Review: Alone in the Dark by Matthew Mason

"Here I am, again... Alone, in the Dark...this is retarded."

Call me David Duchovny, because damn it; I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that Atari’s Alone in the Dark redux was going to be what I, and more importantly long time fans, have been hoping it would be. That being a seedy and evil monster mystery set in the already scary in the light Central Park of New York City. Add to the disaster meets zombies idea with fresh and innovative DVD-like options that let you fast-forward, scene select and get recaps a la a television drama and you have the trappings of what could be a beautiful rebirth of a much neglected franchise. If only Eden’s execution was half as good as their ambition. 

I want to tell you about the intriguing plot that revolves around Edward Carnby trying to figure out what the hell is going on; but no matter what good would slip from my mind and onto this review will quickly get eclipsed by the nonsense I had to deal with to find it. Apparently French people think we American’s say fuck a lot; every two sentences spoke contained it. If Carnby came circa the 1930’s, would he really use that type of language? Did it even exist!? Maybe he caught a few reruns of Deadwood before the world collapsed around him. Even though the games vernacular was quite small, at least it was easy on the eyes; graphically and stylistically Alone in the Dark is sound 

Literally ripping pages from Resident Evil 4, the controls totally smack of Capcom’s work. Taking their plagiarism one step further, they at least saw fit to add an admittedly neat inventory selection that has you looking down into your coat to fumble for things. Unfortunately this isn’t an option to pause; enemies whose names end in “z” will still give you the one-two when you’re busy looking for a lighter. Easily remedied when you realize you can press the left or right bumper to quick pick; but then you realized that the inventory system is yet another innovation pissed down the drain by uselessness. 

Not that getting hit is exclusively an issue when you’re digging into your jacket. The hit detection in Alone in the Dark is atrocious. I can’t even count the times I was hit by hands that didn’t come close to touching me, or falling off edges or into electric water when I shouldn’t have or the disconnect between anything I swung around at anything I was swinging at. And then there’s the numerous driving portions that were so painful I’d rather get titty twisters with pliers than be forced to play them again. It’s no wonder there’s a fast-forward function. And the coup de grace of disgrace goes to the fact that the majority of the achievements are null and void if you use any of the DVD features.  Not a game breaking bug less than a personal annoyance; it just feels like salt to the wound in an already torturous experience. 

"Going somewhere? Oh that's interesting, because my vast array of fire-based weaponry says otherwise."

Alone in the Dark is a prime example of promise over execution. I can applaud Eden for going out on a limb and trying something different with a genre that gets regurgitated often. But for every commendment I want to give them for their game, I have take twice as many stabs pointing out that no matter how noble your cause, it means nothing if you don’t deliver. Better luck next time.

Editor note: Matthew is a guest writer for Phase1Phaser, when he isn't busy playing everything under the sun and being awesome, he also writes for the fantastic game site World 1-1 The games site you should already have bookmarked, and your number one stop when we're too lazy to update here. Which is all the damn time.

Also the caption douchebaggery is courtesy of me, not Matthew, he's way too clever to have written that bullshit.