"I was interested in Alien Isolation, until I found out the alien is invulnerable. Such things reduce it to just being an obstacle course in my mind. Sure, an obstacle course that pursues you, but its me vs worldspawn, not me vs an alien."

It's more true to the lore, however. Humans shouldn't prevent any real resistance to an alien. It's a super predator.

That said, I think you get stuff later in the game to scare it away temporarily (aka fire) but I don't think you ever kill it.

Since there's only one that would sort of make the game a little sterile. 

"Humans shouldn't PROVIDE " 

I think it just irks me because in the movies, yeah, the aliens are incredibly powerful - but humans with ingenuity do still eventually kill them in some form. It isn't part of the lore that they are invulnerable, it is part of the lore that they are skilled hunters, they have terrain advantages, and wounding them is exceptionally dangerous.

Make wounding it risk damaging components, injuring or angering the NPCs, and causing it to flee. Wounding it makes you a loose cannon to the others nearby, rather than some sort of guardian.

I don't know, I understand these things take a lot of effort - but making it invulnerable feels like a debug hook got left on, and it isn't like they spared themselves effort in the setting. It just seems like an undermining of what I understand to be an excellent job on the environment. 

Well, it's the entire hook for the game ... you avoiding detection by a dynamic AI. If you could kill it easily, it would be like any other game. 

Nowhere did I say anything about easily. I even cited systems where attacking it was itself risky - not just in it striking back, but impacting the stability of your location as well as your standing with others. This is the opposite of easy. I'm not advocating an action game, but rather a game where more actions have more impact. 

Sure, remove that word then. I don't want to nitpick every little thing here.

Basically, my point is that attacking/hurting the alien compromises the gameplay they were striving for. That's all. 

 

It isn't nitpicking, it is a primary element of the subject being discussed. The game has combat. It has weapons. It has killable entities that want to kill you.

And it has an unkillable entity that has a corporeal form in a lore that firmly establishes their mortality, and goes into detail as to the components of such therein.

If the game they wanted to make involves an unkillable central opponent, when everyone else can be killed, then they shouldn't have gone with the franchise where the primary nemesis is mortal.

It might compromise what they were striving for, but they chose the wrong scenario if that was their goal. Something ethereal, or dealing with hallucinations would be better suited to those goals. Not Alien. 

Alien Isolation again, purely because I heard that there isn't a fucking NASCAR TRACK IN THERE!!! WTF?!!!

And the guy from IGN gave it a 5.8 / 10 score, one of the reasons he cited was that 'the AI is too unpredictable'. What an idiot.

scar3crow: It most certainly is NOT a shooter. Sure you get a few guns, but you don't get much ammo, and the game really isn't about shooting stuff. It's about out-smarting aliens (and droids, and other humans) and surviving. So don't compare it to a shooter, just because it has a gun in it. If you could shoot the alien dead, the game would be over in a short period of time.

Go play Colonial Marines! 

the last line was low man. No-one should ever have to play Colonial Marines. I know. I tried. 

I never said anything about it being a shooter. Just that if the game has corporeal enemies you can kill with weapons, who can kill you with weapons, and that if it takes place in a lore where a particular enemy is corporeal and killable, then that enemy should be corporeal and killable. I said nothing regarding the availability of such opportunities, the ease of it, the feasibility of it. Merely that it be a technical possibility. Or, you can make a game in a lore that matches your intended design. 

Does it have enemies you can kill? The only thing I heard about was androids or something, and even then you were burning them ... with the same flamethrower you scare the alien with. I don't think this space station has pulse gun pickups in it or whatever. 

It's got humans who may try and kill you, with handguns, which you can kill with blunt objects from what I've seen. It also has crafting of items including making things with blasting caps. There are also active gas lines which do very large blasts of fire. I'm sure there are plenty of heavy machinery that operate on hydraulics which could be triggered. It is a very lethal environment, to anything. 

"It's got humans who may try and kill you, with handguns, which you can kill with blunt objects from what I've seen."

Huh, I haven't seen that or read about it at all. If that's in there, it's weird you wouldn't ever get a gun... 

It has worker droids who are creepy as shit and take a lot of pain before going down. 

Alien: Isolation is great. Just spent two hours hidden in a closet while shitting my pants. 

(Yes you do get guns, there are 2 or 3 types I know of so far, and yes, you can shoot people and androids, and the Alien.....) 

'the AI is too unpredictable'

WHAT

AN

IDIOT! 

In game? 

Yes. I was going back and forth back and forth because the Alien was always on my path and I'm too much of a wuss. :p 

Looks great, just watched Daz' Stream from the corner of my eye while doing other stuff.

It's like if the Doom3 artists got involved with a design team. 

i... kind of want to play that now.... O_O 

 

About 15 hours in to this on my stream. Holy fuck balls it's great!

Seriously one of the most graphically impressive games I have ever seen on any platform. Everything is so richly detailed and the smoke / steam / fire / gas effects are in another league from anything else I've seen.

Gameplay wise it is just as polished. The game varies things up enough to stay interesting (playing the same hide and seek gameplay with the Alien for 20 hours would get very dull) and while there is always an underlying dread permeating the entire game the actual horror is very well paced out. The Alien itself is truly terrifying. Even when it's not in your field of vision you can HEAR it moving around in the air ducts above you at almost all times.

When it does appear in your view it is instant pant shitting time. Special mention has to go to it's tail physics. The tail is dragged along behind the Alien with full physics so it will knock things over, be pulled over objects and around corners. it's fucking great.

Ok I'm gushing now :P Seriously I'm loving it. The only issue I've had with it so far is that some objectives are not as clearly marked on the automap as I would like which led to some confusion at times as to what I should be doing. 

I only started using the map at around about mission 4. Before that I navigated by exploration/memory.

*gets nervous, dives into nearest locker...*