Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

Ages ago the Survival Horror genre was invented by a little PC game called Alone in the Dark. Many of the genre’s conventions such as polygon characters moving over pre-rendered backgrounds, fixed camera views, door unlocking puzzles, and limited resources were established in that original game. Later, Resident Evil came along to really popularize Survival Horror but Alone in the Dark was there first. Unfortunately, despite advances in technology, game design has not kept pace. Darkworks’ new Alone in the Dark game sticks very close to formulas worked out long ago. Everything you have seen before in dozens of games is present in Alone in the Dark.

One convention of Survival Horror that you have seen before is the old chestnut of requiring the player to run back and forth across the map, endlessly revisiting previously seen locations in order to solve some locked door puzzle, which opens a new area of the map that will also have to be crisscrossed a million times over. Note to game designers: this is tedious.

You have also seen the shambling zombies, the mutated dogs, and the aggravating ankle biting creatures. You have seen the completely illogical “Hanging Portrait” puzzle, and the “Rotating Statue” puzzle. Oh, and the “Guess The Number” puzzle. Can’t forget to include that one. This game even has a big mansion foyer and staircase that you will recognize if you’ve played any of the Resident Evil games.

The sound effects and music for Alone in the Dark are noteworthy for their singular awfulness. The designers made an attempt to heighten the mood with spooky ambient sound effects but they are implemented very shoddily, with grainy, low bit-rate sound loops that cut in and out haphazardly, destroying any illusion of a real environment. Stewart Copeland’s disappointing soundtrack consists of some aimless synthesizer noodling interrupted by occasional blurts of distorted noise.

The one nice thing I have to say about Alone in the Dark is that the visuals are very slick. The two dimensional backgrounds are rendered with great attention to texture and detail. To add to the sinister atmosphere Darkworks came up with an innovative lighting effect so that as your character waves his or her flashlight around, areas of the background are illuminated in real time, giving the illusion of a three dimensional space. The decayed, gothic mansion that you explore is steeped in the romance of ruins and the shiver that you feel as you poke through its crumbling halls goes long way toward selling the game in spite of its many annoyances.

If Alone in the Dark had been released a few years earlier it might have been regarded as a solid entry that meets genre expectations. However, in this day it can only be seen as a derivative also-ran that is sinking in its own mediocrity. Sad that the progenitor of Survival Horror should come to represent all of the genre’s shortcomings.

Sega Dreamcast
Infogrames/Darkworks
2001

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2002