1. Be Loyal To The Source Material, Never Reliant Upon Nostalgia
Of all the critical mistakes made by Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox's sheer reliance upon nostalgia was the crowning turd in the water pipe. Even if the game did have fully up-to-date graphics, the xenomorph mechanics promised, sound quality which did not consist of drawn-out film clips and all the bugs removed, the story and attitude towards the source material would still have ruined the experience. Adding little to nothing to the mythos, the entire campaign proved to be little more than an excuse to throw Easter eggs at the player and hope it would all work out for the best. It was almost entirely set in Hadley's Hope (despite it being destroyed), Hicks was brought back from the dead, a power loader was arbitrarily thrown in to fight a large alien, the plot redirected itself so it could have the Derelict as a level and the Queen was defeated by being ejected from the ship. Whole mechanics such as the motion tracker offered nothing to the experience, and were added purely because they had been in the films. To put it bluntly, the entire campaign was little more than a theme park ride going from one tribute to the next. It was reminding players of how good those films were, but added nothing of substance to back them up or enjoy the game itself. A few potential warning lights have been thrown up that The Creative Assembly might be going the same way. Even ignoring the bonus content on the Nostromo Edition - offering players the opportunity to play out parts of the original film - many aspects seem to be being recycled or added purely as fan-service. These are small but quite visible elements thus far, with the protagonist being Ripley's daughter, the drinking bird toy from the beginning of Alien cropping up in early promotional material, the android's kill by strangulation and the space station's uncanny resemblance to the Nostromo. While nothing quite so blatant as Gearbox shoving Bishop's severed legs into the first few minutes, it's still enough to raise an eyebrow at. The trick will be to offer just enough there to please fans with minor nods and tribute elements, but never going so far as to have Ripley destroy the Sevastopol by overloading its reactor. It can be a surprisingly fine line to go down, but it's one which The Creative Assembly needs to fully understand to truly make this an instalment worthy of the franchise.
Do you have your own thoughts on what Alien: Isolation needs to be a perfect game? Please leave your own suggestions in the comments below!
A gamer who has played everything from Daikatana to Dwarf Fortress. An obsessive film fanatic valuing everything from The Third Man to Flash Gordon. An addict to tabletop titles, comics and the classics of science fiction, whatever media they are a part of.
