Alone In The Dark is Here
Being often times described as not just a game but an experience, Alone in the Dark from Atari resurrects Edward Carnby, the main character from the original Alone in the Dark, the original horror-survival game that existed way before Resident Evil or Silent Hill, and sends him on a thrilling and terrifying journey into the twilight fringes of New York. Recently I got the opportunity to play the newly released Xbox 360 version and here’s my thoughts.
Playing as the edgy and amnesia-hindered Carnby, who as I wakes only to find himself in the company of men who mean him harm, you get to make your way through disaster-ridden New York City toward and into Central Park unraveling mysteries along the way. One of the more interesting elements of the game is the way you keep track of your inventory of goodies. Pretty much you can keep only what you can fit in your pockets and belt, and you literally have to open your jacket and look down to see what’s there. Most of the puzzles in the game involve vanquishing the evil beings that are now the main inhabitants of Central Park, and the only way to really destroy them is to make them burn - sometimes in very novel ways.
Bar-B-Cue Anyone?
Alone in the Dark plays sort of like a television series divided into episodes with approximately 30-40 minutes of gameplay comprising each episode. This format makes Alone in the Dark appealing for an audience familiar with the hard-hitting contemporary TV dramas. It’s also good for a quick fix for those times when you don’t want to devote hours to gameplay. Of course each episode in true TV fashion finishes with a cliff-hanger to keep you coming back for more. The story is well scripted, but occasionally I ran into a few visual discrepancies especially when it came to the fire I mentioned earlier. These inconsistencies didn’t keep me from enjoying Alone in the Dark which, while it had some technical troubles, still showed ambition in both gameplay and design.
More Fire!
August 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I played the demo of this on my xbox. I thought the controls were clunky and to mechanical. The graphics were great, and I bet you could get really immersed if you gave it time. It just didn’t cut it for me though.