Alone in the Dark

"This will NOT tide you over until RE5/SH5."

I'd like to point out that I'm a HUGE survival horror fan. Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Fatal Frame are 3 of the greatest series ever made, in my opinion (yours may differ). I still go back to RE2 every now and then, and I even bought a Gamecube back in the day just for the exclusive RE:0 and REmakes.

But this game is not Resident Evil. And It is not Silent Hill. But it tries SO damn hard to be up there with them. The basic premise is (something along the lines of) this:

Central Park is suddenly full of terrifying creatures that are killing everything. Your character wakes up, suffering from severe amnesia. He doesn't remember anything, or know why he is where he is, or why people seem to be after him. But he soon realizes that the power to stop the evil in Central Park is in his hands, and in his hands only.

The idea, although somewhat generic, DID have potential. Dark creepy parks with scary creatures are some of the best settings for survival horror. But this game tries too hard to do too many different things and ends up falling flat on its face. It's as if the dev. team sat down and brainstormed what sort of features should be included, came up with a huge list that, if they had done it right, could have been amazing, but then got EXTREMELY lazy and didn't bother fixing/finishing almost all of them. I tried so hard to love this game... To make it feel like it belonged on my list of survival/horror favorites, but in the end I just couldn't.


Graphics: Graphically, this game is... Pretty meh. They did a good job with the fire stuff, and being able to light random things on fire, from wooden chairs, to the ammo in your gun, is kind of cool, especially since your enemies have a pretty big weakness to it. But everything else, from the gas trails from punctured gas tanks to the fog in the park to the look of the monsters is pretty much what I would expect from a 360 launch title. The shadows and the lighting effects just don't manage to look good, and the liquid effects on your character's vision (be it from being around certain enemies, or from having acid spit in his eyes) don't even come close to what Bioshock brought to the table last year. There's also waaay too many low-res textures and too many duplicate trees/objects. The car damage is pretty poorly done, and every graphical gimmick has been done numerous times before, as if the game was developed in 2005, and then not released until now.


Gameplay: Oh boy. I'm not even sure where to start on this bit. Lets start with the good, which, sadly, is a much shorter list than the bad.

The inventory system is one of the most unique features of the game, and one of the few things the developers got right. It gives you just enough space to keep you feeling a TINY bit secure, but leaves items somewhat rare enough (save for a few places) to make you wonder just how much you can use. That said, I never felt like I was running low on ammo, and I was pretty trigger-happy through the game. Then there are the parts where you can't seem to find the ONE item you need to make a particular combination (more on this in a sec), which can be frustrating.

Speaking of combinations, one of the other cool things you can do is combine items to make better ones. Got a bottle of booze and some bandages? Slap them together to make a molotov cocktail. Need your bullets to pack an extra punch? Douse them in alcohol to turn them into flaming projectiles that take advantage of your enemy's weakness. But some combinations are pretty lame. It seems the team wanted to give you numerous possibilities to dispatch your enemies, but more often than not you'll find yourself just toasting them instead of messing with double-sided tape and blood bags (I don't even know why blood bags are in the game). There will be times when you'll need to think of what kind of combinations you need to put together to best pass the puzzle you've come to, and USUALLY (there ARE exceptions), it'll make it pretty clear based on the items you'll find in your immediate surroundings.

Combinations and inventory aside, here comes the bad.

First and foremost, DRIVING. My god, I've never sworn at my TV as much with ANY other game as I did with this one. The cars will get stuck on ANYTHING the size of your thumb or bigger. Bump into the curb while cruising down the road, and you'll suddenly come to a screeching halt and get severely injured as if you just went head on into a brick wall. There are also a couple missions where driving from Point A to Point B QUICKLY are NECESSARY, and those parts of the game are some of the most frustrating. I could forgive touchy handling around bumpy surfaces... If I wasn't driving through a PARK which is primarily grassy hills, but also a park that is TEARING ITSELF APART. There's rubble everywhere, and as a result, driving is more of a chore than anything. It doesn't help that the cars handle about as smoothly as a brick on ice. Then there's also the fact that when you're driving around in the park, there are giant openings in the ground that will block your route, and you'll have to go around them. Doing so requires, almost always, to go off road... Unless you like backtracking for 10 minutes on the road.

Then there are the enemies around WHILE you're driving that will stick to the roof of your car like glue (and they'll jump perfectly onto it from 50 yards away sometimes), no matter what you do to shake them off. Even after an intentional head on collision with a tree, he's still standing up there, punching me. And I can't shoot him or anything. Overall, the driving is a HUGE failure in this game.

Speaking of enemies, while initially they can be intimidating, you soon learn how easy ALL of them are to kill, and it too becomes a chore. You'll find yourself just running past a group instead of actually dispatching them unless it's actually necessary.

They also failed to be scary, especially with the names they've got. Ratz? Vampirz? Why did they pick a 12 year old to name them? I think I jumped more when my character's cell phone rang in game than I did at any of the "jumpy" moments.

Then there's the scripted elements, of which there's TOO MANY. By scripted, I mean those things that happen to the environment EVERY TIME you play through with NO variety. There's a part early on when a car flies up about 10 stories and if you don't move, takes you out. The first time, I thought it was awesome as hell. The 6th time it was incredibly boring. And the same goes for all the other scripted events, which usually only happens in places where you die a lot. So eventually, you find yourself just memorizing the routine of these events and working around them. It's boring. Not fun. The scripted events aren't the only repetition. You'll be hot wiring a lot of cars. You'll be burning a lot of harmless enemies. You'll be running through the same looking giant park for several hours relying almost strictly on your map to make sure you aren't going in circles.

The actual controls for moving around are also pretty clunky. Even at the end of the game I found myself pressing the wrong buttons because I couldn't remember all the control layouts. But this problem pales in comparison to the other issues. While initially the idea of having a button to BLINK seemed silly, it all makes sense towards the latter half of the game, and I guess the devs just had to make due with the few buttons the 360 controller has.

Despite all that, if you've got some patience and don't normally throw controllers or have fits of rage caused by video games, this game CAN bring you some (minimal) enjoyment. The puzzles are basic enough for you to figure them out with a little trial and error, which is nice, especially if you're used to the likes of Silent Hill puzzles on Hard difficulty.

The game also gives you enough checkpoints so that you don't have to retrace TOO much whenever you die, which is nice. The game would probably have gotten a 5 or a 4 if it weren't for this bit alone.

There's also an odd feature (I think it's dumb, but you can ignore it if you wish) that allows you to skip through sections of the game and jump forward, whether you're stuck, or just want to see how the game ends. They compare it to a DVD chapter select, and rightfully so. You literally skip through the chapters of the game as you see fit. If you use it you won't get certain achievements, though.

And in regards to that, this game hands out achievements like candy on Halloween. I only had the game for 4 days, and got all but 4 of them, so for you gamer points people, this is an easy 1,000.


Story: Like I mentioned earlier, the story is pretty basic. Amnesia, some weird stone, and all the answers are locked away in you. I honestly have to admit, I stopped caring when I found out how old my character was. It doesn't help that the end is so abrupt that I honestly couldn't even believe it was over when it ended. It just didn't make sense... All that hard work for... what? The game tries to motivate you to play through again by giving you the choice of 2 different endings, but with that chapter select function, it's not very motivational to play all the way through a 2nd time. And unfortunately, neither ending makes much sense.


Overall, this game tries too hard to be too many things at once, and as a result, it ends up being a huge disappointment. At this point, it's most DEFINITELY not worth a purchase... In fact, it probably never will be. Rent it if you must (or if you like getting GP), but you'll have to be extremely patient with it to avoid smashing something. Fortunately, it's a short game and will only take up 10-12 hours of your time (if you die as much as I did, which was a lot). Until RE5/SH5 come out, stick to playing through the older games in those series for your survival/horror fix. This game just doesn't cut it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/08

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