These downloadable missions faithfully recreate two key scenes from Ridley Scott s 1979 horror classic, but with a few subtle twists. The premise is that MOTHER, the Nostromo s supercomputer, is simulating these events to determine the best way to defeat the alien, which has allowed The Creative Assembly to play with the story in a way that isn t strictly canon.

The first, Crew Expendable, focuses on the crew s attempts to trap the xenomorph in the ship s airlock and blow it out into space. In the film it was captain Dallas who bravely volunteered to climb into the ventilation system with the beast, but here you can choose who does it: Dallas, Ripley, or Parker. Your choice doesn t affect the game in any way—only dialogue—but it s a cool idea.

The sedate opening sets the scene. You re free to explore the Nostromo before you climb to the lower decks and begin the mission. The ship has been beautifully, painstakingly realised, and it s like stepping onto the set of Scott s film. The dining table where the infamous birth scene took place, the dimly-lit bridge, and the blinking lights of the MOTHER computer are all superbly authentic—although, as I discovered in this feature I wrote, not everything is 100% accurate.

Eventually you descend to the engineering deck and have to avoid the alien as you seal a series of vent covers scattered around the level. This is the least inspiring of the two missions in terms of level design, and you won t find it particularly challenging if you ve already finished the main game. It s a notably smaller, more claustrophobic space than anywhere on Sevastopol, and you ll need to make ample use of ducts and side-rooms to carefully manoeuvre around the creature.

The last sequence is better, replicating the film s brilliant vent scene. You re trapped in a dark metal maze with the alien, lit only by the burning tip of your flamethrower. Lambert monitors a motion tracker and shouts directions over the radio as you try to reach the exit. If you thought this moment was tense in the film, just wait until you re in there with the creature yourself.

Last Survivor is the second, and best, of the DLC missions. It s based on the last scenes of the film, in which Ripley attempts to engage the Nostromo s self destruct and escape on a shuttle. In the film, Lambert s death is left horribly ambiguous, but here you get to see the grisly aftermath of her and Parker s last moments. Hunted by the alien, you must make your way through the belly of the ship and trigger the self-destruct as alarms wail and jets of steam suddenly burst from pipes.

This is a tough, tightly-designed mission—probably one of the best in the game—and does a great job of replicating the final, desperate moments of the film. You re limited to basic supplies and a small amount of flamethrower fuel, forcing you to rely almost entirely on pure stealth, which is a nice contrast to the main game s abundance of gadgets and weapons.

It s clear these missions have been made especially for Alien fans. They re a lovingly-crafted homage to the film, and they even managed to reunite most of the original cast including, crucially, Sigourney Weaver, who reprises her role as Ellen Ripley for the first time since the woeful Alien: Resurrection. Ash is voiced by a soundalike, but he really, really sounds like Ian Holm.

There s a nice moment in an audio log that ties the DLC to Ripley's daughter Amanda's story in the main game, but otherwise they can be enjoyed as standalone experiences. The missions will cost you about 3/$4 each, which isn t much considering how much love has been poured into them—although they aren t that long, and you ll be able to get through both of them in little over an hour. For an Alien fan, though, it s a small price to pay to step inside a timeless science fiction classic.

So far, the base game of Alien: Isolation is proving to be all the crippling terror I need. Eventually, though, I'll emerge from my locker, and make my way through the game. And then? Well, there'll be more game. Creative Assembly has announced 'Corporate Lockdown'; Isolation's first add-on content. It will add three new maps for the game's survivor mode—each expanding the Sevastopol's story.

"In Corporate Lockdown , Seegson Executive Ransome has learnt that he has been abandoned by his paymasters," explains the press release. "Knowing that the Torrens is on the way, he decides to make his escape and hitch a ride on board, taking decoded Nostromo data with him. However, while escaping he wants to tie up a few loose ends."

In addition to the maps, the add-on will introduce Gauntlet mode—challenging players to complete all three Survivor challenges back-to-back without dying.

Back to the locker, then. Corporate Lockdown is due out 28 October, costing 5.59 / $8. It'll be followed by four subsequent packs.

It's the PC Gamer Show! In this episode, we welcome a new member to the team (he wears a bow tie), talk about the performance boosts of Nvidia's new 900-series graphics cards, and reflect on the spooky ambiance of Alien: Isolation.

Act I: Wes and Tyler talk about the new GTX 980 graphics card and whether it's worth upgrading from last year's models.

Act II: Tom and Andy take a stroll through Alien: Isolation and talk about how it compares to the film, and what makes the game so great.

Check out the rest of the episodes of The PC Gamer show right here.

Alien: Isolation is a scary game, and so it is only natural that people would want to have it strapped directly onto their face. People are weird like that. The good news—for the weird people—is that they now can. With a few simple .ini tweaks, Isolation will offer native Rift support, and even provide positional head-tracking for the DK2.

The info comes from  NeoGAF, who provide the following instructions:

Find ENGINE_SETTINGS.XML in the game's DATA folder. Change the stereo options to:

<Setting name="Stereo Mode"> <Quality name="Rift" precedence="4"/> <Quality name="Off" precedence="4"/> </Setting>

Next you'll need to set the Oculus to extended mode, and use the configuration utility to pause the service. Start the game, then reactivate the service by setting the display mode to "Direct to Rift".

Thanks to the positional tracking, you'll be able to pop your head around corners to see if there's a giant, unstoppable murderer coming at you. Have fun that.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Our review of Alien: Isolation already went up last week, but our own Andy Kelly loved it so much that Tyler and I decided we had to give it a try. The thing is, I don't do horror games. I think they are cool and I can respect some people's love for a good scare, but I am not one of those people. I don't think that matters to Tyler much, though, as he's already prepping me to play The Evil Within for your amusement. More on that to come (or hopefully not) but for now, enjoy me and Tyler showing off roughly the first hour of Alien: Isolation at Max Settings on the LPC.

Alien: Isolation came out today, but reviews have been kicking around since last week—ours is here—and so the odds are are good that you've already decided whether or not this game belongs on your must-buy list. But if you're somehow still on the fence and looking for something to give you a push one way or the other, this launch trailer could be just the thing.

The video is a bit light on gameplay, although we'll have that base covered for you tomorrow with in-game footage taken from our Large Pixel Collider. But if you're looking for Alien—the terror of being trapped in a dark, decrepit cage with a perfect, unstoppable killing machine—then I think it very much satisfies. 

Most Alien games are actually Aliens, which is an important distinction, because the presence of that "s" affords players the means to fight back. Alien: Isolation is a different beast entirely because, as our review notes, it's "the first game—and it s amazing it s taken this long—to make H.R. Giger s alien every bit as formidable and intimidating as it is in the films." I'd add that it's almost as amazing that it took a studio best known for making grand strategy games to put together a proper Alien experience.

Alien: Isolation is out now.

The Alien: Isolation reviews dropped on Friday, and now the game is out on Steam. After a week of playing it in the dark with headphones on, I emerged back into the light and decided that I loved it. Some other critics, however, weren t as impressed, and I was surprised by its mixed reception. Sealed away in my bubble, playing it without discussing it with anyone, I was convinced it would be a clean sweep of high scores.

This is actually a good thing. It proves that The Creative Assembly have created something interesting and worthy of critical thought and discussion. It definitely isn t a game for everyone, with its glacial pace and focus on tension over action, but some of the criticisms I ve read have mystified me. So I ve decided to talk about a few of them here. I m not saying these people are wrong, or that I know better than everyone else. I just disagree, and that s a healthy, positive thing. I always love it when a game inspires debate among critics, and Isolation has certainly done that.

It s too long!

When my editor handed me Isolation to review, I was pretty excited. I love the original film. Like, really love it. But I was still unsure about it, because I thought it might be little more than a long, gruelling game of hide-and-seek. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that, in fact, the game is full of variety and brilliantly paced.

As I say in my review, it s constantly mixing things up to keep you engaged: removing or adding parameters to the stealth, mixing up enemy types, and shifting between different environments. I wasn t bored once, nor did I ever feel like repetition was setting in. Games can be too long, but I never felt like Isolation outstayed its welcome. I was actually a little disappointed when it ended, because I d fallen so hard for that world and atmosphere, and I ll be starting my second playthrough tonight.

I really don t understand accusations that it s too long or that it repeats itself. I think one of its greatest strengths is that it doesn't just recycle the same set-piece over and over again. The alien is a constant threat throughout the game, but the different layout of each area you face it in, the variety of gadgets on offer, and its dynamic AI means it never feels like you re just going through the motions.

It s too slow!

As well as its overall length, some have criticised the pace of the moment-to-moment gameplay. To me, this is a serious case of not getting it. It s a game based on a film that is itself incredibly slow. That beautiful, sustained opening shot of the Nostromo s corridors before the crew wakes up from hypersleep. The extended sequence with Dallas in the vent shaft. The fact that you don t see the alien itself for over an hour.

This is what makes Alien such a powerful, nerve-wracking horror film, and I think The Creative Assembly have captured that feeling perfectly. Isolation is a game designed to be played, and savoured, at a steady, careful pace. It s a detailed, atmospheric world that demands to be absorbed and thoroughly explored.

The encounters with the alien see you inching slowly through the levels, holding your breath, trying not to make a sound, and that s why they re so scary. If you re playing the game and you re trying to rush to the end—perhaps, for instance, to get a review filed on time—you re going to find it, inevitably, frustrating.

The AI is unpredictable!

Unpredictable AI can be a curse in stealth games, but it s actually part of what makes the alien in Isolation so formidable and intimidating. It makes sense for a guard on patrol to be predictable, but a genetically-engineered, perfect killing machine? This creature is supposed to be devious and intelligent—like it was in the films—and you simply can t create that illusion with an enemy that follows an obvious routine.

There s an incredible amount going on in the alien s terrifying, oblong head as it hunts you down. It actually learns from your behaviour, meaning you can t repeatedly rely on the same techniques to outsmart it. Some have accused it of being psychic and of magically being able to locate you. But in the 25 hours I played, I didn t get this impression at all. If you re meticulous and cautious, it ll never see you. But the tension lies in the fact that you re a fallible human, and the slightest mistake—like bumping into a chair or darting into a locker in its line of sight—will make a fool of you.

Obviously the alien isn t actually intelligent. It is, after all, just following a set of AI routines written by some programmers in an office in Horsham. But it s the sheer amount of reactivity that makes you think it is. Compared to your average video game enemy, who dropped out of school when it was 14 to become a juggler, the alien has a master s degree from the School of Convincing Artificial Intelligence.

Okay, so maybe I m the outlier here. As I type this I m sitting atop the Metacritic listing for the game with the 93% I gave it for PC Gamer. So it s clear I like it more than a lot of other critics. But that is, once again, a sign that this is an interesting game that's worthy of discussion.

I loved it, and I know a lot of other like-minded writers and non-writers who love it too, so I don t think I m completely off the mark when I say that Isolation is, so far, my game of the year. I m genuinely interested to hear what you guys think once you ve had a chance to play it for yourselves tonight.