*Sometime in 1989, my dad is flipping through channels while an 11-year-old me is puttering with the family Commodore 64.  I glance up to the screen in time to see the coolest thing on wheels my young mind has yet absorbed: a giant rectangle bristling with weaponry, tires almost as tall as the vehicle is high, and a turret atop that is so huge, it slides on a rail from the top and down the back so the whole thing can fit through a huge industrial door.
"Woah, what is that?"  I ask.
"A movie." My dad says nonchalantly.
"What movie?"
"Aliens."
From the kitchen, I hear my mom call out, "Ken, isn't that too scary for him?"
The wood-grain 25" console TV flickers to a different channel.
This was my first encounter with the legendary franchise.  And a moment that dug deep grooves into my life from then on, including a love of sci-fi I would end up sharing with my dad.

Alien Isolation is the latest product in that universe, which by most accounts needed a palate cleanser after the failure-on-many-levels Colonial Marines (full disclosure, I did enjoy that one, though I agree with the critique.)  That game, like most based on the series, was modeled as a guns-blazing action game with a touch of horror, which makes sense; Aliens is highly regarded as a fantastic action/sci-fi/horror-lite movie that was also key in developing the quintessential and now ubiquitous 'Space Marine' archetype.



Alien Isolation takes a very different tack; in tone, art, and game design, it is completely modeled after the original movie.  That means survival, not firefights; evil corporate shenanigans in lieu of Vietnam parallels; and a measured, slow-burn dread instead of in-your-face action.  Whereas the movie sequel successfully changed the dynamics and expanded the universe introduced by the first movie, as a game Alien Isolation is the antithesis of most other games in the franchise, not to mention the bulk of action games in general.  While it can be argued that Isolation is riding the tide of the newly popular stealth-survival genre of gaming (contemporaries include the Amnesia series and Outlast), since the game is modeled after a movie made in 1979, I like to think of it as 'grandfathered in' rather than derivative.


*We had a Commodore and a ton of stuff for it because my dad's only real hobbies were computers, sci-fi/superhero books, and movies.  Unintentionally but not unexpectedly, that parallels my own interests even now.  Dad was a guy who saw the original Star Wars on his wedding day, and took his nine-year-old son to see Robocop in the theater.  That last fact, combined with whether or not you have kids, might have just made this man your hero or a horrible person.  I plead the Fifth.

The setup of Isolation (and I'll try to keep this all as spoiler-free as possible) is that between the events of the first two movies, Amanda Ripley, daughter of the franchise heroine, searches for her mother and that search leads her to Sevastopol, a decommissioned space station in the middle of nowhere.  She arrives to a dilapidated and unstable place in more ways than one; the station itself is falling apart inside and out, and the remaining human population involves trigger-happy marshals, violent and unpredictable looter survivalists, and the occasional 'friendly' who is usually too scared to be more than eventual munchies for the titular xenomorph loosed there.

Ah, the xenomorph.  Gameplay-wise the 'perfect organism' is unkillable (it presumably has the bulletproof vests and flame-retardant jackets the ones from later movies couldn't afford) and can only be distracted or temporarily repelled.  Again, it plays out like the first movie; it's not exactly that the thing is immortal, it's better and faster than you in every regard and Sevastopol is severely lacking in sniper rifles, industrial loaders, or the aforementioned Stinger APC. 

Other threats are of the mortal variety and include really mean people and malfunctioning 'Working Joes."  These are androids whose glowing red eyes may be a handy in-game tool to determine their line-of-sight, but also seem to represent manufacturer Seegson's attempt at cornering that rare color-blind, nightmare-resistant buying demographic.  I can see those folks as being picky.  Seriously, who else would buy a slightly-humanoid-looking robot that can look hungry for souls even in the dark?

* Not long after watching the television premier of Aliens on CBS (in bits and pieces and with constant objection by my mother), my best friend Thor and I were rifling through the Commodore 64 disks my dad acquired through mail-swaps.  And I saw something new that immediately grabbed my attention; a game version of the original Alien movie I had yet to see.

If all you got out of that video is a SID chip's version of a gentle ocean wave, you're not alone; Thor and I had no instructions for the borrow-by-mail disk, and we certainly didn't have the patience to wait for the internet to be invented so that we could look it up in Gamefaqs, which still to this day has nothing on it.  Special thanks to Derschmu  for permission to use his video.


Amanda Ripley is a space engineer which, like Isaac Clarke before her, gives story explanation to all of the space magic she can fix and manipulate in her environment.  Good thing too, because Sevastopol has seen better days.  Apparently in the future, a space engineer is half machinist and half hacker.  Beside knowing how to fix reactors and prime engines with a lever and a few keyboard commands, Ripley's kleptomania gives her resources to build devices like noisemakers and smoke bombs to help deter her foes.

If my real life is actually a video game and I'm the avatar, my player is seriously screwed if we get stuck in something as simple as a box factory, let alone something high-tech.  Hope my player just gives up puzzle-solving and looks for the rocket launcher.

In terms of weapons, Ripley gets a few, including an Alien-repelling flame thrower that drinks fuel like a first-generation Hummer.  Guns can take out human foes (and androids, after lots and lots of bullets) but high violence creates more of the same; every gunshot sends the Alien screaming into the fray, which then immediately slaughters everyone in the area.  This can be advantageous to clearing a room, though the Alien is smart enough to check hiding spots you inevitably have to be in as soon as you shoot.  In fact, any noise, from the blips of the motion tracker (kudos to using the PS4 controller's speaker) to running and even walking without crouching can alert the Alien.

Despite noise being something you'll want to avoid at all costs, the sound design and music in Isolation are impeccable.  Using the sound effects and orchestrated score from Alien, makes everything feels cohesive and well placed.  The same can be said of the art and graphics; by revisiting the set designs and artwork from the 1979 orginal, Sevastopol looks and feels like a seventies version of the future.  The entire station consists of giant CRTs, pushbuttons and a general mechanical feel.  Even Sevastopol's silhouette is reminiscent of the Nostromo's bulky but practical design.

* When my dad joined the military, he got into computers, because in the seventies that was the cheapest way to do it.  So after programming with punch cards, he began traveling the world on Uncle Sam's dime to help develop the ARPANET, which of course begat the internet.  Al Gore, eat your heart out.  Once dad was finished with his service, he bought a C64 to play with at home.  And that beige beauty was the start of my video game story.

This shows my age, but Sevastopol looks like what I still picture when it comes to the technology for space exploration.  As a child of the eighties and nineties, the idea of trusting a spacecrew to smartphone-style tech seems more of a setup for a horror story than H.R. Giger's monstrosity.  Our original VCR lasted for fifteen years, and one of our first color televisions for over twenty.  In the last five years, I've had to replace two modern TVs and two Blu-Ray players that spontaneously bit the dust.  Despite the fact that a lack of maintenance (compiled by an Alien invasion) dooms Sevastopol, I still feel a nostalgic safety in its claustrophobic environment.

In fact, Alien Isolation capitalizes on what may be my favorite aspect of modern video games; an explorable, interactive, animated, artistic, pocket universe. Sevastopol has certain similarities to Bioshock's Rapture, in a good way.  A vision of man's progress (and hubris) of building an empire in an environment instantly hostile and foreboding.  Like the original Bioshock, care is purposefully put into making the environment to be perhaps the most tragic character in the story.  Every creak, groan, and spark of the massive station is the mournful death rattle of a once great beast.  A beast that still indifferently holds you and your adversaries in its belly.

Speaking of beasts, great effort is made to reinstall the Alien as a terrorizing creature.  It is always stalking you, hissing, growling, its heavy footsteps clomping massively when nearby.  If it sees you directly, you are already dead, so the game consists of hiding in vents, lockers, under tables, or couch-walking around obstacles as it hunts you.


This apparently freaks people out; in fact, many reviewers say something along the lines of not necessarily enjoying the game or having fun with it, but glad they experienced it.  I had a bit of a different take.

I can't say I was ever 'scared' of the Alien.  That's no fault of the game developers; video games and movies don't tend to work like that for me.  I've enjoyed series such as Silent Hill, Amnesia, Slender, Fatal Frame, and others, especially when psychological constructs are examined.  However, a scary thing chasing you around has never seemed that intimidating to me.  This was no exception.  In fact, something very different happened. 

A few days before I picked up my copy of Alien Isolation, I got a call from my sister informing me that my dad passed away.  Between traveling for family and funeral, I played the game in a few bursts and finished in a marathon session.  As these events were swirling in my mind, the game was one of the mechanisms I used to process what was happening.

The Alien became my cipher, personifying my thoughts as I was playing:

The Alien is my dad.  Thor is staying overnight, and we make too much noise, so it comes out of nowhere and punishes us.

The Alien is death, stalking us and striking without warning, indifferent to our preference.

The Alien is fear.  Fear is not a thing itself; the Alien is just lines of code represented by thousands of little points of colored light moving onscreen.  Fear is what we project, wrapping around the unknown with our own impressions until the fear is bigger than the unknown; an illusion.

I named the Alien.  Naming the unknown gives a certain respect, if not control.  There is power in names and naming.  Cancer was even scarier when doctors had no name for the random disease process taking countless victims.  A name gives a presence, an identity, a target.  I named my alien "Harvey."  Hey Harvey!

Harvey becomes that grumpy roommate that stomps about, ticked off, waiting to lash out.  Don't bug him, it's not worth it.  He'll just get up in your face.  Best to stay out of his way.  Sometimes it doesn't matter if you have as much right to be here; some battles are lost before they're fought, and this is one of them.  Be the bigger man and let it go.

And just like that, Alien Isolation becomes a grumpy roommate simulator with the best pyrotechnics ever.


I realized about halfway through the game that the time I felt the most tension didn't directly involve Harvey or androids.  It was a room full of stuff.  In a very video-gamey way of warning that something big is about to happen, I stumbled into an enclosed space that had far more items and weapons than I had ever encountered thus far.  This is a game's way of making sure you're properly equipped and not frustrated with a big encounter/situation.  For the first time, I felt a little intimidated; not because of what I was likely to encounter next, but because whereas before I was scrounging for resources, suddenly I now had an abundance.  What do I do with all this stuff?

In real life, I enjoy the limitations of a snow-in or a rainy day.  Metaphorical doors are closed, options are more limited, and my actions therefore have more focus.  Can't do all this outside stuff now, right?  I can just concentrate on the inside stuff.  It's easier to focus on what can be done when what cannot be done is visible.  I had been scrapping by on a few flares and revolver rounds I used as a 'Harvey summoner.'  Now, I had EMP mines, shotgun rounds, a full flamethrower, molotovs, stun baton rounds, all sorts of toys.  Fun? Sure.  And not really overwhelming.  The intimidation came from the desire to efficiently manage the tools I was given, that ingrained ideal to make the most of what I had.  It wasn't a big deal or anything; Isolation is a wonderfully focused experience.  But it reminds me why sandbox play only entertains me for a short while; I can create my own objectives, but to do so virtually does not take long before I desire to leave the game and do so in life. 

This is why sandbox games often quickly bore me; if I'm going to evaluate and determine my own goals and objectives, I get too sensitive to the fact that I'd rather just do that to real things.  Give me a specific goal to achieve, and I'll use everything I have to get there.  Give me a flood of options instead of a goal, and the distractions are no longer entertainment, but reminders of other things I need to do.  Games like this are rarely fun for me.

Alien Isolation gave me a focal point, a channel through which I was both reminded of and processed through the death of my dad.  We often anchor emotions with the physical world.  A place, a thing, a day, a season.  That CD you were listening to when you broke up with your girlfriend, that you can't let go of even years later.  I didn't expect Alien Isolation to be one of those, even given its timing.  And yet, every time the loading screens came up, with that bad-VHS tracking visual effect, I remembered wearing out VCR tapes of sci-fi movies with my dad.  The subtle beep the game uses to alert that a save station is nearby, like the low-heart warning in The Legend of Zelda that annoyed him to no end as I played my NES on the living room TV.  As I hide behind a desk with Harvey stomping about, I see the bad clipping of its tail, as well as a bottle of ethanol floating in the air an inch above the ground, and I'm reminded of how my dad would just shake his head at the absurdity of it all.

I was kindly given a peace in my heart since I first heard about dad's passing.  Neither he nor I have a doubt about what happens after, and there is great reassurance in that.  He was never too tied to physical things, but we shared a mutual enjoyment of many experiences.  He was in no way a gamer, but between our shared love of sci-fi and computers, and his acceptance of my gaming preference, he was instrumental in setting the path for much of what makes me who I am.  Perhaps the greatest achievement a game can aspire to is reminding us of greater things.
 
Hey Harvey!

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