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Alien: Isolation Finally got around to this one thanks to Game Pass and it reminded me a lot of Condemned: Criminal Origins in a good way. The developers utilized some clever and sadistic tricks here to really up the tension. For starters, the alien is completely invincible to every weapon you have, and at best you can temporarily drive it away if you have something to set it on fire. While I imagine some people will gripe at this, it does dispel any notion that you can fight this thing. More than that, however, is that fact that there is no auto-saving except at a few specific story-related moments. 95% of the time, the only saves you get are the ones you make yourself, and saving the game at a station takes about five seconds, during which you are completely vulnerable. The alien actually killed me once while I was in the middle of saving the game. As if that isn't enough, each save station has a cooldown period before you can use it again. It definitely makes you more cautious because you don't want to lose progress by dying, but sometimes the save stations are a little too far apart. I had to redo up to 15 minutes of progress on more than one occasion, sometimes multiple times in a row, and when that happens it gets frustrating and not very fun, but this is a problem that could easily be solved in future games by putting just a few more save stations in the environment. Props to the alien's AI, too. It's quite relentless and will learn to adapt if you use the same trick too many times to get away from it. I never felt like I could exploit it to make it do what I wanted or move how I wanted it to move like I could with Mr. X in Resident Evil 2. At no point is the xenomorph ever going to stop being the biggest threat in the game, and rightfully so. I also liked the android enemies, which are cheap uncanny valley knock-off versions of the more sophisticated Weyland-Yutani androids. That's a brilliant design and their robotic one-liners as they chase you around the ship are super memorable. If I have one major complaint it's that the story runs out of steam before it's over. The big climax of the game happens around maybe 3/4 of the way through but then it just keeps going for several levels. The last few missions are mostly just constantly backtracking to flip switches, push buttons, and power up generators while a pissed off xenomorph who never ever leaves stalks you in an enclosed space, which is more tedious and aggravating than anything. Remember, if it catches you at any point you have to push all those buttons and flip all those switches all over again unless you were lucky enough to manage a save in between. I think if they shaved off the last two or three hours of the campaign it would have been much tighter and ultimately more satisfying at the end. It's still a damn good survival horror game though. I'd love to see Sega make more of them, if not another Alien game then at least something else, because they've done it enough times now to prove they know their stuff.

Holy shit, the final Miura chapter of Berserk. That cliffhanger at the end.