Summary: I've been waiting months and months for this game because I'am a huge fan of Silent Hill and Resident Evil games. And finally I love this game.
Summary: One survival title comes after the other, (Alone in the dark have existed for a while thou). But they come all the time Silent hill, prohect zero, resident evil, dino crisis, evil dead: hail to the king to name a few. Some of them are not so good but the most is good games. And alone in the dark is one of the good horror games. The story is very good in this game. It's a little bit like the story in "Dino crisis" i think. You fly to an island and start to envetigate it, and it's very good to the FMV! In my opinion looks alone in the dark very much like Resident Evil (when you are inside the mansion) outside it's not so look a like but on all other things. Special some enemies.
A thing that Alone in the dark not have, not so many other horror game either is a boss to beat. You never meet a boss in this game, very sad in my opinion. There isn't so many bosses in other horro games. Silent hill got bosses if i don't remember wrong, and Resident evil got some to!?! I don't know why it is like that perhaps cause they don't fit in somewhere. The puzzles is not different at all from all other horror games. It's just the same as ALL the others. But it's a great game!
Summary: Another typical survival horror title. I never heard of this game until I saw it at Blockbuster, I rented it to check it out. So I popped it into my PS and played it...First thing it reminds you of is RE. It begins alot like RE2 how you're separated and outside and all. The beginning is the BEST part of the game, its soo spooky and eerie. But damn the game is really hard, you dont get enough bullets or health!! The story is rather boring and Edward seems a litle too overprotective of Aleen sometimes. Though I'm not saying the story is BAD. Lets just say this game is O-K.
Review NaN of 18
, from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Price Paid:
$60.00
from Gamexpress (now Gameplanet)
Summary: NOT A RESIDENT EVIL CLONE, it's apparently one but looking further it isn't. Having played Alone in the Dark since 1995, this title never disapointed me.
You take the role of Edward Carnby, a private detective with the ability to recognice evil upon first sight. Carnby's best friend Charles Fiske was murdered in an island off the coast of Boston, he was investigating an atropologist named Obed Morton and three ancient native american tablets that were supposed to unleash the world of shadows. Carnby meets Fiske's client to track down his killer. On the other hand, another anthropologist named Aline Cedrac is sent with Carnby by the same client (Fred Johnson) to recover the tablets and their translation. Both characters reach the island by plane are they're attacked by a weird mosnter that forces them to jump down in parachute.
THe game starts like RE2 having both characters separated, but it's completely different as both of them have their own storyline and characters that only appear in one of the two scenarios. In RE2 both character made the same puzzles one after another, in ATIDTNN they have a completely different path. In fact they meet up four times in the whole game, they keep in contact thanks to the walkie-talkie.
GAMEPLAY Unlike Resident Evil's zombie-kill until there are none of them left, Alone in the Dark focuses in TRUE SURVIVAL HORROR.
The item menú keeps the escence of last titles. It's now separated between documents, weapons and items, unlike the last three games that had all those aspects combined and it was hard to find a certain item. The only cloned thing from Resident Evil here was the character's health status.
The flashlight is the most innovative thing of the game, some may say that it was cloned from Silent Hill, but AITD had oil lamps in the first games. It's a very useful gadget as it helps to find hidden items in the many dark areas of the game, to solve a puzzle, and to ward enemies away.
Both charcters have a walkie-talkie like in Resident Evil 1 and 2, but it's more similar to Metal Gear's Codec as you can use it whenever you want. You can ask the other character to say clues that will help to solve puzzles.
The only problems are the controls, which are a mixture of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Square Runs, X is action, Circle Turns flashlight, and Triangle opens the item menú.
The only thing that disapointed me was the lack of hand to hand combat, there are no cutting weapons just like Alone in the Dark 3. Once you finished all of your bullets your only weapon is the flashlight. On the good side, this remembers that survival horror isn't about combat.
GRAPHICS The best graphics on the PSX, along with FFIX. The detail in the backgrounds is really admirable. The scary atmosphere (specially in exterior areas) is between the best of a horror game. The only draw back is that the backgrounds are static in most of the game and only the flashlight help to tone that down. In outer areas the rain and lightnings help a lot.
It has the best lighting effects on a prerendered game before the ones in more powerful consoles like the Resident Evil remake. The 3D models could have been better detailed.
Unlike the older games, this one obviously has the sections separated by the doors or entrances like Resident Evil due to technical aspects, but unlike RE2 there's no need for to load whenever you go up or down stairs.
SOUND The sound effects and the ambient effects are great, they were captured from nature as the developers claim. They complement the game's scary atmosphere pretty well. The music is more or less the Silent Hill style, it starts relaxed and grows quick and loud and it's also pretty scary. The voice acting is the downside, it sometime seems exagerated, but it never made laugh except for some of the character dialogs.
Overall, this game shouldn't be missed by fans of the survival horror genre. For any hardcore Alone in the Dark fans, I would like to invite them to an AITD site project that is still in contruction. Any questions? Mail me to mctrentmanhotmail.com
Summary: I've never played a horror survival game before and I must say it certainly is a different experience. I have to unfortunately compare this game to "Luigi's Mansion" for the Gamecube except there's more gore and you use guns instead of a vaccume. I'm for some reason also reminded of the "Tomb Raider" games in format, graphics, and play control, so if you've played any of the Tomb Raider games this is similar, except a little more scary and you can play as one of two characters instead of one main one. This game is actually pretty scary the first time you play it. Armies of the undead will occasionally pop out of no where and scare you. The only problem is after a while the game gets predictable and therefore becomes boring and repetative. Very linar plot and range of movement throughout the world. Limited use of ammo and save points can be frustrating for new players to this genre. I haven't finished the game yet but I'm already bored with it. I see no reason to continue playing. This game tried hard to be a cool game, but just couldn't cut it in my opinion. If you want a good horror survival game I'd try silent hill or the resident evil series first.
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