Glad to see I'm not the only one enjoying Hard setting. It's refreshing to be issued a challenge in a game, rather than plowing over enemies that don't shoot back, etc. And yes, my play through has been a lot of trial and error, and has included a LOT of hiding my face when the Alien rips the door off the locker I was hiding in. But it's still quite fun, and I'm going to try Nightmare mode after I finish Hard. I haven't completed one play through yet, however...
I think half ammo for the flamethrower would be a good change, and possibly the chance of misfire, say, 30%, so I'm less inclined to just walk the halls, while simply warding away Mr.Annoying Stalker with the flamer when he comes near. Or perhaps certain rooms have mild gas leaks which would prevent the use of weapons, so I'm really forced to sneak and hide.

TangledThorns wrote on Dec 11, 2014, 01:08:
I already finished the game twice on hard so I may try Nightmare in a month.

Wow, really? Once through on hard and I said, "Thank God that's over!"
Why would anyone want to torture themselves on Nightmare mode without even so much as an achievement to show for it?
I would sooner offer myself up for CIA interrogation.

Overon wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 18:21:
I saw videos of dumb A.I. This harder difficulty won't make the A.I. smarter. A.I. is the one glaring area where games have not gotten better in.

Physics and effects either. Still childishly overdone.

Jerykk wrote on Dec 11, 2014, 00:36:
Good changes for Nightmare difficulty, though I don't really agree with the map removal. I found the map to be a necessity during my playthrough, as it was rarely obvious where you needed to go.

Agreed on the map, will help with the objectives too. I already finished the game twice on hard so I may try Nightmare in a month.

Good changes for Nightmare difficulty, though I don't really agree with the map removal. I found the map to be a necessity during my playthrough, as it was rarely obvious where you needed to go.

I saw videos of dumb A.I. This harder difficulty won't make the A.I. smarter. A.I. is the one glaring area where games have not gotten better in.

JediPunisher wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 17:11:

jomisab wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 12:52:
Just started the game, and now I'm glad I chose easy.

Save frequently, never run, and prepare to die!

but did he kill your father?

jomisab wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 12:52:
Just started the game, and now I'm glad I chose easy.

Save frequently, never run, and prepare to die!

warmbluelasers wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 15:37:
Does this magically invalidate my hard playthrough in progress towards the "complete the game on the hardest difficulty" achievement? Has this already gone live? This is some uselessly nebulous information from the developers.

No, and Yes.

Does this magically invalidate my hard playthrough in progress towards the "complete the game on the hardest difficulty" achievement? Has this already gone live? This is some uselessly nebulous information from the developers.

Beamer wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 13:18:
I hate "true stealth" games. Deus Ex wasn't one of those. In Deus Ex, you wander around stealthily and, if you mess up, you rapidly improvise. I love it.

Exactly my playing style too! Even better than Deus Ex in that regard is VTM:Bloodlines. As for Alien Isolation, because it is forcing me to stealth in a very similar looking environment without quicksaves, I can only play one or two chapters. After that I get bored with the gameplay and level design, not terrified or something! Not having any meaningful story is not helping either...

If you ever do get the game I would suggest skipping the DLC, they advertise it as additional story content but there is none, it's just short challenge maps with only hard difficulty enabled. Especially disappointing is the DLC with the original cast, they just did too short, half-hearted recreation of the ending of the movie.

The whole experience is really just a "swan song" to the Alien movie, the nostalgia factor is everywhere if you really love the 70's low-fi tech of the original movie - which was actually intentional at the time it was made. Space Odyssey 2001 had flat screen monitors and came out ten years before Alien.

The replay value is limiting because of the lack of randomization in where and when the Alien shows up, no way to trap the Alien, could have implemented more pathways through the station with opportunities to perhaps make one way choices that would seal you into taking different paths on various playthroughs. I guess I would have liked a more "open world" experience rather than the cinematic event driven one. Still a worthy "Alien" game, so much better than Aliens: Colonial Marines.

nin wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 12:06:

NewMaxx wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 11:55:
A "real gamer" would be someone who could appreciate both.

Exactly, thank you!

You failed to see the point that only my point is the right one.

(besides I added that last line to my original post as more of a poke in the internet eye for fun than anything else. I love really easy games like the original castlevania on nes.)

I can just picture devs going

"We have to implement a harder difficulty."
"Okay. So..." *types in config file* "Monster damage +60%, monster health +7000%, player damage -50%. DONE!"
"That won't work! Our monster already kills everything in 1 hit!"
"Oh, yeah... Well, then I guess we can... eh..."
"..."

*crickets*


Joking aside, it sounds like they actually implemented a cool new mode, and if the AI actually does do what they say it does, that'd be sweet. Then again, this is Creative Assembly, and their "skills" at writing AI are rather well documented.

Elf Shot The Food wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 09:34:
I'm Hudson, sir. He's Hicks.

Came for this quote.

Leaving satisfied.

AngelicPenguin wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 13:03:
FYI, though, Psygnosis just published those insanely hard games, but they published plenty of easy stuff too. It was Reflections that actually MADE them.

Except for Brattacas. God damn, that game took me MONTHS to beat!

SpectralMeat wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 11:15:

Beamer wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 11:08:
How is this new? Hitman and Splinter Cell have been trial and error games for over a decade.

Both of those games allows you to solve the game's puzzles in more than one way to complete the level. Kind of like DeusEx.
Does Alien Isolation plays out the same way? I don't own the game that is why I am wondering.

Haven't played Isolation, because I can tell I'd hate it based upon my experiences with games like Splinter Cell and Hitman.

I hate "true stealth" games. Deus Ex wasn't one of those. In Deus Ex, you wander around stealthily and, if you mess up, you rapidly improvise. I love it. That's also how I play Far Cry 4, as well. I try to be quiet and stealthy, but sometimes I'm detected and things go insane.

In games like Splinter Cell and Hitman, taking a page from old Sierra games, you need to read the minds of the level designer. There may be multiple paths, but they're multiple planned paths. Only certain doors will open. Only certain paths will lead you through. Only certain windows can be broken into. If you mess up, you die. If you turn a corner and there's a guard scripted to be there, you die until you do the exact thing (or maybe one of three things) the level designer intended you to be. There's no real improvisation. You do what the level designer intended you to do or you die.

It also reminds me of the first Commandos game. I played the demo and loved it, at first. It seemed like you had an infinite amount of ways to solve the puzzles. It quickly became apparent that you had about 3. The same three each and every time.

Prez wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 12:14:
Comments like "Only pussies want to play games without dying 5 times a minute! REAL gamers want So-Crucifyingly-Hard-It-Would-Make-A-Grown-Man-Cry difficulty!!" used to piss me off because of their obnoxious elitism, now they just make me chuckle and roll my eyes at the self-important ignorance.

While I wouldn't call people who don't like difficult games "not real gamers", as a fan of difficult games, I really am happy games like Dark Souls, Meatboy (and perhaps this new nightmare mode of Alien), etc are more common nowadays. There was a real lull there.

And also as someone who did play and complete Shadow of the Beast 1 and 2 on my Amiga 500, I found his comment pretty funny actually. I mean come on, he was clearly making a joke. If you got pissed off at that sort of thing, or even eye roll, you are reading too much into it.

FYI, though, Psygnosis just published those insanely hard games, but they published plenty of easy stuff too. It was Reflections that actually MADE them.

JediPunisher wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 11:55:
Why in the hell would anyone want to torture themselves by playing on Nightmare mode? I played it on easy on my first run through to get all of the collectables, but Easy mode in this game is NOT easy. I just finished it again on Hard, which should be renamed Unfair Mode. Anyways, I squeezed every last achievement out of it including the One Shot (do not die) achievement.

Just started the game, and now I'm glad I chose easy.

The max difficulty I usually go through games on is Normal. Life's too short. I want to experience the content in the game, not spend countless hours slogging through the same things over and over again.

RavingArmy wrote on Dec 10, 2014, 12:18:

Impossible. Blue has never been an asshole (least not that I've noticed).

He was just role-playing.