3) Alien: Isolation
You remember Aliens vs. Predator, don’t you? It’s that sorry excuse of a sci-fi horror film that near-singlehandedly ruined the primal sense of fear and respect us lowly humans held for sci-fi cinema’s most iconic alien species. Not that the 2004 crossover is entirely to blame in that respect – Alien Resurrection and its predecessor did their fair share of trivializing the Xenomorph’s prestige – but it’s certainly the one most responsible for sullying its reputation.
Overexposure to anything meant to be scary will, sooner or later, have the opposite effect, often diluting its reputation beyond repair. Subverting those perceptions and expectations would be a tall order for anyone to tackle; Creative Assembly decided to give it a damn good try with Alien: Isolation, though.
For starters, the decision to give the majority of screen time to a singular Xenomorph rather than an entire brood serves, on its own, as a powerful reminder of how dangerous a lone Alien can be, not least when it’s represented by nothing more than a pulsing dot on a motion tracker. Depriving the player of the Xeno’s exact location or knowledge of when it’ll burst forth from an air vent is the exact type of tension-building genius that made Nemesis a constant threat, even when he wasn’t directly present, in Resident Evil 3.
Creative somewhat stumbled in the final third of Isolation by overextending its length and shoehorning in an entire hive’s worth of the shrimp-headed aliens for players to contend with, but by and large, Amanda Ripley’s visit to Sevastopol Station marked the long-awaited return to horror’s hall of fame that had eluded the Xenomorph for so long. The sequel, if ever there is one, could be all the chance Creative needs to perfect the formula. I’ll continue to keep my fingers crossed.
2) Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Eerie, deserted castle? Check. A hopelessly vulnerable amnesiac that knows nothing of the horrors that lurk around every corner? Double check. What about the anxious player willing to pilot poor Daniel toward finding the answers he so desperately seeks? That last one depends on how courageous you consider yourself to be; Frictional Games’ breakout title isn’t suited for all tastes – especially those use video games as a means to blow off steam after a soul-crushing day at the office.
Quite the opposite. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is the interactive equivalent of a slow-burn thriller novel that presents would-be survivors with a simple task: figure out why you, a London-born lad, has awoken on the cold, hard stone floor of a Prussian castle smack back in the middle of nowhere. But hey, the good news is you’re not alone – there’s plenty of other guests wandering the halls eager to make your acquaintance, even if their idea of social grace is to chew your face off at first sight.
Normally in these types of situations, a healthy dose of blunt-force trauma or gunfire would work wonders in preventing such eventualities, but alas, Daniel’s far from familiar with the intricacies of self-defense in Amnesia, leaving him with little other option than to run from everything that moves with his tail between his legs.
Simply witnessing their grotesque forms is enough to send Daniel into mental meltdown, itself a clever risk vs. reward mechanic that heaps pressure on the player’s shoulders. Daniel’s pursuers, as luck would have it, aren’t that effective at locating their prey in the dark, a weakness that can be exploited, but only at the cost of his own sanity. Spending too long under the cover of darkness will cause the sanity of Amnesia‘s poor protagonist to steadily decline to the point where he’ll begin hallucinating all sorts of terrors.
A perfectly-paced, superbly designed slice of entertainment on Frictional’s part. No more needs to be said.