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Now, I’m not, what you call, a die-hard fan of the Aliens franchise. While I enjoyed the second movie and I played and enjoyed many of the games like the 2010 Aliens VS Predator and Aliens: Colonial Marines, I’m more or less what you call a casual enjoyer of the series. But, I’m also a fan of the FPS genre so when I first heard of this game, I was curious about it. That is, until I saw it was VR only. Thankfully, the game now has a console release with Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition, meaning us non-VR players can finally check this title out. Was it worth the wait? In a way, yes it was! At the same time, it does suffer from some small issues that, while not game-breaking, were noticeable enough to make me, well, take notice.
To avoid any potential story spoilers, I’m going to be focused on the gameplay itself. But, to briefly sum up the story, you play as a Colonial Marine named Zulu who, after receiving a distress call from the planet Purdan, is thrust into a nightmare as the colony is overrun with the terrifying Xenomorphs. The story is not bad and I think it does fit within the whole Aliens-verse very well, being set between the events of Alien and Aliens, and there are some moments in the story that caught me by surprise when they happened. What helps is the strong voice acting from your main character and her Synthetic friend Davis; they have some surprisingly believable conversations throughout the game and you do get the sense that these two have been through hell together more times than they like to admit, with the little bits of humor here and there adding to it. It’s not laugh out loud humor, by any means, but more chuckle worthy and enough to break the tension a little bit. I will say there is one part in the story that I thought was going to lead to an interesting idea though it ended up not going in the direction I thought it was, but that’s all I’ll say on that to avoid spoilers. One other thing I’ll mention is the game is somewhat short. It took me roughly about 8-10 hours to beat, with a few restarts due to deaths (and one cause I thought the game bugged out on me) and, while that is a decent length, I was still surprised by how quickly the ending came, despite me taking my time and trying to find everything.
With that being said, how’s the game itself? Does it make a good transition from VR to non-VR? While I can’t speak on the VR version as I don’t own a VR Headset, I can say the gameplay for Rogue Incursion is very solid, barring some minor issues, and I do think it made the transition well. On the surface, the game is your basic Survival Horror. That is you have a limited amount of resources and can die in a few hits if you’re not careful, so every step you take needs to be done with the side of caution, which is equally true depending on what difficulty you’re playing on. I was playing through the game on the Normal difficulty selection and there were still moments where I found myself dreading a new location at times, as well as looking over my shoulders whenever I was interacting with a terminal. What I think helps with the horror here is the overall atmosphere. Throughout the game, there was this sense of dread that permeated every area I entered, to the point where I had no idea if I was going to survive or end up as the xeno’s next meal. Every area is designed in such a way to make the tension feel warranted: From broken windows with the cold winds rushing in, blood smears near vents, to abandoned meals, the overall atmosphere is, well, chilling. Like, you know something bad happened here and you know your next step could be your last, but at the same time you want to explore and see what exactly happened. What doubly helps is the game’s sound design. Most of the time, the only thing you’ll be hearing are your own footsteps and the howling winds from outside, along with the iconic sounds of the xenomorphs and your motion tracker. The soundtrack, on the other hand, was hit or miss as, while it did hit the same cues as the films, it never really stood out to me and, for the majority of my playthrough, I don’t think I even took notice to the soundtrack at all. What I did take notice of were the few instances of blurry textures on the consoles, but those only occurred, oddly enough, at the beginning of the game. Once I was past the introduction area and playing the game proper, the blurry textures all but vanished. Regarding the rest of the graphics, this is another highpoint for the game as it does a good job recreating the look of the classic films, right down to the CRT monitors and interfaces. The only textures that, admittedly, weren’t the best were the blood splotches and, I swear, there was a brief moment during one section where it looked like my character’s arms turned pale white, though that one could’ve been how the light from their flashlight was hitting it in that particular instance. I also had some frame-rate dips at points throughout the game, though these never happened in combat encounters but, rather, when I was looking at certain areas from a certain viewpoint. It only lasted a few seconds when it happened but it was noticeable enough to make me take notice.
As for the gameplay itself, this is where the game does become slightly mixed for me. The gameplay is, by no means, bad or broken in any way, let me be clear there. No, it’s more just teetering on the OK side, which still doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just doesn’t do anything really mind blowing to make it stand out. To sum up the combat sections: You see a xeno, you aim at the xeno, and you hold that trigger down until it’s dead. Yes, you have an evade move which is very useful, especially with normal traversing, but the combat really does lack any sort of surprise. There were a few moments where the combat did improve, like during the end game portions, but that was it. Now, the encounters themselves are pulse-pounding and you do have to make every shot count with whatever weapon you have equipped but if you’re expecting a huge weapon sandbox, then you’ll be slightly disappointed. You begin the game with your trusty Pulse Rifle and a revolver, before getting your hands on a shotgun and that’s it: Only three guns. Now, hear me out, I’m not asking for a massive armory of guns, but when the series had such amazing guns like the Smart Gun and Flamethrower, the fact you’re limited to these three guns is kinda surprising and a bit disappointing. But don’t take that to mean the guns themselves are not bad to use by all means. On the contrary, these are fun to fire and do make short work of the xenos and all sound well, with the Pulse Rifle having that iconic sound from the movies. It just would’ve been nice to have just a few extra weapons, you know? I mean, you do have explosives you can use and these do help in a pinch, but the point stands. I also would’ve maybe have liked a bit of customization or an upgrade system as the weapons, despite feeling good, do feel a bit underpowered. The shotgun, for instance? Its damage output feels similar to the one in Doom 3, meaning it’s inconsistent. Sometimes, I was able to one or two shot an enemy with the shotgun while, other times, it took three shots, even when fired at the head. I understand Xenos are tough bugs, but you’re telling me it can walk off a single round of buckshot from a shotgun? I’m pretty sure even a Terminator would feel that. If you do get hit, you do have three stim-packs you can use to heal yourself, so the fear of death, while it’s there, isn’t breathing down your neck like in most survival horror games. The only items I did find to be kinda pointless, but fun to use for the immersion, is the motion tracker, mostly because the xeno encounters are easy to call thanks to some audio cues, and the Wielding Torch. The latter is used to unjam doors and break locks on crates you find which is fine, but it also takes up a space in your weapon wheel, so why this wasn’t assigned to the D-pad is beyond me. It did lead to a funny moment where, while trying to fight a facehugger, I ended up pulling it out and tried to attack it and got an achievement out of it. Outside of combat, there are also QTE’s you’ll be doing and these are super basic and mostly involve you either holding the triggers or pressing the triggers normally. Be warned though, as I learned the hard way, you can still get attacked by xenos during these, so make sure the area is cleared out before you do one of these. Actually, that’s something I should give a slight bit of credit to; Whenever you have to carry an object from point A to point B, you’ll hold your gun up, unless you’re using the revolver. If you have that equipped, then you actually can defend yourself slightly as you make the trek (You still need to put the item down if you want to reload but, still, nice touch). This goes double for dealing with the various puzzles involving Junction boxes, where you have to make a solid connection from one end to the other in order to power something nearby. Pretty easy to figure out what to do once you get a hang of it and it’s, oddly, a nice diversion from the combat encounters and, shockingly, it was also some of the more tense stuff I’ve done as I found myself sometimes stopping myself every time I heard a noise while I was working.
You know, of all the Aliens games I’ve played, this one is one of the better ones and I rank it up there with the likes of Aliens VS Predator from 2010. Yeah, it has some technical issues and it’s somewhat short length did surprise me, but to me? It wasn’t enough to deter me and I ended up really enjoying the game. If you missed out on this title due to it being VR exclusive and were waiting for a new non-VR Aliens title? Then, by all means, check this game out! Truth be told, with the recent success of Alien: Earth and Alien: Romulus, I do believe the franchise is making a strong comeback and I’m looking forward to seeing what Part 2 brings to the table!
