User Review : Alone in the Dark

You haters out there suck!

Up until a few months ago, the only horror series I was interested in was Resident Evil. I barely noticed that the other ones existed until I randomly picked up a game to rent that would later be known as Manhunt 2 (Wii, see my review). When I saw the low review scores, I knew I would have to rent this game (and I was looking forward to this game, too). As it turns out, Alone in the Dark is a much better game than people are giving credit for.

Storyline
The storyline of Alone in the Dark takes place in modern-day New York City, mostly inside Central Park (If I did my research correctly the original Alone in the Dark took place there, too.) Everything has gone insane. Fissures and Earthquakes are everywhere, it's like the Apocalypse! You play as Edward Carnby, a man who has amnesia, and can't remember anything before that crazy night. He does know, however, that he must survive. And he must do whatever it takes to survive the Chaos in New York and find out who's behind this mess.

Gameplay
I've never played any of the old Alone in the Darks on PC, but everyone says that it invented the Survival Horror genre in 1992 (*cough* *cough* Friday the 13th, *cough* 1988 *cough*). As such, I can't compare the new one to the old ones. But as far as this game goes, it's the best Survival Horror game I've played since Resident Evil 4 over 3 years ago.

Alone in the Dark mostly focuses on action and horror at the same time (Like Resident Evil 4). It's a very intense game. There's always some suprise around every corner to either give you thrills or fear (and, at many times, both). Whether you're driving as fast as you can to avoid certain death (there's 2 levels that have this) or trying to solve a clever puzzle (The puzzles do a good job of challenging you without being too frustrating or unfair), I didn't, no, I couldn't stop playing until the very last level (there's multiple endings, by the way)

Alone in the Dark has some great game mechanics as well. It really focuses on the "Survival" part of "Survival Horror". You only get one gun (and you can only hold 5 clips, or 50 bullets, maximum). The rest are either weapons that you find (you can pick up things and beat enemies with them) or weapons that you can make (combine a Lighter that lights up areas and an alchohol spray that's supposed to heal your wounds and what do you get? Fire!). So what does this mean? Basically, it means that the Environment and Chemistry are your 2 best weapons (I found myself rarely using my gun, except after I threw a can of Flammable liquid.). Also, the game uses no text whatsoever (aside from subtitles). To tell how much life you have left, you must check your wounds and heal them instead of a life bar. You press a button to look at how many bullets left are in your gun instead of a number just telling you, and so on. As such, the in-game screen is completely free of clutter, which proves to be a great thing in the long run.

Alone in the Dark also has a unique structure that's similar to a TV show. The game is divided into 10 episodes with either 3 or 4 levels in each one (there's 37 levels in all). Each episode has between 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay in all, which makes it easily playable in short time periods. Also, if you select an episode in the Chapters menu (I have a problem with the Chapters menu. More on that later), you'll get a cutscene showing what happened in the last episode (It helps you remember where you were at before you quit playing). Likewise, if you quit the game, the title screen will feature a cutscene that shows a little bit of what's happening in the next episode (Obviously an effort to keep you playing). Overall, the structure works pretty well, along with all other aspects of Gameplay.

There are some bad parts to the Gameplay as well. While the idea of dividing the game into episodes was genious, I don't like teh way the chapters menu works. You can basically pick any area of the game to start at, which means 2 things.

1. You'll never get stuck

2. You can go straight to the end and beat it.

This is the worst problem with the Gameplay. Also, there's some Inventory items you never have to use (You never can call anybody on Your Cell Phone. And there's one item in your inventory that doesn't do anything at all!). The AI is a little slow sometimes, also. Nothing major. Just little annoyances.

Graphics/Sound
As far as Graphics go, this game is probably one of the best looking PS2 games todate. It's detailed and polished to near perfection. And while the cinematic cutscenes aren't all that amazing, it's still very good. To give the Graphics any lower than an 8 would be a complete injustice (for the PS2 version anyway. I can't speak for the Wii/360 versions...yet).

If there's one problem with this game, then it's the soundwork. The music is great. But the voice acting can be subpar at times.

I don't know what you people are all complaining about! Alone in the Dark is a great game that's only $40 on PS2! I can't speak for the other 2 versions, but as far as the PS2 goes, buy it! Encourage a sequel! :)