[STEAM] Alien: Rogue Incursion Review

[Steam 0]

Of all the series most ripe for a virtual reality adaptation, few have greater potential than Alien. I mean, who aside from Ellen Ripley herself wouldn’t want to experience the thrill of being hunted by the perfect organism without that whole “risk of being dismembered” thing? Alien: Rogue Incursion is an admirable first attempt at delivering just that, with a compelling story, memorable characters, terrifying Xenomorphs, and a perfectly crafted world that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but the iconic Alien universe. There’s plenty of room to improve in its already-in-the-works sequel, however, especially when it comes to the simplistic combat, not-so-clever Xenomorphic foes, and occasional jankiness that could use some smoothing over. Even so, Rogue Incursion is a strong opening act for a series I’m already eager to play more of.

If you’ve read the Alien comics, like Aliens: Defiance, then you’ll already be familiar with the badass protagonist whose boots you’ll be filling: Zula Hendricks. And if that name doesn’t ring a bell, Rogue Incursion does a great job of introducing you to her in short order so you don’t have to do any homework beforehand. An ex-colonial marine with a rough upbringing and chronic back problems, you’re sent to a classically deserted planet overrun by the most evil creatures imaginable, and accompanied by your trusty synthetic companion, Davis – don’t worry, he’s reformed, and not the type to betray you to please his corporate overlords… anymore. What follows is an extremely formulaic Alien tale that apes all the same beats for which the series is known, but thanks to interesting dialogue, great characters, and a relatively short runtime that doesn’t overstay its welcome, that familiarity doesn’t end up being such a bad thing. Zula and her relationship with her robot bestie is genuinely touching, oftentimes offsetting an otherwise relentlessly bleak situation, and the story has a few twists in store and an ending that sets up a sequel nicely.

Zula's relationship with her robot bestie is genuinely touching. Over the eight-hour story, you’ll tiptoe through the dark corridors and frozen wastes of a forgotten colony world while looking over your shoulder every few seconds for those eye-free freak shows that are never far off, and then painting the walls with their acidic blood whenever one pops out of a vent or sneaks up behind you. Going through each area slowly and doing your best to keep quiet can keep them off your back for slightly longer, but since ammo isn’t particularly scarce and Xenomorphs aren’t all that hard to kill on anything but the hardest difficulty, I found that running through areas and getting things done quickly could work just as well, so long as you’re up for a slightly more regular fight. And, of course, you’ll have to solve complicated engineering problems in a world where every piece of technology breaks as soon as a Xenomorph so much as looks at it, and then makes as much noise as possible anytime you try to troubleshoot, just in case those aliens in the next room over hadn’t heard you yet.

Combat is rather simple, in that 95% of the time you’ll be attacked by Xenomorphs who climb out of vents seemingly installed for the explicit purpose of helping them get around, pull out one of your three weapons to make short work of them, and then move on. These encounters are divided nearly equally into either exciting sections that have some kind of unique tension or twist, and completely monotonous annoyances. For example, finding yourself cornered by a trio of Xenos and frantically trying to reload your weapon before you’re toast is extremely memorable, and setting traps as you hold off an onslaught of double-jawed monsters while performing IT support for some broken communications relays is an action-packed good time. But then you’ll go a long stretch of walking down some of the same hallways you’ve visited already, stopping every 30 seconds to kill a few monsters that run straight at you, completely devoid of any kind of intelligent attack strategy, then carefully reload your weapons before moving on and repeating the process moments later. These sections tend to make combat feel pretty mundane, and take away a lot of the initial fear when confronting a Xenomorph, which begin to feel quite commonplace after the first couple hours.

Initially scary Xenomorphs can soon begin to feel commonplace. Probably the weakest part of combat is your limited and mostly unremarkable arsenal, which consists of a pulse rifle, a pump-action shotgun, and a six-shooter revolver. The pulse rifle, an automatic weapon that’s usually the most overall reliable choice for a variety of situations, is really the only weapon that feels recognizable in the Alien universe, while the shotgun and revolver seem oddly generic and low-tech for a sci-fi setting. Your only other tools are proximity grenades that can be set to go off when an alien draws near and a motion scanner that you won’t need to use very often, since Xenomorphs loudly scurry about and hiss at you to announce their presence most of the time. These items feel pretty par for the course for VR shooters, with little to set them apart. It’s also a bit weird that you don’t have a last resort melee weapon to fall back on, so if a facehugger jumps on your head, you’d better hope you can get your pistol pointed at an awkward angle to kill it.

This is an Alien game, so perhaps unsurprisingly, the enemy variety isn’t very strong either. You’ll go at least several hours before seeing a single enemy that isn’t a Xenomorph, and even when you do, it’ll be a facehugger or two before going right back to more Xenos. The good news is that these aliens can be pretty intimidating foes, killing in just a hit or two and rushing at you by crawling on walls, leaping great distances, and moving erratically to make them hard to pin down. Unfortunately, despite their best effort, their menacing appearance doesn’t always translate to them being particularly crafty foes, and after you’ve learned their small bag of tricks in the first hour or two, they begin to feel downright dim as they mozy on out through a vent before pausing in front of you for a few seconds, giving you ample time to score the kill while they stand in place helplessly. Between the first Alien movie’s depiction of the Xenomorph as an all-powerful monstrosity that can scarcely be beaten, and the second movie’s tendency to blast through dozens of the creatures within the span of a few minutes, Rogue Incursion certainly finds itself in the latter camp.

It also suffers from minor, but noteworthy enough to be annoying, bugs. Sometimes characters will repeat the same lines of dialogue multiple times in a row, Xenomorphs will move through objects in bizarre ways, and your controls aren’t always as precise and responsive as you’d hope when you’re staring down a room full of facehuggers. None of these issues are particularly troublesome, but they do add a slight lack of polish that I hope they’ll work on for the sequel.

And while this isn’t the fault of Alien: Rogue Incursion alone, one especially annoying PSVR 2 issue that felt like a particular problem here is that the little PlayStation logo buttons are a tad too easy to hit, especially when you’re clamoring for your handgun after a Xenomorph surprises you. Most of the times I died were due to a menu popping up at exactly the wrong moment, sending me scrambling to back out before I was killed, which I was rarely successful at. That added an extra level of stress in the wrong kind of way. Again, this is a controller design problem at the end of the day, but it came up enough here that there really ought to be some built-in protection against it – maybe make me hold the menu button down for a second or two before you cause me to get impaled on an alien’s tail, guys?

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