[Alf]

Well well... where to begin?

Im not gonna recite the manual on what the story is or the history of the series - im just giving my 2 cents.

I have been looking for a decent new single player game for some time now, and frankly... i might have to keep looking. I do love 3rd person survival games, (especially Silent Hill and Resident Evil series) but somehow Alone in the Dark never gave me a reason to like it. The game starts out nicely and shows the power of the graphics engine, but after the opening sequence - something goes awry. Suddenly the First person camera angle is switched to a 3rd person and the camera changes direction so much that you end up walking into a wall or fire halftime time. Although u can change between 1st and 3rd person, some actions must be carried out in one or the other (melee combat in 3rd, guns in 1st). This i dont mind, too much, but what i dont like the terrible mouse and keyboard support - the mouse is used to swing weapons and the keyboard is used to navigate. I didnt like it - im used to being able to look around with the mouse. Use a Joypad.

Graphically it looks grand especially facial definition ( even if they are rather robotic) but there are let downs nonthe less. In one outdoor cliffhanger scene which shows the streets of NY - the buildings look good but the streets look terrible. Debris for build simply 'melt' into the ground - that was the first thing i noticed in the game. Overall the graphically the game looks sweet - but there are plenty of hiccups that say otherwise unfourtunatly.

Sound is decent enough - nothing to write home about, i recognize alot of the sound effects from other games though... its kinda funny . Although the music sometimes feels out of place, it works.

But what really killed the game for me is the savings system. It reeks of 'made for console' phooey and has made the game more trouble than its worth. First of all there are no Quicksaves, something that has been around since god knows when and should be expected in every single player pc game by now. and the save feature is broken. Just last night i played for about 2 1/2 hours destorying 'roots of evil', i had collected 75/100 (it aint easy) so i saved to game and off to bed i went. Well when i decieded to continue playing the game, it not only didnt save where it should have - it dropped me back at 50/100 back where the game itself decieded to save. Thats Stupid.

The Inventory system is neat though being able to combine whatsits with thingamabobs is fun, but it doesnt save the game.



For a moment there i was having fun but instant deaths and broken controls quickly put this game on my bad side... who knows? maybe it'll will get better near the end. But for now, Alone in the Dark may have been the first survial horror game - but it is inferior to the other franchises.

Alone in the Dark 4.5/10

PS: this review sure is negative - but well deserved

I hate you Alone in the Dark.

[muckshifter]

... an honest 'unbiased' opinion.

[Alf]

Indeed!

im surprised i havent been sued by Atari ye-

[connection closed]

[Ian]

Thanks for the review Alf

It's a shame it isn't as good as it could have been, I've read a few other reviews that have the same sort of conclusions too. The lack of quicksave would drive me mad, I hate it when you can't save at a particular point - as it means you've lost quite a bit of "work" if you need to leave your PC.