Published by:
Atari
Developed by: Eden Games
Available only on:
PC,
Xbox360 , PS3 , PS2, Wii
INTRO:
Alone in the Dark is back
after years in exile, and now it’s basing itself off of today’s grittier TV
dramas. Quite literally, the game is divided into episodes and each one
takes about a half an hour to play. Weird, I know. You assume of role of
Edward Camby (who looks a bit like Christian Slater in the godawful AITD
movie). As Ed, you find out you’ve been dumped in a post-apocalyptic version
of NYC and of course you have no memory of anything. Can you survive the
horror of AITD?
GAMEPLAY:
Damn, this game was so
close, so close to being good. After salivating over the hype and promises
of loveliness, this one falls just short of the mark. It does have some
promise though, for instance- you need to press a button to blink your eyes
early on in the game, which allows you to come out of your stupor. This
comes in handy later on too. Also, the game is quasi realistic and counts on
you to use its physics engine to find your way through. You’ll have to break
doors with heavy objects and even set things ablaze to clear a path.
There’s also a ton of
puzzles to solve and you often have to do it with the objects you find in your
pockets. It gets old after awhile, but it isn’t too bad. They get really tricky
after awhile and the game just won’t hold your hand as you go through. If you’re
a puzzle gamer, get ready to have some fun with this one. With that being said,
the inventory system to manage some of your stuff is really frustrating too,
barely functional, limited and very detrimental to combat situations. On top of
this, you’d better have sharp eyes because you’ll be beating your head against
the wall trying to get the damn puzzles solved.
It isn’t all fun with
games- because the camera situation is broken. You have to switch constantly to
see what’s going on, and there are two angles- neither of which is overly
functional. This gets very, very frustrating, and makes picking up items a HUGE
hassle. You’ll be dropping them and fumbling them all over the place. Don’t even
get me started on the mess-up-once-and-you-die system of the game either, the
car chase (with AWFUL driving controls) through the earthquake is so
frustrating. And bizarrely, you can just skip through it, like I said earlier
with the game’s TV show presentation.
I’m not so sure you
really want to know about the fighting either. Melee combat is terrible and
awkward, but you don’t have to worry about that much because most of the game’s
enemies die only through fire. All I can tell you is that combat is reminiscent
of old MechWarrior games, and that is just unacceptable.
Gameplay: 5/10
GRAPHICS:
Graphics here aren’t
too bad, mostly pretty average. The monsters look decent and the animations
are not too bad. The flame effects were touted by the developers and
although the gameplay function isn’t very nice, the fire looks good.
Overall, this one won’t drop your jaw but it isn’t too bad either.
Graphics: 6.5/10
AUDIO:
Sound is probably the
best part of the game, but that doesn’t say much. Sometimes sound would just
cut off when smashing enemies or doors, and the soundtrack is decent enough
but kind of got on my nerves after awhile. Voice work is decent enough.
Audio: 7/10
FINAL VERDICT:
Overall, this game is a
mess. The developers were trying to focus on the little things, but these
things end up frustrating the gamer and driving a person mad. The plot isn’t
so hot, the combat sucks and the camera and inventory systems are even
worse. How do you mess up a zombie story, really? Although the game isn’t
complete garbage, this one should have stayed in development for much longer
and ranks as just another mediocre entry in a relatively poor series.
Final Score:
5/10
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