Tag: playstation

Unpacking – Every Item Tells A Tale

Posted on by in Gaming

I’ve moved a lot in my short lifespan. As of time of writing, I’m 22 years old. Between moving with my family, university and venturing out on my own, I’ve lived in over fifteen different houses. Sticking my belongings in various moving boxes and suitcases has become almost second nature to me. I have a lot of memories of clambering in and out of moving trucks, of being squished in the car by suitcases and bags, of eating pizza in empty rooms, of sleeping on inflatable mattresses when my bed was still in transport. Needless to say, I don’t have a major connection to specific places. It’s an entirely different process, my friends have told me, for those who have lived in one or two places for their entire lives.

Unpacking has you following through the life of one individual, as they move through various stages of their life and the new living conditions that come with it. You get glimpses at their journey, from the cabin bed in their childhood room, to the formation and downfall of a relationship, to discovering their identity and starting a family. All the stages culminate in a photo to go into the album, so they can look back at how far they’ve come. There’s so much detail and love in this game that if you’ve already played it, it’s definitely worth a replay.

Too many boxes, too little time.

If you follow my Twitter, you’d know that I recently moved into my new flat. It’s my first time living entirely alone (excluding the sheer chaos of the midnight beasts that my two cats embody) in my life and Unpacking brilliantly “unpacks” (Hehe, I’m hilarious) the feelings of anxiety, excitement, and fear that I’m sure we have all/will all experience in our lifetimes. It’s a soothing game, one that many streamers have played as a kind of “chill” stream to engage with their community. The atmosphere, the music, the goofy stickers awarded for doing odd little things like hiding the cookies on the top shelf or rearranging the fridge magnets, the detail on every object in the rooms – it all culminates in a calming experience that the real world seems to lack nowadays.

One of the reasons why Unpacking works so well is, in my opinion, the possessions that the protagonist takes from place to place. We as humans make emotional attachments to more than just other people. Associating locations and objects with specific memories are common practice and that sense of nostalgia only encourages us to hold onto the object in question, to keep that piece of your own personal history with you as you walk into the future. I’ve spent so much time looking forward, having to work and plan for the years to come that I don’t get a lot of time to look back at the steps I’ve taken. However, when I look at some of the trinkets I own, the memories come rushing back, clearer than ever.

The chicken army advances

Let me give you an example from my own experience. A few years ago, I lost my maternal grandfather. We called him Papa (a Scottish term). He passed a few years after my maternal grandmother, and I freely admit that I miss them dearly. Whenever we travelled to see our family in Edinburgh, we’d go to Granny and Papa’s little flat on the council estate and have a quiet lunch there. We’d spend the afternoon solving the same few puzzles they had for the thousandth time and head for walks along the canal. After they had both passed, we had the hard task of going through their flat and sorting out their belongings – choosing what we wished to keep and what would be donated to charity. I took a few things, one of which being a photo album – so I don’t forget what they looked like when they smiled at me.

I had a bed just like this

There were a few other bits, like a bird ornament and one of the puzzles that I’d spent all those years re-doing. However, the item that I treasure the most is a little magic trick that he taught me how to master. Sure, the little metal disks that you can see in the image below don’t look like much and they’re slowly wearing away with time but when I look at it, I see a seven-year-old Caitlin sat on the carpet on a December evening, watching with fascination as my Papa seemingly makes one of the rings disappear entirely. I see him in the birds in the trees, in the neatly trimmed lawns of well-kept gardens. With these things, he is still with us. People live on through those who remember them. Nobody is truly gone, there is always someone who will pause to remember them, or something that will spark those dusty memories. Playing Unpacking, you look at each of the items and wonder what the story is behind them. Why did the protagonist keep that mug? Why do they keep adding chicks to their army of stuffed chickens?

Our possessions tell a story. Even for something as seemingly innocent as an ornament or a mug, can have dozens of stories attached to them. It is something I think Unpacking hints at, as you start to recognise objects from previous sections of the game, and you ponder at the additions of new ones.

I have a major soft spot for Unpacking, and it is clear a lot of others do. So, give it a go. It is a short experience, but it will bring you a sense of calm that you would be surprised how many of us are missing.

Till next time,

CaitlinRC.

A Juggler’s Tale – I Got No Strings…

Posted on by in Gaming

As a kid, my only real exposure to puppets was through the joyful “sooty show.” That is one of the most niche references I have ever made on this site, but it was a puppet show targeted at young children, starring a yellow hand-puppet bear called sooty and his friends. They had a TV show and everything. Small Caitlin loved it. Marionette’s (stringed puppets) always felt a bit… uncanny valley to me but the engineering part of my brain was fascinated by them. The ability to manipulate and study individual sections of the puppet as it moved, to see the ripple effect it would have on the rest of the joints – it was remarkably educational.

Despite the interest in puppets and marionettes that has followed me since early childhood, I absolutely detest mascot costumes. Seriously, they could be hiding anything in there. Part of my anxiety against these people who are just doing their jobs is the fact that they are hidden from sight deliberately. I am a naturally paranoid person due to my anxieties, so when I cannot see someone’s eyes or face to read social cues from, I am immediately uneasy. This distaste for mascots was very visible to the Game Junkiez gang at EGX when I fled from a Fall Guy mascot who I was fairly sure was targeting me directly (nearly mugged by a bean, that would be a new experience).

This weird love of puppets, fascination with marionettes and hatred of mascots, has more often than not warded me away from games that include any of the above. You often do not find one of the trios without the others following close behind (ready to steal your soul, I SEE YOU MASCOT BOY). However, whilst at EGX in October, I followed my friend Kerry over to try a game called “A Juggler’s Tale” that they had been extremely excited to try out. We got to play the opening level, which followed the player meeting the protagonist Abby, a young juggler in a circus, forced to perform during the day and locked away at night. You learn to maneuver through the world, learning how to avoid getting your strings tangled up in obstacles. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

That’s the way to do it!

Once Abby escapes the circus, she goes on the run through the wilderness, trying to avoid the hunters that the ringmaster has sent to track her down. These bandits, led by the fearsome Tonda, are a constant threat to Abby – forcing the player to think ahead, move stealthily and be bold in order to escape their clutches. Like Abby, they are connected to the world via strings and are under the control of Jack – the puppet master, storyteller, and creator of the world that we are exploring. He narrates the events in rhyming couplets, providing the player with key information of upcoming hazards and clues to puzzles. At least to begin with.

Based in southern Germany, kaleidoscube, the developers of the game, were unable to be there in person at EGX but we got to speak to them via Discord to ask about what inspired to make such a unique game. One of the publishing team explained to us that dark fairytales (such as Brothers Grimm) and puppet shows are incredibly common in Germany, being a staple of German children’s childhood experiences since as early as the 1950’s. An example of this is the “Augsburger Puppenkiste,” a famous marionette theatre in Augsburg that has been putting on performances for decades. Given these cherished childhood memories shared by the development team, it is no surprise that the amount of love and care put into A Juggler’s Tale is visible in every frame.

I love this bear.

This is a beautiful game. Honestly, any frame of this game could be put up as a painting in a gallery and I would not bat an eye. Every environment is alive with detail and beauty, be that the gentle swaying of the crop fields as you run through them at sunset or the view of the town from the rooftops as you dance across them. The environment is a clever mixture of painted set pieces (I mean that most literally) and fairytale backdrops, maintaining a careful balance between a puppet show’s artificial stage and a storybook. Nothing is wasted, everything has a purpose. Something creeps in the background? You will meet it later on. Is that a hunter is scanning the forest with his lamp? Tonda and his bandits must be getting close.

Gorgeous. Too gorgeous in fact… makes me suspicious.

As Jack tells his story to the eager tavern of listeners, their reactions to events as they unfold function as ambient sound. They cheer when Abby escapes, grow quiet in moments of tension and shout warnings when danger looms – helping maintain the live puppet show atmosphere that the game has been building from the beginning. Jack’s rhythmic weaving of his tale pairs nicely with the music as you hop across streams and clamber over walls. Ignoring the tense moments where you sprint away from hunters, swearing profusely and praying to uncaring deities for assistance, it is a remarkably relaxing experience.

Available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo switch and PC, A Juggler’s Tale is a story of freedom. It is about overcoming obstacles – both those thrown at you from others, and those that have been set upon you by the world. I highly recommend that you play it yourself, it is a short experience that you can knock out in an evening. I am going to go into detail about some story points that I connected with, so if you want to be completely spoiler free, run away! Bookmark the article and come back once you have played the game through. Still here? Good. Let us chat.

Look at the strings in the distance. That’s Tonda’s gang. That’s attention to detail.

Putting aside the chase sequences, puzzles and platforming that make up the core gameplay of A Juggler’s Tale, this game is about freedom of choice. In the first few chapters, Abby’s flight from the ringmaster is a series of scripted events, carefully crafted by Jack to tell his story. Your strings are an ever-present reminder of your powerlessness against the grand tapestry of fate that Jack has weaved for Abby. Her capture and return to the circus appear inevitable, with Jack able to pick Abby up by her strings and maneuver her if he chooses to. Yet, there are brief moments of rebellion that indicate a deviation from her fate.

What a good dog.

Shortly before you encounter the hunters, you come across an old wolf – whose strings are attached to some sort of post. Jack demands that you abandon the creature to its fate and keep moving but you can choose not to. One way of solving the puzzle of the cart blocking your path is to attach the cart to the strings and allow gravity to pull the cart out of your way – snapping the strings tethering the wolf to the world at the same time. It is a moment where Jack loses his patience with you, pulling you into the air and demanding that you obey him, or he will retract his help. It seems odd at first why would the storyteller need to bargain with those he controls? Unless… he does not have complete authority over them? If you can snap someone else’s strings, why not your own?

This train of thought comes to fruition at the end of the third act, when all hope seems lost. Abby’s locked in a cage, waiting to be taken back to the ringmaster. Jack laments her last moments of freedom, only to be stopped by Abby breaking free of her imprisonment, setting the barn she was being kept in ablaze. When her strings get caught on the doorway, it seems that it was all in vain – poor Abby is trapped as the blaze creeps towards her. Jack holds her strings in place as the flames lick at her feet, proclaiming the so called “story’s end,” only to watch in rage and horror as Abby refuses to go quietly.

One by one, she snaps the strings that tether her to the world, ripping the control of her fate from Jack’s hands and taking it into her own hands for the first time. The moment he loses control over “his” puppet, Jack becomes the antagonist, with the rest of the story focusing on Abby thwarting Jack’s desperate attempts to regain control of her autonomy. Then again, to a protagonist of a story, the storyteller is the true enemy. After all, they are the one who holds your fate in their hands. When you regain control of Abby, the lyrical nature and pre-planned lines of Jack have vanished along with her strings. Everything is new and unpredictable. Sure, the world may be of his creation but now Jack has no influence over what path Abby takes through it.

Often, we have to take fate into our own hands.

Abby’s lack of strings quickly becomes her strongest asset (that and her remarkably good throwing arm), allowing her to duck under obstacles and slip away from her pursuers with ease. They are still tied down by their strings and restricted by her old limitations, limitations with which she is intimately familiar. Eventually, Tonda is defeated by removing all of his strings, severing the control that Jack has over the world entirely, allowing Abby to free the residents of the world she calls home from their bindings and reunite with a dear friend.

There are so many lenses that you can look at this story through. I do not know whether the developers intended it but the idea of casting off the strings that tie you down is a refreshing one. To me, it feels like the story of someone choosing their own path in life, rather than the one that had been set out before them. To others, it could be a tale of acceptance, accepting who you are and carving out a new identity with your newfound confidence. To you, it could be the tale of someone escaping a toxic relationship or friendship, removing the ties that kept you together and working through the negativity they left you with. Art is subjective.

Letting go is hard. But not impossible.

This got remarkably profound, didn’t it? Guess that is what happens when I write an article by lamp light. November will be a tad chaotic for me, as I am finalizing the purchase of my new flat and moving in, as well as my job and cats. so, not much different from our normal upload schedule to be honest.

Hope you enjoyed and be sure to check out the game, as well as support the developers (kaleidoscube).

CaitlinRC

Spyro The Dragon – Small but Mighty:

Posted on by in Gaming

As I’ve mentioned before on the site, I was a PlayStation kid. When I was small, my parents were trying to find what it was that interested me, that brought me joy. They wanted something that they could bond with me over, which was hard to find considering how solitary some of my hobbies were. After seeing my excitement over a tiny basketball game themed around Shadow the Hedgehog that came with a kid’s meal at McDonalds, they decided to take a stab in the dark and see how I liked video games. So, we got a PS1 for the family. We picked up a few games such as Crash Bandicoot, Croc, James Pond and of course, Spyro.

For those of you who have done the maths and realised that the PS1 actually came out before I was even born, you’ll have realised that by the time I had got a PlayStation, the entire original trilogy of Spyro The Dragon had already been released for a good few years. I didn’t care. So many of my childhood memories are intrinsically connected with the adventures of the famous purple lizard, that I still revisit the series to this day. Heck, my mum, and I regularly 100% the games whenever I’m home for the holidays. It’s become a tradition, a chance to bond and catch up (and plot the murder of that goddamn bear).

Will Spyro ever get a holiday? No. He won’t.

Amusingly, I haven’t played the remastered editions of the original trilogy. My parents still have the original disks and a PS2 that is clinging on to life, so I’ve not seen the point of purchasing the remaster just yet. The same goes for the Crash Bandicoot games, not that I’ve ever finished the first one… Though now that I have moved out of home and am off living the adult life, maybe I’ll pick them up, as a little reminder of home. Having little things to remind you of home are important. Whether your home is with your biological family or the family you chose, being able to bring those people to mind when your thoughts get a bit too loud, is a comfort.

From the moment we are born, we build associations between our experiences and our reactions to said experiences. For example, when you touch a hot plate as a kid, you very quickly learn not to repeat that behaviour. That’s because your brain quickly makes the connection between that feeling of pain and the action that caused it – a technique called negative reinforcement. There’s been many a psychological study on the different types of reinforcement and their effectiveness but that’d take up more words in this article than there are grains of sand in a beach towel. Naturally, my mental health conditions have caused a lot of negative associations to be built in my mind, otherwise known as “triggers”. To combat that, I’ve tried to build positive ones. Spyro, has been one of these for as long as I can remember.

Some of these lizards still give me trouble now…

Whether it was a way to keep six year old me still whilst she checked my hair for nits, or a way to calm me down the night before my exam results, Spyro has become a lot more than just a game series to me. It has been the background to so many important conversations in my life – be that coming out as gender-neutral, discussing how I’m really feeling or coping with the loss of my grandfather, these games have become such an integral part of my life. As a military brat, I’ve lived in a lot of different homes. The main constants have always been my mum, my dad, my sister, and Spyro the Dragon. Whether it was sitting on moving boxes at age eleven right before starting secondary school or lounging on a beanbag the night before moving out of home, it’s something that I will carry with me forever.

Replayability of games is a big problem in the industry. After all, what’s the point of paying £40 or more for a game that you will only play once? Especially in more stressful financial times such as lockdown, deciding whether you can afford an expense such as a new game is a troubling one. Yet, the adventures of the pint-sized purple dragon retain the same level of excitement and comedic value regardless of how many times you’ve completed the games. It’s got to a point where we remember every single hidden nook and cranny, any secret areas, and shortcuts, as well as which areas we can assault Moneybags in. I hate that bear. So much.

I hope you fall in the piranha filled swamp.

There’s something about collectable based games that are very satisfying. The more popular AAA games tend to be harder to 100%, as there tend to be ten million odd bits to find. Take Assassins Creed 2 – with its endless supply of feathers to find, or the pigeons from GTA IV. Sure, you’d come across some of them across the course of the game but nowhere near enough to justify taking the time to hunt down the final few. Plus, the rewards are rarely worth it. Heck, catching all the Pokemon in the more recent games has become ridiculously difficult (due to trading requirements and version restrictions) yet all you get is a digital achievement. However, with the Spyro games, you get rewarded for picking up everything and anything you can find.

As much as I despise Moneybags and his constant appearances in the trilogy, as well as the later games, he does serve a valuable purpose. To unlock certain abilities, levels, and areas, you need to pay this money grubbing bear a specific fee. He acts as a barrier to ensure that you are collecting the treasure that is scattered all around the worlds in the Dragon Realms. As you progress through the game, his prices increase, actively encouraging you to be a completionist to reduce the time you’d have to spend backtracking. Plus, at the end of Year of the Dragon (the third game), you get to chase him around and torch his bottom until he surrenders all the gems, he stole from you.

My favourite of the original trilogy. Getting to try other characters, Sparx levels, new mechanics and approaches? Beautiful.

Although the original trilogy did have its problems (looking at you wonky flying mechanics and the Hunter minigames in the Spyro 2’s speedways), it always rewarded it’s players. Be it unlocking a permanent fireball upgrade, a treasure horde, or a series of fun minigames, your hard work pays off. Also, there’s something incredibly satisfying in opening the progress menu and seeing those golden 100% markers next to every level.

Regardless of my emotional ramblings, the Spyro trilogy is still good fun so give it a shot. As of this article being published, I’ll be off celebrating my 21st birthday with my family so I hope you all have a fabulous day and are staying safe!

Remember to like, comment, and follow the site both on WordPress and over on our twitter @OurMindGames. Till next week,

CaitlinRC.

Rocket League – Defend the Bloody Goal!

Posted on by in Gaming

I’m not a majorly sporty person. A shocking revelation, I know. For exercise, I tend to avoid any form of running, which includes team sports. The only sport I really enjoy watching is rugby, which is most likely a biproduct of my upbringing and my university years in Cardiff. Badminton and football, however, are the two sports that I love playing. Badminton was a sport that I didn’t come across until my GCSE years, where it became my Sunday activity of choice. My friend Crystal and I became a formidable duo, combining the skilful shots that sent our opponents running from one side of the court to the other, with my brutal spikes that more often than not were too fast for opponents to catch in time.

Meanwhile I’ve played football on and off for about eight years of my life. It all started during primary school, when I used to watch my sister at football practise on a Saturday morning and was desperate to join in. So, when I was old enough, I joined the junior team and adored it. When we moved to a new house, I found another team to join and became their main goalkeeper. Although I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet and a lot of the boys were uncertain about kicking a ball at a girl, I wouldn’t let anything stand between me and saving a goal, which in hindsight did lead to quite a few head injuries.

A more recent addiction of mine.

Sports games such as FIFA, Madden, and the NBA games, have never appealed to me. I can see the enjoyment in the multiplayer modes, as our more competitive instincts make themselves known. The closest that I got to sports games were the likes of Go Vacation or Wii Sports/Resort. However, there is one popular e-sport game that I thoroughly enjoy – Rocket League. Who knew combining football with cars would be a good idea (apart from 90% of the primary school kids that I teach). If you follow me on Xbox (TheCaitlinRC), then you’d see how frequently I’ve been playing over the last month or so.

For anyone that has been living under a rock for the last few years, let me give you a quick lowdown of what it’s all about. Though there isn’t that much to explain. You drive a car into a giant football and try to get it into the opposing team’s goal. Fairly simple. Though like many sports, there’s a great deal of strategy and trial and error that goes into being successful at the game. For example, I’m better at offensive play, such as scoring goals and putting the pressure on the opposing team’s defence. Meanwhile, my friend TheRupertLitterbin (who provided the screenshots for this article), is a great defensive player. He has saved many a goal with some dramatic moves that I’m sure will be made into a musical one day.

Sheer art, if I Steen so myself.

With each match having a five-minute time limit, a losing team can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat within the last minute of the game. Ten seconds can be the difference between victory and loss. Though if you’re playing against our lord and saviours the Steens, you should accept the loss with grace and humility. Nobody will understand that reference, but I still find it funny, nonetheless. Who knew that inside jokes were such a delight?

The matches are remarkably addictive. You keep saying, just one more but then it’s 3am and you’ve been playing for seven hours. Not that I’ve ever done that or anything. I think a large part of that addictiveness comes from the rush of emotions when you score a goal or perform an epic save. As most people know, when you complete a task or do something that you associate with “excitement” or “achievement”, your body releases neurotransmitters to act as rewards. The adrenaline coursing through you during the moment is buffed by the dopamine rush released when you achieve your goal.

Personally, a lot of the adrenaline rushes and dopamine spikes are closely tied to my childhood memories of being a goalkeeper. In fact, I’m sat writing this at my desk at home, where I have a few football trophies on my bookshelf nearby. The rush of being all that stands between a win and a loss, is exhilarating and I think Rocket League captures that essence quite well. Plus, there’s something very gratifying in charging into your opponents at high speeds and annihilating them. What can I say, I’m a simple soul.

Anyways, that’s all I really have to say about Rocket League. I’d like to apologise that my articles recently have been so short and sporadically released in comparison to 2019’s schedule, but motivation has been a real problem for me during the lockdown. However, I’m slowly getting back into it so leave your suggestions for future articles in the comments or message me on Twitter, @OurMindGames!

Have a great week,

CaitlinRC

Alien Isolation – In Space, Everyone Hears Me Scream

Posted on by in Gaming

First things first, I’m not good with horror. Be it movies or video games, I prefer to immediately switch it off and go find literally anything else to do. Most of my experience with horror franchises is through watching various lets plays on YouTube, or through hiding behind my friends as they play it. It’s not that I don’t enjoy horror, I love the paths that it can follow and the tropes it can delve into without drifting too far from the norm. For example, my interest in psychology means that games that make use of sanity mechanisms or more subtle horror are fascinating to me, I just struggle to play them all the way through.

Part of this is due to anxiety. Horror games and their tendency to rely on jump scares, does not mix well with a tendency to have a panic attack when I get flooded with too many stimuli. Some people don’t do well with gore or can get too overwhelmed by all the events that are unfolding, meaning that for a lot of people, the horror genre of media is often one they can’t experience properly. Which is a bit sad, since there’s so much talent and enjoyment out there to experience.

Personally, I’ve never played Alien Isolation. Partly because it never really came on my radar of games to play and partly because I’d watched a few clips of others playing it, screamed my head off and had to go calm down in another room. However, one day when I was very unwell and had nothing to do, I was watching YouTube and ended up binging the entirety of Cryaotic’s playthrough of the terrifying extra-terrestrial game. The horrific alien and weird androids aside, the atmosphere and storytelling of the game are astonishing. Sure, there’s a few pacing issues but no matter what section of the game you are in, the constant paranoia and fear of the alien never truly subsides. EVEN IF YOU’RE IN SPACE.

I would not vacation here, nice air ducts and tech facilities but Alien kept eating my friends and family, 1 Star! – Probably Ripley, Trivago.

However, the simplistic nature of this survival horror game is what makes it such a staple of horror. Being based off a popular horror franchise helped massively with its appeal but when even five minutes of gameplay can unsettle you so drastically, you know you’ve done something right. Whether it’s the scrawls on the walls of the space station, the footsteps of the alien as it draws closer to your hiding spot or the constant paranoia that stalks you around the ship, Alien Isolation orchestrates an atmosphere of horror that fills you with a sense of dread that haunts your every move.

The most powerful aspect of this game is in the title. Not the alien, though that thing is horrific. It is isolation. Although you do interact with various people throughout the game, 90% of your time exploring the space station’s various nooks and crannies are spent in solitude. In fact, most of the people you come across are more likely to put a bullet between your eyes than help you open a door. The only person you can trust in those lonesome corridors is yourself. Sometimes you can go nearly twenty minutes without any dialogue or cutscenes, just the player and Ripley, staring into the darkness and praying that nothing is staring back.

It is in these quiet moments where the horror reaches its peak. You are instantly more aware of every creak in the pipes, every panicked breath escaping Ripley’s chest and the lines between reality and the game’s fiction seem to blur. People often talk about how they get sucked into books and games like it’s unfolding right before their eyes and they are just swept along like a leaf in the raging rapids of a river. Sure, jumpscares can be effective in keeping the players on their toes but the fear quickly fades. Meanwhile, with that constant sense of dread and each sound effect sending a shiver down your spine will stay with you long after the dramatic sequence has ended. The best games have a profound impact on you, and I think I speak for many people when I say, I don’t like walking under air ducts anymore (DON’T EAT ME I DON’T TASTE NICE I SWEAR).

I think the Alien needs to see a doctor, that’s not a healthy amount of drool. Or hygienic. GROSS

Humans are inherently social creatures. Even introverts like myself, need company from time to time, especially in distressing situations. Sometimes just letting someone know that they aren’t alone can be the greatest comfort you can give. So, the isolation that the game is so fond of, is probably the most powerful tool it has at its disposal. Sure, the big murderous alien is powerful but like many game mechanics, you can end up being more irritated with it than scared.

The alien is a known quantity. Once you’ve died to it a few times, you understand how it works and what you can do to avoid it. Loneliness and the darkness of the space station, however, are unknowns and this can be far more terrifying. We always talk about the dangers of the unknown, those gaps in our knowledge that could prove catastrophic. Our imagination runs wild with all the possibilities, something those with a mental health condition can understand better than most, as our mind becomes our greatest enemy. All the horrors in the shadows that you envisage, could just be products of your terrified brain, as it struggles to comprehend the events unfolding around it.

The first time you meet the alien, when it’s tail curls towards you and you’re certain it’s the end, is breathtakingly terrifying. The following sections are filled with panicked breathing, praying that it doesn’t see you even though you’re making an obscene amount of noise and sighs of relief when you see a save station. The combination of suspense, fear and paranoia culminates in a heart-stopping sequence that I think anyone who has played the game will remember far too vividly for their liking. This is the best part of Alien Isolation. It is you, in isolation, with an alien. (Wow Caitlin, it’s the title of the game, you’re so witty)

On a scale of 1-10, that’s a big old NOPE NOPE NOPE.

Despite all this marvellous suspense and paranoia that Alien Isolation builds up, it does fall flat in places. Once you’ve built up all this suspense, you need to do something with it. It’s a bit like building a house but instead of stopping once it’s complete, you add a conservatory. Then a pool. Then a third floor. Then a moat and drawbridge. At some point, you need to make use of all that you have been building, otherwise, there was no point in building it in the first place. Alien Isolation has some phenomenal moments of horror and primal fear, but it could’ve had so much more if the game flowed just a bit more smoothly.

Overall, I think Alien Isolation is one of those horror games that proves that it could terrify you with a tin can and some rice if it tried hard enough. You don’t need immense amounts of gore or zombies to traumatise your players, just have them stalked by a murderous, basically invincible creature! I would be excited to sit and play this some time, but I need to find a friend who is brave enough to join me first. I would also have to play it at midday in the sunlight with all the doors and windows locked and probably a bat next to me to protect myself.

Could I get some personal space? Please? NO, I DIDN’T MEAN THROW ME INTO SPACE!

What game would you like me to talk about next? I’m thinking we stick with the theme of isolation and loneliness in games and talk about Firewatch! If you’ve got any suggestions, drop them in the comments, leave a like on this article and follow my site if you want email notifications for whenever I publish a new piece! (Also follow me @OurMindGames on Twitter for all the behind the scenes goodies)

Stay away from air ducts,

CaitlinRC.