2014 has been an interesting year for the gaming community but it has lacked any standout winner in terms of actual games. There have been a lot of “Good” games but not many “Great” ones so it has made the choice for game of the year a harder one than I would have expected if you had asked me in January.
My nomination for the Mouse’N’Joypad Game of The Year 2014 award is: Alien Isolation.
The game is not perfect and does have its flaws but it was invigorating to play a true survival game, a game where you are expected to die over and over again and the threat of the enemy has true gravitas. Something about the stressful and tense gameplay speaks to me, the way Creative Assembly have stayed true to the source material is an inspiration and I hope that other developers take a lesson away from the care and devotion that they have clearly shown.
I played Alien Isolation as a marathon and completed it in the span of 21 hours (taking breaks only to save my sanity in the 18 hour playthrough) and for days I thought I heard the Xenomorph scratching through vents around me. The Xbox One version of the game used the Kinect to pick up any noise form the real world and translate that into the game. My phone went off in the middle of the night and alerted the Alien to the fact that I was hiding under a table (queue death scene).
It is an entirely different and unique game that I think should be lauded for its bravery to do something different in this day and age. In a time when “compromise” and “mainstream” are industry staples it is great to see a game that steps out of that convention. Creative Assembly have made the Alien game that we have all wanted for years. It had a huge impact on me and re-established my faith in Sega and the Aliens franchise.