First let me start off by saying that this might be one of the most
innovative games so far this year. Sadly all the brownie points that I
would give this game for being so cool are canceled out by this games
god awful controls.
This games controls are bad. I mean bad. If there was a way to scream
on the internet, I'd be doing it right now. It's like Eden Studios took
every game mechanic they could think of and threw it into this game.
Overall this is probably one of the most inconsistent games I've ever
played. The game just can't decide what it wants to be. A platformer? A
FPS? A TPS? Puzzler? Action adventure? Survival horror?
This game is like playing a "Season DVD" of a TV show. Each level is
treated as 1 episode and at the end of each level/episode the credits
roll! As small as it is, how cool is that?! And you can literally fast
forward the game whenever you want through the pause menu. Like if you
don't know how to get across this broken bridge or something, you can
just pause the game and fast forward to the next segment. But beware,
by doing this you forfeit the achievement you receive for completing
this level AND you lose all the items in your inventory. I can
understand the achievement, but the inventory? How ****ing stupid is
that?
And you know what? I can realistically see this game becoming an actual
TV show. Not a good one, mind you. It could probably be picked up by
The CW or ABC and run for 6 episodes or something and then not be
picked up again when Fall comes around.
Right from the get go, before you even start the game, you can access
every level/episode from the main menu! And every time you skip a
level/episode you get one of those "Last time on Alone In The Dark..."
segments you see on TV shows that tells you what went down in the last
episode. This game just reeks of awesomeness, but the controls kill it.
Alone In The Dark is surprisingly epic in some places too. I did not
expect much from this game, but I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not
very far in the game, and I hear that the game changes significantly at
one point, but I'm sure that the high point of this game will remain as
the car sequence in which you're driving to a museum with New York City
literally collapsing around you. This sequence was like, in the same
league as the Snake/Liquid fight at the end of MGS4 and like all of
Shadow of the Colossus. Atari treated this game as their "high profile
summer action flick" and it really shows. It's a shame that the
CONTROLS SUCK THOUGH. Why couldn't they have just copy/pasted Resident
Evil 4 or Gears Of War or Uncharted like everyone else does?
And now, the inventory. The inventory is arguably the best and worst
part of this game. There are so many awesome combination's you can make
with items in this game. For example, you can pour lighter fluid on
some of your pistols bullets. Now you can shoot fire! Shoot a table
with that and it lights on fire! You can throw a can of bug spray in
the air then the game goes into a bullet time effect where you can
shoot the can in mid air, then boom! You can also strap some double
sided tape onto a glow stick, then throw it at a wall or down a
hallway, and it sticks! I haven't found a use for this yet, but I think
that's really cool. But here's where the inventory gets bad. When you
go into your inventory, the game does not pause. Which means if the
stuff you currently have equipped isn't going to dispose of the monster
running at you, you have to think fast. And unless you're in a linear
area, it makes organizing your inventory very dangerous because
"Humanz" (yes, that's what they call the humanoid monsters) can come
from nowhere and attack you.
This game is really cool. If it weren't for the controls, this game is
an 8.5, easily. Luckily the TV Show format and the inventory (kind of)
save the game. If you can suffer through bad controls, then this game
is definitely worth taking a look at. Please don't write this game off
immediately just by looking at all the professional reviews, it's
honestly not that bad.
