Alone in the Dark 2

aka: AITD2, Alone in the Dark: Jack is Back, Alone in the Dark: One-Eyed Jack's Revenge
Moby ID: 907
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

In Alone in the Dark 2, you take the role of detective Edward Carnby, one of the two main characters in the original Alone in the Dark. Carnby is now called upon to investigate a bootlegger named One Eyed Jack after an old detective colleague named Stryker attributes Jack to the kidnapping of young Grace Saunders. Stryker attempts to infiltrate Jack's dilapidated mansion of Hell's Kitchen and rescue the girl, only to disappear himself. That's where Carnby comes in.

Carnby soon learns that Jack and his gangsters are really 15th-century pirates who gained immortality after Jack joined forces with Elizabeth Jarret, a Voodoo witch. However, the dark magic which keeps them immortal also requires Jack and his crew to regularly make human sacrifices (which explains Grace's kidnapping).

Now Carnby must battle his way through Hell's Kitchen and Jack's army of Tommy-gun-wielding gangsters, searching for a way to break the spell and make them stay dead.

Alone in the Dark 2 is an action-adventure game, similar to the original Alone in the Dark. Like its predecessor, the game uses hybrid 2D-3D graphics. Completing the game requires you to solve a lot of puzzles while fighting zombie pirates along the way. Some enemies can be killed with the numerous weapons at your disposal, while others need to be defeated via trickery.

Apart from Edward Carnby, the game also includes a short section (two sections in the CD-ROM version) where you play as the little Grace Saunders. Grace obviously cannot fight, and thus the sections featuring her are all about fast reflexes and wits to evade and outsmart the enemies.

Spellings

  • アローン・イン・ザ・ダーク 2 - Japanese spelling
  • 鬼屋魔影2 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (DOS version)

35 People (27 developers, 8 thanks) · View all

Produced by
Directed by
First Assistant
Screenplay
Production Design
Technical Assistant
Cutting
3D Modelling & Animations
Set Designers
Designers
Illustrations
Flashback
Roughman
Screenplay Adapted by
Original Score & Sound Effects
Additional Music
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 47 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 106 ratings with 8 reviews)

Makes the mistake of focusing on the fighting.

The Good
It had improved 3D graphics, and had excellent animated cutscenes which looked great. This game also is far far bigger then the original, and you switch characters halfway through with the little girl then back to Carnby again a la Leisure Suit Larry 3. The fight with the tough baddie on the ship at the end was interesting too.

The Bad
You'd think Carnby + Machine Gun would be good, but aiming and shooting are just as awkward as the original. And if you mess it up, expect no mercy from your enemies, and that's another problem there are literally ZILLIONS of enemies in this game, if you think there are lots in the hedge maze, wait until you get into the house itself and you'll see what I mean (flying pitchfork WTF!!!!, dressing up as Santa OMFG!!!!). And if the endless fighting doesn't drive you nuts, the super obscure puzzles will, the Billiard Ball Puzzle, which opens the door, had me stumped...until I got the walkthrough.

The Bottom Line
If you liked the original, you'll probably like this. Just don't expect too much. You will probably die many a frustrating death in the hedge maze, then the house just keep practicing your shooting and HOPE you don't die.....

DOS · by Simon Kavanagh (5) · 2007

Bigger, harder, less scary.

The Good
This sequel is the 2nd in the fabulous Alone in the Dark series. First off the game is much, much longer than the original alone game. Based once again in and around an old mansion, this time around the environments are very diverse including a hedge maze, mansion and a pirate ship. The puzzles are for the most part very good and challenging. The music in the cd version is great and the books that you find in the game are read aloud by the supposed authors which is always highly entertaining. The story is fair but is told well through the books and cutscenes. Graphics are beautiful fluid 3d over 2d backgrounds which were amazing when released and still have a quirky charm to them. At one point in the game you get to control Grace, the little girl who Carnby is rescuing which helps break the game up and adds a new spin on the proceedings since she can't just beat a zombie up like Carnby.

The Bad
The combat has been upped tenfold in Alone 2 and this is particularly evident in the first section of the game where basically all you do is fight. Given the awkwardness of the combat, this can prove most frustrating to the uninitiated. The search function has been dropped in favour of a more simple arcade approach which I found to be a step back. Now it's simply a case of walking near an object to take it so skimming a room will likely get you everything in it. A total lack of horror also detracts from the experience. The original Alone was very creepy and had an eerie plot. The horror is all but gone here with the evil clown being the only vaguely eerie thing left. Some of the puzzles are so obscure they are near invisible, the worst offender being the ridiculous teddy bear under the fold out bed puzzle. If you've played through it you'll know what I'm talking about.

The Bottom Line
Alone in the Dark 2 is a bigger and better game in many ways than Alone in the Dark but falls a little short in terms of atmosphere and story.

DOS · by Sycada (177) · 2001

Great game, but doesn't compare with the original

The Good
The game is a worthy, but very different, sequel to Alone in the Dark 1, the game that started the whole survival horror genre (and to this day, still remains one of the best).

The games features former Private Investigator now turned Paranormal Investigator Edward Carnby,who's friend has been killed trying to rescue a young girl, and now you have to try again to save her while at the same time taking down the cursed gang of pirates that have haunted the area.

The detail to the story and the characters and setting present are incredible. The designers put a tremendous amount of effort into the detail found in the various documents in the game that flesh out the world and the story so well. The enemies don't feel like random people to take out, but that they're there for a reason, and have a lot of detail behind them. Their motives, their methods, and who they are are told at great length, and there's never a dull moment in the texts you'd read.

The game has also quite a bit of action, and (SPOILERS) being able to play as Grace Saunders, the little girl in need of rescue, is a very nice touch.

It is also a very different game from the previous one. Edward is no longer some naive, cynical guy who laughs at magic and ghosts, but understands they're real. Although this takes the horror aspect out of the game, it does make you feel like you're playing a more no nonsense tough guy who's determined to succeed, or die trying.

The Bad
The combat in the game was fairly awkward. Although to be fair, the first game didn't have it that great either. I still found it almost like a glitch that, if you were up close and personal with a gun-armed enemy, he couldn't shoot you and the bullets just went past you harmlessly.

Beyond that, while I enjoyed the action and the story. The game itself had too little of the horror aspect. The first game had one of the most eerie atmospheres of any horror game, and it still holds up all this time. I still get shudders when playing it at night. Although I understand that the exact same thing simply could not be repeated again (due to the fact that in the first game, the protagonist had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and the set up was pretty terrifying. After that experience, Edward would not react that way ever again to any supernatural experience), the developers could have at least TRIED to create some kind of eerie or horror aspect to it.

Quite simply put, compared to the original, this game isn't scary at all. The enemies in the game don't feel like the damned souls they're made out to be, but just a bunch of gangsters that could have been simple bootleggers. Fighting them makes you feel more like a vigilante than a paranormal investigator.

The Bottom Line
I would describe this game as being a great sequel to a great game. If they found the original one a bit too over the top with the horror, this one takes the horror and replaces it with action. It's one of the earliest games to use a tommy gun as a regular weapon, and who doesn't want to mow down ghost pirates with a tommy!

DOS · by Salim Farhat (69) · 2014

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

Controversy

In the UK, some moral guardians were shocked by Alone In The Dark 2's content. Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Burdis from South Yorkshire CID called for the game to be banned from sale to children, saying, "It's sick. It can terrify them, damage their thought processes and make them insecure for life." Prompted by this, the Sheffield Star newspaper ran the headline, "Ban Kids From This Computer Sickness".

(info sourced from: PC Format magazine)

Music

When Carnby dies, the haunting music that plays in the background is "Vesti la Giubba" from the opera "I Pagliacci".

Processor speed

In order to not give spoilers, I will try to talk very generally.

There are various actions you're supposed to do within the game that are now impossible. The problem is that they rely on special timing within the AITD2 code. Modern computers are so fast that the timing routines no longer work, and these actions are not doable by computers that use a processor faster than a Pentium II. Therefore, you can not finish the game on a modern computer without resorting to slowing down your processor.

There are various utilities you can obtain via Google to slow down your processor.

Datapoint: On an AMD 1.3GHz Athlon, I had to slow my CPU down to about 40% before the actions became doable. One of the very first puzzles in the game is one of the undoable ones, so you should know right away whether you'll be able to finish the game or not without slowing down your CPU.

Awards

  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/1995 - Most Annoying Copy Protection in 1994

Information also contributed by Artful Gamer, null-geodesic

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  • MobyGames ID: 907
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alan Chan.

FM Towns, PC-98 added by Terok Nor. Macintosh added by Scaryfun. 3DO added by Indra was here. SEGA Saturn added by CheshireCat. PlayStation added by Matthew Bailey.

Additional contributors: xroox, Matthew Bailey, Brolin Empey, Unicorn Lynx, Alaka, Freeman, ケヴィン, Patrick Bregger.

Game added February 25, 2000. Last modified March 16, 2024.