After spending more time with it today here are some more impressions:
When Sega sent us a box of Alien: Isolation stuff this week the first thing we did was to get the game installed and patched up. This is a game fans of the Alien series of films have been waiting for, especially after the disappointment of the dire Alien: Colonial Marines game released last year.
Created by The Creative Assembly who are mostly known for their Total War series of games on the PC, Alien: Isolation is a first person survival horror stealth game set 15 years after the evens of Alien.
The game has you playing the part of Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Ellen Ripley. Amanda is trying to investigate the disappearance of her mother. As expected, nothing was ever likely to go to plan.
The game begins with voice-over work from the original Ripley, Sigourney Weaver and straight away fills you with confidence that Creative Assembly have done everything in their power to appeal to Alien fans.
After a short cutscene you finally get control of Amanda and get used to your fellow crew members and the android you are always likely to be wary of if you have watched any of the films before.
Because the game can last up to 20 hours, we are not doing a full review today, but early impressions are favorable. Graphically the game is very good, matching the look and feel of the early Alien film perfectly.
The only let downs here are the frame rate in some of the in-game cutscenes seem to be lower than 30fps and can judder and skip although Sega have told us they haven't come across these issues before. It also has some atrocious lipsyncing on characters both in cutscenes and during the game, some of the worst I have seen in a long time. The good news is that there haven't been any issues during proper gameplay sections.
The first sections of the game are slow paced, getting used to environment and story, it is only later on that you will finally get to meet the Alien and start the hide and seek games.
Voice work is excellent from nearly all of the Alien: Isolation cast members, even from the various bit-part NPC's seen during the game. At the moment though we haven't been able to play through the original cast part of the game as it won't go live until the public launch.