Alone In The Dark: The New Nightmare Preview

Back in 1991, before the PlayStation and Resident Evil were on the scene there was only one survival horror game, mainly because it was the only one, but for PC owners Alone in the Dark was a revolution. Admittedly Edward Carnby's somewhat angular adventuring may appear a tad dated today, but the combination of polygonal characters on the pre-rendered backgrounds allowed for an intense cinematic experience. The last Alone in the Dark game appeared in 1994, now six years later Infogrames are releasing the fourth in the series, courtesy of DarkWorks.<br><br>The fourth installation brings Edward Carnby out of hibernation and is set to cause a big an impact as when the original came out all those years ago. Technologically it may look similar to the Resident Evil series, keeping to the formula of pre-rendered backgrounds with the characters overlaid. One major addition to this technique is the use of light and the ability for torches and lights to change the lighting of a scene in 'real-time'. This trick is quite clever and involves using a 3D mesh of the background which defines the objects, and then using different versions of the backgrounds all with different lighting levels. The overall effect is very impressive, especially on the PlayStation version.<br><br>DarkWorks are understandably keeping a very tight lid on the plot specifics, all that is know at the moment is that Charles Fisk, a friend of Edward Carnby, has mysteriously died whilst searching for stone tablets on an island. Carnby goes to find his friend and on the island he encounters a mansion that has a few skeletons in it's closet... What is quite interesting is the way that the island on which the game is set seems to play a large role in the game, with DarkWorks describing it almost being a character in it's own right. There is of course a terrible secret behind everything, but there are no clues as to what this could be.<br><br>Gameplay wise this will be a similar affair to it's predecessors, mixing combat and puzzle solving, thankfully it seems that the puzzles will be logical, basically a bit more realistic than in adventure games of yore. Combat will be kept interesting by the fact that many a different beast will be encountered, each requiring a different technique to defeat it. Some monsters can be scared with your torch, others will of course not be so easily despatched. DarkWorks are aiming to provide many types of creature that will hinder your progress, and all of them exude imagination and character, albeit a rather scary character...<br><br>The game is shaping up well on all formats, the PlayStation, Dreamcast and PC, the latter two benefiting from higher detailed characters, but all looking spectacular on their given format. Alone in the Dark 4 has a lot to live up to, but things look to be going well, and Edward Carnby looks like he could regain his crown as the king of survival horror.</P>