It's been a long time since there's been a mainstream survival horror game. Alien: Isolation may not be the same kind of traditional survival horror as its classic Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or Alone in the Dark predecessors, but many players may not have much familiarity with the stricter resource management that is required in a game like this.

Dead Space and The Last of Us had resource management elements, but since those games were more action-oriented, you weren't under as much pressure to conserve supplies. Alien: Isolation, however, is a bit slower and requires slightly better management, since it isn't quite as generous about providing supplies. As such, I thought I'd offer a few tips for inexperienced survival horror players to help them cope with surviving on Sevastopol.

Don't hide in plain view of a doorway or down the hallway, since the alien will be able to see you.

I'm not going to post specific tips for problem areas of the game. For those, you can look for actual walkthroughs provided by other authors. Instead, these will be five general-use tips that will apply to the majority of the game:

There is no shortage of games that have been based on the Aliens movie. Heck, even Starcraft is basically an unlicensed Aliens versus Predator game! But games that have the Aliens name on them have a very shaky track record. Some have been good. Others have been absolutely terrible. Last year's highly-anticipated Aliens: Colonial Marines (by Gearbox) just might have been the worst of the bunch, and left a very sour taste in fans' mouths.

But this new game is different. It's developed by Creative Assembly (of Total War fame), and its actually based on the first film of the franchise: Alien (singular).

Where the sequel Aliens is a high-octane sci-fi action film about a battalion of macho space marines being put in their place by a hive of aggressive xenomorphs, Alien is a much slower and more cerebral sci-fi horror movie about a group of space truckers who get picked off one by one by a single hostile xenomorph. This shift in focus from the action-packed sequel to its smarter horror predecessor is a welcome change for the franchise and a breath of fresh air in AAA game development. For over a decade now, horror has been on the decline when it comes to big-budget games. This is thanks in part to Resident Evil 4, and the only major horror game that's come out since has been Dead Space. It seemed that the slower, more cerebral style of horror that was popular during the PS1 and PS2 era (with games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill) was all but dead in mainstream gaming.

The motion tracker has a nifty control that lets you change focus between the tracker and the background environment.

So does Alien: Isolation live up to the hype and breath new life into the classic genre of survival horror?

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As any reader of this blog can probably tell, I consider myself a fan of old-school survival horror. There haven't been too many big-name survival horror releases lately, and the few I've played haven't been particularly good. Indie developers have done a decent job of scratching the survival horror itch, but there's only so far that indie games can go. It would be nice to see AAA developers and publishers regain some faith in more traditional survival horror gameplay and experiment with the genre on the newer generations of consoles and PCs. It looks like that might finally be happening, as there are several survival horror titles that I am eagerly anticipating!

Among the Sleep, The Forest, and Dreadout have already been released on Steam, but I have not played them yet. But these are relatively minor titles. The two big-name games that I'm looking forward to are The Evil Within and Alien: Isolation.

This game is under the creative leadership of Shinji Mikami, the original creator of the Resident Evil series. Despite my well-established passion for the Silent Hill series, I'm also a strong fan and defender of the classic Resident Evil games. Resident Evil 4, however, was not my cup of tea. Despite being a well-designed action game, I harbor a deep resentment towards it for single-handedly killing the survival horror genre and shifting all action games towards third-person shooter gameplay. But that's a discussion for another time...

The Evil Within looks to be a return to more traditional survival horror styles...

Click here to read more of my impressions about The Evil Within.

I am cautiously optimistic. This game looks much more promising than Colonial Marines in both concept and execution. As far as I can recall, this is the first time that any game has been based on the first movie in this franchise...

Click here to read more of my impressions about Alien: Isolation.