Alone in the Dark review (PC/360)

There are thousands of great ideas in the new Alone in the Dark (AITD), as it is, after all, a compelling, original, and utterly unique game. It's just a pity nobody bothered to pick up a pad and play the damn thing before releasing it.

The second you assume control you realise something's very wrong. First of all, you have the stuttering first person movement, then the ridiculous Resident Evil-style spin-on-spot movement when you switch to the third person viewpoint.

While Resident Evil had to accommodate the lack of a second controller, it made up for it by making everything else quite easy - shooting, for example, in that game is just aim and fire.

In AITD you first have to unholster your gun (press again if Carnby got the lighter out instead), switch to first person, then manually and slowly aim and fire. That's the simplest setup - and don't even ask about explosives.

Resident Irritation

Before we continue, I need to talk about the system I'm running it on. Technically, I'm running the PC version, but I'm playing it with a 360 pad. Why didn't I just review the 360 version if I'm determined to use its controller?

Because the mouse/keyboard controls are completely broken and so the game becomes utterly unplayable. Sorry PC users, but you definitely need a gamepad, preferably some form of 360 controller. At least then things change from being completely to just partially broken - playable, but only just.

Now, I know that the Alone In The Dark series is well known for being superb games mired by 'difficult' controls, but surely when making a new game in the series that should've been the first thing they fixed, not made worse!

There are just so many different things you can do in this new AITD and the developer clearly had many different cool ideas they wanted to implement (and did). Unfortunately, they did so without stopping to think about how complicated it would make the game to play.

I mean, using the right analogue stick to manually swing objects to bat the monsters, they must've been really excited to implement that.

Goodbye, boring old 'press X to attack'. Behold the new tactile, innovative attack system! Move stick to the left to hold the bat up, then quickly shift the stick right to smash that bat against a monster's face! Booyah, as I believe some people say.

Unfortunately, this is sometimes (i.e. often) hard to pull off when there's a zombie jumping at Carnby and there are dozens of knock-on effects. No right stick for camera means that left and right on the main stick makes Carnby twist slowly around, which means there's no sidestepping, which means manoeuvring him is frustrating at the best of times and hair-wrenchingly annoying at any other time.

The game also regularly skips between third and first person viewpoints, changing the control scheme with it, ladling on more frustration - which is just what you need when you're fighting off fast, vicious monsters!

Satisfaction Hill

There are plenty of people who will utterly detest Alone in the Dark for its control (and other) problems, so be warned - there's a reason why some reviews score it worse than Sniper: Art of Victory.

You just have to look at IGN, where their three branches - US, UK and AU - have scored it wildly differently. This game will divide the gaming community like few others.

So what is there to actually like in AITD? I assume you've checked the bottom of the page and seen the score, so there must be something.

Indeed, there is quite a lot to enjoy, especially if you like games that desperately try to innovate or do something different, even if it doesn't quite work out for them.

This is a proper action/adventure, equal parts excitement and puzzle-solving, and for the most part is done pretty well, if a lot more linear than previews would have us believe.

All the puzzles make sense, even if the controls and the occasional bug make them harder to solve.

Door in the way? Shoot the lock off or smash it in. A carnivorous shadow (not unlike Doctor Who's recent Vashda Nerada) with the only light (and therefore safety) coming from some hanging lamps? Shoot them so they swing back and forth, following the beam as you do so.

Solving these puzzles, especially with some (or many) monsters biting at Carnby's heels, sometimes really takes some ingenuity, but I never felt that I couldn't solve something. There's no 'find the blue key' or 'use spoon bender on giant spork', it's all quite logical and realistic, and consequently more interesting to solve.

There are many, many things to do in this game, and while most people won't try to see them all (what use is pouring an alcohol trail and then lighting it when you can just shoot enemies or hit them with a big stick?) points must be given for trying something new. Just when you think you've got the measure of this game, it turns into something wildly different.

For example, after playing through a linear action/adventure game for a few hours, it suddenly turned into a survival horror version of Grand Theft Auto, right down to the minimap.
There are a thousand things in this game which have rarely, if ever, been seen before in other, similar, games, and if they are again we will have Eden Games to thank.

Project: Higher Than Zero

The trouble is that a lot, perhaps too many, of the game's problems will overly frustrate players, like the shoddy controls, tricky combat or just not really knowing what to do or how to do it.

Before we disappear into the carnivorous shadows, however, the driving sections deserve to be addressed. Cars handle far too sensitively and turn what would have been really dramatic chase scenes (like the first one with New York being torn apart around you, cars flying overhead and dynamic choral music stirring you on) into a slog-fest, which combined with a lack of any save points make that 'Next Chapter' button too easy to press.

Oh yes, that DVD box-set design. I like that the game is designed like a TV series, although that would've made more sense if it was released episodically online. The skipping forward function though should have only been unlocked when you finish the game.

With the option available all the time, it takes away incentive to struggle through hard moments and obviously inspired the developers to make certain portions more frustrating than they needed to be. Interesting idea, but there are too many problems in its execution. Bit like the whole game really.

The Eden Games team obviously wanted to do loads of things with Alone In The Dark, without ever wondering whether they should. A bit like the atom bomb, or Jurassic Park.

They had so many great ideas, but didn't have the heart to cut out anything that just didn't work, or merely clogged up the system.

It really needed a good play through before releasing. If this had come out at Christmas I would've said it had been rushed out, but who would rush a game to come out in the summer at the same time as Metal Gear Solid 4?

Alone In The Dark will be forever seen as an ambitious but flawed experiment, but those that can cope will find enjoyment in savouring that ambition. I for one really enjoyed playing through it, more so than even Grand Theft Auto 4, despite that game's obvious superiority. Maybe there is a good game here after all.

Whoops, I clicked the 'Next Track' button again. Bloody car chase scenes.

7/10

Chris 'Alone in the Tingler' Capel