IGN Retro

[Shou]

Alone in the Dark 3 took great strides toward getting the series back on track. Unfortunately, by the time it released in May of 1995, the flat, unshaded, untextured polygons were really showing their age. The first game in the series was cutting-edge when it launched to market alongside games like Wolfenstein 3D. The third had to complete with a new generation of 3D games on PC and consoles.

The game was a success, and was again ported to the popular consoles of the moment, with a few graphical enhancements to help it keep up. Still, it was apparent that Infogrames had milked the series for as much as they could for the time being, and the audience was getting bored. The trilogy was complete, and the company decided to retire the series and move on.

Just a fact check, AiTD3 was PC only. The only port in JP is on PC-98 (1 and 2 were also released for it). Not to pick on you as many writers are guilty of this but why bother writing a feature about a game when you don't really explore the gameplay aspect much? Yes, we know AitD3 had a dated look (a quick Google search will reveal a review saying the same thing) but did the game itself change? Examples? Quick commentary is appropriate for a blog type entry but not a feature in my mind.

[Frogacuda]

Whoops on the mention of consoles, just got mixed up with One Eyed Jack's Revenge, there. Clearly Levi did the same thing when he wrote the caption. It has been fixed. Let's all pretend this never happened.

And I mentioned the gameplay a couple paragraphs up, talking about how they toned down the gunplay and offered a compromise between 1 and 2. What I said in the part you quoted was basically just a brief critical consensus to articulate why they decided to terminate the series and give a bridge to the next section of the article.

[bVork]

It might have been worth mentioning the two successors to the original AitD trilogy: Knights Chase and Time Commando.

Also, Jack in the Dark was a neato little extra that, alongside Christmas Lemmings and SkyRoads Xmas Special, was one of the first holiday-themed special versions of a game.

[Frogacuda]

I never thought of Time Commando as an AitD successor. I did mentione Relentless as the direct follow-up, though. I thought about talking about Knight's Chase, but I opted to focus on Agartha instead. It's always sort of a matter of figuring out how to make these mentions part of the narrative flow of an article, y'know?

Also considered a Shadow of the Comet mention, but again, it didn't fit well into the flow. I don't like articles full of parenthetical mentions and asides. I try to treat it like telling a story. If it doesn't fit into and strengthen the basic narrative, it'll probably not make it. It's different than writing a wiki or something.

[bbobb]

Someone should do a write up of the Twinsen games. Not enough people know about those.

[Frogacuda]

Someone should do a write up of the Twinsen games. Not enough people know about those.

It's not a long enough series for a feature, but the only reason I haven't done a review is just that I haven't had time to replay it. I may do that soon, though.

[bbobb]

Make em part of a "The Best Games You Never Played" feature?

You could include Planescape as well.

[Frogacuda]

Except I never played Planescape.

And Relentless was pretty successful in its native land, besides.

[bbobb]

Except I never played Planescape.

You prove my point.

[Frogacuda]

I never played it because I honestly never liked any of the games in that subgenre, not because I wasn't well aware of it though. But I should give it a go one of these days all the same.

I don't know if I could write an "underrated/ignored games" feature, though. It's sort of trolling for bitching from people and blank stares from the very people that underrated/ignored those games to begin with.