Making a horror game is a lot like making a horror movie in that its very difficult to scare people but at the same time entertain them. Herein lies the task of Alone in the Dark. The game has some great ideas and some amazing fire effects, but a bland story and sub-par control systems might make you want to stay in the dark as long as you can.
In order to keep your audience at the edge of their seat, you must have a storyline that they care about or else the game suffers. Bioshock, though not a horror game per se, used dimmed lightning, sound effects, and a hell of a back-story to make an enthralling gaming experience. The story here is as common as they come. You are Edward Carnby, a paranormal investigator who wakes up in the middle of a fire and must somehow put his life back together because he remembers nothing. To make matters worse, he is surrounded by a whole mess of baddies and it’s nighttime in Central Park. Edward curses, and he curses a lot. After an hour, you are almost hoping he doesn’t make it. The voice acting is below average and he is just a cookie cutter protagonist.
The game has some of the best fire effects I have ever seen. I hope you like fire because it’s your only weapon. Your one handgun is useless against the “Humanz” and you must shoot fire bullets, which you make yourself. You find yourself throwing burning furniture more often than shooting which becomes unrealistic after the 5oth chair toss. You can only hold a few items at once and the controls here are clunky. You combine scattered objects to make weapons, but this seems more like a chore than wanting to explore the world. He has melee attacks but he swings an axe like a 6 year old girl and walks as if he took a huge dump in his pants.
There is no multiplayer and you have to be having the time of your life to finish this game. There is next to nothing to unlock so playing through again is unlikely. The developers had some good ideas along the way with creating ammo and making your own weapons, but other games have done this already with much better results. Its’ hard to get into a horror-survival title when you are not invested in the character’s well being or what’s happening around him. The fire aspects are great, everything else is just a convoluted cloud of smoke.
Overall: 4.5 out of 10
One Comment
Write a Comment»After the sad reviews you guys still manage to play it and reviewed it, LN got balls haha. There’s were so many good ideas that should have been done right but just went wrong thus making the game a mess.