Alone in the Dark

"The Worst Game I've Played All Year"

Frankly, I don't know how to describe just how horrible this game actually is. This is the sort of game that requires a person to experience to truley grasp the overwhelming dreariness of it. It would almost appear that Atari even knew this, as they offer a DVD Chapter style menu that allows you to skip around parts of the game without even HAVING TO PLAY THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.

Sigh. Yes, it appears even Atari had the foresight to see just how little anyone would want to play this game. Unfortunately, they overestimated just how interesting the story is. There is a ban on presenting spoilers in your review, but luckily enough for any potential readers, I couldn't reveal any plot points to you if I tried because I have no idea what this convoluted travesty of a plot is SUPPOSED to be about. But several stellar games contained less-than-stellar plots, so what is it that makes this particular offering so lugubrious? Read on.

Graphics: 4/10
Certainly, I wasn't expecting it to be in the same league as the X-Box 360 version, but if Final Fantasy XII and the God of War franchise has shown us anything, it's that the PS2 hardware is capable of producing vibrant, detailed characters and backgrounds. Compare the cinematic sequence when Kratos first encounters Gaia or the majesty of the opening battles in FFXII. These are movie quality moments. What AitD gives us are blocky, polygonal characters racing blindly around drab, uninspired environments. The first portion of the game is spent running around a building in which every room looks remarkably similar until you reach a parking lot which provides an even more of the same until you finally reach Central Park which is... well, drab and grey. Perhaps this was meant to fill the player with a sense of unease and dread, which admittedly it did, but not at all in the right way. There are no bright spots, but fortunately, the graphics manage to stay just this side of mediocre, very rarely meandering into godawful territory.

Controls: 1/10
This is where AitD fails the most. To whit, in the immediate beginning of the game, before encountering ANY enemies or real dangers, I died a whopping 13 times simply trying to get my character to climb down a rope. In fact, nearly all deaths in AitD were the result of poor controls. While enemies usually provided little-to-no challenge (aside from the clunky inventory system, but more on that later) climbing scaffolding or putting out fires certainly did. Movement was an unwelcome throwback to the days of a 2D control scheme against prerendered backgrounds a la early Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. Also, in addition to be amnesiatic, the main character would also appear to be Bipolar, as while at one time you may be able to pick up an object and swing it to break open doors or attack enemies, inexplicably, a moment later that ability would be gone, as though he had given up all hope of escaping this nightmare... preferably, one might think, into a better game.

Sound: 3/10
One of the staples of Survival Horror is the *bump* in the dark. The low moan of the undead or the clacking of some horrific beast's claws just beyond your view. It is the single most important aspect of the atmosphere. Enemies in AitD do not make menacing noise so much as they make racket. They spin in circles and wander aimlessly until they're given the business end of a piece of furniture or a bullet to the skull. But even their cacophony of ill-fitting grunts is a welcome respite to the grating and irritating voice acting. The voice acting comes across as if read for a part in a rather vulgar high school play. And I do mean vulgar: Four letter words pepper the aural landscape like weeds, Rather than set the tone of a mature game, it only reinforces how desperately the programmers must have been looking for any sort of gimmick.

Gameplay: 2/10
There is a reason why in television and movies fights are dramatized: Because real fights are boring. Think back to when you were in grade school, watching two playground rivals get into it. A few words might be exchanged until it came to awkward blows and then, in a matter of seconds, it degenerated into rolling around on the ground, grabbing at each other shouting ridiculous obscenities that would be hilarious in any other context. The combat in AitD is similarly flawed, as the quest for realism as actually DETRACTED from the gameplay. Take for instance the flawed inventory system, which requires you to open your jacket with the SELECT button and then search through your pockets through a free-look interface. This, sadly, is how you spend the bulk of your time in the later portion of the game, fumbling in your pockets for the right items to mix and match while enemies hammer away at you because you're only able to search in real time. That's right: The action doesn't stop just because YOU have to. And using a firearm? You'd better have a lifetime NRA membership, because with no auto aim feature and a first-person shooting mode that involves little more than a double-sight alignment minus the apparently superfluous "sight" portion means it boils down to little more than firing wildly and hoping to the sweet gods of video gamedom that you hit SOMETHING. Yes, it this case, there is indeed such a thing as too much realism. But these complaints, of course, only apply to fighting enemies, which is perhaps a bit unfair considering the bulk of the game is spent wandering in circles attempting to figure out your next move because the awkward control scheme makes the obvious solutions seem impossible.

In all, there is very little to love about Alone in the Dark. The only thing preventing me from rating this game a 1 is that it is a COMPETENT effort. There are no major glitches to speak of, and on occasion, you're given glimpses of what the graphical engine could be capable of if only the programmers had tried. If you're really jonesing for your next survival horror fix, but can't quite afford to jump to the next gen systems yet, then do yourself a favor and pass over this travesty and purchase Silent Hill: Origins instead. It's not a perfect game, either, but it has a better price point, is much more fun to play, and most importantly, is genuinely creepy.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/08

Game Release: Alone in the Dark (US, 06/23/08)