Alone in the Dark

The Good
EVERYTHING! The 3D graphics are extremely outdated and boy are they blocky! But the game itself, oh my god! This is just one of those games. You have to download it, play it yourself, see it yourself. You will not believe the good time you will have, especially all the written material lying all around the mansion. I did realize why the written stuff was so good, it's all based on an old H.P. Lovecraft book called "The Call Of Cthulu"...a bit of trivia for you!

The Bad
It doesn't run well on modern computers, remember it was made in 1992 and designed to run on 286 and 386 computers. Find and download a program I used called SLOWDOWN by Bret someone or another and slow your modern rig down to 286 speed. Now you can run by double tapping the Up Arrow. One minor thing though, because of the perspective it's a bit hard aiming that revolver and bow. Don't worry, you'll get used to it!

The Bottom Line
Download and play, you won't regret it...hell I can't even believe it even after all this time...

The Good
The Alone in the Dark games are some of my favourite games from the early to mid-nineties. Carnby was sort of a hero for me, and I've spent hours and hours playing the games...more than once. The first game was, as I recall, one of the first (if not the first) Infogrames games to take advantage of the Cthulhu license. Yes, the game is in fact set in the universe of H.P. Lovecraft, where ancient horrors once ruled the world and man lives in blissful ignorance of the truth. The game doesn't reveal much about the Cthulhu mythos though, choosing instead to be more of a haunted house story. The interface is similar to that of the more recent Resident Evil games, as are the graphics. The camera angles are what you can expect from a horror game - creepy and suggestive. If you play this at night with headphones and all the lights turned out, don't be surprised if you feel more than a little edgy. Another high point of the game is the sound (not to mention the music). I'm not sure if there's a disk version of the game, but if there is, it must be vastly inferior to the CD version, which has CD audio not only for music, but also for the incredible speech in the game (which you only hear when reading books/letters).

The Bad
The game may be a bit too hard for some. I don't believe there are any difficulty settings, so if you're looking for a straight adventure game, Alone in the Dark is not for you.

It's also not as good as the second game :).

The Bottom Line
An excellent survival-horror game with excellent production values. Although one would expect so, it still holds up to the expectations of the modern games player ;).

The Good
The first Alone in the Dark was without a doubt a landmark achievement, (well, most games that singlehandedly invent a genre usually are). Trapped in a hounted house, you are introduced to a very simple concept that would make the cornerstone of it's gameplay: you aren't saving any princess, you aren't out to save the world, your mission is simply to survive and escape this friggin' mansion, preferably with all your limbs in place. Sound simple? Sure, now. But at the time it was a complete revolution, you actually had to think in advance what you where going to do, because the game actually had plenty of sequences that were unbeatable, and for the most part, you just had to run and hope no zombie or monster got in your way.

Enemies were a-plenty, yet weapons were scarce, and ammo was even more so, which only serves to add to the tension. Also throw in dramatic and sometimes claustrophobic camera angles straight from horror flicks, cool & realistic sfxs like creaking wood, a creepy storyline that unfolds as you try to survive, some pretty inspired puzzles and plenty of "jack-in-the-box" moments, and you have yourself the makings for the first great horror game.

And on top of that you had the first polygonal models interacting real-time with 2d backgrounds, how cool is that huh??

The Bad
Could be pretty hard at times (tough never to the extent of it's sequel). And the ending, tough correct by all means in it's writing was really a letdown in the sense that after the extenuous battle you just endured throughout the game you really were looking forward to something a tad more spectacular. I don't say they should have changed it, it's perfect story-wise, but a little more glamour would have been apreciated... then again, most games from that era usually had crappy endings.

The Bottom Line
Survival/horror starts HERE. Alone in the Dark combines enough innovation, gameplay genius and sheer entertainment that years later it's still being copied and imitated. While everyone's idea of "horror gameplay" was Slaughterhouse, we Pc users got a serving of a dish most people would only see years later on the psx, and it's sweet aftertaste remains to this day.