Aliens: Dark Descent PS5

We've had our share of Aliens-themed shooters over the years, and I thought that is where I would find my dream Aliens game. Where they disappointed, this one excelled. Instead of a standard real-time strategy game, I got an adrenaline-fueled descent into sheer horror. In a game where every action has a consequence, and those consequences are [potentially] damning, this adds a layer of anxiety over every decision you make. The in-field gameplay itself, much to my surprise, emphasized stealth of all things. I never knew how exhilarating this could be. When you are faced with the prospect of taking on the infinite horde of the hive, in hindsight, it is the only alternative makes perfect sense. Much like if it were in real-life, you won't want to encounter the alien. In fact, spending most of my time trying to keep out of one's line of sight is spot-on for a maddening infiltration into the most hellish environment of imagination. When you do engage the enemy (and you will), you will feel your adrenaline spike as your assess the consequences of that misstep, but relish the tactical perspective of taking your enemies on in a way that minimizes casualties and sees you through to your objective. It has all the sights and sounds of the classic film, and while the story takes an unusual turn here or there, it is thoroughly engrossing from beginning to end.My only caveat is that the game is a bit buggy at times. Enabling permissive saving is -highly- recommended, just in case the game ends up fighting you more than the enemy (shouldering only a few extra minutes of retread, hopefully). I believe there is a patch out now that may have smoothed that all over, but I cannot speak to that personally. With that said, this game was so incredibly perfect in virtually every other way, I pushed through the occasional bugged pathing, or application crash and I found the experience immensely rewarding for it (though hopefully more rewarding if the patch bypasses all that for newer players).

On the surface Aliens: Dark Descent (ADD) is a Tactical RPG: You have a squad that levels up and eventually gets a class. You upgrade their equipment using resources gathered from missions. What differentiates it from the XCOMs of the world is that you control your squad in real-time, bringing in an element of tension that mirrors the stress your squad is going through.In addition to Health and Armor, you also must manage your squad's Stress and Trauma. Stress goes up during combat or while the Aliens are hunting your squad and once it hits 100%, your marine gains a new Trauma. Traumas are a negative status effect, such as increased ammo consumption, and will go away when your Marines rest or will need to be healed back at base, depending on how your Marine gained the Trauma. This Stress/Trauma system makes ADD unique in this space, as it makes all engagements matter. Running into a single Xeno patrolling can push your Stress higher, forcing you to consume more resources for an encounter later.In regards to the story, it is a new take on an old setup: Marines isolated on a planet with Aliens. What makes the story interesting is discovering the nature of the outbreak and the cult of worship that developed around the Aliens. I can confidently say this is also one of my favorite depictions of the Weyland-Yutani in any of the games: WY's motivations actually make sense and they come across as a corporation that is in over its head rather than a mustache twirling group that has unexplained belief the Alien is a cash cow.Highly recommend this game.

Great game my only thing is the packaging on games has to get better with Amazon where the disc doesn’t come loose every single dvd movie or game comes that way

Atmospheric. Tense. Satisfying. Highly entertaining. For $40 it’s a steal. If you’re on the fence then wait for a sale.It baffles me how this game doesn’t support HDR on PS5. This should be mandatory for all PS5 games, but it’s a crime this game doesn’t have it. Cutscenes are straight up last gen, at best. The game runs as smooth as it gets though. Developers are actively listening to customer feedback and are improving various aspects of the game, which is wonderful to know.I need to mention that even on normal difficulty, it’s pretty tough. Takes a little time to adapt to, but once you get the hang of it, it’s very satisfying. Kindly support physical media and please don’t purchase digitally. Highly recommend adding this to your gaming library.

I like this game, but it has a lot of problems. Most of them are in the command area. Many times it won’t let you assign doctors to wounded marines. If you delete a marine from a mission team, you can’t add in a new one. This seems to happen when I pause the game for an extended time or put my PS5 into rest mode, but not always. Also, it has happened many times when I change days in the game. A couple of times I have had the game lock up during a mission. Since you can’t save your game when you want to, you can lose long periods of time and have to redo all the progress you have made. The only way I have been able to fix the problem is to end the game and restart it. I hope they patch the game soon.

The game has some bugs on the first mission, in the boss fight, if you don’t kill the boss, you get stuck trying to find the boss and you can’t progress to the next mission. I checked online, and they recommend replaying the whole first mission, placing a sentry gun where the boss fight begins, and the boss is easy to kill and you can progress to the next mission. After that, I haven’t noticed any major bugs and the rest of the missions are fun.

No issues with the packaging or disk. The game is hard, but enjoyable. It is sort of like the xcom series where you control a squad, hover it really isn’t turn base and you can’t move the squad members individually. Might check out some game play videos before you purchase. I am having a good time playing it.