Alone In The Dark

 

Alone In The Dark

this is a remake of the classic franchise, or rather a reimaging, by none other than some random Racing game developer. and while the presentation at very first glance may seen enticing, it wont take long until you realize why this game has such an awful reputation. really what the game consists of going through various linear scripted environments mostly doing: Platforming, light puzzle solving, driving, some 'combat, and beating down doors with a hilariously wonky physics system. Oh and most of the interactions you'll be having with the enviorment will be through throwing plastic bottles / alcoholic beverages at random things. That's it. You need to carry with you handfuls of explosives so you can throw --> shoot --> explode (enemy,object) FREQUENTLY. the sad part is not a single one of these things are ever entertaining or enjoyable.

For starters the controls are some of the worst i've ever dealt with, i'm not sure how to describe it. the game being made by a Racing dev, it actually does feel like your player character behaves like a car on ice, with psuedo tank controls and really strange momentum in the movement. The game can't decide if it wants to be a first person game or a third person game, so you end up fumbling through both of them frequently and it get's quickly annoying how cumbersome the whole design is. You go into first person to shoot a lock, or a scripted device, then as soon as some trigger happens, it puts you back in third person, only for you to go back into first person because that's what you wanted. This happens once every 60 seconds on average maybe? its headache inducing.
So theres a fair bit of platforming with really, really poor controls, then sometimes you end up having to drive to an objective, and the irony here is the driving is also some of the worst of all time. You'd think this is the ONE thing they could get somewhat right, but no. Before you can even drive the car 9 times out of 10 you have to fumble around your joystick looking around the vehicle for keys, items (opening glove box, etc) or you can hotwire it. Its so terribly messy because you frequently accidentally click a prompt in the slightly wrong location so he opens up the mirror instead of going for the hotwire, while you have 10 angry monsters storming your car just to pull you out. it's just frustrating and sloppily designed.

Theres just way too many "What were they thinking!" moments. You get a few handguns, but I'm really not sure the actual purpose of them as you can only kill enemies by using fire. So shooting at them is really pointless unless you just want to knock them down? But why not just use some melee object? well, thats another thing. the actual combat VS enemies is downright laughable. theres a system where you can pickup most basic objects, and swing it using the right control stick motion, but its so wonky and barely fuctioning it just ends up looking like an autistic child throwing a tantrum. You just pickup a piece of wood, run up to an enemy, flail around your joystick like a retard until it eventually connects a few times, knocking them onto the ground. THEN you have to make sure theres a fire source near by so you can ignite an item, or push them into the fire to eliminate them.
This usually happens with groups of 10 enemies. Its not hard, challenging, or entertaining. It's just god damn tedious.

Like I said about the presentation, the game is deceptive. From first glance the graphics are acceptable, considering 2008, the lighting, textures, sound design, are all fairly standard to actually good. Theres some nice particle effects like with rain, and some of the environments actually can be pretty, and actually at times the physics system can feel natural in some regards - BUT - when it comes to being the actual player in control, none of this ever feels anything remotely natural, every action, interaction, reaction, feels 100% entirely deliberate and forced. It's the controls, the camera, the physics momentum, nothing is ever enjoyable to do.
Like for example, you'd think an inventory can't be too hard to fuck up? But the one in this game is famously dog shit. Theres this awful system where you open up your jacket to display your carried items (kind of cool concept), but in execution its incredibly clunky having to CAREFULLY direct your joystick to the POTENTIAL slot of an item, hit A on the exact right spot, make sure you select it, A again, close inventory. And it doesn't pause the game. So you often need to make a molotov cocktail in a tense environment, only to be fumbling with your crappy inventory/controls and get hit over and over by enemies while you're just trying to throw a plastic bottle at them. What were they thinking!!!!

The story is just barely entertaining to hold the game togeather, although not quite memorable, theres some weird biblical, satanic, paranormal shit going on, but really its just a means to an end, you don't get too invested at all because the characters are all very cooker cutter and not unique. The whole time I just felt like I was playing an even worse Alan Wake clone, not good...

Towards the end of the game it tries to go all 'open world' on you by giving you a chunk of a city to drive around in, only forcing you from progressing the main story until you do essential a fetch quest of 75 items. You have to go around throwing plastic explosive bottles at red tree roots, why? I don't know, I never gave a fuck, I was in awe that the game actually could get this grueling and pain-staking. Just when you think it's almost over, you're at the final stretch, the game gives a big FUCK YOU and makes you waste even more hours tediously driving back and forth, looking for plastic bottles, throwing them at trees, just to get to the next closing chapter(s). Complete shit tier game I mean what the fuck. At a certain part though, after so many, you can go to a DVD styled menu and skip parts, so I obviously did that. You don't miss anything other than a giant timesink. But it's still only available after a certain amount is collected...

The games difficulty starts at piss easy, to eventually becoming gruelingly annoying and frustrating. Not due to lack of skill, but due to buggy mechanics, awful game design, and really obscure/vague scripted triggers and enemy placements. Theres one part where it spawns about 50 enemies in a castle that you have to continuously catch on fire over and over and over and It just had me wanting to reach for the uninstall button.

There's really nothing redeemable here. The only reason to be interested in this would be if you were not actually the one playing it, but watching someone play it, just to watch the cheesy story and laugh at it, otherwise stay away, and whatever you do - Don't play this crap!!!

3/10