Few series are more ripe for virtual reality adaptation than Alien. I mean, who besides Ellen Ripley wouldn’t want to experience the thrill of being hunted by a perfect creature without that whole “risk of dismemberment” thing? Alien: Rogue Incursion is a commendable first attempt with a compelling story, memorable characters, terrifying xenomorphs, and a perfectly crafted world that can’t be mistaken for anything other than the iconic Alien universe. Its already well-executed sequel has plenty of room for improvement, however, especially when it comes to simple combat, not-so-clever xenomorphic enemies and the occasional jerk that could use some smoothing. Still, Rogue Incursion is a strong opening act for a series that I’m already excited to play more of.
If you’ve read Alien comics, like Aliens: Defiance, then you’ll already be familiar with the badass hero whose boots you’ll be filling: Jula Hendricks. And if that name doesn’t ring a bell, Rogue Incursion does a great job of introducing you to him in short order so you don’t have to do any homework beforehand. An ex-colonial marine with a rough upbringing and chronic back problems, you’re sent to a classically desolate planet overrun by the worst creatures imaginable and your trusty artificial companion Davis – don’t worry, he’s reformed and Not the type to betray you to please his corporate overlords… anymore. What follows is a highly formulaic Alien story that may trot out all the same beats the series is known for, but thanks to catchy dialogue, great characters, and a relatively short runtime that doesn’t overstay its welcome, that familiarity doesn’t wear out. Such a bad thing is that Zula and her relationship with her robot bestie are really touching, often offsetting an otherwise relentlessly dark situation, and the story has a few twists and an ending that sets up a sequel nicely.
In the eight-hour story, you’ll find yourself wandering the dark corridors and sprawling wastes of a forgotten colony looking over your shoulder every few seconds to see those eye-opening freak shows that are never far away, and then painting the walls whenever their acidic blood comes out of a vent. or sneak up behind you. Going slowly through each area and doing your best to stay calm can keep them off your back a bit longer, but since ammo isn’t particularly scarce and the xenomorphs aren’t all that hard to kill but are on the hardest difficulty, I found that running through areas and doing things Quick Done can work just as well, as long as you’re ready for a bit more regular combat. And, of course, you have to solve complex engineering problems in a world where every piece of technology breaks as soon as a xenomorph looks at it, and then makes as much noise as possible every time you try to solve the problem. If those aliens in the next room haven’t heard you yet.
The combat is pretty simple, 95% of the time you’ll be attacked by Xenomorphs who appear from vents installed for the obvious purpose of helping them get around, take out one of your three weapons to make short work of them, and then move on. These encounters are divided into almost equally exciting segments that have some kind of unique excitement or twist and are completely monotonous. For example, finding yourself cornered by a trio of xenos and trying to reload your weapon before being toasted is highly memorable, and you fend off an onslaught of double-jawed monsters while supporting IT for some broken communications relays. An action-packed good time. But then you’ll have long stretches of walking down a few hallways you’ve already visited, stopping every 30 seconds to kill a few monsters that run straight at you, with absolutely no intelligent attack strategy, before carefully moving on and repeating the process moments later. Reload your weapons. These sections make combat feel fairly mundane, and take away a lot of the initial fear when encountering xenomorphs, which start to feel pretty generic after the first few hours.
Perhaps the weakest part of combat is your limited and mostly unremarkable arsenal, which includes a pulse rifle, a pump-action shotgun, and a six-shooter revolver. The pulse rifle, an automatic weapon that’s usually the most overall reliable choice in a variety of situations, is really the only weapon that seems recognizable in the alien universe, while the shotgun and revolver seem oddly generic and low-tech for a sci-fi. Setting Your only other tools are proximity grenades that can go off when an alien approaches, and a motion scanner that you won’t need to use very often, since the xenomorphs swish and hiss loudly at you to announce their presence. While these items seem pretty par for the course for VR shooters, there’s little to distinguish them It’s also a bit odd that you don’t have a last-resort melee weapon to fall back on, so if a facehugger pounces on your head, you’d better hope you can point your pistol at an awkward angle for the kill.
This is an alien game, so perhaps surprisingly, the enemy variety isn’t very strong. You can go at least a few hours before you see a single enemy that isn’t a xenomorph, and even when you do, it’ll be a facehugger or two before turning back to more xenomorphs. The good news is that these aliens can be pretty formidable foes, killing in just one or two hits, and can crawl up walls, jump great distances and run at you, and move erratically making them hard to pin down. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, their fearsome appearance doesn’t always translate to them being particularly cunning foes, and after you learn their little bag of tricks within the first hour or two, they start to feel dull. Exit through a vent before pausing in front of you for a few seconds, giving you enough time to score a kill while they helplessly stand in place. Between the first Alien movie portraying the Xenomorph as an all-powerful monster that can barely be defeated, and the second movie’s tendency to explode into dozens of creatures in the space of a few minutes, Rogue Incursion definitely finds itself in the latter camp.
It suffers from minor, but annoying enough, bugs. Sometimes characters will repeat the same line of dialogue multiple times in a row, xenomorphs will move through objects in weird ways, and your controls aren’t always as precise and responsive as you’d expect when you’re looking down a room. They add a slight lack of polish that I hope they work on for the sequel.
And while it’s not Alien: Assault alone’s fault, one particularly annoying PSVR 2 issue that felt like a particular problem here is that the tiny PlayStation logo buttons are too easy to hit, especially when you’re claiming Xenomorphs after your handgun surprises you. Most of the times I died was due to a menu popping up at exactly the wrong moment, making me jump backwards before killing me, which I was rarely successful at. This added an additional level of stress of the wrong kind. Again, at the end of the day it’s a controller design issue, but there’s enough here that there should be some built-in protection against this – maybe make me hold down the menu button for a second or two before you want to impale me on an alien’s tail, guys?