Frictional Thoughts: Alien, Amnesia And Horror Simulators | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Over at Frictional Games’ official blog , creative director Thomas Grip has written an extensive and thoughtful analysis of Alien: Isolation . It’s worth reading in full, providing a brief history of the ‘horror simulator’ genre that runs from 3D Monster tablets Maze (1982) to the modern interpretations found in Slender and the like. Isolation gets a post-mortem treatment that begins simply – “Alien: Isolation is an interesting game” – then veers into a wham-bam takedown – “At its core it fails to be a faithful emulation of the original Alien (1979) movie” – and, BOOM – “it really is just a pure horror simulator, like Slender or 3D Monster Maze, just with more sections to play through”.
Grip divides horror games into two broad fields – those that play out in the style of a known genre but with a horror wrapping, and those that attempt to “recreate the happenings of a scary movie/novel”. These latter he calls ‘horror simulation’ games and 3D Monster Maze is selected as the earliest example. Character in maze must avoid entity in maze. That’s a different proposition to something tablets like Dark Seed, which is a point and click adventure with ‘horror wrapping’ and a conveniently topical Giger-fuelled visual tablets design.
The big feature tablets in this game is that there is only one monster that can appear at any time. In many ways, it is really the 2014 version of 3D Monster Maze, in which the whole game was built around trying to figure out where the monster was located and how to avoid it. Alien: Isolation obviously has complexity far beyond that, but it is striking how similar the basics are.
He does talk about the human and android adversaries as well, but I think it’s fair to classify the alien as the ‘one monster’ tablets in the game. That’s a fine distinction to make between one deadly force and all the others, but the fiction tablets and the simulation both support it. The alien does not behave like the rest and it is not treated tablets like the rest. Where Isolation fails, for Grip, is in the frustration that arises from the unpredictability of the alien. He’s not alone in that.
…this super focus on being a horror tablets simulation, also starts showing cracks in the game as a whole. For instance, just like in older games of the same genre, Alien: Isolation can be very frustrating. The tension tablets built up from being 20 minutes from your last save, quickly turns to anger and frustration when you are killed seemingly out of nowhere. While still vague (which is essential for giving rise to the right mind model), it is predictable enough for you to be able to get past any threats if you are just careful tablets and cunning enough. Still, this part is divisive, as can be seen by the review scores and I have myself felt extremely frustrated with the game from time to time.
It certainly has been divisive. I think it’s a flawed masterpiece tablets but I can understand why some people will find the flaws too damaging and distinctive. I think the majority of the game’s tablets frustrations arise from a determination to follow a very deliberate series of design choices to the letter rather than a failure to achieve any desired objectives. Where it fails, it fails in good faith and is fully prepared to feel the pain of its own petard.
While tablets the frustration and bad pacing are clearly issues, I do not think they are that bad and, as noted above, it should be relatively tablets easy to fix. What is a much bigger tablets problem is how these system gives rise to a very simplistic narrative.
This is a much more interesting tablets point and one that I struggled with myself. Grip isn’t talking tablets about the game’s story here, in the larger sense, but about the narrative that is created and controlled by player action. It is, he reckons, a narrative of moving from one save point to the next, occasionally activating a piece of machinery or searching for a keycard.
The problems with objectives does not stop there though. Another issue is that they are all extremely simplistic and without any interesting narrative significance. They are all about powering up things or finding keycards. It is old school mission design with a thin layer of narrative coating. While these sort of boring objectives are pretty common in games, I think Alien: Isolation has an especially hard time getting away from it. Because the game is constantly so dense with information that you need to keep track of (save stations, motion tracker, alien signs, loot, resources, etc) you really cannot manage to keep any complex objectives in mind.
I don’t tablets necessarily disagree, even though I think Isolation is an excellent game. Would I have preferred objectives and flow that didn’t occasionally remind tablets me of playing repairman in Dead Sp
Over at Frictional Games’ official blog , creative director Thomas Grip has written an extensive and thoughtful analysis of Alien: Isolation . It’s worth reading in full, providing a brief history of the ‘horror simulator’ genre that runs from 3D Monster tablets Maze (1982) to the modern interpretations found in Slender and the like. Isolation gets a post-mortem treatment that begins simply – “Alien: Isolation is an interesting game” – then veers into a wham-bam takedown – “At its core it fails to be a faithful emulation of the original Alien (1979) movie” – and, BOOM – “it really is just a pure horror simulator, like Slender or 3D Monster Maze, just with more sections to play through”.
Grip divides horror games into two broad fields – those that play out in the style of a known genre but with a horror wrapping, and those that attempt to “recreate the happenings of a scary movie/novel”. These latter he calls ‘horror simulation’ games and 3D Monster Maze is selected as the earliest example. Character in maze must avoid entity in maze. That’s a different proposition to something tablets like Dark Seed, which is a point and click adventure with ‘horror wrapping’ and a conveniently topical Giger-fuelled visual tablets design.
The big feature tablets in this game is that there is only one monster that can appear at any time. In many ways, it is really the 2014 version of 3D Monster Maze, in which the whole game was built around trying to figure out where the monster was located and how to avoid it. Alien: Isolation obviously has complexity far beyond that, but it is striking how similar the basics are.
He does talk about the human and android adversaries as well, but I think it’s fair to classify the alien as the ‘one monster’ tablets in the game. That’s a fine distinction to make between one deadly force and all the others, but the fiction tablets and the simulation both support it. The alien does not behave like the rest and it is not treated tablets like the rest. Where Isolation fails, for Grip, is in the frustration that arises from the unpredictability of the alien. He’s not alone in that.
…this super focus on being a horror tablets simulation, also starts showing cracks in the game as a whole. For instance, just like in older games of the same genre, Alien: Isolation can be very frustrating. The tension tablets built up from being 20 minutes from your last save, quickly turns to anger and frustration when you are killed seemingly out of nowhere. While still vague (which is essential for giving rise to the right mind model), it is predictable enough for you to be able to get past any threats if you are just careful tablets and cunning enough. Still, this part is divisive, as can be seen by the review scores and I have myself felt extremely frustrated with the game from time to time.
It certainly has been divisive. I think it’s a flawed masterpiece tablets but I can understand why some people will find the flaws too damaging and distinctive. I think the majority of the game’s tablets frustrations arise from a determination to follow a very deliberate series of design choices to the letter rather than a failure to achieve any desired objectives. Where it fails, it fails in good faith and is fully prepared to feel the pain of its own petard.
While tablets the frustration and bad pacing are clearly issues, I do not think they are that bad and, as noted above, it should be relatively tablets easy to fix. What is a much bigger tablets problem is how these system gives rise to a very simplistic narrative.
This is a much more interesting tablets point and one that I struggled with myself. Grip isn’t talking tablets about the game’s story here, in the larger sense, but about the narrative that is created and controlled by player action. It is, he reckons, a narrative of moving from one save point to the next, occasionally activating a piece of machinery or searching for a keycard.
The problems with objectives does not stop there though. Another issue is that they are all extremely simplistic and without any interesting narrative significance. They are all about powering up things or finding keycards. It is old school mission design with a thin layer of narrative coating. While these sort of boring objectives are pretty common in games, I think Alien: Isolation has an especially hard time getting away from it. Because the game is constantly so dense with information that you need to keep track of (save stations, motion tracker, alien signs, loot, resources, etc) you really cannot manage to keep any complex objectives in mind.
I don’t tablets necessarily disagree, even though I think Isolation is an excellent game. Would I have preferred objectives and flow that didn’t occasionally remind tablets me of playing repairman in Dead Sp
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