Alien Isolation

the game shows you all it has to offer in the first 4 or so hours out of the 12 hour campaign. being:

- Move around dark enviorment looking enviorment for panels, computers, buttons, switches. Press them.
- Look at your tracker and follow the objective to next button/switch.
- Crawl from savepoint to savepoint, in between enemy encounters.
- You have 4 enemy types: Alien, human, robot, and facehugger

- For anything except Alien its a minor annoyance.
The humans you crawl past,
the robots you can sprint past.
Neither of these one hit you, which brings me to the next point:

- Alien:  this guy one hits you. Instant death every time. If he sees you, unless you have a flamethrower, you're toast. you cant escape. Now this is pretty amazing the first 10,20, maybe 30 times. But when you do the same cat and mouse chase, and death animation for the 50th time? It starts to lose its wonder and turns into a bad trial & error loony toon. To make it even more annoying, there is tiny little globs of spit dripping from the ceiling and if you happen to walk under them in the pich blackness, its instant death.
Reload checkpoint, sometimes for the 10th time in a row. Trial and error this time, learn where to crawl, learn where the buttons are you need to press while crawling past the alien. Proceed to next save point. Repeat.

You have limited defense options against this guy, the only viable one being the flamethrower, but its always a guessing game how far away you can be while you desperately tap the mouse button hoping he'll piss off. Because you cant kill him. He just will tempoarily go away.
Other than that, you hide in lockers and wait and wait for him to go away. Its pretty tense the first few times, but after that it becomes a novelty and tedious.

There are other weapons, but none of them do anything against him. And they're hardly worth using against the other enemies as well. Easier to just go past them.

- Facehugger: Same as alien, just about the size of your foot and even more annoying. You have to flamethrower them. And they can appear in multiples.  Most of the  time you dont even see them before they instantly one shot you.

So whats left after you've seen all these mechanics? well, not really honestly. you repeat this same cycle for the other 75% of the campaign, finding switches, computers, terminals, hitting E on things, watching an animation, crawling to the next save point avoiding the alien, or if you're lucky sometimes you'll get Alien+Human combo,  or Alien+Robot combo. 

The vast majority of the game is just crawling around in the dark and looking for buttons. No combat, no mechanics, just crawling and pressing switches. And looking for saves. Lots of saving.

It's not like its really bad or anything,  it just lacks mechanics that keep the gameplay fresh. Everything else about the game is pretty stellar, the graphics, sound design, enviorments are top notch and very immersive and make you feel stranded on this hostile lonely ship in the middle of space. So for that alone the game is worth crawling through and experiencing. The story is enthralling to, true to its name which is all I will say without spoiling anything.

And lastly, since you see everything the game has to offer  in the first 25% of the campaign, it starts to drag a bit towards the end. After doing the same encounter for the 100th time, in  a slightly different enviorment, it doesn't quite hold the same edge it use to. There is a lot of 'walking simulator'  space suit outside in space sections, and they don't really add much. Sometimes they can last 40+ minutes with zero threat, just sliding along at a snail pace, pressing E on random buttons and objects. So you can see why the campaign drags on.

Even just for the environment and story experience its worth a play through and wont be forgettable anytime soon

6/10