I can still remember playing the original Alone in the Dark on my PC some fifteen years ago. Alone in the Dark was the innovator of what people now call the survival horror genre; get to the end of the game alive, with plenty of scares along the way. This new entry into the Alone in the Dark series does not fail to deliver that sense of survive and scare… on most counts.
Alone in the Dark has you playing the part of a grizzled old Edward Carnby. Yes the same Edward Carnby you played in the original title. You start the game in a drugged stupor and quickly learn of your perilous position in a situation you know nothing about due to your amnesia. Yes, amnesia. As cliché as an amnesiatic plot usually is, it actually makes sense in Alone in the Dark. If you are familiar with the series, you’ll immediately understand why. And no, I won’t spoil it for you.
As the opening chapter plays out you’ll experience why I loved playing through Alone in the Dark so much, and why I pressed on despite the problems. The action in the various chapters plays out like a box office blockbuster. Not five minutes after the game starts, you’ll be clinging to life trying to escape a New York high rise that is collapsing all around you. The scenes play out like a dramatic cinematic sequence, but this time you are in full control of your character as the action happens around you. Seriously, the opening of this game should be experienced first-hand by any gamer worth their mettle; I was truly in awe. Combine the action with the epic musical score and you’ll see why parts of this game are jaw-dropping.
Outside of the opening chapter, the game takes place in New York City’s Central Park. A series of fissures spring up out of no where, trapping whoever was unlucky enough to be out for a jog. Slowly the story will begin to piece itself together, and you will learn just why Central Park is so important in this game’s story and why demons have made it their home.
It seems that Alone in the Dark’s developers, Eden Studios, tried to do everything in this game differently. Not only is the game peppered with huge “OMG” cinematic moments, but things like hot-wiring an abandoned car or accessing your inventory are all done within gameplay. In the former, you’ll actually see your hands rip open the console and tear the wires out bringing you to a small mini-game, and assessing your inventory has Edward look down in a first person view into his coat. You have a finite amount of space, and inventory access doesn’t pause the action leading to some tense scenes.
You’ll be spending a lot of time looking in your coat as every puzzle in the game can be solved with an item, usually one that you’ve concocted by combining others. Need to clear out a room of skittering pests? Combine a liquor bottle with a rag to make a Molotov cocktail. Add some double-sided tape to make a sticky bomb, or simply grab a can of bug spray and your lighter to set your foes ablaze the good old fashioned way. The innovation of building your solutions is sadly held back by the fact that you’ll find the ingredients to nearly every puzzle’s solution right by where you’ll get stuck.
Fire, another of Alone in the Dark’s innovations, is a major part of the game. Not only will you use fire or explosives to solve nearly every puzzle or kill all enemies, but you’ll find that wooden objects in the environment will realistically burn and spread fire to other objects. The way the fire burns and spreads in this game is very impressive. Unfortunately since fire is the solution to nearly every problem, you’ll quickly grow tired of making it. I mean, pouring gas or alcohol on your bullets to make … fire bullets … isn’t as cool the hundredth time you have to do it.
Controlling the action was ofttimes more of a chore then it needed to be. Some parts of the game will play out in a first-person view while others will be in third-person. Others can be played in either mode. Little things like running felt quicker in first-person mode, but other actions had to be completed in third-person. It’s this type of schizophrenic game deign that plagued the game up until it’s end. I’m not sure why issues like this weren’t picked up in Quality Assurance. In this day and age there should be enough testing done to smooth out issues like this; there is no excuse.
I was loving this game up until the last few chapters. For some inexplicable reason the game switches from an action shooter into a big MMO-like kill/fetch quest. The action of the game stops hard as you are tasked with destroying enough “Roots of Evil” to get your psyche meter to a particular level. This psyche meter, for some reason, shows up on your map and feels very bolted on. In fact it’s only explained to you near the end of the game, so it’s a confusing experience that feels unnecessary.
I couldn’t help but feel that the developers got to the end of the game and found that they had to add a couple hours to the play time. “Destroy X number of Y” quests are never fun, and seriously have no place in an action game. Quests like this are the exact opposite of “action” and are the reason why I nearly stopped playing. The negligible payoff of the confusing and short ending cinematic was not enough to make me forget how many roots I had to kill.
Please devs, no more fetch quests. I beg of you.
Despite it’s short comings, I quite enjoyed my play through Alone in the Dark. Although it was trying to be the jack of all trades and the master of none, there were enough good parts to make me want to keep on going. I’m hoping that the next installment of the Alone in the Dark franchise will capitalize on the good parts and clean up the control and pacing issues.
Alone in the Dark sadly didn’t turn out to be as good of a game as I’m sure the developers hoped, but it’s still one hell of a ride that should at least be rented.
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