melmer

Alien Isolation - The nightmare of Milky Joe

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They're silver. The city I grew up in used to be home to a restaurant/nightclub that also served as a museum of movie props and memorabilia, including an original Xenomorph costume. It was actually my first exposure to the franchise. Sadly the building burned down in 2010 and all the cool stuff inside was destroyed.

I think I must have misread the reflections on the teeth in a scene as being behind the teeth instead of the opposite...everything I look up looks silver so yeah...I have this weirdly vivid image in my head that's wrong...its weird how memory works.

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I'm assuming this is a Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywoods don't seem to do very well - the one in Sydney closed down years ago and got converted to a bar.

 

Nope! This was an independent place called The Opera House that used to be an actual opera house. How they got a Xenomorph costume, I'll never know. It was easily the coolest thing in there, with the closest runner-up being a Joker playing card signed by Jack Nicholson.

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I think I must have misread the reflections on the teeth in a scene as being behind the teeth instead of the opposite...everything I look up looks silver so yeah...I have this weirdly vivid image in my head that's wrong...its weird how memory works.

This image may be what I'm thinking of...which would be the Queen xenomorph from Aliens I think...and even there they maybe just look clear-ish to me for some weird reason.

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyh4kQdM4ck/U9V66ApADTI/AAAAAAAAMis/CCgcdbwh6m8/s1600/alienqueenface.png

 

Edit: and even if they are clear I think I must have somehow "retconned" my memory of the original xenomorph from Alien in my mind to have the same teeth (and probably never paid that much attention to it in the movie...for some reason the Queen Alien's teeth are something that stuck in my head I guess).  I watched both movies sooooo many times (particularly in college when I first had a combo DVD player/CD-RW writer (made by Iomega if memory serves and I'm nearly certain of that...would have bought it in either late 1999 or early 2000) in my PC and watched the handful of movies I bought over and over because it was so neat being able to watch movies on my PC in my dorm room...and being able to watch DVDs was new to me since I didn't have an actual player for the TV at home or at college).  I don't think I've watched Alien in probably 10 years (I watched bits and pieces of Aliens when my brother got the BluRay recently (a couple years ago) for Christmas...but that was more just wondering into the room to watch it a bit here and there...but watching the whole thing was probably around the same time as Alien).  I ought to rewatch them here since its been so long and this seems like the ideal time of year to do so.

 

Damn that tangent/edit was longer than I meant it to be.

 

On the topic at hand, I'm probably going to wait until I'm over this cold or flu or whatever virus I have right now to play Alien Isolation, as I want to play with the oculus rift and I can't with my nose running like a faucet...and even without the rift I probably wouldn't enjoy it getting up every few minutes (or less) to blow my nose...I'm surprised I managed to play Quake Live and Titanfall that way today.  I'm also a little bummed that Isolation is so long...it seems like 5 hours would be the sweet spot for that given that its working to maintain suspense...I wonder if that was something the designers really wanted or if it was seen as a necessity for a AAA game.  I don't mind long games every so often, but the kind of game Isolation is seems to work better as a short solid experience (in theory at least, as I haven't played the game).  I actually like story driven games in general to really be shorter...as I end up coming back to them weeks later and forget where I am...there are exceptions of course, but even those exceptions leave me trying to put together the puzzle pieces of what I was doing the last time I played when I take a break from a game.

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The queen does indeed have transparent teeth for some weird reason. I always forget about that.

 

...Still silver on the other ones though.

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I just found out that the audio diaries attract the alien.

 

So pleased.

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The queen does indeed have transparent teeth for some weird reason. I always forget about that.

 

...Still silver on the other ones though.

 

In Aliens they also had weird transparent rubber band strap things around their mouth holes. Perhaps that's also influencing your memory?

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I'm also a little bummed that Isolation is so long.

 

I'm not sure how far in I am right now but I'm still having a blast. The whole first bit up until basically when you get your first taste of the Alien drags on and on, but after that it has pretty good pacing with interesting environments to explore.

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The alien in the first film has some light green/brown coloration on its palms, that you can see when

it grabs for Dallas

right? Unless that's the lighting again, but I don't think so. But yeah, mostly black/grey/silver, which fits with Giger's art and their implied bio-mechanical nature.

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I was avoiding posting that for spoilers/enigma-dampening (which looking back I realise was unecessary as the person asking about alien colouring has seen the movies umpfty times), but yeah.

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[media]

 

I worked on that show! I was the lowly floor runner. You may have spotted Peter's brother as the main tech guy, but did you notice that the supporting artist (ie extra) in the audience around 0:50 also played Neville's mum (in all the magic photos) for the Harry Potter films?

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I was avoiding posting that for spoilers/enigma-dampening (which looking back I realise was unecessary as the person asking about alien colouring has seen the movies umpfty times), but yeah.

 

Ah. Well, if you haven't seen Alien, sorry! Also, it's been out for 35 years, so you really have no excuse.

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Ah. Well, if you haven't seen Alien, sorry! Also, it's been out for 35 years, so you really have no excuse.

 

I've seen it (many times), hence me avoiding posting spoilers, not avoiding seeing them. But I was only doing that because I misread and thought there was specifically someone in the thread that had not seen it yet!

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I worked on that show! I was the lowly floor runner. You may have spotted Peter's brother as the main tech guy, but did you notice that the supporting artist (ie extra) in the audience around 0:50 also played Neville's mum (in all the magic photos) for the Harry Potter films?

 

Hah, that's awesome! I think I only ever caught one episode and never thought to look them up again, despite being a big fan of Look Around You. They seem to be on YouTube too.

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sooo, has anyone else had issues using rewire stations?  Probably 60-70% of the time I can't do anything but look around, can't even stop using the panel.  End up having to reload when it happens.

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Started playing this tonight, and haven't met anything that wanted to kill me yet, thank god. 

 

The tension is there, though. In spades! Some early thoughts.

 

*Is there a bit of lag in the menu when using a pad? 

*The music is great. The sound design, in general, is leaps and bounds above just about anything I've played before.

*It's beautiful. It looks just like the film OMGOMGOMG

 

Hugely excited to play more tomorrow night. One problem I think I might have with this game, and which I've had with other horror games in the past, is that getting killed immediately dissolves all of that built up tension. I hope I'm...not shit at avoiding the alien, or I think I'll get frustrated re-doing sections.

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One problem I think I might have with this game, and which I've had with other horror games in the past, is that getting killed immediately dissolves all of that built up tension. I hope I'm...not shit at avoiding the alien, or I think I'll get frustrated re-doing sections.

 

It didn't bother me that much in this game, maybe it's some form of relief from long stretches of tension. It's almost Flappy Bird-esque, you go "aw shit! woofff, good one, let's try again." One recommendation: play on easy. You're in for a long haul. (you can change it in the options menu)

 

That said, finished it tonight! It's really quite long (took me 18 hours) and could have done with some mid-section trimming (I don't know how many times I had to restore power to something), but after 

the intense alien nest / reactor overload section, things really picked up in tension and pace. I like the last part quite a bit, it felt really hectic like the ends of Alien movies usually are. It was maybe a tad too long, that final generator crapping out on you and getting knocked back down into a semi-nest, but all in all I was very immersed the last hour or two.

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Yes I think so, and Easy also extends the range (or 'umbilical cord' as the devs call it) between you and the Alien. This means it will stomp around in a wider area around you, making your sneaking life a little easier. I think it also reduces the time it roams around before crawling back up a vent.

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I'll give normal a bit more of a shot, as it's early days for me and I haven't seen any enemies yet. However, if I find I'm getting killed a lot, I'll defo switch to easy. Cheers for the tip!

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Hmm, I want to play this game for the ambiance but the idea of repeating portions of an already long game didn't appeal. I'll maybe think about picking it up and playing on easy.

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