izigame.me

Absolutely Fantastic Aliens Game In VR - Very Well Done!

I have been waiting a long while for a good Aliens game. Alien Isolation was a great horror game, but I wanted something like the movie Aliens. Aliens Colonial Marines was a major catastrophe that we shall not talk about. When Aliens Fireteam Elite came out, I played it, liked it, but was not a flat gamer anymore. I played it in VR with UEVR mod, which works quite well, but it is still a flat game requiring button presses rather than physicality. Alien Rogue Incursion is a lot what I wanted from an Aliens game, plus in full fledged VR. Survios nailed the atmosphere perfectly. It is VERY well done! You can definitely tell they are a fan of the original Alien and Aliens movies.

Player Physics

What I really love about this game is the devs went full into a full body IK system that has physics. Your legs and arms (even forarms) can collide in the world. Which is both awesome and can mess you up. For example, if there is a bucket on the ground and you walk near it, your character can kick the bucket and that will get the attention of the aliens, giving away your position. I think this is so well done here, you literally need to be aware of your surroundings at all times. There is also a scene in the game that really utilizes the full body IK system VERY well.

The Guns

The gun play is fantastic, yes I say it, many people complain about how guns handle here, but I think it is some of the best. That is due to the full body IK system. Especially the godly Pulse Rifle. If you aim down the sights of the Pulse Rifle, the gun pockets to your shoulder, making it feel like you are actually using the stock of the gun. It feel really good, in my opinion. I have not seen a game do this and it works here very well. The same works for the shotgun as well.

Graphics

The graphics are very nice looking here, but has some issues. Where the world has lots of impressive fog effects, the game does have some performance issues that requires it to render at a lower resolution. If you play without AA, the fog does look noisy/pixelly. Enabling TAA or FSA fixes this issue, but TAA & FSA does tend to make the world a bit blurrier (which is how this form of AA works), however, I feel it works here though. Also some of the textures in the game are a bit muddy/low res. Unfortunately, one of the bad textures is your hands/body. The devs need to make your body and hands have a higher res texture as it looks quite low quality. Other than that, the game looks great!

No Loading Screens (other than initial)

One thing that does not get talked about in many reviews is the lack of loading screens. There is no loading screens between zones. It is completely seemless as you wonder through the large base. That is quite a great technical achievement that should not be overlooked, especially for VR. The only loading screen that is present is when you hit new game or load game in the main menu and even that load screen is not long at all. Got to give kuddos where it is due.

The Aliens

In the game you are continuously fighting off multiple aliens. The Xenomorphs spawn in quite often (can range from 20 seconds to a full minute), which can get a bit annoying if you are trying to solve puzzles and/or accessing terminals or just low on ammo. But, I feel this increases tension, which is this game's core. The AI of the Xenomorphs are the typical from any Aliens game, they crawl around air ducts, ceilings, and the ground and they will try to tackle you and chomp your face. In VR, the Xenos look great and terrifying. However, not only are you fighting Xenomorphs, but, of course, you fight for your life against the nasty Facehuggers. These disgusting little guys can give you a form of PTSD and can scare the shit out of you. Fighting these little fuckers in VR are also absolutely terrifying, but awesome at the same time.

Stealth?

However, I do feel this game needs work with stealth mechanics. There is some stealth, you can try to hide from the aliens, I have done this a couple times successfully, but it is VERY hard as there is not many places to hide. I feel like if they added some lockers to hide in or allow us to hide under desks (like in Alien Isolation), this would add more to the gameplay. The only safe areas from the Aliens are the panic rooms where you save your game (word of advise: SAVE OFTEN!).

Part 1 & Part 2 Fiasco

When this game released, Survios quick rebranded the title image with "Part 1" and announced the game will have a Part 2. This sent a lot of people into an uproar, with good reason. As I am not on the dev team, I do not know the true answer, all I can go by is what the devs say. According to the devs, their intention was not to cause confusion or only release half a game. The game we have now is the full release. They just wanted to let us know that there is more to come. However, I think this was a stupid move on their part. Doing this, it really felt like we were only receiving half a game, even though, this game takes a good 6-8+ hours to complete the story (excluding all of the extra areas/rooms to discover). They really should have kept quiet and just let people discover at the end of this game that there is more to come and confirmed it a little while longer that yes they are developing a part 2 to the story. This is a prime example of talking too much gets you in trouble.

Overall

Do I recommend this game? As a fan of the Alien franchise, I whole heartily recommend this title 100%. Alien Rogue Incursion is a fantastic entry to the Alien franchise. I love the story, characters, VR mechanics, and, of course, the atmosphere. There are some issues, but there is so much that Survios got right here. I love this game and cannot wait for Part 2 to come out!