Alone in the Dark review (PC)

Long before Resident Evil's S.T.A.R.S. team were but a twinkle in Capcom's eye, a dapper fella by the name of Edward Carnaby had survived all manner of haunted house horror in Infogrames' Alone in the Dark series. Notable not only for providing one of the genuinely scariest gaming experiences of the early 90's, AitD (as it shall be referred to herein) also popularised a genre that has seen many entries since. Yet its own fortunes waned as the sequels appeared, with the last one materialising in 2001 to a lukewarm reception.

Like an undead Leotard-wearing Madonna, however, AitD has risen from its grave with the aim of re-inventing itself. Shifting the time line forward to present day New York, Carnaby must investigate some unusual behaviour above and beyond what usually goes on in Central Park at night.

But how come he hasn't aged since treading the creaky boards in the Depression-era first game I hear you ask, and what's happened to his memory? Well, these and other questions will be answered in the course of creeping through, around and under Central Park, and along the way you'll get to meet some friendly faces, such as the feisty Sarah and an old chap named Paddy, while also locking horns with some deadly foes such as Crowley and the dastardly control scheme - but more on that last point a little later.

A view to die for

Before you get to explore Central Park's nether regions, however, you'll have to endure a trial by fire in a very literal sense, as the game's tutorial section sees you trying to escape a burning building. It's at this point that you'll have to get to grips with the finicky viewpoint duality. Both third and first person perspectives are on offer, and there are times when you will definitely want to use one over the other, but the game has an unnerving capacity for forcing a perspective upon you when it wants to make you aware of something, which can sometimes result in a loss of spatial awareness, followed by injury or even death.

As you progress into the deeper areas of the game, combat begins to play a larger role. As well as traditional weaponry such as guns, you can also make use of a large number of interactive objects within the environment, some of which you can collect for your inventory, while others you can burn, smash, or use as an improvised melee weapon. Ad hoc weaponry is certainly a novel idea, but it's one that fails in its execution due to a lack of control accuracy.

In one instance where I was trying to smash a car window I ended up flailing around like a lunatic, completely ineffectual to the point of inadvertent comedy. This control fuzziness continued inside the vehicle, where I was instructed to hot wire the car using a combination of mouse movement and button pressing, something which I achieved through blind luck rather than know-how. A further instance saw me repeatedly bludgeoning my female sidekick while I tried to break open a door with a fire extinguisher, an assault that's probably doused cold water on any of the feisty lass' fireman fantasies.

My body is my temple..and my drug store

More positively, there are some unique ideas concerning health replenishment and inventory management. When Carnaby is injured, you can enter first person mode and spray a first aid can on the damaged part of his body to heal up his wound. Similarly, the inventory system makes use of his body to store the various items he collects, and you can mix and match some of these items so that they can be equipped simultaneously with the press of a hot key, for example a torch in one hand and a gun in the other. Both of these aspects foster a greater sense of attachment to the character, but again, there's a drawback because when you are performing these real-time actions your field of view is focused on your body rather than your surroundings, leaving you open to attack.

One of the better aspects of the game is undoubtedly the puzzles, some of which are physics based, and like the inventory system, have you using the objects around you. Most of them are fairly straightforward - set fire to a trail of petrol to explode a car blocking your way, for instance - but yet again there are times when the game conspires to bar your progress. In the example I've just mentioned, the first time I set light to the trail of petrol the car didn't explode, leaving me scratching my head for a few moments before concluding it was a glitch, re-loading and trying again.

Another fresh aspect that's found its way into the game is that the action is delivered in an episodic manner, the aim being that if you only have a limited amount of play time then you can play through to the end of that particular chapter or scene and pick up at the beginning of the next in a future session. Continuing this theme, the game also allows you to skip forward through chapters and scenes DVD style, although this seems more like an admission that there are frustrating sections at which you can get stuck, and rather than smooth them out they've shoehorned in an immersion breaking workaround.

One way ticket to hell and back

Before we bring things to a close, it's worth mentioning that I had some trouble in getting AitD to work on either of two different machines. One of those machines, admittedly, was a little below the minimum stated spec on the box, and while the game would fire up, there was graphical corruption and a stuttering effect that rendered it unplayable. The other machine exceeded the minimum spec, but even on the lowest possible detail settings I had to make do with excessive load times that fairly detracted from the overall experience.

Jack of all trades...

AotD features driving sections and the ability to use Vehicles you find in Central Park

Perhaps trying to maximise its appeal to different types of players, AitD is a mish mash of multiple game styles rather than a pure breed survival horror game. What this means is that developer Eden has had to try and deliver polished first person shooter mechanics, perplexing puzzles and trouser soiling survival horror - not an easy task by any means. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, what we are given is a game that excels in none of these areas, while there's the odd sprinkling of ingenuity here and there that makes the game's failure to live up to its considerable potential all the more poignant.

With its unforgiving nature and occasional puzzle based gameplay, there are fleeting moments when it reminds me of Delphine's aging adventurer, Another World. This is a double edged comparison, because despite the high player mortality rate I still felt compelled to play on to the death (pun intended), and enjoyed it - some of the time - in doing so. Whether you will find similar enjoyment will depend on your willingness to overlook the game's flaws and foibles, because like the demons you will face, they are legion.