Alone In The Dark

My first exposure to the Alone in the Dark series was back on the original Playstation with the Curse of One Eyed Jack or some lame subtitle like that. It was a horrid game that I could barely advance in but back then I didn't have a guide or anything to help me with it.

Next came The New Nightmare on the PS1 as well. I thought the game was slightly better than that original one but ultimately it was still a steaming pile of crap. Over shadowed by the awesomeness that is Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

I will admit to being excited over this new title.This new generation of gaming has been lackluster when it comes to the survival horror genre. I think Dead Rising is the only game to even fit the genre thus far. But thankfully we have this disjointed turd from Atari so we now have two whole survival horror games.

Alone in the Dark tries so damn hard to be good and different and just a master piece. It's faults lie in the fact that it's too ambitious for its own good. Instead of allowing the player to immerse themselves into this awesome world we are forced to do mundane tasks with our equipment to solve mediocre puzzle.

Not until around chapter 3 will this really kick in but it's so boring to hunt for some tape, a bottle, a clothe and some bullets to create a Molotov cocktail to blow up a wall to advance. Yes, it's a great idea but do we really have to make it so tedious and really, what are the chances of finding all o those in a storage room in a sewer?

That isn't the only thing that the game tries but fails at. The combat is done via the right analog stick. Anyone who has read any of my reviews knows how much I hate this. Granted, it isn't too bad in this game and it opens up some variety in how to take the enemies down but we also need to use it to solve a puzzle so it really sucks that you need to use a pipe to hit a wire out of the water and it just isn't catching correctly.

The biggest flaw in the combat is that to kill the vamps or humanz you need to use fire or knock them off a ledge. So you can waste a ton of bullets to open up a wound to attack with fire or to even knock them down. You can combine flammable liquid with a bullet to make fire bullets but it takes a few shots still to hit the fissure in the enemy and light them up. So even that is glitchy.

The entire game is a glitchy mess though. The driving segment, which are some of the worst in a video game to date, are full of annoying glitches. Rules are ignored that are told to you in chapter 4, in chapter 2 I would constantly get stuck on objects or the games physics would work against me or the game would just stutter along as it couldn't handle this totally awesome segment that is ruined by sloppy and loose controls and bad programming.

Story wise the game falls into the cliched amnesia plot line. Fine but we know who the main character is. Why should be pretend to know nothing for the first 4 chapters and while the twist is nice around that point, I just couldn't feel bothered to deal with rest of the game. This is also the first game I've ever played where I could skip to anywhere but the final 3 areas from the start and without a cheat device. Kind of silly really.

Even the graphics are a let down. Our hero looks kind of ugly and resembles the guy from Prey. The locations, while awesome (it's New York based) they also lack some details. Animations are good thought but the frame rate drops at times and things do look a bit generic as well.

What makes this even more annoying is that the atmosphere is totally here. The music is so fitting and awesome, some of the best I've heard in a while and everything else in the game seems to be working against it.

A quote from the film "Brokeback Mountain" was stuck in my head while playing this game "I can't quit you". It's funny but despite all of the blatant flaws and game play issues I wanted to play because it would get something almost right and it was damn cool. Hell, I even considered buying it now from gamefly but in the end I couldn't bring myself to finish the game, let alone by it. The flaws really out weighed it in the end and it's a shame because it could have been good and frankly it should have been because the market is dead and in need of some love for this genre and us fans have gotten the shaft yet again.

So maybe we can be happy with the up coming Sire episodes on the PS Network or Resident Evil 5 on Friday the 13th of 2009. For now we have Alone in the Dark and while a rental or bargain price would seem fair, just be warned that it is full of flaws and tough to really love.

Story - 6/10
Graphics - 6/10
Control - 6/10
Sound - 8/10
Game Play - 6/10
Replay Value - 2/10

Final Score - 5/10