My First Time | Alien Isolation.

Monday 11 November 2019


On Patreon I was discussing doing a post about my first time playing Alien: Isolation and also did a post on horror and my heart so it was about time I finally published this post which I had been planning since September when I did my first video gameplay of Alien Isolation, I need to do some more play throughs once I have more time but for now I want to tell you all about how my perception of Alien has changed and made me enjoy it more since playing Alien Isolation. The Alien movies have always scared me, the way they sound, look and everything they're capable of sending a shiver down my spine, I think the only other monsters capable of that we're the ones from The Decent and Jeepers Creepers (which no longer scares me).

Alien, however, stands out the most because of how well they portray the monsters, I would find myself holding my breath whilst watching the movies and hiding away because of how graphic the killings were, it didn't help when the little head popped out of the Xenomorphs mouth, that freaked me out even more. Because of how much suspense the movies leave me in, I was so conflicted over playing the game Alien Isolation, I had watched some gameplay of it a number of times but that still doesn't prepare you for when you play it yourself but it does give you an idea on how best to play it.



I never let myself watch the beginning of the gameplay of Alien Isolation I would only catch it when people were hiding from the Xenomorphs just because I wanted to see how calm they would be and if they chickened out playing much like what I would do so when I first started the game I was thinking it would throw me into the deep end straight away but fortunately it didn't. The game lets you get a feel of your surroundings and how best to get around the ship, I won't lie it took me ages trying to find a trap door at first and when I was aware of the trap door I was able to concentrate or other passages to go down.

The game centers around Ellen Ripley's daughter, Amanda, she goes on a mission to find out what really happened to her mother and to uncover her disappearance. For me, this is what makes the game more enjoyable because it's still based around Ripley rather than completely new characters that have no connection to the movies. Whilst playing you will need to collect supplies as well as try your very best to stay alive when faced with Xenomorphs. Amanda seems brace and determined to find out the truth which gives her more character, no one want's to play as someone bland.


I think the reason behind her determination was the promise her mother made to her, she told her she would return on her 11th birthday but never came back. fifteen years on Amanda is now a Weyland-Yutani employee, the company she works for is also known as The Company and their purpose is to run the human colonies outside the solar system through the Extrasolar Colonization Administration. One day Amanda hears that the flight recorder from her mother's ship, the Nostromo has been recovered at a remote trading station called Sevastopol. She decides to find out for herself what happened on that ship and travels to Sevastopol with a team only to discover something is wrong, Aliens are on board!!


As someone who hates build-ups in horrors, I was constantly aware of every sound through the mic so I ended up taking it off for a bit in order to calm my nerves. Being able to move around freely gave me comfort, especially when I knew a Xenomorph could pop out at any time but I was frustrated at times because the game doesn't like to make what to do obvious, instead you're left trying to find out for yourself with the map and any supplies you have made or collected along the way. I guess the reason for doing this was to add to the horror and make you more on edge over what would happen or could happen.

I have a lot of friends who are huge fans of this game and I can see what appeals to them, the music and graphics are so well done that you feel like you're playing through a survival movie which is something I would love to see developed and made in the future just so I could experience it for myself. I was pretty late to the party with this game so I felt I had missed out on what others had experienced and wouldn't be able to enjoy it because of that but I was wrong. I'm going to force myself to sit down and play some more of this game so I can get the most out of it, even if that means shitting myself in the process.


As a first experience, I would say this was a pleasant one, I'm glad it didn't throw me into anything terrifying straight away as it gave me time to adjust my mindset. Since the release of Alien Isolation a spin-off game for mobiles called Alien: Blackout was released and also features Amanda Ripley, the game is inspired by scenes from the movie Alien: Covenant which is very clever! There was also a digital series of Alien Isolation released this year which follows the same storyline as the game, I mat watch it with James when we have some free time to see if it's any good and then MAYBE review it, we shall see. All in all, as scared as I am of aliens, the tactics of stealth and survival make me want to come back to it to see how long I can actually go until I give into my fear, below is the first 40 minutes of gameplay I did back in September, enjoy!


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