Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

aka: AITD:TNN, Alone in the Dark 4, Alone in the Dark: Koszmar Powraca
Moby ID: 4183
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Edward Carnby, private eye of the paranormal, is back.

Carnby's best friend, Charles Fiske, has been found dead near Shadow Island, a mysterious island near Maine. It is your duty to take up the investigation and find out the secrets of Shadow Island. But you're not going alone... your companion will be a redhead by the name of Aline Cedrac who has her own reasons for tagging along. Aside from being a woman and inexperienced in the world of danger, she is the only one with the knowledge for translating the ancient Abkhani tabloids which may hold the secrets behind Carnby's friend's death and the disappearance of Aline's father.

Upon arriving on the island, your plane has been shot down by the things unknown, and the heroes have no other choice but to jump with a parachute, thus separating them on the island.

Now you choose the character to play with, either as Edward Carnby or Aline Cedrac, as they explore the mysterious and gloomy island with all its secrets and parallel stories that contain different locations and tasks for different characters, thus adding the level of replayability in a different experience - Carnby's story is more action oriented while Cedrac has more puzzles to solve.

Just like in the predecessors you move your characters through pre-rendered backgrounds while the camera perspective switches around. You collect various items and books which are used to solve puzzles. Many situations can only be solved with violence which means you'll have to use guns to get rid of your foes. Aiming is manual and especially when playing Cedrac ammo is scarce. Saving a game uses up a save medallion which can be found during the game.

Spellings

  • Alone in the Dark 4: По ту сторону кошмара - Russian spelling
  • アローン・イン・ザ・ダーク新たなる悪夢 - Japanese spelling
  • 鬼屋魔影4 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • 鬼屋魔影4:惡夢之夜 - Taiwan spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

210 People (186 developers, 24 thanks) · View all

An Infogrames Production presented by
Thanks To
"Alone In The Dark" (written and produced by)
"Alone In The Dark" (Music produced and composed by)
"Alone In The Dark" (Drums, bass and keyboards performed by)
"Alone In The Dark" (Recorded and Mixed by)
"Alone In The Dark" (Guitars performed by)
"Alone In The Dark" (Vocal performed by)
"Alone In The Dark" (Assistant to Mr. Copeland)
Special Thanks
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 70 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 119 ratings with 12 reviews)

The Mid Nightmare

The Good
In a way, The New Nightmare closes a full circle. The original 1992 Alone in the Dark game developed by Infogrames for DOS was a major source of inspiration for Resident Evil, the 1996 PlayStation game that defined and popularized survival horror. By that time Infogrames had already squandered their potential with two rather bad AotD sequels and didn't seem particularly interested in revisiting the franchise. When they eventually did, they outsourced the console-oriented reboot (developed for the Dreamcast and PlayStation) to Darkworks, a relatively new studio which decided to base it on... Resident Evil games.

The similarities are obvious - while the very idea of a predetermined, cinematic camera system was an innovation of the original AotD, The New Nightmare definitely looks and feels more like the first four Resident Evil games (the last of which, called Code: Veronica, was released just 1 year earlier, also for the SEGA Dreamcast). To make the Capcom inspirations even clearer, TNN opens with an RE- or DMC-style intro movie and the game's title being read by an evil-voiced narrator. It's worth noting that Darkworks would later go on to rip-off Resident Evil to much better results with Cold Fear, released in 2005 as Ubisoft's answer to RE 4.

Overall, the Resident Evil influences combined with more experience of the action-adventure genre as a whole definitely do AotD 4 some good. The game looks really good, controls a bit better than the original PC trilogy, it doesn't allow you to softlock yourself or require you to leave items on the floor for the lack of inventory space (then again, it doesn't limit your inventory at all, which goes against the spirit of survival horror).

The Bad
Unfortunately, The New Nightmare is much sloppier and less polished than classic Resident Evil. Interactable objects usually require you to stand at a very specific angle to activate them, the hitboxes of both background objects and enemies are very awkward, as is the aiming system. The puzzles, while not quite as unintuitive as in the original trilogy, can still be pretty cryptic and leave a lot to be desired. In many areas enemies are either located just in front of the entrance or spawn right next to the player character, which is simply unfair.

Alone in the Dark 4 brings back the idea of two protagonists from the original game, except this time - like in Resident Evil 2 - both characters' routes are actually different, although they do share a majority of locations. It's an okay way to pad the game's length without becoming too repetitive, but unfortunately the two paths are pretty uneven. You can tell that a lot of the visual and atmospheric creativity was kept for Edward's playthrough, while Aline's is not only less impressive, but also more unpolished, with more technical hiccups, an annoying timed section, and an absolutely terrible final boss fight.

Plot-wise, Darkworks bring back two classic Alone in the Dark themes - Lovecraftian horror of the first game and Native American magic from the third one - and pits them against each other. On the one hand, the themes of fascination with otherworldly shadow creatures and trying to use them to improve humanity work really well, but on the other hand, the worldbuilding in the game is rather shoddy. Native American deities having names clearly taken from Greek, Latin, and Mesopotamian cultures is an especially blatant blunder.

The Bottom Line
The New Nightmare, borrowing a lot from the Resident Evil series, ends up being an improvement over Alone in the Dark 2 and 3, but it's a still an uneven and unpolished experience that leaves a lot to be desired. 5/10

[played in an emulator]

Dreamcast · by Pegarange (282) · 2023

An unworthy sequel

The Good
The Alone in the Dark series has offered a very early and interesting shot at action adventures. It always focused on the creation of a dense atmosphere and so does its newest addition. The graphics are dark and you will often have to find your way using your character's flashlight.
The game offers two different characters, which leads to different gameplays depending on your choice.

The Bad
The graphics are surprisingly low-res and remind me of Playstation games. Additionally the designers failed to correct one of the most nerve wracking gameplay errors ever. In all Alone in the Dark games it has been a great hassle to find the "hot spot" for a pick up item. That's the area where the game actually recognizes what you would like to do. So you will find yourself often walking from left to right in front of a door, feverishly trying to open it.

The Bottom Line
The game is a horror adventure with good atmosphere, a relatively high replay value (because of the two different characters) and nerve wracking keyboard control.

Windows · by Isdaron (715) · 2002

atmosphere gives res-evil & silent hill 2 a run for their money

The Good
the moment i switched this game on and got to control the character i knew this would be one hell of a game. the character is not exactly light on his or her feet not like in res-evil or silent hill 2 but that does not spoil the game its still good. the music and the darkness are what really make this game good you feel as if you are in a horror movie and that you are trapped in an old house stuck away out in the middle of no where all alone with the things that go bump in the night :). the atmosphere is faultless as is the music there was one part i felt scared at and it was where you went through a grave yard if you used the woman character and it was as creepy as hell you were passing all these vaults that had no doors on them and it was pitch black and you were expecting something to jump out at you from the of the vaults. im not telling you if there was something or somethings that jumped out at you because it would spoil the atmosphere and your enjoyment of the game.

the atmosphere in this game is as good as the atmosphere in the silent hills maybe even better just maybe though. the weapons you got for the guy were: a double barreled 357 magnum or at least that is what it looked like and a tripple barreled shotgun which was great fun in using but you ran out of ammo if you didnt watch what you were doing and a few other weapons that were ok to use like a kind of laser gun that you could charge up with these kind of crystals you found lying at the side of cavern walls. so you kind of had infinite ammo for the laser gun which was usefull at times a plasma gun which looked like a blooming flame thrower when you fired it. and for the woman: a pistol and the tripple barreled shotgun and one or two of the guns the guy had. puzzles were a little difficult at times which was one of my only complaints about the game. but apart from that the game is fine a worthy opponent for the survival horror crown which i think belongs to Silent Hill 2 just now because i havent played the gamecube version of the res-evil yet because it`s not out in the uk yet.



The Bad
one or two of the puzzles were a little annoying and the guy could have been just a little lighter on his feet. when the end credits were playing it had a crppy song playing were was the TESTAMENT song called ALONE IN THE DARK it should have been playing at the end credits. it can be found on the cd THE LEGACY.

The Bottom Line*
if you like survival horror games then i dont see why you will not like this game because it has atmosphere and has good controls not great but good and that is what a survival horror should be like if it is to be good.

better than the 3 A.I.T.D games that came before it far far superior in every way.

PlayStation · by Iced Earth (9) · 2002

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Trivia

4X movie compression

The 4X movie compression technology is only used in the Dreamcast version of the game.

Comic Book

This game had a cross-promotional "prequel" comic book, featuring Carnby and Aline Cedrac investigating in Tibet, published by Image Comics in September of 2002. The story was written by Jean-Marc Lofficier, while the illustrations were by Matt Haley and Aleksi Briclot.

Edward Carnby

Edward Carnby is the name of the protagonist in all of the Alone in the Dark games, yet AitD4 is set in the year 2001 whereas the original 3 titles were set in the 1920's. Carnby is also visibly younger in the forth title. The explanation on the game's official website (see links) is that every 40 years a man is awarded with the name Edward Carnby and that man will be destined to fight the forces of evil and darkness.

Engine

Developed with Terminal Reality's Nocturne Engine.

References

The name of one of the characters in Alone in the Dark: TNN is De Certo. This is a reference to the name of the ominous mansion in the original Alone in the Dark title, which was also called Decerto.

Information also contributed by n-n, Pseudo_Intellectual Sciere and Scott Monster

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Matthew Bailey.

PSP, PlayStation 3 added by Sciere. PlayStation 2 added by Xoleras.

Additional contributors: Macintrash, Unicorn Lynx, Sycada, JPaterson, Jeanne, JRK, Klaster_1, DreinIX, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Zhuzha.

Game added May 29, 2001. Last modified January 27, 2024.