This passage is frequently used in weddings, when we say about ourselves that it isn't a natural, preferred condition to be alone. We as human beings are not supposed to be alone. This is why in the corrections system, one of the last few bastions of punishment is solitary confinement. That is, being segregated from other people is unnatural, punishing, and difficult to endure. The word of God above is one of those that, whether you believe in God or not, holds true. You know from your own experience, whether introvert or extrovert, whether you are close to those whom you love or far away, you know that it is not good for you to be alone.
Most games, you aren't alone though. The big ones, like Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, and so on, have you surrounded by a group of friends, people who, like you, are well
armed, and prepared to take on the threats, locust, undead, or otherwise, as a group, as a team. And teams, they make horror much more palatable. The thing that left 4 dead does, and does well, is to communicate to you that if you get separated from your team, you're dead. You may not die straight away, but it won't take long. If you're on your own, sprinting towards the end, you'll be scraped up in a body bag pretty soon.
The wonderful thing about Alien Isolation is that it brings this feeling to the forefront. You are alone. In space. With a monster. Oh sure, there are other humans, and you have weapons, but ultimately, they're not much help to you. Most of the humans will
be wildly aggressive towards you, and the weapons aren't much good against the problems that present themselves. Often, your best bet is to hide, and hide well. Your best bet is to sneak around under tables, and in vents, trying to hide from what you have all around.
And the thing you're hiding from, for the most part, is the Alien. And this alien is a problem for you. The alien is a hulking monster, a killer whom you know is desperate to wipe you out, to kill you and eat you. And when this monster shows up, oh boy. It slithers down from the ceiling, and stretches itself out, snarling and growling, and stomping throughout the space station where you find yourself. Yes, you have weapons, yes, you have a gun, but shooting that alien yields no success. It takes bullets like popcorn, and will definitely kill you if you take a potshot at it.
So when the alien shows up, it's a terrifying moment, because you're dealing with something that is in every way immeasurably stronger than you. It's a monster, a killer, and an unstoppable force. And as you hide under a table, cower in a locker, or crouch behind a door, those words of God echo in your ears - it is not good for you to be alone. With friends, with heavy weapons, with a team of marines with guns, this would be easier, but it would also be a different game. And as Gearbox software found out, a much worse game.
The presence of the alien in the game, as a monster, as a killer, as a brutally efficient slayer, reminded me a lot of something else from the Bible while I was playing. It reminded me of the passage about the devil from the book of first Peter. It says
Be sober minded; be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around
like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Resist him, firm in your faith.
Before this game, I wasn't too sure about this whole thing. I have no experience with roaring lions, but I have seen them in the zoo, and they sure don't seem to frightening. If anything, they seemed pretty lazy. They seemed awfully laid back, content to sit around, to do nothing, and to take it easy. Well, that's because I'm separated from them by fences, glass, and all that. It would be a different story if I was in there with them.
The alien from Alien Isolation is reasonably analogous to the devil of the Bible. He prowls around seeking to devour, to destroy. And if we were paying attention to what the Bible says, we'd be alert, we'd be sober minded, we'd be paying attention to the possibility of the approach of the devil, who seeks whom he may devour. But we
aren't. We're complacent. We get relaxed, we get used to the idea that the devil, well, he might be out there somewhere, but he's nowhere near us. And you get this idea in Alien Isolation too, because that's how games are supposed to work. Games are ususally divided up into sections, into action set-pieces, where you fight specific enemies at specific times, with a difficulty curve thrown in there to keep it fair. Enemies get progressively more diffiuclt as you progress, and there is a fairly straightforward linear curve.
But in Alien Isolation, all that goes out the window. The alien is always watching you. There's no such thing as being out of sight, out of mind. There's no such thing as him not paying attention to you, there's no such thing as a safe zone, there's no such thing as a space where the alien isn't close at hand. She's like a lion - she likes to stick close to the zebras.
You see, any interactions we have with the devil are pretty short lived. We feel him at work in times of trial and temptation, we feel his work when we are angry or agitated, we know when he is around, but we forget about him at all other times. And this is what he wants. The lion wants the zebras to forget she exists. The Alien wants you, while you play, to forget about her. She wants you to be occupied by other threats, by the androids and the other workers. And the devil wants you to be occupied with the bits and pieces of daily life, forgetting that he's at work at all. The more you forget about him, the better he works.
This all culminates in the game when we are occupied by the Working Joe androids, hiding from them, runing down the hallway away from their stiff legged strolling, and then the Alien pops down from the ceiling and plucks your head like a man might pluck a grape. If you're distracted by minor threats, you forget the big ones
even exist. If you're distracted by the day to day, then you forget about the big monster, the dragon, the ancient enemy, that you're powerless against. And that's exactly where that particular monster wants it to be.
1 Peter cautions us to be vigilant, to be aware of the fact that we're always in temptation, just as Alien: Isolation reminds you, usually through your death, that the Alien is always there, always watching, and usually waiting until you're distracted for her moment to strike. Yeah, there's a bunch of other stuff going on, but you've got to stay mindful of that monster. No matter what else is going on, she's always going to be your biggest problem.
PJ.
You see, any interactions we have with the devil are pretty short lived. We feel him at work in times of trial and temptation, we feel his work when we are angry or agitated, we know when he is around, but we forget about him at all other times. And this is what he wants. The lion wants the zebras to forget she exists. The Alien wants you, while you play, to forget about her. She wants you to be occupied by other threats, by the androids and the other workers. And the devil wants you to be occupied with the bits and pieces of daily life, forgetting that he's at work at all. The more you forget about him, the better he works.
This all culminates in the game when we are occupied by the Working Joe androids, hiding from them, runing down the hallway away from their stiff legged strolling, and then the Alien pops down from the ceiling and plucks your head like a man might pluck a grape. If you're distracted by minor threats, you forget the big ones
1 Peter cautions us to be vigilant, to be aware of the fact that we're always in temptation, just as Alien: Isolation reminds you, usually through your death, that the Alien is always there, always watching, and usually waiting until you're distracted for her moment to strike. Yeah, there's a bunch of other stuff going on, but you've got to stay mindful of that monster. No matter what else is going on, she's always going to be your biggest problem.
PJ.
