Alien: Isolation Arrives, Makes Up for Colonial Marines
The only game that had the potential to push aside The Evil Within was Alien: Isolation. I think the reason for this is while many of us were looking forward to seeing what came of Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami’s return to horror, Mikami hasn’t stopped making good games since his work on Resident Evil. Vanquish was good and Shadows of the Damned was fantastic.
If it’s a Mikami-directed game you’re craving, there are options. The anticipation behind Alien: Isolation was different because fans have had many years’ worth of terrible games like Alien: Colonial Marines and Alien vs. Predator to develop a hunger for a game that adds value to a franchise many of us have loved for decades.
Like any first attempt, Alien: Isolation wasn’t without its flaws. It could get a little frustrating, but the sometimes repetitive nature of enemy encounters was easy to forget when you’re exploring such a beautifully realized environment that looks like it could have belonged to the set of the films. Isolation is another example of how much of an impact simplicity can have on a horror game. Most of the complex stuff was behind-the-scenes stuff like its freakishly intelligent enemy AI.
Colonial Marines may have been one of the biggest stories of 2013 (for all the wrong reasons). It set the bar incredibly low and it left a lasting mark on the franchise and the studios that co-developed it, but Alien: Isolation has gone a considerable way in making up for that.
