Alone In The Dark Review

It's been quite a while since we last got to experience what its like to be Alone in the Dark. The debutant series in the now Japanese-centric survival horror genre has long taken a back seat to the likes of Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and even Forbidden Siren and Project Zero, but seven years since the last instalment, it's back.

TVG first got a brief glimpse at what developer Eden Games had in mind back at E3 2006, where the Montpelier-based outfit aimed to blow apart the traditional corridor-based environments of the genre. It was an impressive vision, one reinforced at last year's Leipzig Game Convention, where Atari showed off some of the gameplay features (which have recently turned up in a series of tech demo trailers). After several delays however, Edward Carnby and Alone in the Dark finally gets its release, enabling TVG to take a walk through Central Park after dusk...

Previously, On Alone In The Dark.

If there's one word that describes what Eden Games has tried to mould throughout every bit of Alone in the Dark, it's ambition. Not content with just rebooting the decade-old franchise, Atari's lone internal studio has implemented a number of features that it hopes will reinvigorate the genre, giving the publisher a big hit in the process.

First up is its actual structure. In an age where TV viewers are glued to their screen to discover exactly why there's a polar bear on a tropical island inhabited by 'The Others', and how Jack Bauer gets through 24 hours without a toilet break, Alone in the Dark's episodic structure taps into the 'weekly cliff-hanger' wholeheartedly. Breaking down the events of Edward Carnby's supernatural walk through Manhattan's Central Park into bite-sized episodes is a solidly executed feature, drip-feeding players with bits of storyline as the game progresses and adding a 'Previously, on Alone in the Dark' sequence to remind returning players of the events so far. Not that we'll drop any key spoilers here.

The ability to skip entire sequences within episodes like a DVD is also a neat feature, which Atari hopes will enable most players (regardless of their skill) to complete the game. The final chapter is locked until a certain number of sequences are completed however, so at least gamers of a certain cheating persuasion won't be able to view the conclusion without making the effort. Perhaps we're being a tad cynical here, but perhaps the DVD set up was also added to enable gamers to skip some of the more frustrating elements? It's not the first time that we've seen an episodic structure in a game this year however, but Alone in the Dark's functionality is far more developed than Ubisoft's take on Lost.

Eagerly-anticipating players will no doubt have seen the series of tech demos release by Atari in recent weeks, showing off 'Dark's' environmental interaction and comprehensive inventory system. It's a fairly intuitive system, based largely on the real-world, enabling flames to propagate from one flammable surface to the next, and doors to be broken through with heavy objects. It allows first aid sprays to be used as they were supposed to, or (in tandem with the cigarette lighter) as makeshift flamethrowers. Guns on their own, for instance, are pretty useless against the Park's supernatural forces, but pour some flammable liquid over the bullets and they'll be far more potent.

The system also allows for very open tactical decisions. For instance, do you corner some enemies with a wall of fire caused by some lit flammable liquid or bash their heads in with a sledgehammer? Or should you just set the sledgehammer shaft alight and use that to confuse and kill in a single blow? Containers full of liquid can also be pierced, and can be used to attract the attention of enemies looking for their next meal (if it's a blood pack) or blown up to take down a number of undead creatures in a cloud of fire. This solid system acts surprisingly well, giving players multiple choices to go forward, even in a largely linear experience.

The addition of real world interactions in Alone in the Dark is a major part of the game, though Eden has been quick to add several other details that drive further depth. The ability to switch between first and third-person perspectives is a blessing that avoids complaints over awkward camera design, whilst Edward's ability to blink his eyes helps clear the poison or blood that's spat in his face throughout the adventure. Blinking also becomes a key feature later in the game, as his powers of 'Spectral Vision' grow; enemy fissures (their weak points) become highlighted for instance, and hidden symbols are revealed - a point that helps slow down the otherwise decent pace of the gameplay to a virtual halt.

A Walk In The Park.

For all its raw ambition and multiple original features, Alone in the Dark is very much a rough diamond. Considering that Eden's previous release was Test Drive Unlimited, the driving sequences feel weak and underwhelming. Sure, the vehicles are sprinkled with a number of touches like the ability to hot-wire the engine, but the handling just removes the immersion. They're not the unmitigated disasters as described by some, but they're certainly one of the weaker elements of the Alone in the Dark experience, especially with the appearance of some random 'bouncing' glitches. The appearance of black slime, which devours any poor soul that steps into it, is also somewhat frustrating. Like any supernatural force, the slime is scared of fire or light, giving players the chance to use glowsticks, flaming furniture, or just a regular torch to get by. It sounds very simple, but when the slime finds a dark corner or sneaks up behind Carnby, it's all too easy to find Edward sink into the blackness. Cue another attempt, and an increased level of frustration.

That said, at times Alone in the Dark offers some really tense sequences, helped in no small part by Olivier Deriviere's haunting score. Clambering up the side of a fissure as a crashed helicopter gets closer to the edge of the cliff would be tense in any game, but in Alone in the Dark it's palpable, especially when the injured chopper pilot begins to cry out in pain. Even one of the driving sequences, a chase into Central Park early into the game, delivers some edge-of-the-seat action. Strongly scripted events like these are at the heart of the tension, offering a real ebb and flow to the experience, though the suspense of the game is lost thanks to the implementation of a rather random feature called 'Roots of Evil'. Apparently, these literal roots boost the powers of hell and damnation, and it's up to Carnby to destroy them with fire. Although these roots are explained away as part of the storyline, and add to Edward's skill of seeing hidden symbols in the latter part of the game, it seems more likely to be an attempt to get players to wander around the daunting environment of the park. Shown on the GPS of Carnby's phone as patches of snowy static, these roots are usually surrounded by more than a few enemies. However, rather than add more of an edge to the game, hunting down the roots just seems like meaningless padding, an effort by Eden to extend its lifespan. This isn't, after all, a game that players will likely come back to once the adventure is complete.

Despite its issues ('glitch-tastic' is certainly a word that's become a part of TVG lingo thanks to the game), it's not difficult to see the ambition that's driven Alone in the Dark - and for that, Eden should be applauded. It doesn't manage to pull off everything with flying colours - far from it - but if players do stick with it, then the twists and turns will be more appealing than the story of Oceanic 815 (at least, its videogame adaptation). The fact that Eden Games has also focused solely on the single-player experience means that we've been saved from the prospect of another tacked on multiplayer 'just for the sake of it'...other developers please take note.