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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2260 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 30, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm currently in the middle of probably my third playthrough of Alien Isolation. Within about half an hour of my first playthrough I had a really strong feeling that this would be a game I would find hard to put down and would return to again and again. The controls are tight and responsive, the level of detail and craft that went into replicating the visuals of the original Alien from 1979 is breathtaking, the sound design is impeccable, the atmosphere is more powerful than BioShock.

Suffice it to say that, even though it's my third playthrough, I'm itching to get back to playing it.

Having seen the film several times, and having read about the game, the idea of playing it seems just.. incomprehensible.

The film shows what you get for being insufficiently paranoid and unarmed out there in the unknown. It's meant to be unpleasant for a good reason.

Doing it over and over again ... well, we are all different.

The game alternates between sequences in which the player character must evade the Alien; and downtime sequences which advance the plot, or in which the player character must face off against other enemies.

The latter sequences are at worst a little tense to play, but manageably so. The former sequences with the Alien are exhausting. When I get to the end of such a sequence, I typically find myself needing to take a break for a little bit just to calm down. I think that's the mark of an effective horror story, really.

I felt bad about never finishing the game, about giving up, stuck, at a save game where I can either sneak out and inevitably get slaughtered shortly afterward or stay in my hiding spot until the end of time ...

But you've given me a whole new perspective! It's not that I suck too badly to win and lack the fortitude to keep trying through death after terrifying death, it's that I'm trying to be faithful to film canon.

stay in my hiding spot until the end of time

Wait, you can get soft-locked in the game like that, or do you merely have to wait five minutes for the alien to wander off ?

In theory: wait a few minutes for the alien to wander off, sneak out, use well-practiced stealth skills to evade the alien, make progress.

In my game (when I got enough levels in): wait a few minutes for the alien to wander off, sneak out, realize my stealth skills are not well-practiced enough when the alien inevitably finds me...

Not the game's fault, I'm sad to say. I was improving from level to level, but not quite as quickly as the difficulty was increasing.

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