Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

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
This game is frightening, and for that I love it. I do not scare easily and this game makes me jump out of my skin. The game has a very eerie atmosphere which gives you the sensation that something is lurking in the shadows and is going to grab you.

That's because it is... and it's when you least expect it.

The game is well designed from ground up, and it's quite obvious from the start that you are playing a quality game in which the developers didn't rush through the production. Every detail is very well thought out and executed. The use of atmospheric horror music (more of a horror sound-scape than music) and the storyline contributes to the effective creepiness of this game, as do the graphics and graphical effects which are extremely intricate.

The story, too, is very well written. It's a progressively challenging game, employing the usage of puzzles, but is not ridiculously bogged down with them; and they're not extremely complicated. The puzzles are less complicated than trying not to waste your ammunition or first-aid kits by the end of the first disk!

The controls and cameras are perfect, and if you're using a dual-shock joy-pad (recommended) you can swing around a flashlight in 360 degree angles. There's plenty of horrific landscapes, monsters and other audio visual treats. The game is complete horror mind candy.

It completely surpasses the older Alone in the Dark versions for Macintosh and PC. As a matter of fact, it doesn't even resemble them. The New Nightmare is completely authentic, and extremely realistic (as compared to the older versions which had cartoon type monsters).

This is an amazing work for the Playstation platform (and other platforms) which should not be overlooked.

The Bad
I don't like how little ammunition and first-aid kits there are, but at the same time I love that there's just enough. It adds to the realism of the game.

The only thing I don't like about the game is that there isn't more of it to play.

The Bottom Line
An intoxicating, twisted horror game which encapsulates you into it's atmosphere, forcing you to become part of the game. You'll feel as if you're living inside a horror movie, complete with the horrific sound-scape, landscapes and psychology to complete your nightmarish world.

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.