Recent reviews by Hatchet

Thematically, this is a magnificent representation of the Alien universe. That clunky 70's/80's future tech full of blinking screens and industrial levers is spot on. No shiny expansive spaceships here, but robust, claustrophobic working vessels.

The game itself is billed as a horror survival and it's exactly that. Fans of stealth shooters will find some similarities, but may ultimately be frustrated by the lack of "action". Whilst there are kills to be made, they're few due to limited ammo and the risk of attracting more and more dangerous attention. The majority of your time will be spent crouching and hoping that the bloody alien goes away and doesn't spot you.

It's a great concept and well executed, but it's not for everybody, and more than once I was greatly frustrated by the psychic alien who may not know *exactly* where you are, but patrols within a 20m radius. Particularly so when you distract it with a device and disappear off in the opposite direction only to have it appear in front of you again moments later. Some levels suffer more than others for this (I'm looking at you Medlabs and M17).

The save facility - whereby you have to find save points in the level and hope there are no enemies around while the slow save process happens - is both a requirement to create the necessary tension and also deeply annoying. There are points where the alien just keeps coming at you and all you can do is drive it away with fire. Unfortunately, if you've been less than frugal with it you then find it's almost impossible to progress, and due to the lack of previous save points (you can't go back a few saves and try again). That said, I did *just* make it through the times I thought I was stuck, and I guess that's the difficulty the game aims for. It is about just surviving after all.

The big question then, would I recommend it? It's hard to say. I got it on sale for about £8 and got 21 hours out of it. A lot of those 21 hours did feel like hard, stressful work though and I was relieved to finish it. It seems quite unlikely I'd revisit it unless I wanted to showcase the look and feel of it to someone. That said, it may just be I picked the wrong style of game.

If you're a fan of the Alien universe and this genre of game then it's a must buy. If you're more of a stealth-em-up player, it's your call.