Circuit Jerk

I remember downloading an HD trailer for Alone in the Dark in Summer 2008 only a few months before the game hit shelves. I watched it over and over again thinking about how great the game looked and getting excited over the prospect of a good non-Resident Evil/Silent Hill survival horror game. I reminisced about the good times I had playing Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare seven years earlier.I just hoped that Atari wouldn’t ruin this one too.

In 2008, Alone in the Dark launched on the Xbox 360, mostly to disguted reviews. (I think IGN only gave it a 3/10) My reiview, rather my question is, how can a game be so rewarding, yet be one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever struggled through.

Let’s start with the good.

Some of the puzzles in this game are beautifully crafted throwbacks to puzzles we haven’t seen since the Playstation 1.

There is one puzzle that involves lifting various crates and platforms with a forklift to reach different switches. The puzzle lasts maybe 10 minutes, but I thought I was playing Dino Crisis for that entire 10 minutes.

We have a mystery with a ghost providing clues. A sort of creepy Japanese horror inspired scene that would’ve been great if not for the complete lack of light and flashlight power.

There are various “stick a Molotov to a moving target to burn something” puzzles scattered throughout. My personal favorite is attaching one to an enemy and watching him run back to his nest, sending the whole thing into a pile of fire.

Then at the end, you’re running through ancient caverns, deflecting light or running through a room with closing walls. The only thing missing was the dual wielding pistols and the short shorts.

The story is interesting, some of the NPCs are welcomed, and the game plays like an action movie. I’m serious, some of these scenes in this game can’t be beat elsewhere.

But then there’s the bad.

The controls in this game are unforgivable. Every time I died, it was a direct result of poor controls.

To switch weapons you have to hit down on an already unresponsive D-pad to get in your jacket pockets, select what you want for your weapon, spend time combining whatever pieces of trash you had in your pocket to make pyro-weapons, equip it, and then you have to go into first person mode and pray to god that the bad guy hasn’t approached you while that was going on.

Then there are 1998-esque glitches. There was a time where the car I was driving was flipped over in a tree. I tried to get out and instead of getting out of the car, I got stuck in the backseat and had to blow myself up to reload the checkpoint.

There was that time where a bad guy was stuck behind scenery, so I couldn’t hit him, but he sure as hell could still hit me.

Bushes are made out of god damn diamonds. Hit a small shrub with your car… and explode.

Oh, and my favorite, there was that time where I became stuck behind the level. It was gorgeous. I saw several floors of a museum that was on fire. I saw all the monsters waiting to pop out of closets at me, and I even saw the NPC I was supposed to meet up with to finish the level off. The problem is, I couldn’t get back into the level. I had to reload my checkpoint.

Then my least favorite part of the game, the f*cking roots of evil. This is the search and find aspect of Alone in the Dark. Basically there are about 30-35 roots around Central Park that you are supposed to burn. I ignored these because I just didn’t care. I’m beating the game at a comfortable pace and then the game turns its back on me. I can’t progress unless I get 70 points worth of these roots destroyed. (Each root being worth 2-3 points each.) I spent half my game play time just burning these and drinking heavily.

This game had so much potential, only to ruin it with the most important fundamental of game design, workable controls. The story isn’t bad and there are many fun parts, but at best this game is a rental.