Engineer Isaac Clarke(yes, named after the two amazing authors) and his small crew respond to its SOS, and get stranded on a large, abandoned mining ship, the Ishimura. A planet-cracker. It's mostly broken. Warranty's out, so it's up to you to fix it. Along the way, you piece together what on ...well, not Earth, happened. And your girlfriend was stationed there! Will she be in a refrigerator by the time you find her? Is the story ever going to get interesting or surprise you? And did EA forget who they were when they made this? No bugs, new IP, taking risks... I guess there really is a first time for everything.
Wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, this also manages to add to them. If you had told me this took Event Horizon's floating orb, jumped mediums, and made it several times bigger, *then* had you *walk on its surface*, I could have told you that would make it infinitely more compelling. The attention to detail and scope are breathtaking. Watching an intricate machine so vast it could crush you and not pause for a second run from what is clearly an unsafe distance because it's the only way to proceed never fails to send a chill down your spine. In spite of samey corridors, areas in this tend to have deeply memorable, even creative, level design. They look distinct and each have a theme their own. The medical section with its OR full of failed attempts to save those attacked. Engineering with a huge centrifuge you have to activate then avoid being smooshed by... of course. Cargo with sharp, mechanical designs.
Unfortunately that's about it for the positives, and in spite of their value, it is often obscured by the rest. The single most important aspect must always be gameplay. Because if you took that one element away, it's not a VG. And this fails in that aspect, on account of a series of misguided, albeit clearly well-meaning decisions. The developers studied horror films and went out of their way to recreate what works. But it's so action-driven, more gory than terrifying, it feels not unlike watching The Thing by fast-forwarding through anything that doesn't have violence. There's no contrasting, no soothing periods inbetween. It's all at cranked volume. It's almost exclusively jump-scares. Where they come out gets to be predictable.
The way you move, and orient yourself, are the most immediate way you interact with the world, including one built from the ground up. And that's where they made their biggest mistake. The controls are awkward and never get to feel like second nature. And this is probably the worst TPP angle I've encountered. He takes up half the screen. At best, it's a struggle. When you're swarmed by creatures, trying to find your way, and/or unsure of what to do to proceed, it's more than enough to talk you out of sticking with this. I would never have gotten far in this if not for my stubborn refusal to give up on these.
Enemies are all Necromorphs. Reanimated human corpses. Forget targeting the body. They can take a ton of punishment there. You have to cut them apart. One limb at a time. And even when you do that, some will simply split off into smaller beings. There's tremendous variety in size, movement, speed, how they assault you, etc. If this didn't end up as one of the gimmicks, if it didn't end up rote, and especially if fending them all off didn't get frustrating and boring, this would be an amazing aspect.
The weapons are rather unique and, as a nice touch: they're improvised from mining tools. Energy, "cutting", sawing. But some are not that useful, such as due to being good for pumping lead into what you point it at, which, as stated before, does not get you very far. Others are overpowered, and are part of why the difficulty in this jumps back and forth between too easy and more irritating than, technically speaking, challenging. The melee is stilted and rarely useful. Except for when you're forced to mash Use, taking you completely out of it, culminating in it smashing what was trying to tear through you. You end up watching as if someone else, waiting for it to let you continue. This is true of a lot of deaths, as well. This, along with the prevalence of "go to the tram", breaks how this "doesn't pause".
There is no traditional HUD in this. It's all holographic projections, and displays on the back of your suit. It goes a long way in making you forget this isn't real life. But then it takes a full second to check things. The 3D map is a mess on account of handling long hallways, elevator shafts and the like, "to scale". It baffles me that they did this. Certain things have no hotkey. And you'll sound like you're dying long before that is the case. TK leads to several cool, fun actions. It and the Stasis letting you slow down objects are wasted on basic and repetitive puzzles.
Zero Gravity is used well. In these portions, you can walk on, as well as jump to and from, nearly any surface that isn't outright dangerous to step on. Some rooms have you going completely from right side up, through up the side, to on the ceiling. And this all happens in complete, limitless silence. Except for your mandatory humming of The Blue Danube. The camera being slow and reluctant to "follow", correct for your new angle, mars this. Why it doesn't indicate it, I don't know. Aliens Versus Predator 2 does, and is over half a decade prior to this.
There is a lot of disturbing content and some strong language in this in this. I recommend this only to the very forgiving, who find the mix of these elements otherwise largely not original, that have been done better elsewhere. 4/10
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