Can Alien: Isolation redeem 2014?

Due for release on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC in late 2014 Alien: Isolation puts players into the shoes of Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda, searching the Nostromo 15 years after the event of the first Alien movie.

According to the small amounts of information that have been given in the press releases, Isolation will be a more survival-horror based game, set around one Xenomorph stalking the player, rather than the FPS that Colonial Marines was.

Now while this may have people desperate to give their money over to Sega, we’ve got to keep in the backs of our minds the cesspit that Colonial Marines created when it was released – using video footage rather than in-game footage, the terrible AI of the Xenomorphs that makes them look more like can-can dancers than anything that could be at all threating to someone holding the barrel of a gun to their double-mouths, and the concept of a demo being better than the full game in order to get player’s money before any content is released.

The two lines of text before the trailer fill me with dread as a prospective buyer. While survival horror is the new golden boy in the video game world, with Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs and Outlast being contenders for various “Game Of The Year” awards, there are too many times when that gets pushed to one side in favour of making money. See Dead Space 3.

“The trailer footage shown uses the in-game engine, and represents a work in progress”, says the trailer. Well, that’s a nice get-out clause, says I. Does that mean that the trailer footage is someone demonstrating the engine, or making a film using the engine? And what do you mean by a work in progress? Is this some sort of loophole you can point at in case it all goes wrong and say “We told you so?”

Hopefully, my fears will go unrewarded. The change from Gearbox to Creative Assembly making the game might herald a change in tone (and from the PR responses to other interviews given, they are being incredibly conscious of that fact, and definitely trying to publicise it). Isolation has been under development for three years, so we will all wait with baited breath to see if it turns out to be a world apart – preferably a planet apart – from the reanimated corpse that was Colonial Marines. 

 

Adam Smith (@webnym)

What's next for next-gen?

The Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 are here to stay, software and hardware warts and all. Everyone can now take joy in not needing to say ‘next-gen’ and start saying ‘current-gen’ (and yes, I get the irony of the headline). But even now, we’ve got to look to the future, because this may be the last generation of the console.

On the quantity-of-games front, PC gaming is resolute, with more indie titles filling it than references to deceitful cake on a Portal forum. The term “PC Gaming Master Race” is being flung around the Internet to describe those with the disposable income to build their own top of the range ‘rig’ and keep it that way, with the Steam Machines being released to increase the portability of the PC gamer.

A Steam Machine.

On the other end of the spectrum, casual gaming on smartphones and tablets is on the rise, with AAA companies releasing tie-in games to link the casual gamer to the console like Fifa 14 by EA Sports and Batman: Arkham Origins. The Ouya is offering Android gaming on a movable, high-definition screen.

So with the high price bracket aiming for PCs, and the low going for the handheld, where does that leave the console?

In the past, this was simple: it was a middle ground. While handheld gaming in the times of the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox was limited, this was still clear to see.

The PC required some knowledge to set up the games, and was more for those that were interested in its mechanics. This was perfectly balanced by the console, which boasted speed and simplicity – disk in, game out. But now the install times of the XStation One match the PC, but unlike a PC, can’t be ‘Alt+Tabbed’ out of to go on the Internet or work.

With Assassin’s Creed 4 and The Wolf Among Us pushing for episodic gaming (and Half Life 3, in theory –all those prayers of gamers have to go somewhere) the priority for quick loading speeds and more compact games becomes paramount. This is especially true in light of 320GB-gate, the discovery that the Xbox One can’t hold the 500GB that it promised.

Could Mario make it to iOS devices?

The solution to this problem would be to focus on Cloud storage, but with the vulnerability of online gaming, as seen by the PlayStation Network being hacked, this seems unlikely.

My prediction? Despite the recent bad news about its poor sales, Nintendo will make more money than the GDP of Bulgaria releasing iMario, iPokémon and iZelda for everyone’s iDevices, as their focus isn’t on being the best, but on the reliability of being the ‘family console’.

Microsoft will make a console with the capabilities of a PC – one that allows the installation of Microsoft Office and access to games while others are installing. A console that you can work on.

Sony, on the other hand, will fuse with its other hardware and release PlayStation Television (PSTV has a nice ring to it), to rival the home-media omniscience the Xbox One is currently pushing for. Within ten, fifteen years, we may see the end of the Console Wars.

The next-gen is dead.

Long live next-gen.

 

Adam Smith (@webnym)