Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

The Good
The first half of the game --from the great intro sequence to the first 'boss-fight', right before they prompt you to switch CDs- is a quite scary and inmersive experience.

There are lots of "bink" cut scenes all over that add a great deal of interest to the whole package.

The scenario graphics! The game has an ambient like few others. Specially the forest under the rain and the manor levels. If you have a powerful video card, using the 'high-detail' shadows will add a lot of effect. The lights will go off every now and then, and some creatures just flash before you to disappear in the blink of an eye, which will make you jump on your seat a few times and draw your weapons and flashlight, aiming to nowhere all confused. The sound effects add a lot to the ambient, and although the music is kind of weird and does not sound quite 'musical'; it doesn't bother nor add much. Just tags along fine.

One would think that in the times we live in, a game with 'fixed-backgrounds' is kind of retrograde. Well, AITD4 not only shows that is not the case, but even makes use of some really attractive camera angles that would not be possible with the 'moving' kind of background.

The first half of the game really fills in with the 'horror' thing.

The Bad
The second half of the game seems to be the 'survival' part of the package, and resumes itself to a mainly 'run-n-shoot' type of game. Sadly, the control interface doesn't match with the idea; you find yourself dealing with a clumsy character that will have lots of trouble answering to your commands.

Suddenly, all the "bink" animated cut-scenes start being replaced by still images; and while at the beginning there was an animation every 5 minutes, somewhere in the game you start getting this still pictures where you have to imagine what happened.

The game prompts you with a 'yes/no' every time you need to do such silly things as climbing a ladder, which is quite annoying. If I press 'action' on a switch it clearly means I want to activate it, you don't need to double-check asking if I'm sure; it's not like I'm asking you to format the hard drive or something.

Everyone complained about this one, but here it goes again: the 'hot spots'! You will find yourself several times running in circles over an object or a door, while asking yourself 'am I doing something wrong or maybe this this a bug and it will never work?'

The monsters --not being the zombies, which are pretty good- are awful. There are just a few 'breeds', and they're very poorly designed.

The storyline isn't as nearly as attractive as it was in the first AITD. No other AITD had the strong plot the first one had, but in this one you can smell all the intention on recreating the kind of plot that the first had; sadly not being able to accomplish the task. It's a pity, since the ambient is all there for a well-driven strong story; and I think a good plot would have helped the 'second part' issue.

The 'downs' on AITD4 (specially the technical issues) are specially bad since this is the 4th chapter of a saga. One would expect a more robust and polished product by now. Instead, this looks like a first try.

The Bottom Line
A typical Horror/Survival game. Alas, the separation between 'horror' and 'survival' is too clear, which is not good for the final product.

The first half of the game is the 'horror', while the second would be the 'survival'. Sadly, the second half of the game is quite boring and frustrating, bringing down all the great atmosphere created on the first half.

Nevertheless, I think the game deserves a try, if only for the first half. Despite the poorly designed monsters and the clumsy interface, the atmosphere is really scary. Those of us who enjoyed the first AITD, this is how we would have liked that awesome game to look like.

The Good
STORY

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is not a direct sequel to Alone in the Dark 2 nor is it related in any way to the previous entries in the series bar the inclusion of the main character. This title is more a rejuvenation of the series and a most belated one at that which features a marvellous scripted engine but somewhat rudimentary game play. The game begins with Edward Carnby heading to Shadow Island in search of his lost partner; Charles Fisk. What unfolds is a tremendously twisted narrative which is very well paced.

GAMEPLAY

You can play as either Edward Carnby or Aline Cedrac (a young archaeologist) and while the two characters play almost identically Aline's story is more focused on puzzle solving and less on combat. Viewing the narrative from the perspective of 2 characters is a great way to encourage players to keep playing the game and while you can get a good picture of the story playing through entirely as Edward to really understand Obed Morton's insane fascinations you must play through as Aline and interact with Lucy several times. Instead of your standard staple of "Zombie", "Dog" and "Special Monster" enemies the monsters you fight with in TNN are actually quite intelligently conceived and some have a sizeable backstory. For instance the Ophtalmacid (the Ophtal part of the name referring to eyes) is a creature that drags you down to it's level to feed on your eyes and you can find this out through discarded journals later in the game while following the long cold trail of an Explorer.

GRAPHICS

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is a gorgeously moody game with a real Tim Burton feel to it. The game focuses heavily on paranoia and darkness and while some enemies are less adverse to light some can actually be destroyed by using it. The backgrounds are gorgeously high quality and fantastically rendered and character models are full of definition and are well animated. Particle effects are also fantastic and this really shows when wielding one of the games bigger weapons like the Plasma gun, which functions like a flamethrower.

SOUND

Mentioned before the atmosphere of the game is immersive and terrifying. Augmented by the chilling, thumping soundtrack wind buffets tree branches and lightning fills a room with illumination followed by a deafening crack that echoes across the island. Then there are little touches here and there such as stepping into the wrong place and being surrounded by a group of enemies, accompanied by a shrill, piercing scream only for them to promptly disappear, leaving you a quivering mess.

The Bad
While the engine is solid there are noticeable problems with it. For instance you will notice there is some serious ghosting apparent when then camera angle is close to the character models. Waving arms leave a surreal trail and although this may have been intentional, if it wasn't it's a big oversight. Also the control scheme is dated and rudimentary. Apart from the standard context sensitive actions such as climbing and opening doors you really can't do much more than you could do in the original Resident Evil. You control well, but it just feels rudimentary. After finishing the game with both Edward and Aline there really is nothing else to do.

The Bottom Line
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is a fantastically rendered game that totally oozes style and atmosphere. It has a tight story, competent voice acting and a solid engine. Unfortunately the game is held back by the fact that is feels kind of rudimentary. When you come away from the experience it is like you are simply playing Resident Evil with a new skin. Things like being able to control your flashlight are really just little gimmicks that only prove useful once. TNN is a game you should own, only don't expect to go back to it too often.

The Good
I have had the opportunity to play this game on Dreamcast as well as PlayStation 1 and even the Game Boy Color version. Alone in the Dark is one of the original Survival Horror franchises, released many years ago, and before even Resident Evil was a gleam in it's creators eye. The plot and storyline from this game was recently sacrileged in a disastrous Hollywood game-to-film by the notoriously inept director Uwe Boll.

The game itself is a very atmospheric yarn following one of two selectable characters, each with unique aspects, and a slightly different path depending on which one you chose. There are many different locations and subplots, including mansions, sewers, observatories, and a wide away of weapons including a lightning gun! You can spend hours puzzling away and musing over the expansive areas, which if you're familiar with Resident Evil, you will have no trouble finding yourself at home here with. In brief, all a Survival Horror game should be, but make sure you choose the Dreamcast version, which has better graphics and gameplay.

The Bad
The slowdowns between angle-changes is appalling (some are several seconds long), and the quality of graphics is diabolical, even by PS1 standards. The controls are also very unresponsive, sometimes the character moves randomly around the screen! This PS2 version appears to be a lame direct port of the PS1 rendition. All in all, the Dreamcast version has better graphics, better speed and better playability than both PS versions.

The Bottom Line
Alone In The Dark 4 is a great atmospheric Survival Horror game, but just don't play it on PS2 - get the Dreamcast version instead! If you like Resident Evil, you'll love this.