Alone In the Dark – 360 – Review

Atari conjures up
a lot of nostalgia for many middle-aged gamers.  Ah, those bright pixels dancing
and glowing (but not E.T. – let’s not talk about E.T.).  But in recent years,
well since Atari crashed the video game market, the once influential games maker
has hit hard times.  Their most recent and expensive endeavor, however, is Alone
In The Dark, and with it they’re putting Atari’s name on the line.  So how does
it live up?

The franchise of
Alone In The Dark has changed just about as much as the developers who made the
game. What started as an adventure/puzzler has changed dramatically into  a
survival horror game with some of those adventure/puzzle elements thrown in for
variety.  The game tells the story of a man who wakes up in a hotel room with
some shady people talking about a ritual gone wrong. The protagonist for some
reason can’t remember his identity or his past and finds himself swept up in an
adventure to escape what seems to be a city over-run with zombies and find out
his past. 

What’s interesting
about the way the story is told in this game is that the narrative is broken up
into TV-like episodes, all of which feature a “. . .last time, on Alone In The
Dark” introduction and recap before the next segment.  Players also have the
option to skip past sequences and episodes if they’re having trouble beating a
level.  Since video games are inherently close to the medium of television, that
presentation is a brilliant move in my opinion. But like the many brilliant
ideas in this game, each is not enough to save an otherwise sinking ship.

While the
presentation of the story is highly innovative, the story itself is far from it
and I found that I could care less for the characters within the first 10
minutes.  But while games with bad or simple stories can have great writing
(maybe some humor?), Alone In The Dark could be up for this year’s “Game With
Worst Dialogue.” Aside from being extremely cheesy and stating-the-obvious more
times than I can count, the game excels at dropping the “f-bomb” (and every
other curse word) more times than I’ve ever heard of before in a game.  Not only
do the characters cuss at inopportune times, forcing swear words into a speech
like an episode of Beavus and Butthead, I even heard the main character curse
outside of any reasonable context.  He just started cursing.

One of the biggest
problems in Alone In The Dark is the most essential aspect of any game: the
gameplay.  To put it simply, the protagonist is about as fun to control as it
would be to saddle up on a bear and attempt to escape from a burning hotel
infested with zombies. The way he moves makes you think the developers
programmed him to carry two over-sized suitcases that they decided to make
invisible. Because most of the combat relies upon your quickness to grab a
weapon like a chair or axe from the environment, the game is downright
unplayable when a zombie is attacking you fiercely and you can’t get away to
grab something.

The worst part
about maneuvering him, however, is the ever-changing perspective.  Certain
moves, like melee attacks, can only be played from the 3^rd person
perspective, while others like shooting and putting out fires have to be done
from the 1^st person. Factor in other random cinematic scenes and
funky camera angles and you have one of the most schizophrenic cameras ever made
for a game.  A novelist would never shift from 1^st person to 3^rd
person in the middle of a paragraph and a game developer shouldn’t either.  It’s
just downright confusing.

While AITD is
plagued with problems like those mentioned above, it also has moments of
brilliance.  Instead of mapping your equipment to a generic pop-up menu, tapping
on the D-Pad will allow you to look down inside the protagonist’s coat to see
his items.  Also, the ability to play with fire and combine items to make
explosive weapons, while being somewhat overdone, is innovative. Puzzles will
require players to think through the different uses of fire, like lighting
spilled fuel or wooden planks.

But while AITD
offers plenty of variety in terms of mission structure and gameplay (one minute
you’ll be shooting, the next driving, the next platforming. . .), nothing feels
finished.   For example, after breaking out of the hotel and beginning one of
the most amazing missions in the game (where you drive through a very scripted
New York City to escape the monster-thing), I thought “Wow, Brilliance!”  But
after my 10^th try attempting to beat this glitch-ridden car chase
mission, the once amazing scene became repetitive, frustrating, and
not-fun-to-play-anymore.  There are countless examples of moments like that in
the game where I thought “hey, this is actually innovative!” But soon I would be
let down by either a broken camera, confusing puzzle element, or laughable
storyline.

Gameplay: 2.0

While I applaud the game
for featuring a lot of variety in missions, nothing feels polished or complete.
With a cumbersome fighting mechanic along with switching perspectives, the
gameplay is extremely frustrating.

Graphics: 6.5

The game’s environments
go from PS2 quality to the detail of Bioshock’s eerie hallways.  The characters
have a plastic quality that also gives them an “eeriness” (not what where the
developers intended it to go).

Sound:
7.0

The score is quite good
and the sound effects do their job for this zombie-ridden world. The voice
acting is stilted and poorly written, however.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 6.5

A lot of the ideas in
this game are brilliant, just horribly implemented.  Presenting it like a TV
show is a great idea, however, and will help introduce (hopefully improved) DLC
in the future.

Overall: 4.5

While some people might
be able to look over this game’s faults, I wasn’t.  The language of games is its
gameplay, and this game just wasn’t talking plain (although it was dropping
quite a few expletives).