Aliens Dark Descent Review - Damn Good Game

Aliens Darkish Descent provides an all-new tackle the Alien franchise, however is it every little thing we count on from an Aliens Sport? Again within the Xbox 360 and PS3 period, we had ‘Aliens vs Predator’, an amazing recreation that captured the unnerving horror and suspense of ‘Alien’ whereas mixing it with the motion and thrills of the ‘Predator’ collection.

I don’t really want to enter what was subsequent as everyone knows about one in every of gaming’s greatest advertising blunders with ‘Aliens: Colonial Marines’. A recreation that confirmed a lot promise with the preliminary trailer to then be a cataclysmic catastrophe as soon as launched. And let’s not overlook the buggy A.I. that was the results of a typo within the code.

It was a bleak few years that adopted with no prospect of any good ‘Alien’ video games on the horizon.

All that modified with ‘Alien: Isolation’. A recreation so good it’s now rooted in the primary canon together with the Audible Authentic Drama collection. It was a recreation that saved your coronary heart racing with its clever A.I. Xenomorph, its creepy sound design, and the atmospheric and moody lighting.

For a recreation launched approach again in 2014, I’m nonetheless making my approach by it as I’m too on edge to play for greater than 30 minutes in the past.

It wasn’t till 2021 that we acquired our subsequent ‘Alien’ recreation with ‘Aliens: Fireteam Elite’. A recreation that’s very a lot impressed by the ‘Left 4 Lifeless’ method, ‘Fireteam’ would lead you and your folks by completely different campaigns with waves and waves of the Xenomorph horde so that you can slaughter. It was an alright recreation, to say the least. Not one to essentially play by your self. It’s rather more pleasurable and simple enjoying by with a good friend. On the upside, additionally they launched the ‘Pathogen’ growth which connects the sport to each ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’.

So in any case of that, what was subsequent for the franchise?

We’ve already had a first-person shooter, a first-person survival horror and a third-person multiplayer horde recreation.

So what was subsequent?

To cite Monty Python, “And now for one thing fully completely different”

‘Aliens Darkish Descent’ is a Actual Time Technique recreation with real-time squad administration. An identical recreation to match it to could be the Xcom collection.

Nonetheless ‘Aliens Darkish Descent’ is on a who different stage.

It has a great mix of permitting the participant time to assume and plan out how they wish to transfer their squad and easy methods to strategy an encounter whereas mixing it with that looming suspense and horror of the ‘Alien’ franchise that we’ve all come to like.

What do I imply by this? Nicely, it’s all rooted within the gameplay itself.

The entire thing is developed round giving the participant simply sufficient freedom while additionally giving them issues like stress and nervousness to consider. The important thing components to any alien story are how your character could be in an encounter with a Xenomorph and the way that may influence you emotionally.

The gameplay options remind me very a lot of the Alien RPG board recreation which makes use of issues like stress and nervousness to influence the participant and the way they carry out all through the sport. And the identical goes for ‘Aliens Darkish Descent’.

Your squad can get harassed and anxious throughout an encounter inflicting them to lose their focus. I had two of my marines get approach too harassed throughout an ambush in a meat manufacturing facility and the following minute I knew two of them had been being dragged off by Xenomorphs and by no means to be seen once more.

My different two barely made it out alive.

It’s nice because it’s not simply the participant that’s getting stressed by the scenario unfolding in entrance of them, but additionally their squad (and in flip stressing out the participant much more).

One other factor in Aliens Darkish Descent is the added suspense of the sport is the infestation stage.

However earlier than I speak about this it’s finest to provide you slightly little bit of context with the story for Aliens Darkish Descent.

In Aliens Darkish Descent you begin off by controlling Administrator Hayes onboard Pioneer Station orbiting the planet Lethe.

Aliens Darkish Descent story begins with a biohazard containment unit offloaded from the availability shuttle Bentonville onto the cargo deck of Pioneer. These embody cargo containers and what appears like cryo pods. Life onboard Pioneer appears to be going alright till a shady engineer decides to take management of the containment unit controls and open each the cargo containers and cryo pods.

Have you ever guessed what’s in them but?

That’s proper!

In conventional ‘Alien’ style, every little thing begins off sluggish at first, setting the tone for the massive reveal. And that reveal comes when Administrator Hayes is alerted to some unusual goings on within the cargo deck and finds it to be a massacre.

You get your first glimpse of the Xenomorph right here, however issues actually go south once you make it again onto the bridge after which dozens of Face Huggers burst out of a vent and begin latching themselves onto the helpless crew.

You handle to make it out of there to then provoke the Cerberus Protocol, a planetary containment process with satellites taking out targets with missiles to keep up quarantine. Your plan was to take out the Bentonville provide ship fleeing the station to cease the Xenomorph outbreak from spreading. Initially, it really works and the ship is destroyed, nonetheless, the opposite ship, near Pioneer, the Baldrin can be destroyed and the Colonial Marine frigate the USS Otago is badly broken and despatched right into a decaying orbit.

Lengthy story quick you make it off of Pioneer Station with a squad of colonial marines led by Sargent Jonas Harper who has the distinctive genetic capability that hyperlinks him to the Xenomorph hive thoughts permitting him to sense when they’re close to (a trait additionally talked about in Audible’s Alien: River of ache). They then excessive tail it onto the Otago and survive a crash touchdown on the planet Lethe.

The Otago then turns into your base of operations permitting you to entry locations just like the armoury permitting you to purchase and develop new weapons, the barracks to recruit new troopers and the infirmary to are inclined to wounded squad members (to call a number of).

Now getting again to it, you’ll be able to deploy from right here to mission zones across the planet, with the primary one being the Colonist city of Lifeless Hills. In case you resolve to return again to the Otago earlier than finishing every little thing or from having to make a fast exfil from being overrun by Xenomorphs, you gained’t be capable to redeploy once more that day. You’ll have to wait a number of days (in-game) earlier than having the chance to take action once more. You possibly can ship out personnel to finish duties in between nonetheless that are routinely operated.

Nonetheless, every day you wait, the Infestation stage of the planet will increase. What makes this so nice is that it heightens the suspense whereas additionally providing you with increasingly more Xenomorphs to return after you when you’re on a mission. It’s a beautiful gameplay mechanic which feels proper at dwelling within the ‘Alien’ universe.

Now one factor that I used to be a bit involved about is how the sport would deal with suspense if you happen to might simply go and look across the map away out of your squad (like in most RTS video games). I believed this may present you the place the Xenomorphs could be and detract away from the looming menace and dread. Nonetheless, this isn’t the case. You may have a movement tracker with the long-lasting bleep to inform you once they’re close by, however aside from the illuminated space round your squad you gained’t be capable to see any enemies approaching you till they’re inside your squad’s area of view.

It’s a really good gameplay alternative because it actually places you within the footwear of your squad, having the ability to solely see what they see and it makes each alternative and each command really feel necessary and probably life-threatening.

Graphics sensible the sport has a beautiful artwork type with atmospheric lighting akin to the ‘Alien’ franchise.

Voice performing is prime notch with some actually stellar voices all through. Music is downright creepy at occasions and has nostalgic references to the titular movies. However above all of the sound design is out of this world. Each blast of the heart beat rifle, beep of the movement tracker and howl of the Xenomorphs feels genuine. The sound is used ideally to create pressure and make your gameplay expertise suspenseful.

General I had an absolute blast with ‘Aliens Darkish Descent’ which gave me an ideal ‘Aliens’ story whereas introducing me to a brand new type of gameplay that I immediately fell in love with.

‘Aliens Darkish Descent’ will get a strong 10 out of 10.