Alone in the Dark ^{(Xbox 360)}

Genre: Adventure Publisher: Atari Developer: Eden Studios Players: 1

By Keith B (14th Jul 2008)

Alone in the Dark was a cult hit on the PC, PS One and Dreamcast, providing a Sherlock Holmes-like experience in the 1930s, where Edward Carnby battled evil. It's 2008 and Alone in the Dark is back.

There is certainly a market out there for people who like their puzzle games, and those that like to solve mysteries. Just the other day I was speaking to a friend who I completed the absolutely superb Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within with, and it was funny how much of not only the game but the specific dialogue we remembered. That’s because it provided an experience that still lives on. And Alone in the Dark can do that too, if you can get around the absolutely shocking control system. Just like the original then.

Because the game is dependent on the plot to keep you hooked it’s hard to discuss it openly, but this is the basic gist: Edward wakes up in a hotel room and he’s been beaten to a pulp, and there are people in the room that are planning on killing Edward. On the way to the roof of the hotel a strange wall monster appears and destroys your captor, so you set off on your own, trying to get out of the building. Once you do, you’re in Central Park, and this is the main focus of the game. Central Park has a secret, and Edward must uncover it and put a stop to it, although he doesn’t know what ‘it’ is. He will soon enough.

The entire opening sequence, from running around the halls battling fire (more on that in a moment) to swinging on ropes across the facade of the building with burning pieces of masonry falling past you, is one of the most thrilling I’ve played in a long time, with ‘Jesus Christ’ being uttered more than once as I clung to an electricity cable, blowing in the breeze 24 floors above the ground. B ut it’s not only the action that resonates, it’s the professionalism with which the developers took to the task. There are plenty of clips that could have come from the mind of a movie director, and each time you load a game it recounts what you’ve done in a ‘Previously, on Alone in the Dark...’ flashback. Even these are done well, with segments of the game edited in different ways depending on how far into the game you are. It looks excellent throughout, absolutely.

As Edward travels through Central Park and its associated buildings, he’ll pick up all manner of items which leads to the next innovative piece of play, your inventory. Again, in an effort to blend your inventory work into the gameplay, your inventory is the inside pockets of your jacket. Jabbing up on the directional pad makes Edward swing his coat open giving you a top down view of what you’re carrying. But the big feature is being able to combine items to create new and effective weapons. For example, the denizens of Central Park need to be finished off with fire (you can beat their heads in with all manner of objects, from chairs and planks to pipes and swords, but they must be finished with fire), so Ed can pick up a bottle of booze (there are so many bottles scattered around the park that it must have been the location of a whisky rave or something), stick a handkerchief or bandage in the next to make a wick, then light it a lob it at the enemies. The fire itself is very well done, visually and technically. Fire spreads, burning up doors and furniture, and often you use this to your advantage.

The inventory management is an interesting feature although many items are redundant and you only really need two or three items at any time.

But all is not perfect in Alone in the Dark, because some critical aspects will test even the most ardent fan’s patience.

First off, the controls are pathetic. Yes, pathetic. The default camera is third person but you can only move is a little each way, so essentially isometric. When in third person, the entire movement of Edward is handled with the left thumbstick. Yes, just the left. You can jump into first person with a click of the Y button and now you’re in familiar territory, with left thumbstick used to move Ed and the right to rotate him. But in this mode the run button is A, meaning it’s hard to steer Ed with your right thumb when it’s being used to make you run.

Next up is the driving sequences, which are initially visually exhilarating, but quickly become more like the thing that will make you put your controller through the TV. First off, many of the driving sections (I think there are four) are against the clock so no dilly dallying. Fine. But bearing in mind that we’re driving across a park most of the time, on grass and clay, then I’d like it explained to me how the game came out with driving sections that feel more like driving on steel than grass. As pieces fall off your car as to skittle across the lawn is screams of inattention to detail. If you’re going to make players drive, then ensure the driving isn’t the game’s Achilles heel.
About three quarters through the game, you come across a certain type of organism which you must obliterate with fire. The first time you encounter them, you must kill enough to get a power bar up to 30%. That takes an hour or so, running around looking for bottles of booze and stuff. The next time you have to go burning them, you have to get to 75%. That’s all still pretty acceptable, except for the fact that getting to the things take ages (they’re spread out across the entire park) and throw in the dodgy load/save function and all the fun vanishes. For example, to get through a locked metal door you have to combine a booze bottle with a box of bullets to make an Extra Pack Bomb, which you lob at the door and shoot. The you go in, get Edward killed and it loads up again, except the bullets and bottle you used to make the bomb are still gone, meaning you now have to run all over Central Park looking for more bottles and bullets. It’s an incredibly frustrating experience and so out of whack with the rest of the game that, again, you wonder about the decision process that included it.

But all in all, despite the utterly frustrating movement, repeating driving sequences 15 times, the constant scavenging for items, I actually really enjoyed Alone in the Dark. It’s interesting, has a great storyline and plot and manages to tip the hat to the original while still forging a new path. Just technically flawed.