Alone in the Dark

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Originally Posted by magnifiedplaid

Played this for a couple more hours tonight and I have a few more observations.

- First, apparently I was wrong about having to squeeze the L Trigger and press A to run. You only need to press the A button to run. I couldn't get the character to do that at the beginning though...so maybe I had to wait for the game's tutorial to introduce the run button. Either way though, having A to Run and X to jump is a minor annoyance.

- Control issues still pop up throughout the game though. For example, the ingame tutorial says to press A to turn on the flash light, and press A again to turn it off. Sometimes I'll be pressing A several times and the flashlight will not turn off...other times I barely press it and it turns off quickly. This is an issue since the flashlight uses up batteries. I notice that if I'm holding another item, like a gun or crow bar, while I carry the flashlight it is practically impossible to turn off the flashlight. So, I literally have to go into the inventory and put either the gun away or manually unequip the flashlight.......stupid shit like this really takes you out of the experience. Another minor quirk regarding the flashlight is that it seems to turn itself off if you jump or fall off a platform....which is a bad thing because you need light to fend off some of the "instant kill" enemies :(

- Suprisingly enough, the actual controls in the driving sequences are not as bad as the professional reviews indicate. If you played Test Drive Unlimited, you should be at home with the somewhat average vehicle control here. Instead the main problem, in the initial driving segement I played, is that it just feels glitchy and cheap. There are items constantly flying at the screen and the terrain is constantly changing in front of you (much like Excite Truck), but every time I barely scraped the edge of a wall my car would fly a hundred feet in the air...and it would result in an instantdeath. I had to retry the first driving segment about 15 times because of this. Frustrating to say the least.

- The game also seems to have an odd disconnect between chapters. It feels as if a different team worked on each chapter. By the time I got to chapter 3 they all of a sudden shoe horned in a map, psuedo health bar system, radar, PDA screen, and all this other random junk that should have been in the first two chapters. I kept wondering where the hell that stuff came from all of a sudden. Just very odd.

- Yet, the most frustrating aspect of this game is that there are some truly BRILLIANT moments buried under all the crap. During the first 5 or so hours that I've played, there have been some truly "holy shit" moments and some great gameplay innovations that I haven't seen in too many other games in this genre. Thus, I have a really bipolar reaction to this game. One minute the game seems awesome...and the next it really sucks...then it gets awesome again. Its easy to see why the review scores vary so wildly.

Basically, I think the 1up review put it best when they said "Alone in the Dark" feels "experimental." Its like no gameplay idea or concept was ever turned down in a development meeting. Every idea imaginable is thrown into the game. A few of the ideas work, and a lot of them don't. I seriously wonder what kind of random horse shit this game is going to throw at me next. I'm trying very hard to like this game, but its definitely fighting me every step of the way.

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Awesome write up. This game just went from a 'buy' to a 'rent' for me. Hopefully the blockbuster by me has it, cause I would like to at least try it - at least for those brilliant bits you talk about. It's a shame the game isn't better, I really, REALLY wanted it to be good. But I've been wanting a good AITD ever since the second game botched up the series.

I'm getting towards the end of Chapter 4 now, and the further I get into the game the more I'm enjoying myself. I think a lof of people are going into this game with the mindset that its a Survival Action/Horror game, when it really feels more like a Survival ADVENTURE/Puzzle game. There is combat sprinkled throughout the game, but the emphasis of the combat seems to be in figuring out how to dispose of your enemies quickly. So, each battle becomes like a puzzle as you have to look around the environment and figure out how you can use the enivronment to kill the enemies.

"Alone In the Dark" is starting to remind me of "Illbleed", on the Dreamcast, because both games are very hooky/silly ADVENTURE HORROR games that are seemingly flawed from every angle....yet they offer just enough of the goods to make you want to keep playing to see what will happen next.

I also found a couple of errors in IGN's 3.9 review. The reviewer states, "you only have a single handgun throughout the entire game." Sorry if this is a very minor spoiler (I always forget what the spoiler tag is) BUT this is a positively false statement. You do pick up a freaking MAGNUM as the game goes along, which of course is quite a bit more powerful than the initial handgun. So, how can the reviewer state that there is only one gun in the entire game?

The reviewer also states, "Most of the time, you'll find the access to explosive items severely limited, which means the most effective and consistent way to kill monsters in Alone in the Dark is to touch them with burning chairs." Again, this seems a bit off to me because you can find materials needed to make explosive items/bulletts in every room. You just need to know how to combine items to make the explosives. The items that make explosives even respawn after you pick them up! Either the IGN reviewer was just playing the game wrong, or we are playing completely different games.

EDIT - Gametrailers.com has a really nice and in depth video review, of "Alone In the Dark," up now. Its the best break down of the game's positives and negatives I've seen so far. It's definitely worth a watch if you're still on the fence about playing this: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/35566.html

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Originally Posted by magnifiedplaid

"Alone In the Dark" is starting to remind me of "Illbleed", on the Dreamcast, because both games are very hooky/silly ADVENTURE HORROR games that are seemingly flawed from every angle....yet they offer just enough of the goods to make you want to keep playing to see what will happen next.

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Score. Gamefly sent it yesterday.

Thanks for the impressions, guys.

I hated Illbleed with a passion. I never understood the love for that POS.

This game really ain't too bad. The controls have a bit of a learning curve to them, but I find them to be perfectly functional (default layout with 360 page). I'd like better control of the camera, but other than that, no big issues.

There are a lot of original ideas at work here, and it's really a very creative, fresh game, though by that same token it really feels alien to the series its supposedly a part of. It doesn't feel any more connected to Alone in the Dark than any other survival horror game ever. Not one scrap of Carnby's identity seems to be present, and the brooding amnesiac with a mysterious past is effectively a completely new character, even moreso than New Nightmare. There isn't so much as a nod or wink to fans of the old games.

I watched my friend play this for a while tonight and beat the first (are there more?) driving sequence for him. Playing that bit made me want to punch our hero, Tony Danza, in the face multiple times.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

This game really ain't too bad. The controls have a bit of a learning curve to them, but I find them to be perfectly functional (default layout with 360 page). I'd like better control of the camera, but other than that, no big issues.

There are a lot of original ideas at work here, and it's really a very creative, fresh game, though by that same token it really feels alien to the series its supposedly a part of. It doesn't feel any more connected to Alone in the Dark than any other survival horror game ever. Not one scrap of Carnby's identity seems to be present, and the brooding amnesiac with a mysterious past is effectively a completely new character, even moreso than New Nightmare. There isn't so much as a nod or wink to fans of the old games.

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I agree with everything you say here. Even though the controls are a bit clunky, I got used to them after a bit. After completing the game today, I would actually give this about an 8/10. Its a fun adventure all the way through, and you really have to use your brain to solve some of the puzzles.

You're right that there doesn't seem to be much of a nod to fans of the old games. At the very least, the game does manage to keep an ADVENTURE game vibe going on most of the time by putting more emphasis on interacting with the environment and solving puzzles than fighting a ton of enemies. Also, there are still a few interesting surprises in the story that may catch your attention, for better or worse.

The one thing that completely soured my experience with "Alone in the Dark" was the endings. Seriously, I don't think a game's ending has bummed me out this much in a long time. I'm really interested in hearing what you think of the ending after you finish it. IMHO, it takes the series into a direction that I don't really care for.

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Originally Posted by ChaoofNee

I watched my friend play this for a while tonight and beat the first (are there more?) driving sequence for him. Playing that bit made me want to punch our hero, Tony Danza, in the face multiple times.

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haha...so your friend really sucked at the driving sequence? That first sequence took me about 10 tries to beat as well. It seemed to be a combination of me being awful at that part, and the game being slightly glitchy. There are a few more driving sequences like that, but the game is really much better when it lets you do some free roam driving in the cars (i.e. Grand Theft Auto)

Hearing it compared to illbleed makes me want to play this badly.

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Originally Posted by kingoffighters

I hated Illbleed with a passion. I never understood the love for that POS.

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You're dead to me.

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Originally Posted by magnifiedplaid

haha...so your friend really sucked at the driving sequence? That first sequence took me about 10 tries to beat as well. It seemed to be a combination of me being awful at that part, and the game being slightly glitchy. There are a few more driving sequences like that, but the game is really much better when it lets you do some free roam driving in the cars (i.e. Grand Theft Auto)

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No, I'm the one that beat it. My friend DID suck at it, though. Horribly. I know the cars are horribly sluggish, but he fishtailed what little of it he could do and kept crashing into things. I tried it about ten times myself and got it.

Also, SLIGHTLY glitchy? I'm surprised this thing survived playtesting! I kept getting caught on ledges and places where cars shouldn't go just by driving where I should have. Cement is NOT rubber, but this game seems to think so based on how I got bounced around.

Cripes.

Well, I finished this yesterday. I don't mind the endings, though the "good" ending really should have been longer than ten seconds and actually explained what the fuck just happened.

The controls are unbelievably clunky but you do get used to them. A lot depends on your preferred methods to solve problems. You'll have serious issues with the controls if you try to knock down enemies and then shoot them with fire bullets, but fewer if you try to just spray them with a makeshift flamethrower or throw molotov cocktails at them.

There are some great ideas at work with the freeroaming structure, but that roots section was a real pain. The half-dozen or so roots that required creative problem solving were great, but the rest were an exercise in tedium and only seemed to be present in order to make the player cover every last inch of Central Park.

I really can't say enough about the puzzle solving. It's great, and having to fashion weapons out of whatever is lying around really adds to the whole "survival" aspect of the game. The "horror" aspect is definitely present too, especially when you're desperately trying to hotwire a car before the giant zombie reaches you.

What isn't great is the pile of glitches. Trying to drive cars off of ramps is an exercise in repetitive frustration. Falling through the ground is an ignoble end. And attempting to use weapons in confined spaces is an absolute nightmare.

Still, I'm really forgiving to games that try to do something new, even if they don't quite manage it. Alone in the Dark reaches for the stars but doesn't make it. If it worked flawlessly, this would be a serious contender for best game ever. As it stands, it's a flawed gem that has many ideas I'm sure will appear in other titles. It's worth playing if you can put up with serious flaws for seriously brilliant ideas.