Hello ladies and gentlemen, it has indeed been a long while since I updated the Taoteque Articles, I’ve my reasons as to why the page has been left idle for well over a month now, but we’ll cover those details by the end of this introduction, for now though however, I’d just like to thank those of you who continue to support my work, whether you’re someone who purchases my books or are someone who just enjoys reading these wordy essays, your time spent here is greatly appreciated and I honestly cannot thank you enough. Writing isn’t just a thing I do from time to time, it’s not something I have to force myself into every day, it is as matter of fact something I have to do, it’s become the very epicentre of my world and has been ever since I left College at the silly age of eighteen, it’s a means of creation and necessary mental exercise, one that has broadened my understandings in arguably every facet of my life – it gives me reason to keep grinding at a day job, reason to see through uncomfortable trials and tribulations, it has shaped me into who I’ am and is what I believe to be the reason I’m here. To wake up every day to ponder over what chapter I’m to tackle next and in what way, or to generate ideas for future books is a privilege, a privilege that escapes most people whether they’re not open to this profession or are unfortunate enough to live in areas without the means to express themselves, either way I consider myself to be extremely lucky, lucky to be in the situation I’m in, to live where I live and to be equipped with the knowledge and wisdom I’ve learned, nurtured and cultivated over the span of two decades and counting, it’s everything. I’d like to talk about this detail on this blog, an essay that speaks to what it means to be creative, what it means to invent stories and navigate through a narrative in the best possible way and because possibilities are infinite concludes that this will be a challenging piece to write. To answer how one can improve upon their skillsets as a writer and be as one of my friends called me “A thought machine,” is something I consider to be worthwhile, especially for those who have a similar spark and drive as my own, because entering the world of writing is not something you can just do, calling yourself creative is not something you can confidently say nor should be able to without significant effort sunk into it, just like going to the gym, you can’t do a day and call yourself fit, you’re not qualified to give over advice despite how you feel, it’s the same with being creative, you can’t ponder on some ideas and call yourself imaginative, that’s silly, at this early stage your task is to listen to the wise, to accept failure and grow from it, there is nothing wrong or shameful about being humble; There are hurdles to be leapt over, gateways to pass through and Rubicon’s you must cross before you can label yourself thusly, but this is not what this article is about, this is going to be another Alien rant coupled with a review, this time over a console game released last year called Aliens: Dark Descent, there is lots to talk about and something poignant I’d like to point out at the end, so please stick around folks if you’re interested enough in story breakdowns such as these. Seeing as this post is Alien focused there is something I’d like to address before I start, and it’s about my last entry, which is a lengthy review on the recently released film Alien: Romulus, a review which sparked some great conversations centred around not just the new instalment to the franchise, but the universe from whence it came. Overwhelmingly, people thought my essay was bang on point, most people I interacted with after its publication on the 23rd of August 2024 agreed with what I had to say, giving them something more to think about and to consider, I’ am very proud of it. Now that the dust has settled and significant progress has been made with Episode Three, I feel it time to counter those who thought negatively of what I had to say, for there were some people who thought I came down a little too hard in some areas, areas that were not worth going under the magnifying glass and suggested that I was being overly sensitive to details and should just enjoy it, and while I understand what these folks are saying, I thought within my review I was if anything a little too generous to Romulus, honestly I think most people are being overly generous to this movie and dare I say audiences across the board seem to lack the ability to spot the difference between good stories and bad ones, hence the creation of this post, because stories are the bedrock of society, stories can teach us so much about the differences between right, wrong and everything in-between, they allow us to articulate ourselves more coherently, characters who appear therein when written well can give us the chance to reflect on our own personalities and how we behave around others. Stories can provide us with warnings, inspire new ideas that can lead to technological advancements, they can serve us in ways that enable us to live better more healthy lives and can vastly improve upon our own relationships, stories are everything, so we must take them seriously. Learning to understand what makes a story work, being able to detect bad writing from good writing has a rippling effect throughout communities, often giving us a landmark in how we are functioning, and recently I’ve noted a sick society, not just in my native land of England but throughout the rest of the world; Are poorly written stories a reflection of this? No, but they’re definitely a contributing factor so I do apologise to those who believe turning my brain off is a good thing, when absorbing media our brains should not be off, they should be open, willing to receive for the chance to learn and to grow, what sense does it make to close your mind when you’re presented with an addition to something that has had such an impact on you, so going into Alien: Romulus I was indeed paying fucking attention, and despite the negativity you’ve probably read in my last post, there were things I liked, and I did decide to wave such moments despite them being flawed. For instance, I happened to like the premise of Alien: Romulus, the re-introduction of the Big Chap (which is the Xenomorph from the first Alien film released in 1979). I liked the usage of another Ash android model named Rook played by the late Ian Holm, and I enjoyed the scene where Rain turns off the gravity in order to safely shoot the approaching Xeno’s (there are more examples but I’m going to stop there). I talked about all of this within the review and could for argument sake, could have hammered home constructive criticism harder and driven the overall score down a further notch or two, so if we’re going to get fucking clinical about it (I feel a rant coming on), the Big Chap would never have been found once ejected into space, because last time I checked space is big, it would be like trying to find a black spec in a planetary ocean of black water. The original crew of the Nostromo would not be shocked nor fooled by Ash posing as a human aboard their mining ship, because they would already be aware that he was a droid on the market, they would have seen the model beforehand and that is to say nothing about future generations of audience members experiencing the Alien franchise for the first time, who watch this thing in chronological order, only to have one of the key shock moments in the 1979 film (the reveal of the android Ash) utterly ruined for them! And finally, just because Rain turned off the gravity to avoid their acidic blood melting through the hull, blasting through that many creatures with a jacked up Pulse Rifle which is more or less a Smartgun on steroids at this point, would still spray millions of dots of blood all over the place, because that is what rifles are supposed to do, they blow things apart in quick succession with horrendous force, turning the gravity off would not stop the inevitability of decompression of the entire station…It doesn’t work…These ideas are broken though merit a tick for creativity, but still there is so much to be said that my review didn’t cover which I’ve been driven too, for example; Why was cryo-pod fuel stored in the same place as the Facehuggers, who does that? That would be the equivalent of leaving a can of petrol in your dog’s house. Why was Ripley’s hook shot bolt still lodged in the Big Chap when the scientists aboard this very station would have removed it upon recovery and well before experimentation took place? Why did it come as a shock to the scientists that the Big Chap bled acid – during his final showdown with Rook (a confrontation that happened off screen by the way) that rendered the station inhabitable hence fourth, why did Rook or the people in the room around him, kill the Big Chap in a way that would spill his blood!? They’ve literally studied this creature down to the first cell it came from and yet they couldn’t foresee catastrophe if you shoot the beast! Why is it that all Weyland Yutani androids (Andy in this case who is Rains synthetic) obsolete or otherwise can now be used as a hacking device to any Weyland installation? I didn’t pick up on this first time round, as mentioned I have only seen the film once, it wasn’t until I was going over my Romulus review, correcting the odd typo might I add, while watching Alien3 did I have that eyebrow raising moment, let me explain; In Alien3, the prisoners of Fury 161 toss what is left of a ruined Bishop into the rubbish tip, it makes sense in this context because before the introduction of Alien: Romulus, the prisoners have no use for him, it’s just slightly busted tech owned by the men who put them in prison in the first place, but now that idea is retconned or at least called into question, because now I don’t think the prisoners would just toss Bishop into the dump, they’d have a somewhat functioning synthetic, their very own hacking device to do who knows what with on that installation, and before anyone says that the prisoners are stupid, no they aren’t you’re stupid, they’re scum sure, but scum doesn’t necessarily mean dim-witted, some of the most intelligent people in our world are locked up or are even killed BECAUSE of their intelligence, it’s apparent if you look through history and it is apparent even today, smart people are a threat to some echelons of higher society so they’re dealt with harshly, there is no reason to think that this isn’t true for future convicts, science fiction or otherwise; Sure, Bishop would be crippled, but he’s still functioning, something you could use for useful purposes, it’s not like the prisoners have much else to do as quoted by Ellen fucking Ripley to the biggest, baddest prisoner on Fury 161, Dylan. Why is it that even with all this knowledge on the Xenomorph acquired by Weyland Yutani, do they allow the events of Aliens (the film that follows) to play out as they do? You see, writing a prequel, especially a prequel that takes place between two of the most iconic movies of all time, Alien and Aliens, you need to adhere to the lore that’s comes before and after, you need to slot your new instalment in carefully so the first events are honoured and the sequel is respected and can play out consistently, the changing of knowledge, the touches of information causes something of a ripple effect through the pages, so if you’re going to make a splash, you better make absolutely sure that the wave is settled and integrates gracefully with what has come before and after, it’s hard to do but hey, this is a discipline a good writer understands and has to deal with on a daily basis, just because something is cool or plays out well in your head, does not mean it is viable for inclusion, like a scientific paper it needs to stand up to scrutiny before it’s planted into the project – those ripples from Romulus, are still very much alive and well by the time we reach Aliens, so if you’re to watch the series in the order in which it is intended, from Prometheus all the way to (sigh) Resurrection, if you’re paying attention and not distracted by the beautiful people and dribbly black thing, it’s weak writing, let’s leave it at that. That reminds me, why, oh why does Rain leave a signing off message at the end of the film, who is this message for exactly? When Ellen Ripley left one at the end of Alien, it was in the hope she’d be picked up when someone would inevitably come looking for her, she was after all Nostromo’s Flight Officer so it’s not a stretch to believe she’d do this in an emergency. The same logic applies to Elizabeth Shaw, leaving a message at the end of Prometheus, granted it is under a different set of events and plays out as more of a distress notification, Elizabeth is no Flight Officer or Pilot, but it’s not out of the ordinary for her to leave such a voice message, it still fits, it still works so it’s not jarring, but in Rain’s case, she is someone who is purposefully trying to avoid detection, she’s now essentially a criminal, a fugitive, someone who would be wise with where she goes and who she speaks to from now on, so why would she leave a recording or broadcast her voice on the radio waves before tucking herself in for a nine-year journey to the next planet of her choosing? It doesn’t make sense, it was put in simply because it is what happens at the end of these films, to acknowledge tradition and usually I’d be all for that, being something of a traditionalist myself I understand the thought process, but it doesn’t apply in all cases, it’s up to the writers to possess the relative wisdom to spot these red flags before they put pen to paper, you useless writers of Hollywood! The only film in this franchise that doesn’t have such a send-off is Alien: Resurrection, it makes sense within the context of that film because leaving a message would be nonsensical and did anyone care, was there an uproar from Alien fans? No, nobody missed it even amongst die hard Alien fans such as myself, we were still chewing over the bullshit that was the Newborn (let’s not talk about that) but when you start to reference Alien: Resurrection as a fucking positive against Romulus something has definitely gone horribly wrong somewhere! But no, the writers of this movie wanted it and everything we’ve mentioned in there because they’re cool or to tickle the nostalgia element, a lot of what happens in Romulus is a result of the writers coming up with creative ideas (and props for trying) but failing to adapt when the ideas failed to pass the scrutiny tests, and there is a difference between a stretch in the imagination to something that simply would not work, you need to get creative, you need to think and find something that does fit the bill before you take it further, and you know what, in following these simple and demonstrably effective rules you often come up with something brilliant, something timeless that is worthy to be held up as something good and memorable. As I’ve said before in posts prior, only from limitation and adversity do you breed success, and when I think about some of my favourite films and games off the top of my head, Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy VII, Silent Hill and of course Alien and Aliens, these projects were plagued with issues but surpassed them anyway, creating something timeless and irreplaceable in the process. So, to answer these people who thought I was being so overly attentive, I hope you can see by now that I was in fact being generous and not as nit-picky as I could and perhaps should have been in hindsight, to my own detriment I feel like I’ve compromised myself which is something to personally reflect on. Maybe I’ am a sucker for this franchise, maybe I do need to rethink how I write my reviews in future, the only reason I didn’t quarantine these issues and write several more pages on them is because some of these ideas were delicately catered to by the writers, to at least some degree – there was thought that had gone into this film and that does tickle me, because I’ve seen far, far worse in recent years and having caught snippets of The Rings of Power Season Two on social media, an utter and complete bastardisation of one of if not THE greatest fantasy writers works of all time J.R.R Tolkien, Alien: Romulus isn’t that bad, it’s not great it’s a long shot of greatness but it’s not bad, a testament of our cinema/story expectations having dropped so incredibly low that even folks like me, assholes with an eye for detail who care about consistency and good writing are willing to let some things slide. Folk like me who have dabbled in the film industry understand that it’s nearly impossible to get anything made these days even for successful directors and acclaimed writers, to get something fashioned into your vision is a monumental feat, so to give credit where credit is due, Alien: Romulus has potential, it harbours incredible practical effects, solid acting and keeps you engaged from start to finish (or at least before that Newborn rip-off enters the frame), sure there is plenty that is severely lacking but the use of practical props, crisp sound, wonderful music and incredible lighting is something to be commended in this nightmare CGI / A.I age we’re living through now, resulting in something of a soft review.
Initially I was hoping to write something that’s not Alien related, after having made significant progress with Episode Three-Seeds of War, having finished some insightful games in the last month, I’ve a lot I’d like to break down and discuss, but having written so much already about this beautiful yet complicated franchise, I thought instead of mixing topics up with other posts, posts that I do hope to one day present in a study format, I decided to keep everything Aliens in one basket and professionalism in the other; Afterall, as much as I enjoy analysing art, I do feel like there is a time and a place for it, hence why you’re getting a follow up Romulus rant and an Aliens: Dark Descent review in this essay. So, let’s get started, grab yourselves a drink, make some food, and let’s talk about a game well worthy of praise, a game that I happily welcome within this franchise despite its face palming flaws. Speaking of drink, I went out last night to a cosy little bar in Oxford, the staff are perfect, the setting is lit with warm orange lamps, the art dotted about holds your gaze and the drinks are wild and exotic. I drank a glass of Elijah Craig, a Kentucky bourbon whiskey and in this setting and for a small moment, it was like something lifted directly out of a movie, for a moment everything was still, and I felt content. I’m not saying drinking whiskey at this time (unless it’s passed 6pm) but it is a whiskey I’d recommend. Spoilers ahead, let’s get going.
The Plot
Aliens: Dark Descent, which I will refer to as A:DD from now on because already I’m getting tired of typing it, is a squad-based tactical strategy horror game developed by Tindalos Interactive in collab with 20th Century Games. Published by Focus Entertainment it was released on the 20th June 2023 for the PS4, PS5, the XboxOne, Xbox SeriesX and for the PC, this list is important but for now it’s time to get our story on, and A:DD’s plot is…Well…It’s interesting, it certainly spins a unique take on the Xenomorph creature, on its nature, its biology, the Hives they construct without getting too ridiculous and I’ am almost certain that A:DD borrows from an audiobook drama called Alien: Abandon, written and directed by Jaime Prater; I listened to this story while I was working a dead end job a few years ago during the UK lockdowns, a mundane job that required an extremely early start, 3:30am, well before the sun rose while clock off time often pushed 11am, real soul destroying stuff where the company may as well have stencilled our employee numbers to our foreheads. Given the subject matter, I think this point is somewhat relevant, because of course the secondary antagonist to these Alien films and games are massive, greedy corporations who will fuck anyone and anything over just to make profit. Thankfully, it wasn’t all doom and gloom while working in a place that did feel like working in space at times, especially in the thick of winter where the sun is part-time, lights are artificial, it’s always cold and you feel distant from everyone and everything, this was where I met Jilaine, the talented musician who has assisted me on a few of my musical projects which can be found on my Bitchute/YouTube channels (they’re tiny channels so don’t get too excited), and Jilaine’s Soundcloud (I’ll leave a link to it at the end). Working with her was a light in a dreary place, I doubt I would have lasted that long had it not been for our early morning hangouts and trivial banter, sometimes just sitting with her in silence among the other slaves was fun, sipping on vending machine coffee, eating something cheap, it was actually rather fun – anyway, moving on. I listened to a lot of weird stuff while working there, Alien: Abandon being one of them after Alien: Proximity, and if I interpreted Abandon correctly, there is a psychic element at play here, a psychic plot thread that is also present in A:DD, except A:DD I feel did a finer job telling that side of the story, a story which quite easily could have descended (see what I did there?) into foolery, blending it wonderfully well with both a spiritual and technological narrative, melding advanced science with ancient ideological beliefs, to bring into existence a warped monstrosity of a script, and I say that as a positive not a negative, giving the ending the punchy payoff it deserves.
So, the games intro brings us over the moon of Lethe, that’s pronounced Lee-Thee, which is of particular interest to the Weyland Yutani Corporation due to its rich deposits in trimonite, a rare mineral. The year is 2198, that’s 19 years after the events of Alien3 set in the year 2179 and 183 years before the events of Alien: Resurrection, which is set in the year 2381. We meet our protagonist, Deputy Administrator Maeko Hayes voiced by Julianna Kurokawa, a young woman in her mid to late 30’s assigned at Pioneer Station in orbit over Lethe. She’s bright, professional, is clearly overworked and has gripes with her supervisor, Hal Macdonald voiced by Glenn Wrage, who appears to be in the same boat mentally but having reached his limit far earlier than Hayes. A shuttle called the Bentonville, has just docked with Pioneer Station, delivering a suspicious cargo. Maeko notices a weight discrepancy in the delivery figures and suggests that the shuttle, the Bentonville remain in the station before it departs, so a full investigation can take place, but Macdonald, who too is overworked and fed up, refuses this request and lets it go. Hayes decides to go down and investigate the shipment herself armed nothing with her digital-pad and a torch, and upon arrival she discovers that the docking work crew aboard Pioneer Station, have either been savagely killed or viscously brutalised. To make things worse whatever is responsible for this attack is still roaming around these dank cargo holds. Hayes panics, she grabs a stray pistol and does the smart thing and flees the area. Before exiting she seals the doors to the cargo hold, but something almost rips the door down while she is sealing it. Hayes didn’t see anything, but she witnessed its strength and heard its hissing, she retreats to the bridge and reports her discovery to Macdonald, who has no time for her terrified ramblings, until the power begins to fluctuate that is. Alarms start to sound across the station, the people aboard Pioneer flood the bridges consoles with reported sightings of creatures and at that moment, swarms of Facehuggers literally crawl and pour out of every vent and crevice that leads to this deck. The huggers latch onto everyone in the immediate area, including Hayes’s supervisor Hal Macdonald, but Hayes only just manages to escape the massacre; She formulates a plan to contain the spread of this parasite, finding her way to the communication terminals aboard the Pioneer Station, assisted along the way by the onboard synthetic, Daniel, who is more advanced than one of those creepy Working Joe synthetics we’ve encountered aboard Sevastopol Station in Creatives Assembles game, Alien: Isolation, but he doesn’t come across as human as say David from Prometheus or Bishop from Aliens, Daniel is something in-between; He encourages you to do what is necessary to survive and contain the spread, so Hayes initiates the Cerberus Protocol, which is a planetary quarantine defensive procedure that arms an array of lethal Weyland Yutani defensive satellites deployed in this vicinity of space, as quoted by Daniel “Nothing in, nothing out!” And Hayes activates them, targeting every vessel in orbit of Lethe with devastating firepower. Cerberus targets three ships in the area, one is the Bentonville that is carrying more of these parasites, these XX121 specimens, another is a freighter called the Baldrin which is or shortly will be crawling with what the Bentonville is carrying, while the other is a Colonial Marine ship called the USCM (United States Colonial Marines) Otago. The Bentonville along with the Baldrin are annihilated by the satellites while the heavily armoured Otago isn’t destroyed, but it is critically damaged during the strike and is forced upon on a crash course with the moon Lethe. After the activation of the Cerberus Protocol, Hayes is met with a fully grown Xenomorph hiding in the coils and wires above her terminal, it’s actually quite a cool sequence, Hayes knows that something is up there when all goes quiet, but doesn’t actually see anything until the Xenomorph moves, it’s long, black head almost indistinguishable from the black coils, and it’s been watching her ever since she entered the room. The star beast stalks her through the nearby hallways as she tries to get to an escape pod. The Xeno catches up to her but before it can make that killing move, the doors suddenly open, and three armed Colonial Marines from the Otago show up and shoot the shit out of the Xenomorph. They don’t kill it, but they do wound it, causing it to scarper off into a nearby vent. Not even a Xenomorph can last long against three Marines with Pulse Rifles pointed directly at it, perfect organism or not, this is a cool scene. One of the Colonial Marines is another one of our antagonists Sgt. Jonas Harper voiced by Jared Zeus, who escorts Maeko Hayes back to their dropship (a UD-4L Cheyenne) flown by their witty pilot and possibly the best character in the whole game, someone you barely even see, say for a few distance shots of her in the cockpit of her dropship and a few, very brief shots later on of her flying, her name is Willa Hunslet, voiced by the wonderful Ashleigh Haddad; She provides some light comic relief among a dreary, depressing, dark atmosphere, Hunslet often being that character you come to rely and depend on in emergencies, swooping in last minute to save your squad and pick you up before you’re overrun, which happens in one particular mission, a mission with a huge amount of relief waiting for you at the end. Anyway, while you navigate your way to safety through Pioneer Station with the Marines at your back, you run into your synthetic friend Daniel, who has gone haywire, since the activation of Cerberus he is intent on keeping you here and attacks you, only to be shredded down by Pulse Rifle gunfire. Jonas and his unit along with Hayes finally board Hunslet’s dropship, Jonas experiences some bizarre integral head trauma before they all ferry themselves down to Lethe, to what remains of their mothership, the USCM Otago, and it is severely damaged. The ship is in a bad way but it’s not unhabitable, nor is it unflyable, given a lot of resources and a lot of time to make the repairs, the Otago is not only your base, but it’s your ticket off Lethe and your only chance of survival. Jonas grants powers to Administrator Hayes (you) to oversee the running of the Otago, making Hayes an Intelligence Officer on the Command Deck, while he takes charge of the Otago’s Marines and its defences, after all they have no idea what condition the moon bases are in, bases that aren’t currently communicating. While Jonas attempts to radio in, salvage what he can and organise this mess, Hayes tours the Otago; This is the games way to introduce you to your command posts/workstations where you can manage and strategize your next move which will require a level of thought at every turn; She makes herself known to Sargent Rico Martinez voiced by Joseph Balderama, an utter hard-ass in control of the Barracks, he’s a biomechanical left arm, which reminds me of Professor Jean Rasczack from Starship Troopers. There is a Workshop run by Chief Engineer Corrigan, a Medical Quarters where Doctor Bookard handles injuries alongside Counsellor Saira Kabiri overseeing the psych ward that opens later, and we’ve a Laboratory where a Weyland Yutani employee/Xenobiologist named Doctor Donald Becker voiced by Mike Bodie is your go-to man, initially he was researching new cryo-tech, but his agenda has shifted since the crash and is now studying the creatures. Each post is different, each lending to a certain area of the struggle that will help you through your missions, giving access to tools, equipment, perks and sometimes these secondary characters give you side-quests and offer handy tips and tricks, to bolster your chances at survival, because when the game shifts up a few gears, and it really does about halfway through, you’ll need to have organised properly, upgraded and managed your soldiers efficiently, otherwise you can kiss your ass goodbye and you’ll literally have to start over; Yes, I mean that, you’ll have to start over if you’re not strategical, this game does not dick around after a certain point, if you’ve nothing to fight with, if you’ve not managed what you have properly and made wise decisions, you cannot fight what’s coming and you won’t win, not unless you’re careful, resourceful and merciless, but I digress. Your job as Hayes is to manage these stations effectively, everything you do will trickle down into your squads of Colonial Marines that you’ll have to arm, train and heal, they’ll need to be at the top of their games if you’re to have a hope of success, sometimes you’ll need to train those that aren’t in active duty in preparation for desperate times, this is where A:DD is at, you’re not on the frontline, your job is in the office, your job is looking through monitors and accessing situations, yes you control the play of your Marines, but they’re only as good as you are at leadership, a position we’ve not been in before in an Alien game…There was a strategy game called Alien: Extinction, released for the PC, but it was part of the AvP universe so to my mind it doesn’t count…Your main post however is on the Command Deck, this is where you regularly meet with Sgt. Jonas Harper, where together you’ll progress the story when you’re ready to do so, when everything else is taken care of because you do not know what is coming next. While Hayes is talking with Becker in the lab, she is called back to the Command Deck, bringing the introduction to this game to an end, and you will soon know if you’ve been paying adequate because this game does not hold your hand and will punish you for it. Jonas has picked up a shoddy transmission from a nearby colony, Dead Hills, and what you hear of the transmission is not pleasant, Hayes catching the end of a ramble of screams with a woman crying out “They’re killing everyone, we need help!” It’s decided that Jonas is to go out with a squad of Marines to this colony, to command from the ARC (Armoured Recon Carrier), not the famous M577 APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) we all know and love from James Camerons 1986 Aliens, that comes later when you enter the Atmosphere Processor, but a smaller vehicle that’s just as capable and aesthetically looks like something similar just a touch smaller, while Maeko Hayes remains aboard the Otago, to do what she can from the bridge. Willa Hunslet will be our pilot, she will drop us off and pick us up from location when instructed to, but while our squads are on sight, she makes regular fly-bys and occasionally radios in to report on what she can see from the air. This is what I like about A:DD, everyone is at their stations, everyone has a job to do, you are in control of everyone and thus your investigation begins. You take control of the Marines, you guide them, you deliver orders and they respond, obviously what you decide to take with you on said missions (in this case the Dead Hills mission) is what you have access to, it all feels weighty, your choices aboard the Otago mean something when you get into the field, and this is everything a squad based tactical game should be about, careful planning and clean execution, or to quote Lieutenant Gorman from Aliens “I want this thing to go smooth and by the numbers.” This can be noted as a positive from a gaming position, we’ll get there, but as your investigation unfolds with steady play, so does the story, constantly updated by Hayes, Jonas, your Marines that are your eyes and ears on the ground and occasionally Hunslet. There is a lot that happens in each mission, too much to detail to sift through line by line so I’ll deliver the meat of what happens to save you pages of text – while you investigate the Dead Hills colony, you learn that it’s more or less abandoned, a few survivors hiding throughout the complex, a few bodies even, you find the corpse of Sousa, the woman who left the message; The environment is entrenched in classical Aliens, Dead Hills certainly takes on a very similar form to what we’ve seen at Hadleys Hope in Aliens on LV-426, and it’s here where the game truly shines, it has that wonderful thing called pacing, it has the graphics, sound effects and eerie music drenched in dread to back up the flow of play and the graphics, allowing the player to really fall in and immerse themselves in the rich atmosphere, I love it! Jonas and Hayes discover that a delivery from the Bentonville already reached Dead Hills colony, and an infestation of Xenos is present, but where? The situation escalates in a similar fashion to the 1986 film, Aliens, until your Marines are wandering through those nightmarish, Giger’esque corridors until all hell breaks loose! Aliens are indeed everywhere, they’ve been aware of your presence ever since you landed and you end up having to escape a recently awoken Hive, one that lingers underneath the colony taking orders from their Queen. Escaping is no easy task, you’re instantly outnumbered, ammunition and tech is limited, plus your Marines wellbeing gradually deteriorates the longer you’re on a mission, so things can and will get heated, battles become desperate and soldiers will die, never to be recovered or brought back once they’re gone, so all that money, training and time is gone, death is permanent and resources do not replenish, it’s great but this fact does put huge amounts of pressure on the gamer – I can deal with it because I’m a Millennial, say what you want about my generation most of it is probably true, but we have our strengths, one of which is our gaming ability (I think we can consider this a strength from a nerdy perspective), I grew up without the auto-save feature and was stacked with a finite supply of lives in most games, they were unforgiving but I’ve had training in my youth, newer gamers however, gamers from the next generation have had their hands held and have been coddled so much that when difficulty arises they often accuse said game of being broken and just give up, or turn to an online guide. When a beast like Aliens: Dark Descent comes out and slaps them round the face, it really does challenge them in ways I just laugh at with a weight of gaming experiences on my belt…Try tackling Rayman for the PS1, Alien: Resurrection the game for the PS1, Shadow of the Beast for the Commodore64, Earthworm Jim for the Sega, the first couple of Sonic games also for the Sega, beat the ending of FFVIII or smash the original Lion King as I have and then we can talk, because that is where the true tests lay, that’s where boys become men, and men become heroes in the gaming world, that’s what my generation had to deal with and it’s paying off, while we say challenge accepted, the following generations whimper, and if you can’t handle it, then go back to your little mobile games to farm potatoes or hide in that pathetic whimsical playground slop you call Fortnite you fucking wannabe’s, good God!…Fuck me sorry, not sure where all that rage came from, anyway;
After your narrow escape from Dead Hills, having encountered a small army of Xenos emerging from a massive hive underground, fighting off a Crusher and a Queen, your squad (or what’s left of it) returns to the Otago with the survivors you were able to rescue from the colony, rescues that might be able to use a wrench in the Workshop, patch up soldiers in the Medical Bay or hold a rifle in the Barracks, plus everything you salvaged will be added to your stocks, so depending on how thorough you play, the easier and more enjoyable time you’ll have, this encourages you to investigate levels further, the game wants you to make those decisions, because at the end of every decision, to go off script say, you might be rewarded with extra weapons, extra medical equipment or stat upgrades, but there is always a chance that going off objectives might devastate your squad, and believe me, Xenomorphs are ambush predators, they can and will make mincemeat out of your squads if you’re not careful despite how well equipped you are; One wrong move, one silly action can fuck you up beyond repair, so stay vigilante. Communications aboard the Otago are limited, Doctor Becker our onboard Xenobiologist at the Laboratory requests that next time you deploy, that your Marines retrieve samples from the slain creatures, know thy enemy and all that, it makes sense. Corrigan, the Chief Engineer at the Workshops has been able to fix up her factories in the holds as best she can, but she is still running low on supplies, for both the Marines and the ship itself, she may have gotten the Workshop up and running but it requires resources to keep them that way, so another side-quest becomes open to you, salvage what you can wherever you go, consider a trip back to Dead Hills to sweep for supplies you may have missed, make a note to hunt down rare items, the more you find the more options and decisions you can make. A visit to Martinez at the Barracks is still a dead end, they’re still digging through the wreckage, they’ve plenty of weapons but not enough Marines to serve, so any survivors you find hence fourth with some degree of military training, Hayes/you are to turn them over to Martinez immediately to begin proper training. Hayes also talks about a satellite relay idea to Martinez, an idea she brought up with Jonas Harper when you entered the Otago, an idea that potentially would allow the survivors aboard the Otago a way to bypass the Cerberus Protocol, because even if the Otago was flight worthy, even if they had access to another ship, the moment they’d leave the moon and enter that region of space, the satellites would immediately shoot them down, so Hayes thinks that a relay could work, but the Otago’s transmitters are broken, sending up a vehicle perhaps, one of the EVV’s (Emergency Escape Vehicle) after necessary repairs are made, they should in theory be able to shut down the defences from low orbit, but Jonas for the moment is more concerned with the Xeno infestation while Martiez is hesitant to let Hayes take command on their only lifeboat. Hayes convinces Martinez to take control but until repairs are made, they’re still dead in the water…I may have missed something here, I’ve only finished the game once after a failed attempt and am currently going through it again. I think my assessment of this plot thread is accurate, but feel free to correct me if I’m at fault…Hayes has been wanting to work on the comms, to contact the Pharos Spire, a Weyland Yutani flagship structure constructed around the 2180’s – it’s the main local HQ on the moon of Lethe, described as a skyscraper stretching from the capital, Jackson’s Landing, but as of yet, no transmission bursts has been successfully received or copied, meaning no one is home or they themselves are having communication issues.
The operation following on from Dead Hills takes you to the Berkely Docks spaceport, during your raid of the Hive and the Queens chamber, you retrieved information from a cocooned dead man’s Data Pad, a man named Gallagher, from his journal entry found on the pad you learn that someone is dispatching Xeno eggs everywhere possible, it’s likely that the whole moon is faced with infestation, the more time you waste between Marine deployments the further the Xeno’s spread, time is not only against these characters but you as the player, it is well done, to capture the same sense of urgency you feel when watching the films translated so well into a game is great. When Hayes makes her regular trip to the Lab, Doctor Becker is enamoured with the Xeno samples you retrieved, but not only does he request more, he even suggests you try to capture a live specimen. Hayes (quite rightly) instantly refuses and returns to the Command Deck where Jonas is waiting; After their usual bickering between what their priority is, whether it be Hayes’s satellite relay repair endeavour or the Jonas’s concerns of the safety of Lethe’s citizens which entails a crackdown on the source of the Bentonville’s containers, the next mission is as follows; You’re to salvage parts (a Comms Repeater) for the EEV whence it’s repaired and also look for survivors, to kill two birds with one stone, sounds simple enough right? But what you encounter at Berkely Docks is an enemy you wouldn’t expect; They’re colonists, men and women who call themselves The Darwin Era, a Xenomorph cult who believe that the creatures are the next step in human evolution, they allow themselves to be part of the Hive, offering up their faces for the Facehuggers to impregnate, and when the Xeno’s are nowhere to be found, this cult will do anything and everything within their power to convert the others, as we see at Berkely. I did find it entertaining at first, when your Marines first meet them, they’re armed with bats, shuffles and iron crowbars, I did laugh because your Colonial Marines have state of the art rifles supported by incredible tech, so these initial encounters go as well as you’d expect; The Marines shoot down dozens of members of the era as they come, and at first you’re winning, it’s easy to gun them down, until you realise that there are a lot of them, ammunition is limited and they’ve control of many of the human systems on Lethe, they can certainly fuck up your day manipulating the mainframe, force you into making noise that attracts unwanted attention, locking doors and trapping you in areas infested with Xeno’s (humans can be dicks like that), and they’re relentless, not to mention they’re constantly prattling on about their religion while they charge you. There is a deeper level to this cult however, one that defines Aliens: Dark Descent giving it an added layer a lot of these Alien games do not have, and that revolves around the founder of this Darwin Era cult; He’s an elderly man well into his 70s, named Joseph Marlow, former science researcher of Weyland Yutani, and he has not only convinced people to be willing hosts for these creatures, but he is taking those that have been infected and infusing them with mechanical wears that freezes the embryo (the chest burster) while it’s still inside the torso cavity, resulting in not only a cyborg for the era, but a being that can walk freely among the Xenomorphs, these are called Guardians, and they’re always armed with high powered rifles, attacking usually among hordes of aliens. Guardians do not enter the game until the third mission, but to spice things up in Berkley, you do encounter Runners, they’re basically the same Xenomorph type as the one we’ve seen in the film Alien3, a creature born from a dog, which fits because the moment you enter The Docks, you do come across a kennel and all the dogs have recently birthed these Runners, they just don’t show up until about half-way through the level; They’re extremely fast, unlike the regular Drones that wander down corridors, these buggers sprint about the place straining your anxiety even further; So, not only do you have a myriad of different Xeno types to deal with (no small task), you’ve also Cultists and later cyborg Guardians alongside them, brandishing weaponry as powerful as yours. This makes things particularly tricky, because your success depends on your ability to slip by unnoticed, to get in and out of installations without incident, but if you run into a Guardian, he will immediately open fire and that will alert the Hive to your location, it’s fucking annoying, but this is where snipers come in handy, equip one of your Recon Marines with a sniper rifle, attach a silencer and he or she will be able to pick off distant threats, but it’s also up to you as the player to keep watch too, if things were difficult before, they’re even harder now! Right, where were we, oh yes, you’ve just completed your tasks at Berkley Docks, you’ve encountered Cultists, Drones, Runners and Facehuggers. You found some shipment containers from the Bentonville sprayed with graffiti, graffiti that read ‘Marlow was right!’ You rescued some a few recruits for the Barracks and an engineer for the Workshop, all the people you save find work in any one of your stations, you will need them. From Berkely you also retrieved a Comms Repeater, this is a necessary part for Hayes, if her satellite relay idea is to work, she’ll need more parts, and now she is after Fuel Boosters. After a back and forth with Jonas on the Command Deck, Hayes finally admits to Jonas that it was her that enabled the Cerberus Protocol to fire to begin with, to stop the spread, she tries to plead her case but Jonas, at this point doesn’t want to hear it, and literally sends Hayes off to administrate recent areas that have come back online, such as the Psych ward in the Medical Bay and the Training area in the Barracks. The Psych ward for example is where you send your Marines after each mission, Marines that happen to suffer mental trauma from events will need therapy, it takes time for them to heal but you don’t want to send Marines into the fight who’re suffering emotionally, they won’t be of much use to you and only serve as a liability, so it’s wise you patch them up both physically and mentally between missions. It’s also now a good idea to put those who aren’t in active field duty, into the Training areas; Instead of your spares just sitting around doing nothing while you’re out, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, they will at least be learning/growing when you return, having gained in strength and ability, but be warned, those who train will require a day to rest before they’re fit to combat, this is something to consider because each day counts, remember that infestation meter grows by the day, you really do not have time to waste before it becomes impossible to survive. Anyway, Hayes is called back to the bridge only to learn that Jonas’s investigation into the containers has uncovered that they were dispatched from a dig site called Olduvai, and he insists that Hayes/you fall into HIS plan from now on, these people on Lethe are after all his people, he was born here which naturally adds an emotional weight to his actions, more on that in a moment because the plot most certainly thickens.
Your next mission is at the Refinery, at Olduvai, where you’re told to investigate further, to put down the infestation when and where you see it while learning what more you can about this, Joseph Marlow, whose name is popping up far more frequently, definitely someone of great significance. You encounter more of those creepy Cultists, they hang out in larger numbers this time having learned of your presence at the Berkely Docks Spaceport, but that doesn’t stop them for trying to take you on toe to toe, crazy doesn’t cut it because they’re about as effective as a glass tea towel, but as previously stated, they’re brainwashed, they’re trying to disrupt you at every turn, they force you to make noise, to attract the nearby Xenos which can and will seriously fuck up your day; Speaking of Xenos, once you’ve investigated the ground level of the Refinery, you end up exploring the basement sections of the complex where you encounter a Praetorian; These distinct enemy types are much larger than your standard Runner aliens, bigger than the lumbering Drones, not quite as large as the Crusher but where they lack in a Crushers size they make up for in intelligence. Praetorians command a respect among the Hive, serving as a sort of empress elite to her Majesty the Queen. If the Queen had selected an elite guard, it would be the Praetorians, I think that’s the best way to describe them to newcomers of this franchise. But what I’d really like to talk about is the intro to the Praetorians; Each time you encounter a new enemy in A:DD, the game grants you with a cutscene, and the cutscene for the Praetorians is my favourite – upon entering the basement, one of these beasts walks right up to you in an unafraid, almost graceful kind of way, she assesses the level of threat as if it’s a human, to disappear into the darkness only to reappear later when you’ve further entered and honestly, the first time I played through this level, it was pretty scary, it was rather tense knowing that Praetorians were skulking about, able to take a lot of bullets to take down, the groaning war cry they make when you’re close and they never attack you alone, always bringing an entourage of Drones and Runners with them. This level was memorable for this fact alone, you also met one of those twisted Guardian cyborgs, seeing him march alongside the creatures is pretty awesome but it’s what happens in the levels final third that shifts the games gears and drastically piles on the pressure. What happens is that Jonas takes his/your Marines deeper and deeper into the Refinery, why? Because one of the crazy Cultists mentions the name Cassandra, which happens to be the same name as Jonas’s daughter who is in her late teens at this point and has not been in contact with Jonas for a very long time, ever since her mother died Jonas and Cassandra have been distant, so it’s understandable why Jonas pushes his Marines further. Your squad ends up cornered, Marlow even gets on the comms and speaks to you directly before he opens every access way to your position, which drives the Hive of hundreds straight for your position! Your motion trackers literally light up, picking up hundreds of dots moving toward your position, you’ve about 30 seconds to prepare, to see off the waves of Xeno’s by positioning your Marines at the freight elevator, behind cover or by rigging up your UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns (yes, the same Robot Sentries used in the film Aliens at Hadleys Hope). From here all you can do is hold out for as long as you can, and what you’re in for as a player is a fucking treat! See, up to this point, the game has all been about avoiding confrontation, moving from room to room with precision, from base to base quietly without attracting any attention, and on the chance you do stir up the Hive, battles should not last long if you handle it effectively and strategically, you do not want fights to last long, the longer your men are in combat, the more bullets they use, the more tired they become, the more likely it is to pick up traumas, injuries and…Well…Death! A:DD has incentivised you to work this way, it’s not about the fighting, it’s about the mission objectives and survival, but here, here you get the time to set up a wicked perimeter, to establish a firing line, to properly position your Marines for the chance to unload and the spectacle is fucking glorious. Xenomorphs attack you every which way, flooding in from the East, West and South, your Marines are pushed to overdrive, your Sentries are blasting out rivers of bullets at a rapid rate – paired with the authentic sound effects of the Smartguns, Pulse Rifles and pistols, the incredible lighting, the beats of the action music which could have been ripped straight out of the movies themselves, it feels so good to fight back, to show the aliens how powerful Colonial Marines can be. Your power, however, only lasts as long as you have the ammunition, so after the first, possibly the second wave, you’ll start to run low. Jonas joins in with the fight while still aboard the ARC, taking the elevator down from his position, meeting you conveniently behind your perimeter before that bastard Marlow locks it down permanently! Jonas utilises the gatling guns mounted atop the ARC’s roof, the addition of firepower is appreciated but with the appearance of Crushers and Praetorians, it won’t be long before your defences break, all it takes is one pesky alien to slip behind your lines and from there it’s essentially over, and when those Praetorian scream out their war cries you know it’s game over, so all you can do is what you can do, if you’ve any grenades you fire them, if your Pulse Rifles run out of ammo, whip out your pistols and shotguns, if one of your Marines has an incinerator, let it rip. What’s cool with the flamethrowers is that you can draw out the path of where you want the Marine to spread the fire, and because Xeno’s hate fire you can draw fiery lines in the sand, essentially creating a wall of fire which lasts as long as it burns, anywhere from a minute or two…Luckily, Maeko Hayes along with Martinez are attempting a rescue, she uses the satellite she’s been working on, fills it with explosives (provided by Martinez) and she launches it from the Otago to the Refinery, coordinating the makeshift bomb directly above Jonas and the Marines position. Hayes contacts Hunslet to distance her dropship away from the bombsite, but to be on standby to pick up Jonas and what is left of the squad of Marines asap, who are still battling hordes of Xeno’s, using whatever is left in their guns to do so. The plan works, the moment the satellite bomb goes off, Hunslet pilots her dropship over the destructed area, she lowers in and is just able to snatch up the surviving Marines and Jonas who backs the ARC into the ship before they’re overwhelmed. It’s a great scene, Hayes really shines, the action is intense, and the game only gets better from here, it gets seriously harder for sure, but better and even darker.
Moving on, Jonas Harper approaches Maeko Hayes on the Command Deck, he’s grateful for what she did, grateful for the quick thinking and astounding rescue, but asks her why she wasted the only life pod she had access to, her would-be satellite to override Cerberus’s quarantine orders from low orbit is now destroyed, a plan that may very well have been their only hope of getting off Lethe, was used to save Jonas and the rest of the squad? Hayes replies with something heartfelt; She may, at first have been a cold, calculating administrator type, though she has proved to be someone who values human lives, she follows orders and understands protocol, but in her mind, people’s safety trumps all, even when the decisions get tough you can trust her to make the right ones, and after activating Cerberus on Pioneer Station to begin with which was a tough decision, it was the right one. Hayes certainly has the tenacity to see things through, and the steel to get things done, which is why I like her, she takes time to grow on you, sure, but after this rescue mission she falls into the healthy category of protagonists in my mind. A tension between Jonas and Hayes lifts, they may have bickered and argued before about their priorities, but now they begin to cooperate as a unit, as they should have been from the start. Hayes brings up Jonas’s migraines, his flashes, things he describes as visions that flare up when the alien’s mass, it impairs his judgment, inflicts bouts of hesitation putting everyone at risk and what with the emotional situation between Harper and Cassandra entering the fray, it’s a time bomb waiting to go off. Hayes recognises this, she has a point and wants to talk about it further, but their conversation is interrupted by Doctor Donald Becker, who calls for them to come over to the Lab. They put the dialogue on hold and walk to the Laboratory, to meet with Doctor Becker, who is persistent on recovering a live Xenomorph specimen for study, but Hayes’s decision still stands, and Jonas agrees 100%, no live specimens, end of discussion! And I fucking agree. When on their way back to the Command Deck, Hunslet radios in, the alarms sound the alert and the Otago shifts into defensive mode – Xenomorphs are on the move, Hunslet spotted them while on recon duty from her dropship and they’re heading directly to you, to your crash site. Jonas/you decide to lead a squad of Marines outside the Otago, to set up a defensive perimeter, you move Phase Plasma Turrets into key positions, into strategic choke points using P-5000 Power Loaders we’ve seen Ripley drive in the movies. You must salvage what equipment can be found, set wide range motion trackers and use flares to mark tunnel access ways, so Hunslet can bomb them from the air, closing them up which slows if not halts the march of the Xenos, anything you can do to stop the horde, you do, and you have to do all of this under heavy rainfall, in the dead of night, while using tired Marines – what is interesting here is that your squad has had no time to rest, the mission springing off immediately after the investigation at Olduvai, so you have to use what men you have left in the reserves to see this through, and if you’ve not been training your men properly, if you’ve not had your reserves in training while your A-squad was out on the field, you’re going to have a very tough time here; The idea is to grow your squad as best you can, selecting different Marines for each drop-off so they gain in experience, not just repeatedly using the more experienced ones over and over, sure these ones are the most effective, but they’re not always going to be readily available, so when a situation like this arises, you’ll have spare soldiers. I suggest taking with you a Sergeant (a Sgt is always necessary for every drop-off) who can drive the Power Loader, two Gunners with Smartguns to see off the critters and a Medic to keep everyone in the green, that strategy worked for me. There is no use for Recon or Tecker soldiers here, stealth is out of the question the enemy knows where you are so snipers are pointless, plus the terrain isn’t great for long distance shots, and there are no locked doors or terminals to be decrypted by Teckers, so it’s best to focus on supreme firepower and morale, you’ll need it to get the jobs done quickly, linger and you’ll get swiftly slaughtered, it happened to me several times, one moment you’re on top of things and the next your men are getting dragged off or killed while on the way to their next objective, it can happen so fast it’s scary.
When Jonas returns, Maeko meets him when he gets out of the ARC, they pick-up their conversation from last time and Jonas agrees that if the migraines get worse, he agrees to see Doctor Marla Bookard voiced by Isaura Barbe-Brown in the Medical Bay or Saira Kabiri voiced by Dev Joshi in the Psych Ward. Back at the Command Deck you finally receive a clear transmission from Pharos Spire, from Chief Administrator Barbara Pryce voiced by Lucy Newman-Williams, Maeko had thought they’d all been killed but in fact the Spire was put into lockdown, her Commandos were able to repair the sat comm relay at Jacksons Landing, hence why they can now communicate, explaining why they were in the dark. Jonas bickers with Pryce per usual (just as he did with Hayes at the start of the story), both Pryce and Jonas swinging out their ranks while Maeko tries to get to the root of the issues. Pryce praises Maeko for her work, agreeing that activating Cerberus was the right thing to do, but it would appear that the Cerberus Protocol is entering phase two; While phase one was to quarantine this sector of space over Lethe, nothing in nothing out, phase two, nuclear sterilisation, the eradication of all sentient life on Lethe by launching a full nuclear strike, a total wipeout of everyone and everything, and it began the procedure almost 4 hours ago…I don’t think there is going to be a phase three, I think that would be sufficient if you ask me…Anyway, you’ve a window, you’ve still time to stop the strike, phase two can be stopped, deactivated from Pioneer Station, Pryce had already dispatched a team up their but lost communication (jeez I wonder what happened), so Jonas and Maeko get to work, you assemble a squad of Marines and head back to Pioneer, and this is one of my favourite levels of A:DD. Remember, it has been many days since Maeko was rescued from Pioneer, there is no telling what condition the station is in but there is nothing for it, you must access restricted areas using Pryce’s authority, Jonas leads from the ARC, but he is restricted to the one room, the docking bay, so he isn’t much use other than to provide a fall-back position, Maeko supports from the Otago’s Command Deck while your Colonial Marines search Pioneer deck by deck room by room, as always finding survivors is an objective, but when you arrive it’s quiet, too quiet. Power is out so you much rely on your torches while walking the desolate hallways. You know there is an infestation present, but where? You clear a few levels of the station, picking up supplies, tools, ammo and med-packs on the way all the while it’s deathly silent. You find a few bodies, spats of blood here and there and then your motion tracker sounds, something is moving several rooms ahead, but the ping suddenly disappears, only to leave you wondering what it was? This happens again and again, whatever is moving seems to be playing with you, until you pin it down, corner it, only to learn that it’s a rat. All of this is great stuff, the first 20-30 minutes of this level is gold, loaded with atmospheric pacing, submerging you/the player in a thick layer of tension as you secure each area, it’s classic Aliens only this time you’re the one in control of the actions and movements, it even includes some of those eerie nostalgic sound effects of echoing metal clanks fluctuating throughout the steel corridors and the enclosed tread of boots on metal, even the music (which is more like ominous noise at this point) gently pipes up into a malevolent flutter when you see evidence of the Xenomorphs, whether it be acid burns on the ground and walls or worse the detection of a tunnel leading directly to the Hive – those dark voids of light always remind me of the entrance to a trapdoor spiders nest, the secreted resin of the alien weaved into a narrow coiling tunnel is similar to that of a spiders funnel web, even when you shine your torches inside (not recommended by the way for obvious reasons) your lights are just swallowed in darkness. It’s creepy stuff. Even though you know the aliens are here…Somewhere…The lingering dread gradually builds. You eventually stumble across aimless synthetics, synthetics whose purpose stopped making sense days/weeks ago, since the humans were exterminated, being used as bodies for the Hive, they are just wandering around, they even attack you and that only makes noise! If the creatures didn’t know you were here, they do now, and Xeno scouts start to appear. When you restore power to Pioneer Station you’re met with a Warrior, these types we have seen from the film Aliens, these are the creatures with the ribbed heads, they’re not as big as the Drones, but they’re far faster and far more aggressive, harder to hit and soak up more bullets. It gets harder to navigate the more you progress, the corridors do not leave room for long distance shots from your Recon sniper guys which in the beginning was an utter game changer, but what with the short, rigid hallways this gives the advantage to the aliens, and when one spots you the Hive is alerted and you need to make yourself scarce before they send an onslaught. You tour some rooms, you visit Maeko’s old office, even MacDonalds across the hall, I was half expecting to find his body cocooned but he is long gone by now. Before you can access the comms terminal, the same terminal you accessed when initiating Cerberus just after the outbreak, you must fight your way through a synthetic lab or some kind of storage room for all the synths, oh and there is a Queen and a shitload of Facehuggers. Battling through them is a easier than before, if you’ve a flamethrower you can draw out a battleline that will burn up any approaching Facehuggers, halt the Queen and stall the approaching haywire synths, let loose with the Smartgun, pop in some M40 grenades, waste any close encounters with the shotgun and this fight should easily go in your favour. However, beyond this room, is the comms terminal, but it fails to connect to Cerberus, meaning this entire trip was a waste of time. Your Marines/you are ordered to pull out immediately, there is no reason to stay. When you arrive back at the Otago, Jonas is pissed, naturally you would be because it won’t be long before phase two is initiated and that’s game over for everyone. Hayes falls back on repairing the Otago, it’s the only thing she has but Jonas doubts it will take off ever again. To double check the ships status you go to Corrigan in the Workshop, and she confirms with enough time and resources to make the repairs, the Otago will fly, but to survive getting out of atmosphere, space, to have a chance at surviving a missile bombardment from the Cerberus satellites is a different story. Jonas suggests once the Otago is repaired, can they remain in low orbit, that’s a possibility but whence the nukes are fired, hanging in low orbit is too risky. So, everyone’s last option is to fully repair the ship, meaning fixing it’s shield to maximum efficiency, and ensuring Hypersleep Chambers/cryotubes for everyone aboard to survive the outward journey home. Beyond a miracle, Corrigan gives you a list as to what she needs, a Gas Mixing Chip for the cryotubes and an enormous energy source for the shield. Returning to the Command Deck, relaying the news to Barbara Pryce, as it turns out there is a power source available, a Power Core stored in the heart of one of the Atmospheric Processors on Lethe (yes, like the one in the film Aliens), in processor Sigma-12, but Pryce sparks up a deal with Jonas; If she and her Commandos at Pharos Spire are allowed to escape with you aboard the Otago, she will provide Jonas’s daughter. Pryce confirms that Cassandra is alive, her PDT (Personal Data Transmitter) is being monitored by one of her men named Theo Stern, voiced by Cavin Cornwall. The mission is an immediate go, Jonas/you assemble a squad, Maeko mans the Command Deck and Pryce will be on stand-by from Pharos, but something else has happened when you take control, you, the player notices another metre, one that sits next to the infestation level that gradually increases with each day that passes, this one however is a timer, a counter that starts at 20 days, naturally it ticks down day by day, and if you’ve not finished the game or passed the final threshold before it hits 0, you can kiss all your progress goodbye and you’ll have to start again. It’s nuts to think that a timer like this exists in a game released in 2023, but A:DD has the balls to do it, and I like that. There is no time to waste, everyday counts and bear in mind that some days you will not be able to launch a drop-off due to unforeseeable circumstances so in fact you’ve less than 20 days, more like 15 give or take. You see, between missions, other issues arise, issues that do not require a play through but administrative action that Hayes/you decide upon; For example, you may arrive back after a drop-off, and there is a power failure of a kind that needs to be fixed before you can head out again, or a fight breaks out between your Marines and one of them is injured, requiring time in the Medical Bay, or you decide to take a squad to a nearby outpost that is pinging on your radar – you can either risk sending men out (an action you will not be able to control) and reap the rewards whatever they may be, or you can end up losing a man or two and pick up traumas and injuries along the way. This is the games way of letting you be an administrator, you decide on actions but in these cases you will not be present for them, the game will mix up said decisions before you’ve a chance to save your progress, you’ll HAVE to make them even if all the decisions end up negatively, it’s tough but this addition to the game reminds you that you’re not always in control, that you cannot predict what obstacles the game will throw at you, teaching you to be as prepared as possible, to try to be safer rather than sorry. After you assemble a fresh squad of Marines, you make the trip to the Atmospheric Processor, Sigma-12.
This level is as you’d come to expect, fans of the franchise will experience a wet dream when observing the environments in all their gloriously, splendid details. The structure interiors and general atmosphere of the place is very reminiscent of James Camerons Aliens, with a few splashes of creativity thrown in here and there for good measure; For instance, your drop-off point takes place in daylight, you’re a short drive away from the processors main entrance, there are various other, smaller structures scattered about nearby, all of which are worth hacking into, all of which contain valuable supplies that should be rounded up before you tackle your main objectives, you’ll need the XP (Experience Points) anyway to further promote and upgrade your Marines. There are a few survivors scattered about, hiding in sealed off areas, which creates suspicion, you see since the interactions with The Darwin Era, it’s believed that this cult is trying to gain access to the Otago, so some of these civilians might be posing as distressed Weyland employees only to get on board, cause issues and spread their beliefs. It’s up to you, the player to decide whether you’ll rescue these men and women or not. Scouting these various facilities and the higher tier of the processor itself is relatively easy, so long as you don’t go running around making daft decisions and utilising your tools effectively, it’s easy to move about and pick off targets from a distance in this open space, using your Recon sniper which is a game changer for two reasons; 1) It’s usually the finding or upgrade to Incinerators (Flamethrowers) in games like this where things change and 2) Using snipers to pick off aliens is something I’ve not seen before in ANY film or game adaptation thus far, and the fact it’s so effective is awesome. You can clear all the tasks in the early stages of this level and rinse through these sections in one sitting if you’re patient, all the while soaking up the views along the way, so enjoy, because it all changes when you hit the elevator and go down to Basement Level 2, where the lights are out, forcing you to rely on your shoulder lamps. Corridors here are littered with junctions removing (for the most part) the capability of long-range sniper attacks, a tremendously effective technique which is good at keeping you out of trouble. Most doors down here are locked and those that aren’t require decrypting and hacking, all of which takes time and a small amount of resources to do so, but those that do open often have hibernating aliens inside which when in this state are incredibly hard to spot, and when you do pick them out it’s usually too late, or worst of all, entering a room dotted with dozens of eggs, and the eggs in this game are well…Well, let’s just say I’ve a few things to say about the eggs in A:DD, things that are best left to the negative review section of this essay, yes, a rant is incoming about that. Basement level 2 is a nightmare, having to navigate your Marines through a maze, in the dark with Xenomorph Drones and Runners skulking the hallways to restore power, only to then move onto Basement level 3’s elevator, which is a bitch to locate because every door say one in this steel labyrinth gives you access, and it’s hard to find. There are a few wicked alien encounters in this level, you do get to play through two, very intense, scripted shootouts in areas that allow you to fully utilise the power of your Robot Sentries, you also find a fully functioning M577 APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) in a machine room, yes it’s the same model as the one from the bloody film Aliens, which too is a notable game changer; Not only is it equipped with two extremely powerful Phase Plasma Cannons atop the rig, but it grants you the ability to transport one extra Marine in your squad, and believe me that one extra body/rifle/set of hands and skills really makes a difference. Whence you enter Basement Level 3, you’ll encounter a Queen that happens to be perched near the Power Core…Oh, how convenient game!…Blast the shit out of her as best you can, what I did was I set up Sentry Guns and lured her to the choke point where she was met with not only the Sentries, but three Marines with Smartguns, a sniper and someone ready to pop off M40 grenades. I do have plenty to say about the usage of Queens in this game, but we’ll get to that later. Once she is dead, gather up what you can, extract the Power Core and go on your merry way, back to the Otago, ready for the next mission, which is possibly the worst section in the game. I’ve played through this level twice and I’m convinced it cannot be done smoothly, it’s a real let down given the concept but it’s here where the game loses momentum and gets into the territory of mind melting frustration.
Once Jonas is back aboard the Otago, he meets with Hayes and Martinez, the retrieval of the M577 is appreciated, Hayes is sounding more optimistic, but Jonas is deteriorating mentally and physically, you can see it in his posture, naturally he is overly concerned with the whereabouts of his daughter, Cassandra. Whence he is back from the infirmary having met with Bookard who prescribed him with kickass sedatives, Maeko and Jonas get in contact with Director Pryce who assures Jonas that her Commandos led by Theo Stern, are likely on their way back to Pharos Spire, communicating with them however is not an option due to the storms. In the meantime, the focus is re-directed to the Gas Mixing Chip that will fix the cryosleep chambers. After some deliberation as to where to find one, they decide to go back to the spaceport, to Berkely Docks where Jonas remembers seeing an old Bison-Class Hauler called, The Montero. Pryce warns Jonas and Maeko that The Darwin Era, led by Joseph Marlow has moved into that area, showing interest in that specific area, undeterred, Jonas decides to take a squad/you in and recover that chip. This leads us into this level which I did not enjoy, if the Basement of the atmosphere processor, Sigma-12 was a bitch to navigate, this is many times worse, and just so we are clear I am not complaining that it’s notoriously difficult, I am all for a challenge in a game such as this, but the problems that arise are not due to the game being hard, it’s due to the broken mechanics of the game which quite simply isn’t fair nor right, leading you into situations that make the game play poorly, leaving you frustrated and pissed off. More on that later because this segment is about the plot; You and your squad do eventually work your way in, you gain access to The Montero and retrieve the Gas Mixing Chip, success! Only upon your extraction, a Guardian leaps onto the roof of the M577 and boards Hunslet’s dropship and therefore, boards the Otago upon arrival! He makes his presence known almost right away while your Marines are in the hanger, and address’s Jonas directly, calling him father. He says that ‘father’ has a place amongst The Darwin Era. The Guardian doesn’t draw a weapon or come across as hostile, he comes across rather humble, doesn’t resist arrest and gladly goes with you to the containment cell, the same cell in the lab with Doctor Becker. Jonas, Hayes and Becker eventually meet with this Guardian behind glass and talk with him; Jonas asks him to start speaking but he corrects him with ‘I don’t talk, I only listen.’ What the Guardian is referring to is Cassandra, a name he embellishes like it is holy to him. Cassandra has somehow opened The Era’s minds to the Hive, claiming that they are becoming one with Xenos. The Guardian goes on to talk about their mission, their purpose, to reach a newer stage of evolution found only through ascension, and that means by sacrificing yourself to the aliens, to be a higher sentient being.
“I don’t talk, I only listen. To her voice. Cassandra’s voice. Her name is sacred. Her name is the key. Cassandra has opened our minds to the Hive. Through her voice, we understand their purpose. With her guidance, we feel what they feel. By her teachings, we reach a new stage of evolution.”
– Guardian
Jonas demands to know where his daughter is and the Guardian answers, she is where it all began, she is with Marlow. Jonas and Hayes march off to The Command Deck, to talk with further with Pryce and Hayes instructs Becker to watch their prisoner…But then, something happens. The Chestburster, held in stasis between the Guardians lungs, bursts out of his chest right in front of Becker who can only watch in awe. Meanwhile back on deck, Hayes and Jonas are talking to Director Pryce of Pharos Spire; Hayes asks where Cassandra is, but Pryce doesn’t appear to know, apparently, she lost contact with Theo Stern and the rest of the rescue squad when they entered Tantulas, an underground laboratory set up many, many years ago way before Pryce’s time. Jonas is furious, naturally and decides to immediately leave for Tantulas, to find out what happened to Stern, to what happened to the rescue team, but more importantly, to find Cassandra.
Tantulas is a wicked level, your drop off is high up in the mountainous regions of Lethe, it’s snowing heavily, and the outline of a huge base is within sight. The area is guarded by The Darwin Era, a few Xenos are wandering around but it is nothing you cannot handle. Always it is important to salvage the gear you find, always that is important because nothing is infinite in this game. You reach the elevator and you and your men head down to this ancient lab. I love this level because it has pacing, you need to utilise all the skills you’ve learned up to this point; Hacking doors, breaking through debris with C4 explosives, setting up motion trackers, planting mines in strategic places and occasionally sniping distant Xenos – It’s really fun, plus the map isn’t massive, not that there is anything wrong with huge maps, level one for examples has a huge map and there is loads to explore, here though however, it’s significantly smaller and imbues the player with a sense of control, control that you rarely gain, it’s refreshing. The lab is dark, its dingy, it’s claustrophobic, dark stuff certainly happened here what with the dreadful state it’s in, the aliens are down here, some are wandering around but so long as you’re quiet you can avoid them and complete your objectives relatively quickly. You find Stern, he’s injured, he’s locked in a prison cell and is about to get kissed by a Facehugger, tongues and all, but your Colonial Marines save him just in time. Once patched through to Jonas monitoring from the APC outside and Hayes from the Otago, Stern confirms that he is searching for Cassandra and has lost men in the process, he asks to join, asks for assistance and in return he’ll open the rest of this lab for your Marines. Now you have access to the whole of Tantulas you continue with your investigation, and you find a lead, a recording of a distressed Cassandra voiced by Jennifer Armour, imprisoned, institutionalised, hooked up to gnarly machines inside this mechanical coffin, a helmet has been enclosed around her head. Joseph Marlow appears before her, an old man speaking to her in the same humbled, malevolent tone as that stowaway Guardian aboard the Otago. He isn’t overtly threatening to her, in actual fact he idolises her, recognising her pain, assuring her that all of this torture is necessary in order to ascend to a greater plain in a glorious future. Another Marlow, an identical version of the one speaking, walks up to him and says, ‘The Cradle is prepared.’ This Marlow is instructed to take her to the compound, Cassandra hailed as being a bridge to a better humanity. The coffin closes and the recording ends. What your Marines are seeing, right now, is that same coffin, but it’s been opened, obviously Cassandra has been moved. Jonas asks Hayes if she knows what, The Cradle is; Hayes hacks into the lab’s mainframe, downloading all its files but cannot see anything that stands out. The Hive is then alerted to your presence, your motion trackers start freaking out and beyond that massive problem a bomb is mysteriously triggered, set for self-destruct in minutes so you better hustle like you’ve never hustled before. This escape scene you must play through is fucking awesome, having to get out of there as fast as you can while holding off the swarm of chasing Xenos. If you’re prepared and know where you’re going, getting out of this situation is like playing through a movie action scene, what with the alarms sounding, the lights flashing, the Xeno’s gradually bearing down on you, the flutter of the Pulse Rifles and Smartguns going off, it’s badass. When your men reach the top, the lab having gone up in flames, Marlow is meeting with Jonas at the APC. Jonas asks why he would blow up his own lab, he is suspect number one after all, but Marlow says it was Pryce. Marlow then explains: –
“Your mission was to secure the data on Project Cassandra. As she couldn’t access it herself, she sent your team, (looks at Theo Stern) Then yours (looks at Jonas Harper). We all became expendable the moment your precious Otago received the data she wanted.”
-Joseph Marlow
Simply put, Pryce betrayed both Stern and Harper for the information in Tantulas, she used Harper after Stern had failed to get access to The Cassandra Project, it was all a double-cross. Jonas points a gun a Marlow, demanding to know where Cassandra is, he even shoots him in the side as a warning shot, but it’s then revealed from the bullet wound, that this Marlow is a synthetic, an identical copy of the original Marlow who could only trust himself with this important research, so he surrounded himself with his other selves. This synthetic Marlow says that he doesn’t know exactly where Cassandra us but confirms that the pain Jonas’s experiences when near Xenomorph hives is nothing in comparison to what she feels. Jonas then shoots this Marlow in the head several times to Hayes’s utter dismay. Stern refuses to join Pryce back at the spire while Jonas starts to suffer head trauma. At that moment, the Otago’s systems begin to breakdown, and you lose touch with Hayes, the comms having gone dark, Jonas then collapses.
Back aboard the Otago, seconds earlier, we see that it was Doctor Becker who was downloading all the files from Tantulas which whence accomplished, triggers the Otago’s computer failures, this also includes the outer perimeter, the defences you set-up outside a few missions ago, everything is coming down, system fails all over the entire ship and Maeko is right in the thick of it. She contacts Martinez in the Barracks to try and get the defences back up and running again, so Martinez departs, she contacts Corrigan instructing her to seal everyone who is on board into the Workshop while she catches Becker exiting the Otago’s Laboratory and walking eerily off ignoring her calls. Maeko enters his Lab; The containment cell has been opened! The Guardian is dead, the creature inside him is missing and everyone here has been ripped to bits. Hayes spots the Xenomorph in the corner, and slowly does what any sane person would do, she backs the fuck off! As the player you now take control of Hayes again, obviously you have no weapons, no motion tracker or Marine training, so it’s back to basics – you must run and hide from the alien while doing what you can to evade, you need to use a terminal to see through the cameras to try and locate the creature which is a nice touch. This whole section does have Alien: Isolation vibes, you no longer have the safety of a weapon, your technology is limited and must rely primarily on your wits. I know this section does not last long but I’m glad a fraction of the game is dedicated to this sneaking mission. Anyway, Hayes/you, learn that Marla Bookard sealed herself during the panic, she locked herself and her patients inside the Med-Bay; Unable to transport the wounded, she bravely decided to stay behind, but this decision unfortunately gets her killed – as Hayes is warning Bookard about the outbreak, the creature appears behind her in that usual alien fashion and kills her and the rest of the wounded with swift brutality. The creature stares at Hayes from behind the bloody glass, face to face for a moment before slinking up into the vents. Maeko/you, intercepts Becker in the hanger, he shoots at you before opening the roof, allowing a yellow and white, Pharos Spire dropship inside. Three, heavily armoured Commandos enter, hoping to secure the ship for themselves before Jonas, Stern and Martinez return, but Hayes/you, runs into your old ARC (Armoured Recon Carrier) and fires upon the men and the dropship with your mounted minigun turrets. Before you kill the pilot however and crash the dropship, it shoots at you, destroying the ARC. Hayes rolls out of the vehicle and is met with Doctor Becker, putting a gun in your face. Hayes asks him why he did what he did, and he explains; It turns out that Dr. Becker owed the company an extortionate amount of funds, if he was to provide Pryce with The Cassandra Project data and the ship, this debt would be wiped clean. This is a great scene, because the moment you see Becker, you can glimpse the alien behind him, it’s just off-screen bottom right and it’s crawling closer to him, you spot it, but Hayes does not, not until it stands up right behind him. The music is on point here too might I add, a creeping dread raising its pitch higher and higher like it’s poised to strike, it’s pure alien brilliance and I love it. Becker is killed with a classic tail through the back while Maeko again does the right thing when in this situation and runs off. She/you runs all the way to the engine room, it’s like the fusion reactor you found in Sigma-12, only this one is much smaller. What you do is you reset and restart the power, timing it carefully so when the Xeno is near the reactor, the energy outburst is enough to overload the Xeno, shocking it to shit but more importantly, spilling no blood…Clever.
Stern meets with Hayes after he and the rest of your squad is dropped off, naturally Hayes is hesitant to trust him, seeing as he was cut from the same cloth as Pryce and Becker, but Stern is adamant that he is on your side. Hayes then visits Harper in the Medical Bay, he’s unconscious in a coma like state being watched over by the psychiatrist Saira Kabiri and Martinez who has re-established the outer defences. Thanks to your efforts, you’ve obtained the Power Core and the Gas Mixing Chip, but there is still Cassandra; With Sterns help, the mission now is to break into Pharos Spire, confront the traitor Director Pryce and learn everything there is to learn about Cassandra’s whereabouts and The Cradle. Whence rested and stocked up, your squad of Marines is dropped off in the city region of Pharos Spire, along the outskirts – if Willa Hunslet was to get any closer to the spire, she’d be blown out the sky by aerial defences, so this landing spot will have to do. Moving into the city, you can instantly tell it’s been taken by the Xenos, early signs of a hive can be seen, cars and vehicles are overturned and crashed, you come across the odd body, most of which have likely been cocooned elsewhere; Beyond the outbreak, you get a glimpse of what it would be like to live on the moon of Lethe, in a somewhat civilised area where you can actually have fun, and it’s much the same as the nightlife you’d expect similar to the one on earth only on a smaller scale, garnished with a coat of science fiction cyberpunk – you enter abandoned bars, pass parks, move through strip clubs, dip in and out of stores as you do your best to navigate undetected while clearing the road for your M577 APC. You eventually run into another Queen under a highway, who has positioned herself conveniently inside a choke point, so taking her down along with all her minions isn’t much of a challenge so long as you mine the fuck up, set up Sentries and ready your static grenades, you as the player must be used at this by now, it’s like the fourth Queen you’ve had to fight at this point…More on that bullshit later…Pryce’s Commando’s drop in from time to time which changes strategy a little, but so long as you can find cover it’s not hard to pick them off one at a time. Once you successfully secure the city level, you move up to the offices which is teeming with Commandos, too many to handle, they’re heavily armed and utilise their own Sentry Guns. In order to get around this problem you have to do something you would never usually do, and that’s let the Xeno’s in to do the dirty work for you, you have to lift the lockdown of the spire, you open vents, release bulkheads and shutters and in no time at all, the creatures worm their way in and eradicate the Commando’s for you. It’s quite creepy having to listen to the chaos unfold from the terminals and watch through security cameras of the massacre. Once the Commandos are eliminated you then have to contend with the aliens themselves, but if you’re quick you can actually finish off your objectives or go for the priority mark while the aliens are busy slaughtering every soldier in Pharos. Taking the elevator up further you enter the security floor, it’s much the same as the offices only tighter, you might have to be a little more strategical as to how you reach Pryce’s top floor that overlooks the city but if you’ve made it this far the only question remaining is if you’re to retrieve all the resources and Data Pads, I chose to collect everything because I have to finish 100% this does risk Marine injuries and deaths but I’m one of those gamers who has to read and obtain everything. When you reach the top of the spire, all that is left to do is to secure the landing platform for Hunslet, speaking of Hunslet, your team is attacked by a Commando dropship, this thing can shred your squad in seconds with its miniguns so you have to dismantle the aerial guns quickly, which will allow your plucky young pilot Willa, to swoop in and set things right, and she certainly does in a truly awesome scene, where two dropships inevitably go head to head. The spire separates them for a moment, but Hunslet pulls off a sick manoeuvre, she essentially flips her ship over the top of the spire, catapulting herself behind the enemy only to finish it off with a missile, good job Hunslet you sexy beast. While your squad secures the landing platform, Hunslet takes off back to the Otago to pick up Maeko, she is the only one with authority to unlock the door to the Directors office…Honestly I thought a hacker would be able to crack the lock, and if not an RPG would do the trick but fuck it…The Xenos know you’re hear, no one else is alive in Pharos other than you, so while you wait for Hunslet and Haes you must defend the landing platform. This is a wicked fight because they come at you from many angles, so you’ll have to set up your Sentries intelligently if you want to survive. After the onslaught is crushed, Hayes is dropped off, you escort her to the Directors office and a meeting takes place between the two. The long walk toward Pryce is excellent, the room itself looks like it’s part of a room found in a pyramid with a lick of a technological skin. Hayes means business while Pryce tries to talk her down, making excuses for her highly questionable actions. Behind her is a large glass wall, it’s hammering it down with rain which gives this scene a stroke of epic. Pryce continues to try and win Hayes over to her side, appealing to their power, appealing to her own decision making which too is questionable, but the difference between Pryce and Hayes is that Hayes’s decision making is made out of preservation, protection and to ultimately save people, while Pryce doesn’t seem to care, she makes her decision based upon what can be gained and what can be achieved despite the deaths that make it so; As Hayes points out, she’s not much different to a synthetic. This is poignant because Pryce reacts rather negatively to the accusation of being a construct, and Hayes goes on to say: –
‘It all makes sense now, your assessments, your ploys, two of your teams left for dead, your extensive knowledge of the station of the atmospheric processors.’
‘I’m the damn Director of that rock, don’t you get it!?’
‘And yet you couldn’t stop that protocol!’
‘Would you listen to me! Everything out there it’s mine, I could have saved these people.’
‘But you didn’t! So much power and you did nothing with it! Except protecting the assets of this fucking company. We could have talked! Harper…He would have welcomed you onboard, but you didn’t think of that did you? You didn’t think of your own life, not a single time, right? Do you think a human would do that?’
‘Maeko! These assets, Marlow’s research? I don’t have it anymore; It’s all uploaded somewhere on the Otago!’
Pryce goes on bartering with Maeko, encouraging her to destroy the download if she wants to, to sell it to Seegson or the U.P.P, so long as she can be rescued. Maeko demands to know where Cassandra is, and Pryce says that she’s probably with the rest of The Darwin Era’s prisoners, in an ancient city below Olduvai. Maeko turns her back on Pryce refusing to take her with her: –
‘Maeko, I’m not a synth!’
‘I doubt you’re human either.’
As Maeko leaves, when you see her ship taking off from Pharos Spire, you see it being overrun with Xenomorphs, they’re climbing the spire in the thousands, possibly millions while Pryce, alone in her office doomed to die by alien or by nuke, repeats the words: –
‘I’m not a synth.’
You’re now in the final stretch of the game, Aliens: Dark Descent is almost over, all you have left to do is to investigate what is buried under Olduvai back at that fucking Refinery. With Harper knocking on deaths door, the nukes from Cerberus launching in however many days are left on the clock, you cannot have much time left. For me on my second play through it was 11 days left at this point, but depending on how you’ve been playing, depends on how much time you’ve left and how aggressive the Hive has become, and that effects the difficulty. Everything you do matters. Hunslet radios in when you reach The Command Deck, saying something genuinely funny: –
‘Uh Otago I don’t know if you’re seeing this, but you’ve got company coming, end of the world type company.’
-Willa Hunslet
There is nothing else for it, you must assemble your squad and head out immediately for Olduvai to rescue the last few remaining survivors and Cassandra, Hayes is determined to get this done, Theo Stern will man the APC while she will be monitoring from the bridge and Hunslet providing air support when necessary. When you return to the Refinery, to Olduvai you enter the same way you entered last time, but you immediately veer off to the south and access an elevator that takes you down into the lower levels. The missions here are not out of the ordinary, lots of Guardians, lots of Cultists and the odd Xenomorph wandering about, this is horrible because as you’re making your way, you do not know if motion from your tracker is a human or an alien and being spotted by an alien alerts the others. It’s dark and dingy down here, but there is enough light and space to use your snipers effectively, seriously, snipers are just game changers in this game, I love them. Your progress is slow because among other tasks, fixing the power, unlocking doors, rescuing survivors, repairing broken synths and gathering materials, you have to enable your M577 to follow you in for support, meaning you have to take the long way around while it can only move when the route is clear, and having the M577 as backup is an overwhelming advantage for your Marines, it cannot be destroyed, it’s cannons can rotate on a 360 degree pivot and if needs be can extract your squad immediately when things get desperate, and things definitely do get desperate; Remember, time is running out, you’ve only a handful of days left to finish and this mission seems to just keep going and going, you go deeper and deeper into Olduvai to the point where your motion tracker stops working due to static interference, and to make things worse, you’re squad has had to take an elevator into an underground maze where your M577 cannot support you and it’s a long trek away if you need to extract. Side note – I always wondered why this game was called Aliens: Dark Descent, up to this point I would have called it Aliens: Cerberus, but now I know having played this level and you only go deeper. This is the hardest level in the game, and by rights it should be as it’s the penultimate, taking the thing, the motion tracker, the piece of equipment you’ve been relying on literally from the very start to take it away and it’s brutal. Whereas before you could pick up the pace, storming rooms with confidence and taking corners like a boss, now you suddenly find yourself walking slowly, slower than you ever have, lighting up the tunnels with your shoulder lamps, checking every nook and cranny finger ready to order your sniper into position for the chance to put down any approaching enemies. I tried to play this level without being detected, I tried my best to do it in as few drops as possible and if you’re an absolute pro maybe it is possible to get in and out of this section without alerting the Hive, but I couldn’t do it, you are going to get seen, you are going to have to fight through it and you will need to pull out at least a handful of times – that was my strategy, after a number of attempts to play stealthily and getting utterly destroyed by the aliens (they are after all ambush predators), I changed things up, equipped my Marines with the heaviest of weapons and met their ambushes with extreme firepower, I also equipped one of my Recon men with Infrared Goggles which allows you to detect Xeno’s and men at a certain distance, it’s not great but you’d take anything at this point. This upgrade has not really been needed up to this point, I guess there were some instances where it could have come in handy but you’d have your motion tracker so you’d rely on that, this time however, whatever advantage you can muster is worth employing for this section because not only is it tense and genuinely scary not knowing where anything is, it’s alarming how quickly your squad can be decimated. This strategy seemed to work, it felt quite good, after so long of being careful and quiet it was rather fun to use the steamroller approach, alien walks round the corner only to be met with a barrage of bullets, no fucks given. Leaving this area is a huge relief, I never thought I’d miss that ring of the motion tracker but hearing it again makes you feel invincible. This level above the blackhole you were once in is huge, there is an interesting portion where you need a P-5000 Power Loader to open a door, but you need to find a functioning one, so you need to follow Loader tracks while battling Guardians and the occasional Xeno. I always like it when the yellow Loaders are involved, it’s a nice touch and love seeing a member of your squad operate them to fix things and solve tasks. There are some wild shootouts here, many a time you must set up defences while a door is unlocking, having to hold off Xenos from choke points, by this point you should be checking your ammunition and general health/wellbeing, my men for example were exhausted, they were running low on bullets but not too low. You beat another Queen in her lair and finally come to the final act of the level, you must open the roof and raise an elevator that’s perched above a chasm that ventures down into darkness, before you can descend however you must hold off a final swarm. This fight is tough because the space is large and open, the Xenos can attack at ALL angles, the game offers no tips as to where to place your Sentry Guns (why would they now) and the Xenos come at you with everything, everything from Drones, Runners, Warriors, Crushers, Facehuggers and my personal favourite, the Praetorians, it’s insane. You have to use everything in your arsenal, everything you have that can fire you fucking fire it, if you’ve shotgun shells you fire them, if you’ve a sniper, snipe, if you’ve a Flamethrower, you burn the shit out them – it’s also effective to draw a line of fire with the Incinerator, Xenos skirt around fire, they don’t run through it so you can essentially make a fire wall buying you some time. If you’ve grenades pop them off, an RPG? Let it loose, sometimes it is even wise to set the tripod down and connect your Smartgun where it behaves as another Sentry, speaking of it’s time to place ALL your Sentries in a sort of diamond shape, this is what I did, and I placed my men in the middle and let the bullets fucking fly! Should you survive this, the roof opens and Hunslet’s ship drops in delivering you Administrator Maeko Hayes, she’s outfitted in Colonial Marine armour, is armed with a Pulse Rifle and is being escorted by Martinez. Your Marines continue to hold off the creatures while Hayes, Martinez joined by Stern take the elevator down into what can only be described as an alien necropolis and I am not even talking about the Xenomorph creature here, I am referring to another race, an ancient race one that we have never seen before in this universe. They are giant, they are fossilised, they’re not the Engineers introduced in Prometheus, they are something else, they look like the skeletons of fallen angels, beautiful yet demonic and this is too reflective in the architecture, architecture that is directly lifted from H.R. Giger, it’s unreal and what follows are some suspenseful, eerie scenes.
Hayes, Stern and Martinez push forward through this other world; The corridors are giant, the doors archways are massive and if you pull the camera back you can glimpse a network of what is only a fraction of this enormous alien city, one that has been long abandoned, forgotten and frozen in time. The only pockets of light coming from small workstations set up by Joseph Marlow and his Darwin Era, the era who are notably absent from this portion of the game – but you do meet Marlow, the real Marlow that is, sitting in what looks like a throne in the centre of a grand open space, surrounded by the same alien tapestries as to what you come to expect in this otherworldly cavern, and he is dead! His body is decomposing, cause of death is obvious, he gave himself to the Xenomorphs, his chest has burst open, and the creature is either still wandering around or you gunned it down, you’ll never know, but then something else happens, Marlow appears. Clearly this is not THE Joseph Marlow, it’s a synthetic clone of himself who talks further about the evolution of mankind, he praises the Xenomorph for being the ultimate bio-organism, and through Xenosynthesis humanity will enter a new dawn, a new age of existence.
“The creature is the ultimate expression of evolution. Humankind raised to a zenith. Its seed absorbs all that you are, your body becomes the host for a new, perfect form. It is ascension. It is apotheosis.”
– Joseph Marlow
You’re given the option to shoot Marlow, however it doesn’t matter if you shoot him or not because more start to appear, you wander past one, and then two, then three and four, and before you know it you are walking through rows of hundreds, all are identical to one another, all praise Cassandra and the father, Jonas, who is currently still wiped out due to the strain of his migraines brought on by a telepathic connection he shares with the Hive. What I think is going on here and believe me when I say that this is my very own interpretation of this plot thread, do correct me if I’ve misinterpreted the story but, Jonas indeed shares a connection, a small link with the Xenos, something he doesn’t understand nor knows how to control. When one or two of these creatures are present, he is unaffected, but on mass the seizures intensify until they physically cripple him. Cassandra on the other hand, his 17-year-old daughter shares this telepathic ability but is much more connected to it and simply better at managing the trait. Jospeh Marlow has tapped into this link, recognising it as something spiritual, perhaps holy, something that could be used to communicate with the Hive or worse. I believe that is what he was up to on Tantulas, Weyland Yutani funded his idea and set him up in secret decades ago to indulge off the record on this idea, which would mean abduction and illegally experimenting and exercising this theory. With unlimited funds, backed by the company, through leaps in science and technology, Marlow eventually found a worthy candidate, Cassandra, a lowly engineer at the time on Lethe, someone who shares a genetic trait with the Xenos and he finds a way to amplify Cassandra’s brain waves which could in theory, be tuned to control the Xenomorphs, she in turn becomes ‘the voice’ – this is what that Guardian was referring to when locked up aboard the Otago. It would seem that Marlow had different ideas to what Weyland Yutani wanted from these creatures, the company wanted some product, they wanted what they always wanted, more capital and access to more power, seeing the Xeno as something else they wanted to exploit, but Marlow having found this ancient alien domain, having delved further than anyone else ever has into the Xenomorph specimen XX121, he went mad, sick with envy.
“One cannot cease to be amazed by the ascended…To think these corporate fools believed they could harness their power…How amusing! I wish I could have been there. When they tried. Man meeting the ultimate organism.”
– Joseph Marlow
Marlow wasn’t trying to destroy humanity or control the Hive; His motives were to merge them, and The Darwin Era was a step toward that enactment. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe this to be an accurate interpretation of Aliens: Dark Descent. You encounter Xeno eggs the further you/Hayes, Stern and Martinez venture, only these are different. The regular Xeno egg laid by the Queen is about the size of two, maybe three footballs, these ones however are slightly taller than a man and as wide as a car, they’re huge, they’re in stasis but the trio still needs venture through them because the ramp where another Marlow is waiting for you, at the entrance of another tunnel that leads to the next area, the Cradle. What you are faced with when you enter is a splayed-out fossilised corpse of one of these other aliens, the giant kind, looming over Cassandra, hooked up to a sarcophagus of twisted machines. Hayes, rushes in to save her while being covered by Stern and Martinez, because something else is here, something massive. From the darkness, near the corpse of the ancient alien being, rises the Titan Xenomorph, a culmination of Joesph Marlow’s freakish experimentation, born from this old species of creature – it’s large, bigger than anything you’ve ever encountered, with two long arms attached to a serpent torso, it’s gargantuan head crest is far larger than the Queens, and not by a small degree but a huge one. This being is bullet proof, no matter how many rounds our Marines and Hayes fire at this thing, it doesn’t even flinch. Its lower jaw detaches from its head and elongates into a tentacle, a tentacle with pincers and a mouth at its end. The Titan eats Martinez in one lick like motion, like a chameleon and smashes Stern into bits, killing him instantly. It spots Hayes and Cassandra who make a run for it after the beast withdrawers from its killer blow, it’s extendable mouth suspended over the pair, as if it is being told not to hurt them, whether this is Jonas from aboard the Otago or Cassandra, it isn’t clear, but what is clear is that Hayes and Cassandra have the chance to bolt, and that’s what they do, another smart move. From here, Hayes/you must navigate back the way you came, back to the elevator platform that leads up to Olduvai. The Titan is ferocious, smashing down walls, breaking through gaps like they were made of sticks in pursuit, but so long as Hayes/you pop an M40 grenade in its face to slow it down before it snatches you up, you should reach the elevator relatively quickly, and this triggers the last cutscene of the game.
Hayes and Cassandra ride the elevator up, narrowly missing a brutal death from The Titan and arrive in the thick of a battle between your Colonial Marines and the Xenos, guarding Hunslets dropship to the bitter end. Once Hayes and Cassandra are safely on board, your Marines retreat and Hunslet pilots the ship back to the Otago which has taken flight. The starship punches out of the atmosphere while the nukes are deploying and is met with several Cerberus satellites. These satellites recognise the USCM ship as a threat and enact quarantine protocol, bombarding the Otago with missiles, but because the Otago has a renewed shield, the ship takes damage but not enough to destroy it, and the Otago breaks free of the quarantine wall and escapes, while Lethe is obliterated by hundreds of nuclear missiles raining down all over the planet, ensuring that nothing survives. Cassandra meets with her father, Jonas, in the Medical Bay but he is unconscious, it’s hard to know if he is dead, I didn’t get the impression he was, but it’s not a stretch if Harper is confirmed dead in the sequel, if they even make a sequel to this game. Hayes is relieved, finally she can breathe again, it’s been a busy few weeks, this lass needs a drink. The last we see of Deputy Administrator Maeko Hayes from Pioneer Station, is her entering cryosleep, the last member to finally fall asleep as the Otago drifts off into deep space, their future unknown. So, that’s it, that’s the plot of Aliens: Dark Descent, the squad-based tactical strategy horror game developed by Tindalos Interactive.
Review-Positives
Generally: It might seem that the negative review section outweighs this positive section, but if I was to list all of Aliens: Dark Descents positives then this article would be 20 pages longer than it should be, and you’d just stop reading and do something else if you haven’t already. By the way, if you are still reading, thank you very much, I need all the support I can get, these last few months have been punishing. So anyway, I decided to focus the positive highlights on the things that I thought really stood out and deserved a mention…Generally however, there is SO much to love about this game, so much great stuff is in here that make it just a joy to play, from the fantastic graphics, the tangible atmosphere, the smart pacing, the selection of characters, the authentic models/assets, the sounds and lighting effects – Alien games no matter what decade they’re released in always have great sound effects I’ve come to note, even the God-awful Aliens: Colonial Marines game released for the PS3 and Xbox360 back in 2013, even that splodge of a game had great sound effects and good authenticity to the films, I can’t say the same about the use of its lighting but it wasn’t that bad from memory, not great, but it wasn’t bad. Moving on. I loved the diversity of levels, each one besides maybe one or two feel like they’re very different places, Dead Hills for example is vastly different from Pharos Spire, Tantulas from the Refinery and Olduvai from the Otago, they’re all very different and require different tactics of play in order to succeed, and what with the change of weather patterns this only adds another layer to the games range. Simply put I was never bored with the level design, even the claustrophobic, tough levels had their own feel to them so you’re always excited as to what comes next. I liked Hayes, I enjoyed her growth over the story and loved the scene between her and Pryce toward the end. Jonas remained consistent throughout, still unsure if he died at the end or not, we’ll see I suppose. When the alien got loose aboard the Otago, even though that section was rather brief, being stripped of all weaponry and equipment and having to go back to the basics to hunt the beast down, reminded me very much of Alien: Isolation, the way the creature is stalking you from one room to the next, it was a good level. The mechanics of the game at first are overwhelming, the game does its best at the start to get you used to how the game is played, but just like when you learn to drive a car, it’s not until when you get out onto the roads by yourself where you actually learn for real, I felt very much the same with Aliens: Dark Descent, and unfortunately you’re going to struggle significantly for the first few hours, it’s frustrating because you want to play it properly, but once you have that clicking moment, once things start to make sense and things start to fall into place and you can actually start to get creative with your strategies, it’s very good, very fun only to be bolstered with all those added alien flavours reminiscent of the films. I like the customisation tools, you do get the chance to build and personalise each soldier in your squad, you can rename them, change their faces, play with their hair styles, give them scars and tats, the game doesn’t hit you with a barrage of options like Skyrim or Dragon Age, but honestly this is not this games prerogative, I believe the developers are aware of this but they gave you just enough options for a light customisation to satisfy, and yes, I admit, I did make friends and family and include them in my squad which does add to the games immersion; When your squad containing yourself and some of your friends are under threat you do create a stronger bond with them opposed to a list of Marines with other names and looks.
Squad Roles: Once you get your head around the mechanics and the controls, once you’re comfortable with movement and all the hardware/tools you can use, assigning roles to your squad when entering a room you need to lockdown for instance, is seriously fun. For instance, say you enter a control room of a colony complex, first things first you need to check for movement, this is a good way to know the room is clear of threats but because you’re dealing with aliens these sneaky bastards can be hiding in vents or sitting quietly in corners, many a time I’ve charged into a room, sealed it up only to realise that I am sealing myself in with the perfect killing machine, so securing the area with your motion tracker and your eyes aided with your shoulder lamps is a good start. Then it’s wise to gather up all the materials you can find, as you know resources are limited so the more you find the easier your time will be, so scrounging up all those tools, health kits and ammunition boxes is necessary. Accessing terminals and control panels can unlock interesting features, for example, some terminals allow you to look through security cameras which can open your next objectives or show you where supplies are located, all Marines can do this but the Tecker is best at it, he/she does it quicker and if the terminal or door panel is decrypted only a Tecker can decode it. It’s wise when you first start a mission to hunt for the control rooms first so you can access the map schematics, open doors and spy through cameras. If this room happens to be a defensive spot with sexy choke points with only one or two access ways, it might be wise to set up Sentry Guns either in or outside the room to use as a fall-back position when the time comes, also if there is another door leading to the room you must take this into consideration whether to seal it up…Why am I still writing about this? Because you have no idea until you’ve done it assigning each soldier to accommodate these tasks, doing it all at once to then sit back with a coffee watching your plans unfold is fucking awesome! I love it, only to then consider your next move using the intel you’ve uncovered. Not every room is like this, sometimes it’s just one or two things that needs to be done, but when it’s multiple tasks that will fortify your position, unlock other sections and gather resources, it’s great to execute. More on squad roles – before you launch from the Otago, preparing your squad effectively is key to your success, assigning the right Sgt, Gunner, Tecker, Medic and Recon for the mission, equipping them with a diverse range of tools and weaponry is rather fun. My strategy is I always go in with a Sgt, that’s ironclad, no mission can be without a Sgt and I am going to say the same for the Recon; As I’ve discussed earlier, Recon soldiers carry sniper rifles and snipers are a game changer, especially when you equip them with a silencer, so more or less I always have in my unit A Sgt followed by a Recon expert. I like Medics, they make missions notably smoother especially when the action intensifies, they can lower stress levels that lead to deliberating traumas that can keep your Marines off work for many days, plus when they heal, they can do a better job of it than the other classes. Some idiots online have said that Medics are useless, this isn’t technically true, Medics shine when the shit hits the fan, if you’re a professional bellend uh I mean professional gamer who can play without incident then yeah, Medics won’t be needed, but when you’re an average gamer like myself, someone who games between work, writing and socialising the shit IS going to hit the fan, and that’s when Medics really come to good use. Teckers are very handy I find in the beginning of missions; I’ve gone a long while without employing Teckers beyond that initial exploration of a level. Teckers as I’ve already said can unlock decrypted doors and terminals with ease, they also can be equipped with a drone that can scout for you and later when properly levelled up, can engage in battle and strategy. Handy to start with when you’re scouting and unlocking a level, beyond this point I usually overlook the Tecker and replace him/her with a Gunner, and sometimes Marines with experience acquire the smartass perk, meaning they themselves can essentially do what Teckers do, so why then bother employing a Tecker when you can employ a specialist Recon or Gunner who can also decrypt stuff when necessary on the side – this makes Teckers a bit redundant after a while but for some reason it’s the Medics who get it in the neck on the online forums. Idiots. Gunners are exactly that, when they climb to a certain level, they’re given access to the Smartgun and this weapon is something NEED, a squad without a Smartgun isn’t much of a squad truth be told, you need to have heavy weapons with you at all times, and this is what Gunners provide, nice and simple. All of this culminates into strategy, whether you’re in the field or playing as Hayes in The Command Deck, I like organising the squad before the mission and acting out their skills preferably all in one after drop-off, it gives you the feeling you’re part of a unit, part of a team, giving the same feeling you get when watching Aliens, when the Marines are moving into Hadleys Hope colony, doing things one step at a time, it’s fucking awesome and Aliens: Dark Descent captures this in a way no other game does.
Is Pryce a Synth? I like how you never actually learn if Director Barbara Pryce of Pharos Spire is a synthetic or not, arguments for her humanity or her being a machine somewhat equally matched yet the game doesn’t tell you – I really like that use of ambiguity while the story dives into those realms of as to whether we are worse than the Xenomorphs, and in a lot of ways we are! As Ripley says in Aliens: –
‘I don’t know which species is worse, you don’t see them fucking one over for a God damn percentage.’
– Ellen Ripley
We’ve seen similar characters in the Alien movies, such as Carter J. Burke and in Prometheus, Meredith Vickers, we’ve seen these corporate types before that puts this question into focus, which species is worse, and I like that it enters Aliens: Dark Descent, with Pryce, she’s a bastard, and Hayes recognises this and not only does she take her to task on what she has done over the course of the game in a face to face meeting in a brilliant setting, inside an office a modern-day pharaoh would design, she then leaves Pryce to be destroyed by Xenos climbing her spire, a tower symbolic of her/human power that the creatures are slowly conquering; It doesn’t matter how big our towers or how powerful our weapons, eventually the Xenomorphs will win and what’s clever with this scene and this whole level come to think of it, is that it got me thinking on why/how are the Xenos superior to us, why do they always beat us despite the fact that we’ve all this intelligence and technology? Sure, their heightened senses and their ability to work together as one hive mind is a huge contributor, but they also succeed through our own weaknesses’, our greed, our fear, our very understanding of our own morality is considered a weakness to the Xenomorph who aren’t burdened by these traits, WE are, they’re not and THAT’S why they always beat us, sooner or later they will and that’s a scary thought and testament to how brilliant this creation of H.R. Giger is. Bill Paxton (the actor who played the ultimate badass, Hudson) put it perfectly: –
‘The gift that keeps on giving.’
– Bill Paxton
The Music: If you’re a follower of mine, you’ll know that music is very important to me, I’ve written extensively about music and its importance in many articles prior, some of which are dedicated entirely to my love of music, so I’ll spare you the lengthy monologue. Aliens: Dark Descent has amazing sound effects incumbent of the franchise and a fantastic score, composed by Doyle W. Donehoo, you could not tell in most cases the difference between his soundtrack and the one written by James Horner in Aliens, it’s an extension, it’s a welcomed addition, it’s excellent and I confess, I confess, I did and have listened to the track Running Battle multiple times, while writing my own battle sequences involving the Firehands in my most recent book, Rise of the Black Doves. It’s an exhilarating track, I love it, truly matching the intensity of the action. The more ambient tracks are great, doing a great job of holding you in suspense and rising the tension at key points; If the music is off then it can take your film or game down a few pegs, don’t underestimate a good soundtrack, just look at Alien: Resurrection which has a bombastic crawling score, misused for this type of film and is an utter misfire for this franchise, but let’s be honest, Alien: Resurrection got a lot wrong.
Push of Panic: Creating a sense of urgency in a game is tricky, most games these days have an autosave feature, meaning that if you fail or fuck up you can just quickly restart shortly before that moment happened, so you can instantly try again. I’m not against this feature, but it has softened the blow of failure and eradicates tension, as gamers no one wants that feeling of having wasted your time, and that’s what at stake when you remove the autosave, you actually give more of a shit. This is why Alien: Isolation worked so well, it has no autosave feature, you have to save the game manually when you happen to come across a save station in the form of a booth, and more often or not the tension rises as you’re looking for one of these booths, because if you’ve played an hour without saving and you are on your way to save your progress only for the alien to drop down from a nearby vent to start stalking you, that’s scary, that’s fucking scary because the moment it sees you or detects you you’re fucked. Even though Aliens: Dark Descent does have an autosave, it behaves more like an old school checkpoint system, difference is, is that these checkpoints can sometimes be far and few in between which stirs that sense of urgency. For example, you could have explored an entire map and not picked up a checkpoint, only to then get spotted or ambushed by an alien last minute that alerts the Hive, and before you know it you are running for your fucking life doing your best not to die or to lose a man; Remember in this game if your Marines die or if they get abducted/dragged into the Hive, they’re never to be seen again, that’s it, well fucking done he/she is dead, you cannot get them back so you’ll need to replace them with new recruits – this all ties into the method of play, there is so much to do in a mission beyond your objectives, such as recover Data Pads, scrounge up resources and save people when you can, some of these people you save become new recruits, people who you can train and assign with the role of Sgt, Gunner, Tecker, Recon or Medic. It’s that tension, that sense of desperation that pushes you into panic, a feeling that is required for a great alien experience; I’m telling you, fleeing from a swarm of aliens crawling through the tunnels to get you, sealing yourselves in to a complex using your welding tools on doors, setting up your Sentries in key positions, working as fast as you can before the onslaught reaches you – for a game developer this must’ve been an absolute mind fuck to get around, but here it’s achieved and that is something that gives Alien: Isolation a run for its money; I know they’re different games and what Isolation does it does fucking brilliantly, but the task to create Isolation I imagine was a simpler feat, after all you’re dealing with the one Xenomorph (until the third and final act, I know), and you’re dealing with far less characters, Amanda taking centre stage for 90% of the game; Point is, it’s mainly only you and the creature which heavily resonates on the 1979 film, to create Aliens: Dark Descent you had to capture the intensity of 1986’s Aliens which I think is much harder to do, heck, the very reason why Isolation was created in the first place was to get away from all the failed attempts of trying to re-creating Aliens games, because most don’t quite hit that mark. Dark Descent on the other hand is the best re-creation of an effective, authentic and unique Aliens experience and when pushed into that sense of urgency do you really feel it so, my hat comes off to Tindalos Interactive, and if they continue this story which I certainly hope they do in the same format, no doubt they will have smoothed over the errors, corrected the bugs and added new features and scenarios, this game being the bridge to build something even better. If Aliens: Dark Descent however, made some tiny tweaks and changes, it could be something masterful. I had hoped after its most recent patch it would have fixed some of the problems I’m about to highlight, but alas they haven’t.
Review-Negatives
The Broken Eggs: This game is difficult on its own merits, managing your finite resources, collecting all the collectibles, training your men, avoiding detection when in the field, the lack of an autosave feature (even though I approve of the absence of this feature it still makes it harder in the good way), battling the Xenos on mass and accomplishing both your primary and secondary objectives is difficult, especially when the death clock kicks in, brought on about halfway through when Cerberus phase two is activated, soon to launch its nukes, this is a tough game to finish…But when the rules do not make sense for reasons I cannot comprehend, for a game so laser focused on the details (just look at its index, it’s longer than this article) cannot get something massive like this detail nailed down, it pisses me off beyond belief leaving me shouting at the screen! What am I talking about? I’ am talking about the fucking eggs, these God damn pieces of whack eggs! Where to start with them, there is so much wrong with them it’s hard to know where to begin, it amazes me that they passed the testing phase, someone needs to go back change them. Let’s see, they’re broken on all fronts, not only are they able to detect you in the same way as the Xenos do, as if they have the exact same heightened senses which goes against the lore, not only are they able to alert the Hive when they detect you, but they also have this uncanny ability to respawn after death…Why!? When you shoot an alien to pieces they don’t respawn, they stay dead, that’s how life and death works, but for some fucked up reason, eggs come back and there is no fucking reason for this. To add, they’re usually positioned in tight rooms, rooms stocked with supplies you really need to grab and corridors you have to move through, shooting them is dumb because that makes too much noise so it’s advised you burn them with the Flamethrower, but before you have even moved into position to burn them which takes time in that of itself, because a) you cannot micro-manage the positioning of your team, you have to sometimes push everyone to go all the way in just so the Marine with the Incinerator can clock on to his directives, but before you’ve even moved into position the fucking eggs have already fucking spotted you, and b) they have already somehow called in their mates from the Hive, somehow despite them being a fucking egg sack IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE! From a lore perspective or a mechanic perspective, it’s just broken on both fronts and its shite, it can turn a perfectly smooth run into a baffling, frustrated fuck up of fuckery because the eggs are fucking omnipotent, respawning mind masters, I HATE the eggs! Tindalos Interactive do something about this, there is a reason why I’ve called this article THE Aliens: Dark Descent Review, in the hopes that someone from the studio sees it, not likely to happen I know, but the fact that my hatred for the eggs is pure and passionate relays how annoying this aspect of the game is, I really want this changed with an update patch, it would honestly bump the game up so many points if it was fixed and I’d recommend it to everyone – I was actually in a position quite recently to recommend this game to someone else, another Alien fan, but I was hesitant to do so because of this stupid nonsensical break in the game, it really is that bad; Particularly during the level where you have to return to Berkely Docks, when you need to find the Montero ship in search for the Gas Mixing Chip, eggs are positioned in areas that are impossible to deal with without alerting the Hive, which discourages me to play properly because even IF you somehow perform a miracle and do manage to burn them up, they’ll be back because they fucking respawn – I throw up my hands and say ‘Fine! Fine! I’ll walk in guns a blazing and suffer the consequences; You win game fuck you!’ Seriously, fixing this bug will solve so many problems, it will probably bring about world peace if straightened out, so Tindalos Interactive get to it.
The Crashing Wall: I feel like I need a few whiskeys after reliving the nightmares that are the eggs. This is issue however is not as bad as the first, but still merits a winge. Throughout the game, you sometimes need to break through make-shift barricades and weaker walls with C4 explosives, it’s pretty cool because you have to risk assess whether it is worth it to enact this procedure, because there is a chance the Xenos will move toward the sound when the C4 is detonated, after all, your objectives will be ticked off faster and easier if you remain undetected and not hunted, this is key. But do you remember that atmospheric processor level, Sigma-12? The level where only one door situated in the north west of the map gives you access to the processor; Well there is a wall in the middle of said map, a wall that is primed to be destroyed if you so choose, and because I was approaching the north west door from the south east, breaking through this wall would have given me a clear run to the processor opposed to going through tunnels crawling with Xenos. I approached the wall, I rigged up my C4 to destroy this fucker, but the game suddenly froze on me, breaking, it just chocked up on me and failed to play. Frustrated at this but realising that even perfect games crash from time to time, I only lost about 30 minutes anyway, so I restarted…Only to be met with the same problem AGAIN! I’d now lost an hour of my life, one I’ll never get back because this wall is cursed, just simply scrolling over it with my cursor flakes the game, I’ve no idea why this happens. Nevertheless, I had to skirt around it and go the hard way because the wall breaks the flow of play! There is also another cursed wall like this, it’s in the city just outside Pharos Spire, somewhere in the centre that leans east, interaction with this wall just stops the game dead…This is a problem…Once, I might be able to look away, twice, no, no chance, this is another break in the games coding and needs fixing, it’s bad!
Annoying Voices and Dialogue: Because this is a squad based shooter, a sort of point and click strategy action game, you need to move about the map frequently; If you’ve played such games or something similar, you’ll know that when you order your team to move or command them to perform a task, the character/Marine will let you know that he/she has heard and understood you, by saying something, and then they’ll enact the command. For the first hour and I literally mean that, for the first fucking hour, this is tolerable in Aliens: Dark Descent, but it gets old and seriously annoying real fucking fast. There is an option which I instantly enabled in the settings menu, an option that allows you to tone down some of this command dialogue, meaning the developers knew that some people (I’d say most if not all) will find this grating, which is a good option to have, but some lines cannot be switched off. When you sit still your Marines are quick to make the same comment you’ve heard multiple times before ‘It’s quiet, too quiet.’ When your motion tracker goes off, he or she will comment on it ‘Got something on the tracker’ or ‘They’re heading our way.’ When you weld a door, they’ll say something ‘You shall not pass fuckers,’ which I find amusing because aliens can and will eventually bust that door down, so they will pass if they want to you absolute cretins, welding a door only delays them. When you open a box of resources you can bet, they’ll say something, ‘Let’s see what’s inside.’ When you make a headshot, your sniper will say ‘You like that huh?’ to which I say, you shot him in the head, no he didn’t like it, idiot! When you set a mine ‘Planting mine, watch your feet,’ and the comments persist depending on the command, there is only one maybe two lines of different dialogue for each command but fuck me it’s annoying. You cannot turn this off, the comments lack personality, and it made me verbally state ‘Will you all, please, shut THE FUCK up!’ Because sometimes in certain situations you want to listen, you want to hear what’s going on, you want to sit and think, this is important for stealth games, especially alien games such as this that require you strategize, but you barely get time in silence without one of your jarhead fucker Marines saying ‘What are you waiting for, breakfast in bed?’ or ‘What’s next, camping, move!’ I cannot stress enough that I’ve heard ‘It’s quiet, too quiet’ about 200 times in one sitting of this game, the fuck was Tindalos Interactive thinking! Just make more dialogue while the actor is in the studio, program the game to only have them say such things about 10% of the time, or have more settings to play with from within the option menu; What you shouldn’t do is have it consistently repeat over and over without fail, it makes me not want to play sometimes and the game could benefit ever so much, ever so much if the command dialogue was toned down. I’ve encountered this problem before, in another game which could be one of the greatest games of all time, it’s called Sacrifice and it came out in the mid to late 90s for the PC, back when I was a pup; You play as an otherworldly wizard in another dimension among the realms of iconic Gods all at war with each other, and you have to decide which one you’ll serve. In making your choice depends on what kind of campaign you’ll be leading, but whence you do get started, you command your Gods forces, you command their legions in all their glory, from men, mythic beasts, demons and monsters, you can cast spells of all kinds, you’ve so many spells it makes Harry Potter look linear by comparison; The game is long, it has so much replay value, it’s well written, it contains a nightmarish twist, a horrifying villain named Marduke, and constantly tests your allegiances to the God you’ve chosen to serve, even giving you the option to jump ship and be a betrayer. The game features some (now) famous voice actors, who went onto get involved in Metal Gear Solid. Sacrifice is fucking amazing…But, it’s not…All because of your Imp companion, that little owl-like-creature that follows you about commenting on your performance as a wizard, you can’t turn him off, you cannot get rid of him, he can only say about three sentences to you, sentences that encompass good play, okay play to bad play, and I hate it; Honestly I wonder what was going through the developers minds when they were making/playing this game, did they not find it fucking annoying like any sentient being would, being spoken to every time something happens in the same whiney tone over and over, it’s a massive shame, because it puts you off wanting to engage with it, it frustrates you, and it’s been almost thirty years since that game was released, you’d think we would have learned from those issues, but we clearly haven’t and it shows, in modern games like Alien: Dark Descent. There are also spoken lines of dialogue from the leads that nods to the films, why do developers keep doing this, I beg you to stop, please stop doing this it’s painful! If you’re going to lift lines from the films, not something I would ever do (Fede Alveraz I’m looking at you) but at least get the tone right and try to at least sound like you’re not parodying some of the greatest movies of all time. This is why I like the pilot, Willa Hunslet, voiced by Ashleigh Haddad who has also worked on a game called The Division which I have played extensively; Hunslet chimes in from time to time in her own way to make an offbeat comment, something we’ve not heard before but is relevant to the situation at hand, she’s genuinely witty, smart and not a rip-off, she becomes a character you come to love due to her reliability, plus she blows another dropship out of the sky in a truly wicked scene, love her. Really would like to see a sequel just for Hunslet alone, so glad she doesn’t die.
A Breather: In the game Alien: Isolation, the developers Creative Assembly (I salute you), gave the player some breathing space. Trust me, when you’re being hunted by the Xenomorph aboard the Sevastopol Station, it’s a stressful experience, but after a while, the Xeno moves on a bit so the player can have some downtime, time to make progress – it’s still gruelling but you’re given at least some room to lean into play before having to hide again. In Aliens: Dark Descent, you don’t get any breathing room, the creatures never seem to leave you alone, they’re always stalking you, and after fending off an onslaught, after just barely surviving, you’d think moving into the neighbouring room would be safe right? You’d think the game would grant you a few minutes to build tension again, right? WRONG! You’re spotted and before you know it, another wave is coming at you and you’ve zero time to make any progress, no room to collect yourself and pick up where you left off, it’s just here we fucking go again, and I suppose this is in keeping with the Xenomorphs nature, but giving the player some downtime after fighting off waves, isn’t unreasonable. There comes a point when things just start getting silly, the intensity which when works is executed brilliantly, but on repeat especially in that penultimate level where you’ve no motion tracker, you end up saying ‘Fuck this! I need some space!’
Frozen Bodies: Immersion is key to all entertainment. As a writer myself who has written essentially two trilogies and is embarking on his third trilogy, I understand that what you’re trying to create in the readers mind, is their own unique pocket dimension to vault your real yet unreal world; When x happens then x should follow in response, you teach your readers about the world you’ve created, through lore, through events and they come to rely on said rules and over time they (hopefully) fall in love with it. In the Alien franchise, we know that when you shoot and kill an alien with a gun, it falls down or bursts into pieces spaying its acid all the place to cause as much damage as possible, so why is it that sometimes, usually after a massive onslaught, that some aliens are dead/inactive but are just standing there like lemons, it’s actually quite fucking funny after gunning down a bunch of Xenos to see one or two still standing up straight, frozen in whatever pose they were pulling before they were killed. It breaks immersion, it’s silly, it makes me laugh when I’m supposed to be engaged and immersed and begs the question as to why this has not been straightened out? Come on Tindalos Interactive, it has been a little over a year since this games release and as good as it is, sort it out.
Overuse of Queens: The Queen is iconic, a staple in film history and is revered in the zeitgeist of movie monsters often appearing at the top of everyone’s lists next to Jurassic Park’s T-Rex, the Terminator and Jaws, and rightly so. Remember when you saw it for the first time in the film? Remember the awe, the terror of being confronted by the Mother of Aliens? Recreating that scene is impossible, like lightning in a bottle it can only be done at full strength once, it’s movie magic. Unfortunately, since then the Queen has sadly been overused, the worst example of such is in 2004’s Alien versus Predator, it’s just a terrible, disrespectful view of her majesty, portrayed as just some dumb angry animal when in reality, she is the antithesis of that. Aliens: Dark Descent, doesn’t disrespect the Queen, but they do overuse her, you encounter her on the first level, in the mines of Dead Hills toward the end and as cool as that scene and fight is, why did Tindalos Interactive decide to use the Queen for the boss, couldn’t you have used only one, maybe two Queens in this 20 to 30 hour stint of a game? Why not for the end of Dead Hills introduce the Praetorian or replace the Crusher for the Warrior to then use the Crusher type for the finale of Dead Hills; That would have preserved the Queens mysticism for a greater, grander reveal later, something to give us gamers something to look forward to. The Queens do not have any real impact in the game, she doesn’t kill any iconic character, she’s always conveniently placed, she’s not involved in any interesting, creative fights, she is just a boss monster at best and that sucks. By the end of the game, she’s lost her prowess, her grace and becomes just like any other enemy with more HP (hit points) and that’s a crying shame considering how wicked she looks and is.
No room for the Commandos: This issue is a gripe with the story; The story is watertight as far as I am concerned, it’s all in keeping with the typical framework of aliens and is creative in parts, I love the Tantulas level. I’m not a big fan of that psychic connection with the Xenos though, I think that’s quite fucking stupid, but it’s okay I suppose given the fact this is in the far future, in the year 2198 a good 174 years from now, maybe the human mind would’ve evolved ever so slightly in that time who knows, still a stretch but if I was to write this thing, I would have ditched the whole telepathic branch. Anyway, the gripe is with Pryce’s plan, she makes a deal with Harper, Cassandra’s whereabouts for a place for her and her Commando’s on the Otago: –
‘A deal commander, is the only thing that separates us from these creatures.’
-Director Barbara Pryce
When you go to Pharos Spire however, when you break in, there are fucking loads of Commandos, a small army at least, even if Pryce wasn’t a lying piece of corporate shit, her plan would have still failed, there would simply not be enough room for both Otago personnel and Pharos Commandos, it makes no sense. Maybe she would take it by force whence aboard, maybe she only wanted her and a select few to board, I’m not sure, but this detail is overlooked, and I can’t help but let my brain just run with it.
Slow Frame Rate: I bought this game for the XboxOne in October 2023, Aliens: Dark Descent was a game that came out toward the end of this machines run, meaning it is one of the first titles to be made available on the next gen consoles, always for the PC, the Playstation5 and XboxSeries. The maps are huge, sometimes so much is going on, the game struggles to function, the framerate drops to the point where you cannot even properly position your cursor, resulting in lost precious seconds and jump-starting character models. There is no fixing this, the only way forward is if you change floors in that same level or extract your squad only to come back later. I feel like a lot of this games issues, such as the frozen bodies, the cursed walls and Marines getting caught on the debris, are a result of the game operating on a machine it’s not designed for. I think if I was to play on a PS5 or the latest Xbox, the framerate would be sorted and most of the bugs would be smoothed out. So, if you’re thinking of playing this, do yourself a huge favour and get it for a next gen machine or PC. That reminds me, Christmas is coming, I’ve a donation page on my website, help a brother out and drop him £500 for one of these consoles…Just kidding.
Overall Rating
Aliens: Dark Descent is a fantastic game, one that could rival the legendary Alien: Isolation should the issues I’ve mentioned be ironed out. It’s the first game to capture the atmosphere of Aliens, it embraces a new story, utilises a few more Xeno types and Colonial Marine equipment without getting silly, the Titan and Guardians were indeed a nice surprise along with the Plasma Pulse Rifles. The music is amazing. I liked Maeko Hayes; I enjoyed her journey, going from someone getting disrespected and kicked around, to someone who eventually takes the bull by the horns and gets her hands dirty with the Colonial Marines, the part where she saves you from the Refinery onslaught left me grinning with excitement. I liked Willa Hunslet (I mean who wouldn’t). Jonas Harper when not getting all rowdy was alright, sometimes I wish he would just stop and listen but that was what the writers were going for, so good job. The mechanics at first, although it was overwhelming, even Hayes states that ‘It’s a lot to take in,’ speaking on behalf of the player, but once you click with it, once you have that ah ha moment, everything just falls into place, and you can start to get creative. I liked being an administrator, I know that sounds weird, but when you’re playing as Hayes on the Otago, moving from the Barracks, to the Workshop, the Command Deck, the Medical Lab and the Laboratory, sorting things out, ticking boxes, organising schedules, managing equipment to despatching your squad, it is extremely good, and enjoyable once you’ve figured out what can and can’t be done. I love how the developers caught that sense of urgency, both in game and out, what with the infestation level gradually rising that effect the difficulty, you then are hit with a death clock that keeps ticking down, every day is precious, every drop is important, your Marines lives matter, nothing is infinite it’s all very well done, and it must’ve been very hard to cram all of this into a game while serving the franchise and to do its own thing. However, the issues do weight this game down, issues that could be fixed, I do not see why they haven’t done so already because it’s a fucking drag when you encounter them. I’ve played this game twice now, both on the Medium setting, there is lots of enjoy here – as I’ve said the pacing is brilliant, the graphics are gorgeous, the levels are distinct, sometimes I zoomed the camera in as far as it could go, just to see what it was like on the ground, and it’s just great stuff, loads of tiny details littering every corner, it’s wild. It’s a shame, because I feel that if some of the bugs I’ve listed are fixed, then this game is deserving of a high grade; The fact that I can sit here and write so much and for so long about a fucking alien game, is testament to a story with something still shining, unlike other dead franchises of the era there is still something to be found in Alien, it still has life left, despite Resurrection and Romulus there is something to salvage. Aliens: Dark Descent is both brilliant and frustrating, it could be on point with Alien: Isolation if not surpass it, but until its issues are fixed and smoothed over, it sits with me at a 6.5/10
I’m glad I’ve finished this article, when I started it, I felt like it would be something I could just zip through casually and quickly, but it wouldn’t have felt right just to let it sit without going into such details, which I truly think this game deserves. It’s a long shot to think that anyone from Tindalos Interactive will read this, but if you do, hit me back with some feedback, I’d love your take and I’d love to know if you are preparing a sequel, I’d love to be part of the writing team or at least considered. Speaking of, I am going to apply for a writing position for a magazine soon, hopefully in a few days I’ll have my application completed and sent off. I’m not getting my hopes up because often is the case you get rejected, but I’m going for it anyway and will promise to follow up on it should I be successful. As for Episode Three-Seeds of War, I am playing with some colourful ideas, momentum has dropped due to the writing of this article, but I hope to kick start it in a day or two. It’s Halloween, I love this time of year, tomorrow will be a great day for a casual walk into the centre of Oxford, I’ll be sure to check up to see how well this post has performed, I am gaining on 10,000 reads, which is insane, and Christmas is approaching, very excited to see my folks. Hoping to get one maybe two more articles out before 2025, we will see but as always focus will be on Ep3 and the audiobook of Ep1 Volume 1…Yes, Joyce and I are making the work squeaky clean for an audio addition, Volume 1 will be a test run for things to come, still have a truck load of things to learn and to accomplish beforehand but if it’s successful, you can expect all my Volumes from 1 – 6 and beyond to get audio versions. The website itself is great, but I recognise it does need a fresh coat of paint, I am working to get it dressed up especially now that Ep2-Rise is done and dusted, everything needs to change, it just takes time. Oh, shout out to my good friend Oliver Richards who just published his first book, a collection of three short stories called, A Tremendous Scandal in Central Park, I assisted him with the editing phase, it was such a pleasure considering the work was fantastic; I’ll leave a link to his author page below, you can pick it up digitally or in paperback. The moment I get paid I’ll be purchasing my own copy, and when I visit him in New York I will demand my copy to be signed, it’s great work, it’s well worth your time, please send him some love. Anyway, that’s about it for now, it might be time for a horror movie, a massive coffee and a sleep on the sofa. Take care, and I hope to see you in the next one, peace.
E-mail – taotome@outlook.com
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Author Page UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01JMZ2BE6
Author Page US - https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01JMZ2BE6
Jilaine’s Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/jilaine26
Oliver Richards’ Author Page – https://www.amazon.co.uk/tree-mendous-Scandal-Central-Other-Stories/dp/1068797215/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Alien: Romulus Review – https://taoscribe.wordpress.com/2024/08/23/alien-romulus-reviewed/
Aliens: Dark Descent – Running Battle – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqqh3m8WP38
D.W.Gill
Taoteque: The Blog 
