Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

The Good
Just finished the game and had to write a review, it just didn't allow me to wait any longer and try playing with another character. It blew me off the chair having more to offer than I was willing to accept. The game is brilliant technically, subjectively or objectively looking. You pick a spot, and you'll find it laughing back atcha with its greatness. It wasn't long ago I got attracted to this horror-surviving genre, realizing they offer one of the best stories in general, and every fear you need to confront will be rewarding.

Now, after an intro opening, Edward Carnby, a PI, and Aline Cedrac, a scientist, are set to go in pair on Shadow Island, not knowing what awaits them there, and thinking of it as a part-time job... which will eventually arise to become a challenge in saving their own lives. But just as their hydroplane was approaching an island, a raging storm surrounding an island forced them to jump earlier. Thus separated by the fall, you're given a selection over Carnby as a man of action, or Aline, intelligent and beautiful companion to whom he had to protect during the trip. The best part of it is that each cahracter plays its own role, so wether you choose one or another, the game will look entirely and completely different. Some places will correspond since you're both stuck on the same island, and you'll run to each other occasionally when in need, or use walkie-talkie for communicating with each other, but inside stories and quests will be entirely different. We usually see games where just character is different, but most of it is the same. Well, this can count as two separate and different games. No wonder this game will strike you as short when you actually get to finish it.

Ingame models of Aline and Carnby are simply amazing, breathtaking. Moves, running, climbing, using a flashlight and achieving certain effects like rain, never-so-good-b4 terrain and atmosphere. On the other side, monster models look rather below the belt, I mean, either they had to look so low-poly for faster performance, or they did that on purpose. Either way, other ingame characters and monsters, beside the main cast, are everything but good looking. Though, that won't affect the atmosphere when it gets a grip upon you.

Voice-acting speech is incredibly good, hmmm, isn't this a french game? ;) Anyway, voices are simply perfect and dialogue between Aline and Carnby are really amusing for the ears, hehe, from the start when they talk as two strangers, 'til the moment when they start to have feelings for each other... appreciating being stranded in the land of horror, even if only 'cos it brought the two of them together. It's amazing how such a game of short radius can still only show you the surface of it so you can never guess what lies beneath, beautiful cinematics, nicely developed story with a strong grip of the background, eeriely real atmosphere, and places for which you'd never dream of to find in game that makes you think you'll be playing it in some spooky mansion for all the time.

The Bad
The game doesn't vary too into the music atmosphere and there are few songs (if you can even call them songs) that will mostly change depending on the place and suspense, but remind of sound effects more than of instruments. But yet if it's for achieving the atmosphere, well done, I'll sayeth :)

As for the monsters, just a bit more polygons wouldn't hurt, and there didn't seem to be more than 10 types of different monsters, so they could do a bit of detailizing on it. I admire the way they sparked a touch of details on all the other things. It's unbelievable real.

Also, a small portion goes to picking up the stuff. It's made so you can clearly see things like objects or weapons where they are when you flashlight them, but even then some of them cannot be picked, or if they can, you really ned to be at the exact position, sometimes hard to achieve, so you oftenly wonder wether it's a bug and you cannot pick it, or are you just so new with the controls.

The Bottom Line
This 3CD heavy/light adventure is well worth the seeing. I never could get attracted to the trilogy of "AITD", but strangely, I started with this one. It's not that I haven't played prequels before, it's just that they didn't show me anything but the technical achievment at the time. Now, I'm thinking I just might be wrong on that, but they had many illogical puzzles and such things, whereas this game won't give you much of a headaches covering that territory. I cannot compare it to "RE" series since I haven't tried them yet (though I intend to), but this game has really serious visuals to admire, as well as effects, so playing it will feel pretty alive. I'm just glad to see Europe is more than capable of making wonderful games that can compete with the marketplace. So far, I can tell that I haven't ran into any game with so good ingame graphic, cinematics of even greater quality I saw, but not the ingame, and that's the part we players control. Way to go Darkworks! :)

The Good
Those who have parosed the MobyGames sections for the original AitD games at any length will know that I am an old school Alone fan since the first game came out. I have been dying to get my hands on this title and now that I have I can safely say that I'm glad I did. The atmosphere is very dark in this one. The use of the flashlight is very nicely done with the light passing realistically over walls and objects. There are some good puzzles which are reasonably thought provoking and much better than the bog standard fare in Resident Evil. The books are very well written and are interesting to look through. They help shed light on the well crafted story that sits behind the game. You can play as 2 different characters in a similar fashion to Resident Evil 2, however in AitD4 the paths for each character are very different in both story and gameplay. So much so that aside from the overall story and setting it's much like having 2 unique adventures. It's not until you start to get fair way into the game with the 2nd character that you start to realize just how well the game fits together. The questions that you had at the end of the first time through are answered with the 2nd character and it's also nice to see that unlike the 2nd scenario in RE2 which saw you performing many of the same tasks that you had to in the first scenario, AitD does not make you do the same puzzles again, instead you have entirely different ones which not only makes sense logically but also means the replay value is such that you haven't really finished the game until you've played through with both characters.

The Bad
My interest in this game is not without reservation however. It's a shame that Darkworks decided to push more towards Resident Evil than Alone in the Dark and as a result, a lot of alone fans may feel they've been slightly short changed. Some of the puzzles are more akin to a harder version of the RE variety rather than Alone 1, 2 and 3, seemingly dumbed down for a more mainstream audience. It's also a real shame that the game has an unfinished feel towards the end where much of the polish covering the earlier half of the game is absent as the game is reduced to more of a run and gun situation. This also extends to a few continuity issues where we are expected to fill in the gaps with a few things that we shouldn't have to.

The Bottom Line
One of the better Survival horror titles to date, marred slightly by the half-hearted final section of the game. The 2 different characters are completely different to play thorough the game as so there's hours of entertainment to be had. It's a lot of fun but the few of you out there who are fans of the original Alone games who don't like Resident Evil may want to give it a try before they buy. However, I for one will be standing in line for my copy when the next title in the Alone in the Dark saga is released.

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
You can play Alone In The Dark as two characters: our hero Edward Carnby or the newcomer Aline Cedrac, an anthropologist, who looks oddly and much to Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series. The stages are well designed. The song is creepy (in a good way).

The Bad
The changes of cameras out of time not allow you to see where the enemy is. The save system is a little annoying. And most of the times you don't know what to do. Basically if you do not like games like Resident Evil, I mean like Alone In The Dark better to pass away.

The Bottom Line
The game with Edward Carnby is a little more difficult, but relatively shorter. Carnby is the player who will spend most of the game looking for keys and killing monsters in tedious combats. With Aline you will need a lot of patience to solve the numerous puzzles, which is great if you like that kind of stuff.

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.