posted by hypercybermegatron:

Originally posted by Dayve:

You've got it the wrong way around - unpredictable alien mod makes the game easier (you see the alien a lot less, which also makes it more scary because you don't get used to dying every few minutes).

Thanks for the clarification, I see.

I'm quite happy with normal difficulty, it's the sweet spot for me. Early on in the game was making the mistake of making too much noise and died a bit but I then started relying more on the motion tracker and got a feel and found a rhythm for moving around undetected, so constantly dying was no longer a problem. It's certainly one of those games I need to focus and be "in the zone" to play properly.

The motion tracker is something I only used on my first playthrough, for a few hours after I first got it. Its range is only 100 feet so with the alien you're better off using your ears instead (works best if you use headphones). Your ears will tell you whether the alien is in the vents or on the ground, how far away it is and what direction it's moving in much better than the motion tracker can.

It's very useful against Working Joes and human enemies though - especially Joes because it will tell you which direction they're moving in, and therefore which direction they're facing, allowing you to just sneak behind them.

I'm not telling you how to play though or not to use it - if you find it works for you then just ignore me lol.

[Sentient]

I envy you. I wish I could play it for the very first time again. Here's hoping for AI:2! As for the IGN review, pearls before swine.

[Dayve]

Originally posted by Sentient:

I envy you. I wish I could play it for the very first time again. Here's hoping for AI:2! As for the IGN review, pearls before swine.

I've always said I'm glad they never made a sequel (not counting the mobile game which I'll never play because mobile games LOL).

Isolation didn't sell very well. There are a few reasons for this - one big reason is how bad Colonial Marines was. It did some serious harm to the Alien franchise. Another reason might be the legendarily crap review done by IGN, but if I remember correctly that review came out after GamerGate, so I don't think many people were still taking gaming journalists seriously anymore. Another reason is that it's primarily a stealth game. Not too many people like stealth games these days - their heyday was like late 1990's - 2005. Another reason would be that the majority of Alien game fans expect an Alien game to involve lots of blowing aliens away with a pulse rifle.

If they ever make a sequel I suspect they will try to get it to sell better by altering the formula, probably by adding lots of shooting.

[El Shabs]

Originally posted by Dayve:

Originally posted by Sentient:

I envy you. I wish I could play it for the very first time again. Here's hoping for AI:2! As for the IGN review, pearls before swine.

I've always said I'm glad they never made a sequel (not counting the mobile game which I'll never play because mobile games LOL).

Isolation didn't sell very well. There are a few reasons for this - one big reason is how bad Colonial Marines was. It did some serious harm to the Alien franchise. Another reason might be the legendarily crap review done by IGN, but if I remember correctly that review came out after GamerGate, so I don't think many people were still taking gaming journalists seriously anymore. Another reason is that it's primarily a stealth game. Not too many people like stealth games these days - their heyday was like late 1990's - 2005. Another reason would be that the majority of Alien game fans expect an Alien game to involve lots of blowing aliens away with a pulse rifle.

If they ever make a sequel I suspect they will try to get it to sell better by altering the formula, probably by adding lots of shooting.

We also live in a time where single player games in general can struggle to gain attention if they're not sequels to existing mega franchises. I just had a peek at the best selling games of 2021 and there's a Pokemon game, RE Village, the kind of game franchises that have a history going back over 20 years. Most of the other top 10 best selling games are various EA sports games, a couple of CoD titles etc, and then we also have F2P which is huge, even GTA 5 is basically a F2P online game as Rockstar have stopped making single player paid DLC like they used to. In this kind of environment a lot of genuinely good single player games just struggle, and it sucks

[Dayve]

Originally posted by El Shabs:

Originally posted by Dayve:

I've always said I'm glad they never made a sequel (not counting the mobile game which I'll never play because mobile games LOL).

Isolation didn't sell very well. There are a few reasons for this - one big reason is how bad Colonial Marines was. It did some serious harm to the Alien franchise. Another reason might be the legendarily crap review done by IGN, but if I remember correctly that review came out after GamerGate, so I don't think many people were still taking gaming journalists seriously anymore. Another reason is that it's primarily a stealth game. Not too many people like stealth games these days - their heyday was like late 1990's - 2005. Another reason would be that the majority of Alien game fans expect an Alien game to involve lots of blowing aliens away with a pulse rifle.

If they ever make a sequel I suspect they will try to get it to sell better by altering the formula, probably by adding lots of shooting.

We also live in a time where single player games in general can struggle to gain attention if they're not sequels to existing mega franchises. I just had a peek at the best selling games of 2021 and there's a Pokemon game, RE Village, the kind of game franchises that have a history going back over 20 years. Most of the other top 10 best selling games are various EA sports games, a couple of CoD titles etc, and then we also have F2P which is huge, even GTA 5 is basically a F2P online game as Rockstar have stopped making single player paid DLC like they used to. In this kind of environment a lot of genuinely good single player games just struggle, and it sucks

The simple fact is that a majority of gamers have shockingly poor taste and shockingly low standards. How else do you explain the best selling games mostly being sports games made by EA which are literally the exact same game every single year, same engine, same graphics, same sport, same players, same lootboxes, same money grubbing? There is no other way to explain it.

How else do you explain crap Resident Evil games (which are way past their prime, let's be real) like Village, which is about 3 hours long, being so overwhelmingly positively recieved? It's because gamers have no standards and are easy targets for sexual wallet abuse.

[Powellinho.72]

Yeah it made me kinda mad how they only gave this game an AVERAGE score when its a pretty good alien game and deserves a better score than what they gave.

im against all the 10/10 8/10 blah blah pull numbers out of butt scores but it still annoyed me.