Just completed the game and I have to say, it's a very interesting, well designed and somewhat challenging game. Story wise, the game is a pretty good mid-point for both the first and second film to the point where I kinda wish this had been made into an actual film than to be just a video game. The ending, however, is sort of pointless when you take into account that according to the Special Edition of Aliens, Amanda lives to be in her 60s before she passes away two years prior to Ripley being found (unless the company lied about Amanda Ripley's demise and faked the photo Ripley is shown. But it does leave open the possibility of a second game should there ever be one (hopefully without Amanda, though. Seriously, starting a game series with another Ripley constantly doing battle with the xenomorphs? Hard to buy when her mother deals with them in all three films. It's like John McClane said in Die Hard 2: Die Harder, "How can the same $#!t happen to the same person twice?" Or in case for another Alien: Isolation game involved Amanda Ripley once more, "How can the same $#!t happen to two people in the same family multiple times?"). The game's design was impressive. The station definitely has the feel of the universe designed for the first film with sprinkles of Aliens toss into the mix in certain spaces. I've got to admit, even set on Easy, the game is hard as hell. I lost count of the times I ended up being killed by the Alien and was on the easy setting. And it sure as hell was aggressive too. It's like every time I even got close to finishing a task, it would drop out of the overhead vent. And even after hiding while it did its search and then crawl back up into the vent, I go to get out after waiting a minute for it to leave, and it then drops back down out of the freakin' vent! It's like it knew I was close to achieving the task I was on and was messing with me!
Now, as I've suggested before, if they do a second game, I feel that doing the Hadley's Hope storyline would be best suited for the gameplay style, even though I've been informed that the Hadley's Hope story has recently been done in novel form (honestly, if they don't do it for a second game, they could do it as DLC. Seriously, sneaking around in the current game got me wondering if that was what it was like for Newt (minus the flamethrower, motion tracker, and creating the various stuff like Med Stims, Molotovs, etc, naturally). And I've actually done some thinking in relation to something my Dad suggested. He likes the game too, but he said, "I'd prefer it if the game had some form of multiplayer." Now, I get that for A:I, a multiplayer game would something that wouldn't work for a game designed to be different from past Aliens games. However, I do have an idea on how there could be a multiplayer option which could work: basically, have small teams of four trying to accomplish tasks, and trying to work together to do so, and the Alien stalking all of them. If there were a death match gameplay for the game, I imagine using the crowbar tool/stun baton and crafting items (such as Molotov cocktails, noisemakers) against one another and still have the Alien stalking everyone (and having players even using the Alien as a tactical tool for taking out others, such as if you use the noisemaker). But those are ideas, and I know they probably wouldn't work in the context in the game.
Overall, that if I had to rate the game by number, 1 being horrible and 5 being best, I have to say the game is a 4. It has its fair share of hiccups, but its still a pretty decent game to play and I feel it definitely saved the future of future Alien games that Aliens: Colonial Marines had put into uncertainty. Hope those who have considered playing the game, if you're a fan of the Alien franchise and you haven't been afraid of the xenomorph since the first film, this game is for you, and it will definitely make you fear the Alien once again.
