I’m trying to be a grown-up and play through this videogame, but I’m sorry, it’s too fucking scary.  I’m what you would call, “a big ol’ wuss” when it comes to scary movies and things, but for some reason, I just had to play this game that came out in 2014, Alien: Isolation.  It takes place in the time between the first 2 Alien movies and you play as Ripley’s by-now grown daughter, Amanda.  She hasn’t stopped wondering what happened to her mother and gets a lead that some information about the Nostromo, the ship from Alien, may be at this distant space station.  When she arrives with a minimal crew, of course everything goes to shit and Amanda is stuck on the space station.  First she notices that the space station is just deserted and in a bad state, but then she realizes the remaining humans are not friendly.  Then the helpful androids turn out to be homicidal.  And oh yeah, there’s a giant alien xenomorph loose in the station.
The reviews have been very good for this game and from the amount I’ve played, I agree that the mechanics are intuitive and the graphics are stunning. Â What makes this game challenging and fucking scary is that you are not a space marine – you have effectively very little in the way of weapons and everything can kill you, so you have to basically try to hide and avoid detection. Â But guess what? Â This game has got the alien set up with its own AI, so the whole time you’re playing the game, the alien is also prowling around and ready to get you if you happen upon it…or it happens upon you.
Take this evening, for example. Â I figure I’d give the game another try as you see, I’d actually started playing it a few weeks back but a certain section got me all stressed out and I took a break from it. Â But tonight? Â I was going back in. Â I got past that section and was figuring out slowly how to avoid the homicidal androids, and had just snuck into a command area when I heard some thumping above me. Â I thought it was the sounds my character was making this whole time, but NO. Â That was the fucking alien above me in the vents….and when I wandered into the area beneath a large opening of the vents, guess who got fucking dropped on from above and murdered? Â That’s right, ME. Â And that was the end of my gameplaying tonight, after having yelled out in terror so that even Larry had to laugh at me from the living room.
This game is fucking ridiculous. Â Maybe I’ll be able to finish it slowly but surely.