Genetically Different  Posts: 463 Joined: 26 Dec 2007     | |
Honorable Mention: Escapist Film Festival  Posts: 1736 Joined: 21 Feb 2008     | Damn you! I was writing a review of Alone in the Dark! This one's good though, I suppose... |
Beat Writer  Posts: 216 Joined: 25 Mar 2008    | Why can't they go back to the old days of survival horror? What is with designer's obsession with gimmicks? What happened to the olden days of Silent Hill 1 or Resident Evil 2 where, in the end, it was a basic meat and potatoe survival horror? Sorry after reading the review that was the only thing I could bring myself to say. Great review though. |
Muckraker  Posts: 244 Joined: 8 Jan 2008     | Wow, great review. And I do agree, I want the games industry to try new game mechanics but at the very least try and make them useful. Cant wait for the next review. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 132 Joined: 16 Apr 2008 | Thanks for posting this. It's a damn shame that this game had to become derailed from the original tracks. Now we are left with a "what would you do?" question... Would you rather play the game? Or watch the film? |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 4199 Joined: 2 Dec 2007     | You can skip the difficult parts? That has to be the worst idea for a game designer since... well ever. I was semi-looking forward to this game, but I guess reality is crushing right? |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1549 Joined: 5 Dec 2007    | Excellent, infact it may be your best so far. I shall figure out some more constructive critisism at a future point. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 796 Joined: 14 Dec 2007 | The problem with the game is that while it has a ton of great ideas that should be used way more often, they're all dragged down by the shittyness of the actual game. The car chase near the beginning stands out, even though it has a great premise and music that made me really feel the intensity, it was torn to shreads by the actual driving. Though I will say this has to be the most amazing thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Hell, it almost makes up for the whole fetch-quest crap near the end. Almost. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2772 Joined: 20 Dec 2007  |
Well since people complain about cutscenes, we developed the "skip scene" button, so I guess to appeal to the other side we've finally developed the "skip gameplay" button. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 217 Joined: 16 Jan 2008   | Shame the game is such a flopper. Was mildly interested simply due to the haunting music I'd heard. Goes to show Gameplay > Everything else combined. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2034 Joined: 14 Sep 2007  | Also, the driving in this game is terrible. Like, really bad. The first full-on driving segment occurs in the area around Central Park, with you driving away in desperation from the rifts that are causing the road to fall apart behind you. However, this is that special variety of obstacle cause where things fall apart in front of you as well, and the only way to avoid the gaps and fallen buildings successfully is to find where they're placed by trial and error. To be specific: Dying again and again. Yeah, I skipped that section. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 4199 Joined: 2 Dec 2007 |
What's the point of gaming in the first place if you just cut past anything a tad hard? This is going to start a downward spiral after other game devs pick up that this is a good idea. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3653 Joined: 29 Nov 2007  |
Skip... Game.... *twitch*......... *vomit*.........*Vomit while twitching*.....*Seizure.* |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1844 Joined: 13 Dec 2007 |
It's for those people who don't like the low res of cutscenes on YouTube, so they'll buy the whole game. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2903 Joined: 21 Jan 2008    |
But... Youtube's cheaper... My stinginess aside, Gigantor, a another enjoyable read. Thanks. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2772 Joined: 20 Dec 2007 |
Hell if I know, I like to play games so I can't really relate to the "other side" - maybe they don't like the game but want know what happens, but don't want to/are unable to go online. Oh damn threadjack alert - umm, I loved the analogy at the end, and of course I started laughing right when I saw the title and knew that this was going to be hilariously awesome. Lived up to the expectations. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 796 Joined: 14 Dec 2007 |
I like it for a few reasons. First, if you do in fact skip anything, your items are for the most part all gone, and you miss alot of story. This ensures that while you can skip right to later levels, doing so would screw you over. Second, you can't go right to the end. You have to unlock the last few levels (which is the stupid 3 hour fetch quest, but I digress). Third, on my second or third time through, I may want to just go to one point, instead of playing the whole level itself. Fourth, if I hit a really hard boss, or puzzle that I can't figure out, I would rather just skip it and take my licks then shove it back on the shelf to rot. And last, but not least, only lazy tools misuse things like this. The only people that say "oh, I have to open a door, time to skip!" are the people that will either come back to it later, in which case they still play it, or they are the people that don't play games for fun and should be left to their own failures. All in all, I think it's a great idea, same as I think most of the things it trys are great ideas. It's just all bogged down by a piss-poor game. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 4199 Joined: 2 Dec 2007 | (Grumble) I hired and played the game regardless of the review. I found it very annoying if anything. The combat and driving is clumsy and achieveing goals is simple if the game didn't have a grudge against me. I know I have to jump over the cliff but I keep falling short. I have to dose the flames but something keeps happening. Like you and qbert have said, it's a good idea but they pulled it off all wrong. I keep on ending up frustrated more then enjoying the visuals and horror of it. I'm not even up to the park yet! |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2772 Joined: 20 Dec 2007 |
..or are you?! *select chapter - central park - scene 1* |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 72 Joined: 4 Jul 2008 | An excellent and well-written (and picture-annotated) review. I really enjoyed reading. I don't think I'll be picking up Alone in the Dark, no matter how much I think it can be MST3K'd. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 391 Joined: 31 Oct 2007   | One of your best reviews in a while and that's high praise indeed, as i've said before I noramlly prefer your reviews when you actually like a game but this one was just a pleasure to read and saved me the rental cost so thanks I'll have a pint on you tonight. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1323 Joined: 11 Jun 2008 | nice review Gigantor. when will these survivial horror games learn that awkward and finnicky game mechanics are not the way to instill fear into the user? maybe their next gimmick could be a lobster fisted two fingered protagonist who always fumbles and drops weapons and guns? that would be scarry wouldn't it? here comes a demon but your buttery lobster hands can't seem to pull the trigger in time. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 796 Joined: 14 Dec 2007 |
A part of me would really like to play that game, but only if the special edition comes with lobster meat and free butter. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 168 Joined: 11 Jan 2008 | a truly enjoyable read good sir. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2654 Joined: 8 May 2008 | I'm beginning to fear that a new breed of Yahtzee worship is emerging: Gigantor worship. |
Honorable Mention: Escapist Film Festival Posts: 1736 Joined: 21 Feb 2008 |
I know what you meant, but I'm tired and the typo made me chuckle. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2654 Joined: 8 May 2008 |
ha, I'm tired too and I laughed as well |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2034 Joined: 14 Sep 2007 |
I don't worship Gigantor, I just follow him home at night and hide in his bushes and salvage his trash. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 4199 Joined: 2 Dec 2007 |
Saturdays I collect his loose hair from under the lounge when he's at work. |
***This review contains spoilers of Signs by M. Night Shyamalan. Really.***
Mutually Assured Realisation. You know the end of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, when it turns out the aliens are fatally allergic to water (and don't take too kindly to baseball bats either)? As that plot twist awkwardly coughed itself into being, and any respect one might have harboured for the director doffed its cap and shuffled uneasily out of the room, people sitting in cinemas across the world turned to their neighbours and uttered these fourteen words, pausing only to allow an ellipsis, hyphen and question mark to catch up:
"Fatally allergic to water...so they invade a planet two-thirds covered in it?"
That's MAR. It's a mass epiphany, a group conclusion arrived at independently but in perfect unison- it's the "Just How Stupid Do You Think We Are?" effect, manifest. I'd imagine it's going on right now in your head, concerning whether I'm ever going to get on topic and talk about the game.
Alone in the Dark has its own MAR moment. This game's beasties have an allergic reaction to fire: think "burst into ash within seconds if exposed to a naked flame, leaving just enough time for an anguished bellow" allergic. So, what better way for them to make themselves comfortable in their invasion of our realm than by...
...setting fire to every bastard thing in sight? You'd think it would be a handicap, being a demon from Hell with such a dramatic intolerance for fire, but mark my words: you don't know terror until you've walked around Central Park, poking monsters in the face with a flaming rake.
Luckily, for humanity and blurb writers alike, this game boasts "Fire Propagation Technology." Fire spreads (sort of) like real fire (um...ish).
The implementation of this technology smells a lot like gimmickry. Since "gimmick" is a contentious word, let's turn to the OED:
"gimmick- n. a trick or device intended to attract attention or publicity rather than fulfill a useful purpose."
Fire spreading? Gimmick.
Manual blinking? Gimmick.
Inventory in a coat? Gimmick.
Item combination? There's a precedent here.
A gimmick is a prepubescent mechanic. It's not that these gimmicks aren't employed- many scenarios make use of them, from blinking goo out of the character's eyes, to combining yourself a nice Molotov Cocktail out of a stapler and some string- but they never convince that their presence is necessary. For instance, the player can wave items around with the right analogue stick. Although used to solve puzzles contrived for such waving, the process never quite graduates from quasi-comedic, sub-semaphoric physical farce to "Sweet zombie Jebus, why don't they put this in all games immediately?" epiphany.
That "inventory in a coat"...
...though you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a screenshot from some peculiar Japanese flashing simulator.
The outcome of this innovation with the inventory is awkwardness. The nightmare that is turning off and unequipping your torch and switching weapons in the middle of a fight is a horror that mere prose can never hope to convey (although the strangled metre of this paragraph's first sentence made a brave attempt). Most player deaths are ultimately slapstick, borne of clumsy tank controls. This does not lend to the air of terror: it does lend to an inclination to record these deaths on Fraps, speed them up, and loop the Benny Hill soundtrack over them.
The propagating fire, that never precisely propagates properly; the inventory in a coat that proves, in practice, much more cumbersome than a standard inventory screen. Atari is a shaky prosecution lawyer, calling on the testimony of witnesses to convince the jury. Ostensibly, the witnesses are there to strengthen the case; really, their presence is intended to distract the jury from the gaping holes in the prosecution's argument.
With this penchant for first-person simulation putting the player in the character's shoes, jacket and eyes, one could assume AitD is angling for immersion. However, the perspective shifts constantly and without warning, from first to third person and back again. It suggests immersion isn't that much of a concern. Many situations can only be resolved in third person (fighting, or interacting with the environment) thus severing the connection with the protagonist's viewpoint.
Half-Life handled this peerlessly. Valve never allowed the player to leave the protagonist's perspective, even if it would have made the environmental puzzles easier to depict or the story easier to tell.
The exception to the rule, I guess.
Crucially, they also made Freeman a reticent specimen, instead of giving him free rein to spout cringeworthy, cuss heavy dialogue. AitD, conversely, is all too happy to sacrifice the immersive benefits of the first-person if the situation asks it. The first playable sequence in the game ends with the player staring at the protagonist's reflection in a mirror, only for the camera to jump to third-person for some platforming. Does the game want us to "be" Edward Carnby, or to play as him? You can't have your cake and eat it, Atari.
More accurately, you can't eat your cake and have it.
This jumping perspective suggests an aping of the "cinematic." Dramatic camera angles and helicopter explosions showering flaming debris all over the hero as he dangles from a cliff are the stuff of action films. The excessively bump and normal mapped face of the protagonist even bears passing resemblances to certain pockmarked film stars.
A very weak effort, Atari. He's obviously CGI.
Regrettably, AitD makes the Michael Bay mistake of thinking that lashings of "cheap thrills" will magically transmute into a handful of "rich thrills". It's constantly shouting, grabbing you by the shoulder and pointing at things:
"Ohmigod! A falling bus! Watch out for potential crushing!"
"Ohmigod! Water and electricity! What a perilous confluence!"
"Ohmigod! A flaming gas canister! Be wary of the possible conflagration!"
There's no alchemy here: when the ingredients are cheap thrills and gimmicks, the outcome is gimmicky cheap thrills. Conservation of Energy, guys: it's a bitch.
The most obvious cue comes from DVDs of 24 or Lost. The credits and cliff-hangers that close each chapter of AitD hint at this, but it's most explicitly shown by the game's DVD style "Chapter Selection", replete with "Previously On..." montages.
The merits of "Chapter Selection" in gaming are open to debate. Despite not being a difficult game, giving the player the ability to skip to any section they want to clearly kills any semblance of challenge. On the plus side, it opens up the game to everyone. On the minus side, it opens up the game to everyone.
Hell, if a "fair" system means the player is denied the rest of the game when they become stuck at a certain point, largely on the inscrutable whims of the developer, maybe it's acceptable to kill the challenge. Like Oblivion's fast travel, the option is there, but the onus is on the player. I suppose the point is that, once there's the option to skip a difficult section, you'll start to wonder what the point is in struggling with any section. Of course, if the game were fun to play, that would be a justification in itself- AitD sort of falls down there.
What else are games, though, if not difficulties? They're scenarios with obstacles. If you don't want difficulties, rent a DVD. Perhaps this is a bad omen for gaming's future, a sinister and self-defeating pandering to accessibility. Or perhaps GameFAQs are the only people losing out in the long run.
It certainly improves the chances of people seeing the game's disappointing endings. Frustrating "damned if you do, damned if you don't" affairs, the damnation in effect here is of a literal, Biblical, brimstoney flavour. There's a "bad" ending; there's also another "bad" ending. One is a sliver less bad, although the fact that both seem to end with the imminent destruction of the human race means discussing degrees of "badness" would seem to be splitting hairs. Different shades of grey, really. Atari knew many more people would see the ending of this game than most other games- the least they could do is provide a satisfying conclusion for those who did slog their way through to it.
Still, if it ends dreadfully, it opens memorably. The player gains consciousness in a skyscraper falling to pieces, in a city following suit. Much of the spectacle of the game's opening is borne from an obvious source: events in New York, six and a bit years ago, hang just offstage; specific emotions are tacitly stirred up by watching a city fall apart. This is not to accuse the game of tastelessly capitalising on human suffering- it's an allusion, although only Atari can say how intentional it was. Unfortunately, the adrenaline-injected fear it creates is so much more arresting than anything else the game has to offer that, once the game has settled into its survival horror groove, tedium is the result. It's a pity that the game has to persist beyond its beginning.
The opening is the most terrifying part of the game because it infuses fantastic events into a familiar setting, always acknowledging that the fantastic informs and defines real-life fears. Central Park in the dark strikes me as a fairly spooky setting in real-life, even with an absence of pyrophobic demons scuttling around. Watching a building fall to pieces from the inside is far more alarming than heavy fog and monsters spitting poison at you. It's no coincidence that, as the preposterousness of the narrative increases, so the fear experienced by the player decreases. It seems this:
Is not half as scary as this:
AitD's underfed narrative and overblown delivery leave it lopsided. Its obsession with introducing gimmicks but not considering whether it really needs to is married to and marred by ill-considered controls. It's a difficult game to recommend, particularly in a world, and genre, shared by specimens as superior as Resident Evil 4.
Don't touch AitD with a clumsily manipulated ten-foot flaming bargepole.
A protip for Atari