Comments: 4 Comments (Go to Comments)
Categories: Commentary
Tags: alone in the dark, horror, xbox 360
I stopped playing Alone in the Dark midway through the 3rd of its 8 episodes. I was tired of being killed by black sludge. I was tired of sitting through the cinematic which preceded me getting killed by the black sludge. I was tired of Alone in the Dark.
Alone in the Dark tries to present a cinematic experience down to a DVD-style menu where players can jump between episodes. However the player isn’t the main character in the movie – the player is the actor filming it. There are endless retakes, poor direction so you miss your marks and cues, and a sense of ennui knowing that the budget went to the special effects, not the writing.
Alone in the Dark starts with a blinking minigame so the player can clear main character Edward Carnby’s vision to see that he is being held captive in a crappy apartment. It doesn’t take long before the baddies are sucked into the wall by evil cracks and the building is simultaneously collapsing and catching on fire. Escape seems like the best idea, but Carnby chooses to become a firefighter, grabbing a fire extinguisher and rescuing fellow inhabitants.
This lead to a sequence where I kept instantly dying for no apparent reason. My wife checked a walkthrough and discovered that I needed to stand a bit more to the left.
At some point the episode ended and the driving level began. Edward has to drive from the mostly collapsed/incinerated evilly building to Central Park. While he’s doing this the world is blowing up around him. The road buckles and cracks, buildings collapse onto the roadway, cars on fire drive at him head on.
The driving level is like trying to sing the National Anthem while getting repeatedly kicked in the nuts and having to restart if you miss a note.
I finally made it to Central Park earning the 10 Mile Race Achievement because of the number of times I had to restart.
In Central Park you get a really good feeling for how the innovative and unwieldy inventory mechanic works. Everything Carnby collects goes into one of the many pockets inside his trenchcoat. Because Ratz, Humanz, and other poorly spelled creaturez are susceptible to fire, Carnby constructs homemade bombs and other devices to kill them. Grab a bottle filled with something explody, wrap tape around it, and you’ve made a sticky bomb. It’s a legitimately fun concept ruined by poor inventory management and crappy navigation. While it should be easy to pull something out of your pocket, Carnby is reliably spastic. At some point I realized I just couldn’t grab the goddamn batteries.
Which brings me to my last complaint about Alone in the Dark. Of the many ill-advised gaming clichés AitD embraces, the one that bugged me the most was the short battery life on the flashlight. Flashlight battery life is measured in hours, not minutes.
Because I didn’t come close to completing the game, this isn’t a review. Based on what I saw though, this is in the 2-star range.
Lou Chou:
lol. I got this from GameFly and without even bothering to play it I sent it back.
do you ever hear so many scathing comments on a game that speak so directly to you as a gamer that it puts you off that game almost entirely? that’s what happened with Alone in the Dark.
Terry:
Funny. This was a GameFly for me too and when it took longer than normal for them to receive it I was worried I’d have to pay for this piece of crap.
The other funny thing was watching the “Keep It” price plummet during the three weeks I had this out.
Silvercube:
Lol, some people did like the game though.
I was not much of a fan, but a few of my friends loved the game :)
bs angel:
Wow. Sounds like an absolutely delightful game. I’ll be sure to not check it out. I find unfriendly and awkward controls to be a deal breaker with finishing a game so I would definitely shelve this one early on as you did.