Alone in the Dark looked so great in trailers, unfortunately trailers aren't a good representation of the game itself. Even though this game does have some very nice genre defining features, what it fails at is what it does miserably.
You start off as Edward Carnaby who is somehow alive after so many years. You wake up and the opening cutscene can be fairly dramatic, having to open and close your eyes to clear your vision, but all good things have to end sometime. The building is terrorized by a mysterious force that pulls people into the ground and turns them into the walking dead.
Escaping a building that's falling apart with fire engulfing it sure sounds epic enough, and well it is. Watching New York go to hell just gives you chills even though you've seen it countless times in Hollywood movies. Of course this first bit kind of deceives you and almost makes it feel like a great game. Unfortunately it goes downhill from there.
The first driving segment is fun and epic, but you start to notice that the car keeps getting stuck on these pointless things. The first major flaw I noticed was crashing out of the huge window in the taxi. There was no ground to land on for quite a while until out of nowhere the ground just pops in and the nose of the car is stuck but quickly pops out, wasting some precious time being as this segment you are rushed through it from the mysterious being, terrorizing New York. The driving in this segment is nowhere as bad as what you will encounter when you are actually free-roaming so brace yourself.
The free-roam driving is a masterpiece... of a train wreck. The car will constantly get stuck on these unseen obstacles and forget about trying to drive away from zombies when you are trying to go up even a small hill. The car stalls for a couple seconds before finally going forward but not before the zombie rips off the door and throws you on the ground. Your almost better off running away on foot. If you manage to drive away from them the zombies will make a super human jump and magically land or miss your car. If they land on the car the only way to get rid of them is by driving very fast which is tough to do with those invisible obstacles screaming "hit me" or... well hit something but if your car is already in bad shape that will do more harm than good because you will be forced to jump out of the flaming wreckage and that zombie won't be too far away either.
Hi-jacking cars can be very confusing at first but once you find the right wires, all you have to do is write down what the car looks like and what color the right wires were. These cars can be very predictable. There are only 4 different cars: a cop car, a taxi, a yellow car, and a blue car. The reason they are predictable is because of what wires hot-wire them and what they have in the passenger compartment. It is always the same for each type of vehicle which really takes away some of the immersion out of the game.
The puzzles can be very creative, especially towards the end, all though some can be challenging if you don't think like the developer. They do offer a nice break from the strenuous work of having to get rid of those pesky zombies.
The combat is absolutely annoying. You dread having to encounter zombies, not because they're scary (not really), but because it is such a chore to get rid of them. It's even worse when you are low on health and have nothing to dispose of them. You must dispose of them by fire for some reason, but this can sometimes be a very challenging task. Sometimes they will give you a fire in the environment and sometimes you have to release that inner caveman to make fire. There are multiple ways of creating your own fire but most have their obvious weaknesses. A Molotov Cocktail doesn't exactly explode very quickly so your enemies have quite a long time period to get out of the way. Shooting an explosive bottle can be very effective but if you shoot it to close to you, it gives you "mortal wounds." The last is pouring a flammable liquid onto the bullets, but this offers a challenge because you can't just shoot them anywhere, you have to shoot them in fissures on their bodies which can be very challenging.
This review would have come online a lot sooner if only I didn't put down the game for a week. The most annoying part of this game are the "devil's roots," where you are forced to destroy them in order to gain "spectral vision" that is used to further advance in the game. I worked hard driving back and forth across Central Park to destroy them with almost every single one guarded by at least a few zombies. I was finally able to find out the secret of the castle and then after that short cutscene, eleventy six (I don't know exactly how many) more roots pop up, and then the game assumes that you will know how much spectral vision you need in order to continue (it never actually tells you) and expects you to obediently raise your spectral vision up to 75. Well it took me quite a while to finally be able to sit through the repetitive task of taking down at least 12 more roots.
The health feature is very different in the fact that you can actually see your injuries but med spray can be tough to find unless you can find it in a taxi. The inventory system is a nightmare. It is nice how realistic it is but you can hardly carry anything. You only get four slots for cans, flares, and glow sticks. You want to stock up on a bunch of health but you don't want to get rid of all the flammable liquid. Even worse is when you are faced against a zombie or two, even when you are browsing through your inventory the game is still going. Good luck at sticking that wick in to a flammable bottle, equipping it and then getting your lighter out when you got a 8 foot tall zombie that throws knives at you every chance he gets.
Amazingly enough after all this tearing it apart, the game does have some innovative and nice features. The physics are phenomenal such as throwing a rope down from a balcony so that you can climb down it. The fire is spectacular as to how it will catch any flammable object on fire. The music is spectacular and can almost sell the illusion that this game is actually good. The story was great, but all these features can't save a game already doomed by it's annoying gameplay. The DVD like skip menu is a nice feature but the only thing that kept me from using it to skip the especially annoying parts were the achievements.
In conclusion, the game is a rent at the most. With so many things working against it, it's staggering to just think about what this game could have been if it was left in the oven for a bit longer. I would rather eagerly wait for a well done steak, than get a raw one now. My advice would be not to buy it, and if you are able to look over so many annoying flaws in the game it might be a fairly enjoyable rent.
The Xbox 360's Alone in the Dark (also PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Wii and PC), launched 15 years ago today.
The story may have been weak but damn the game did so many things ahead of it's time, from physics and environment interaction, to melee combat and even the awesome inventory system. I really wish more games would have at least adopted the inventory and injury system, they were really cool
The 2008 Alone in the Dark had an amazing soundtrack, super underrated.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Replies(6)Replies(1)Replies(1)
An interview with the Director of the upcoming Alone In The Dark remake / reimagining.
Neil writes: "This time last week we were telling you of the great discounts that could be found on many Xbox One and Xbox 360 games; games like Aven Colony, Far Cry 5 and Metro Exodus that we smacked with heavy discounts via the Xbox Deals With Gold and Spotlight Sale. Today though we see a new sale kick in to place, with the week of 2nd-8th June 2020 chock full of even more bargains."
ouch that bad? dang.
Well, I'll just see if Eden Games makes any improvements on the PS3 version. Atari and Eden Games already know that the game has been VERY poorly recieved, and I hope that they are smart enough not to even release the PS3 version of Alone in the Dark without some drastic improvements, and with that said, I think that the PS3 version may just be a little bit better (I hope so).
Too bad, I was looking forward to this game.