Typical film obsessed games designers try to make a game from their source of inspiration.

User Rating: 6 | Alone in the Dark X360
By SuperBlueMonkey | Review Date:
Alone in the Dark is a series that's struggled since it's first ground-breaker. Always attempting to be the next best thing but always forgetting what's needed and what's important. This new edition for the current generation is no exception having some neat ideas here and there, the gameplay suffers from games designers typical obsession with film as Alone in the Dark is a film to game experience but without the film. The fact that the designers wanted to make the main menu and overall experience like a DVD selection screen is only the first in many mistakes as one can simply select the level, including the last, get a "Lost - like" briefing on what's happened in the story and then play out the end level or even last "scene". So what's the point to this? Well it could that some "scenes" are incredibly frustrating due to awful controls so you can just skip them OR it could be that you can escape some of the most over scripted and linear aspects of gameplay you'll ever find in a game this year or even ever. Alone in the Dark isn't exactly the most free-roaming experience to come out this year and any areas that can be explored feel unnecessary to do so unless you're looking for achievements. Nothing will be found to help you through the game and besides you can just skip to the end anyway!

Unfortunately as the right analogue stick is taken away from the player to act as your swing for weapons etc the control of the camera view ultimately suffers. One can switch to a first person view (if you're not holding a picked up breakable weapon/item) and has to switch to this view in order to shoot the pistol but scripted areas and small cutscenes will take you back to the third person view making you frustrated and confused. Combining items is the best thing about the game however selecting items in the your jacket is sometimes clumsy and not enough variety is put into what you can do and what you can make. The game comes with many small puzzles that can keep some interested. As for the story.... well.... I wonder if Eden know the word "cliche"? The idea of being trapped in Central Park was cool until you actually realise that it's just a park and there's not a lot to do when there's only two of you. I wasn't wanting to play football or anything, just if there were more characters/ survivor's you frequently interacted with, it would've made the experience more immersing and perhaps psychological.

What Alone in the Dark ends up as is a mess that no one has cleared up. It seems as though Eden Studios have a severe lack of Games Testers because I'm shocked as to how such a hyped and intriguing game came to have such bad design choices of gameplay and story and glitches! If you like frustrating gameplay, linear level design, over-the-top scripted areas and a nice typically cliche story then give this a go but for those of you wanting a game that feels professionally made then you may want to wait for Resident Evil 5 or find Alone in the Dark A New Nightmare from the last generation and have a play on that. Really, this one is bad.

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