Aliens: Dark Descent Review: Stop Your Grinnin' And Drop Your Linen
As a single-player team-based real-time strategy game based on the popular horror franchise, Aliens. Dark Descent tries to be a bit of a weird game. It's similar to X-COM 2 and Wasteland 3 in that you control a small group of units from the top down. But since the game isn't turn-based, speed and reaction time are essential when you're trying to hide from hordes of wandering xenomorphs or facewashers. Developer Tindalos Interactive, you can meet Battlefleet Gothic. From the Armada series, it has done a great job of turning the Alien franchise into an engaging and engaging strategy genre. But the controls can be imprecise and the story isn't very interesting.
"That was a bad decision, Ripley."
Aliens are hard to identify. a genre of dark origins. You could call it a survival horror RTS, though it's more action-oriented and less scary than strategy. It can be stressful to have a Xenomorph suddenly appear around the corner and run through a colony army like butter. But I can't say the game is terrible, at least not like Alien. Games like isolation. This is partly due to the top-down camera angle, which can make xenomorphs and especially faces look small. The other part focuses on the marines, who have random names and are hard to relate to because the game treats them more as members of a team than as individuals.
Access to foreigners. Dark Descent introduces two characters on which the story is based. Assistant Administrator Maeko Hayes, director of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, whom fans of Aliens will recognize, finds herself caught up in an alien outbreak at her station. In the end, Marine Sergeant Jonas Harper is rescued from the cruiser USS Otago, but before the Cerberus Protocol begins, it severely damages all ships near the station to contain the aliens. This sends the USS Otago to the nearby planet Leth, where for dessert Hayes must clean up his mess, repairing the ship as a base of operations for the rest of the game.
Soon, Hayes and Harper will act as commanders giving orders to your team, though they'll also appear in cutscenes and provide guidance on key objectives. Perhaps this is for the best, because the model of human nature is not a good one. The face has strange sharp lines above the eyes and the lips don't quite match the interviewer's lips. Later, a new group of people entered the planet to provide new stories, but they were not memorable or interesting. Either way, it's hard to get invested in the character, which lowers the emotional stakes when something is meant to be scary.
"We are full, five times five."
Fortunately, foreigners. Instead of managing each team member individually, he worked as a unit. This is in keeping with the real-time nature of the action, as the game will decide which unit is best for healing teammates, leading the team, or welding gates. You really don't want the marines apart from any squads, as the xenomorphs are tough enough with four marines, let alone one.
However, if you're a strategy gamer who likes to control each unit individually, you may be disappointed with the setup. There can be occasional inaccuracies in control and movement, such as units not following corners correctly or generally not placing teammates at different points in the room so that another unit can be easily defended.
The main takeaway from this is that opening the skill menu can pause the game (or slow it down if you prefer), reducing tension and allowing you to be more precise in your orders. You can also use squad members' command points to perform special actions, such as throwing grenades, setting up a line of fire, and launching self-exploding movement paths to distract xenomorphs.
"Most of them go out at night."
Still, if you can manage it, it's best not to get burned. True to Darkest Dungeon, your marines will have to deal with the stress of traversing alien-infested areas. Overpressured units take damage and make survival much more difficult. This can lead to a downward spiral where the soldiers are so fearful and unruly that they cannot handle the next battle. Even if they survive, they may suffer from post-messy trauma that a mainstream psychiatrist can handle.
Due to the stress mechanic, the game encourages you to avoid xenomorphs at all costs. Seeing a single alien will cause enemies to seek out your group and start hunting, which will gradually increase the stress level even if you don't encounter any enemies. The experience of these two hunts is enough to de-stress almost anyone in the party, so if the motion sensor detects a white dot on the map, it's usually best to stay away. Threats are worth waiting for, even if your Marines start complaining about sitting still.
In this case, I have to say "Twice" to the team leader. and "Move You Slam!" is quick to anger. And in context, it doesn't really make sense for the band to try to shut it down. It's disappointing because otherwise, the setting has a dark and foreboding atmosphere that reflects the tone and feel of the Alien franchise very well.
However, hidden needs lead to an intense game of cat-and-mouse, as your team is forced to move between floors and from one side of the map to the other, finding evidence of an alien plague, any survivors that have yet to survive. infected. , and all the supplies they could muster. Most importantly are tools that can be used to hack terminals and weld doors to create safe rooms that will restore your team's stress levels. Finding health packs will keep your team healthy, while extra supplies and xenomorph samples can be brought back home to upgrade weapons and armor. Any marines lucky enough to survive will grow stronger over time, learning new lessons and gaining new bonuses.
"I say we are going up and bombing the site from orbit."
If you're careful with your team's moves, scouting pays off and you can complete the main objective before the alien threat level gets too high. At some point it may be best to abort the mission and come back another day, although the overall threat to the planet will increase during the roughly 30-hour campaign. In the long run, it is important to decide when to take risks and when to back off.
However, they sometimes force you into difficult battles, often warning that your team will be in serious danger. Unfortunately, these are the rare moments when you can actually plan your defense. You can take your team to cover and place mines and warehouses to cover various bottles. If all goes well, all incoming waves of xenomorphs can spread rapidly. But most of the time they will break your defense and destroy your teammates.
Death is not the disappointing aspect here. in fact, given that the aliens we're talking about are colonial marines, that's to be expected. But the autosave system took you further than you wanted. Even if your team survives the boss fight, you may encounter hunters or other teams that deprive you of a potential victory. Once, after a boss fight, I couldn't connect to an item needed to progress the story for several minutes due to an access switch, and my team died.
"Not bad for humans."
Foreigners. does a decent job of creating an interesting mix of tactical action and strategy that properly captures the tension and aesthetic of a popular film franchise with dark origins. Avoiding xenomorphs is a stressful experience, and battles against aliens can be intense when they're at work. However, the plot and dialogue are mediocre, the enemies aren't as scary as they could be, and the flow of stealth and boss battles is uneven. Foreigners. Dark Descent has a lot of ideas, but it's a worthwhile adventure nonetheless.
This fix is based on the prefix code provided by the publisher for your computer. Foreigners. Dark Descent is available now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC. This game is rated M.
