I love Alien. I love horror. I love stealth games. Yet, for almost a decade now, I have ignored 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alien: Isolation, which brings those interests together like a Facehugger and, well, a face getting hugged. It wasn't until I got the offer to review Perfect Organism: An Alien: Isolation Companion by Andy Kelly that I decided to make the harrowing voyage to Sevastopol Station. And boy, am I g🧔lad I did, and boy, am I also glad I had this book as an informative friend to check in with periodically throughout my terrifying journey through the besieged space station's guts.
Disclaimer: Author Andy Kelly formerly worked at TheGamer as Features Editor.
Is There One Right Way To Write A Book About Video Games?
As I started Perfect Organism, I wasn't sure what kind of book it would be. I enjoy books that are dedicated to exploring a single video game, but there's no single approach to writing a book like this. Some, like Alex Kane's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars: Knights oꦉf the Old Republic, tell the making-of story of the game in question. Others, like Matt Bell's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 2, offer book-length critici𒈔sm of the game in question, unpacking the mechanics and narrative, alongside the author's pe﷽rsonal relationship to the work (and both were published by Boss Fight Books, which does terrific work).
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Perfect Organism is all of the above, and more. That can occasionally be an awkward fit, like a Chestburster and, well, a chest getting bursted. But more often than not, the all-encompassing approach serves to capture more of what makes Alien: Isolation tick than a mor🌠e narrow focus could have.
There are also invaluable resources like Derek Yu's Spelunky or Jordan Mechner's The Making of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Prince of Persia, both of which find the game's creator publishing what are essentially book💛-length dissertations on how and why they made what they madeಞ. For games history nerds like myself, these are especially valuable.
I only wish it made clear, from the beginning, the kind of book it was going to be. Perfect Organism starts out with Kelly's recollection of his skepticism at Alien: Isolation's announcement. The game was following hot on the heels of the disastrous Aliens: Colonial Marines and expectations for the series' video game outings were at a historic low. But💮 he was quickly won over during the review period and became a champion for the game. Hence why he wrote an entire book about it.
Kelly follows that intro up with a pitch for why Alien: Isolation matters. And then there's a chapter about the history of the Alien(s) franchise in video game form, both before and after Isolation, starting with 1982's Alien for the ওAtari 2600 and concluding with last year's Aliens: Dark Descent for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Then there's a chapter about how the game's development got started at Creative Assembly, then how Creative Assembly broke down the ꦰworld of Ridley Scott's original film to rebuild its unique retrofuturist world in virtual form, then one about the xenomorph itself and how CA developed its unique artificial intelligence, and then there's a chapter about the game's audio design, then about every character and their role in the story, and then a recap of the franchise's story until this point. You get the picture, it covers all the bases.
The Alien: Isolation Mission Guide Is The Heart Of Perfect Organism
There's great stuff throughout. I especially enjoyed an anecdote about how th🌠e Creative Assembly team kept Alien playing at all times in the office as a constant source of inspiration. It's all interesting, but obfuscates Perfect Organism's true form somewhat. Then, on page 77, we get to the Mission Guide, and the book reveals what it really is. This section is the meat of Perfect Organism, running for 100 of the book's 221 pages (actually 250, but those additional pages include reference materials at the end).
This is where I settled into a nice rhythm, and stayed there until I finished it. Kelly hadn't spoiled anythܫing major in the opening chapters of the book, and these entries work well as an interlude between play sessions. I would play the game for an hour, then read the entry for what I had just done, learning behind-the-scenes facts, finding out what content got cu🌸t, and discovering all the cool audio logs or emails I had missed.
Each ♉time I uncovered some fascinating visual callback to the original film or a tidbit about why a save station might display the ‘Hostiles Nearby’ text in a perfectly safe area, it got me excited to get back into things. And playing the game, likewise, had me itching to read more.
Avoiding the xenomorph took precedence over my usual habit of searching every room thoroughly, so Perfect Organism is the only reason I knew that most of the original cast of Alien reprised the𒊎ir roles in audio logs hidden off Isolation's beaten path.
Kelly covered Alien: Isolation frequently as a journalist, and relies on his own interviews and the interviews of others as sources into Creative Assembly's development process. That said, it doesn't seem that he conducted any new interviews for the book, which I fo🙈und puzzling. Despite the lack of new primary sources, Perfect Organism is well-researched. Kelly has an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, earned through his many playthroughs, fervent reading of all available writing on the game, and his own journalistic work.
If you've ever wanted to play Alien: Isolation, but never got𝓀 around to it, Perfect Organism is the ideal companion. Honestly, it's the kind of book I would love to see published for every classic game. Though its approach is slightly scattershot, Kelly has collected all the information fans would want to know about Alien: Isolation in one conveniently slim volume.🔥 Alien: Isolation is as scary a game as I've played, and I was grateful to have the book on hand. The structural perfection of Creative Assemby's survial horror game is matched only by its hostility, and Perfect Organism is an excellent guide to both.
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