Posted July 24, 2010
You may have played the original Alone in the Dark, the precursor of the Survival Horror genre finalized by an instant classic Resident Evil. It wasn't really about being alone or in the dark, but brought a completely new feel to the Adventure genre. Second and the third games in the series decided to put more emphasis on action and less on creepy Lovecraft-style atmosphere. And then, when Resident Evil came, the series were forgotten for a time.
But in 2001 Darkworks finished the new game in the series. Developed for PS1, a return to survival and horror adventure finally decide to justify the name of the series. First, and only for now, time the game was called Alone in the Dark for a reason. You were pretty much alone, on an island covered in darkness with enemies born of darkness and afraid of light. And that very same concept, recently revisited by Alan Wake, was very interesting. Flashlight, instead of being a simple tool to help your navigation, was a weapon. It wasn't a novel idea, but the way it was done was very interesting.
But a lot of people, fans of the original trilogy, were disappointed. Why? Most likely, by the fact that The New Nightmare was in many ways "another Resident Evil clone". Beautifully done and, in the end, very individualistic. But still not "something completely different". The control scheme was similar, battles used similar logic, same pre-rendered backgrounds, same load between areas. Even two characters as in Resident Evil 2. Everyone seemed to ignore the facts, that RE system worked wonderfully and was based on the original AITD, that original AITD also had two characters. And the fact, that instead of two characters going through the same things and puzzles, like RE2 did, you had two completely different and complementing scenarios.
But even though the game looked great, played great and had a lot of interesting mind-twisting tricks (something Eternal Darkness later done even better), the game did suffer from a lot of problems. RE-scheme was good, but had its own flaws, that were present here as well. And the game had its own share of small or big flaws, one of the biggest ones was the story. Starting in a Lovecraft-style "unknown horror" it decided to change to a "scientifically explainable horror" and no old-Indian mythologies could help the growing lack of interest in the story.
But even knowing the flaws and having finished the game several times now, i couldn't help but by the game the second i saw it.
But in 2001 Darkworks finished the new game in the series. Developed for PS1, a return to survival and horror adventure finally decide to justify the name of the series. First, and only for now, time the game was called Alone in the Dark for a reason. You were pretty much alone, on an island covered in darkness with enemies born of darkness and afraid of light. And that very same concept, recently revisited by Alan Wake, was very interesting. Flashlight, instead of being a simple tool to help your navigation, was a weapon. It wasn't a novel idea, but the way it was done was very interesting.
But a lot of people, fans of the original trilogy, were disappointed. Why? Most likely, by the fact that The New Nightmare was in many ways "another Resident Evil clone". Beautifully done and, in the end, very individualistic. But still not "something completely different". The control scheme was similar, battles used similar logic, same pre-rendered backgrounds, same load between areas. Even two characters as in Resident Evil 2. Everyone seemed to ignore the facts, that RE system worked wonderfully and was based on the original AITD, that original AITD also had two characters. And the fact, that instead of two characters going through the same things and puzzles, like RE2 did, you had two completely different and complementing scenarios.
But even though the game looked great, played great and had a lot of interesting mind-twisting tricks (something Eternal Darkness later done even better), the game did suffer from a lot of problems. RE-scheme was good, but had its own flaws, that were present here as well. And the game had its own share of small or big flaws, one of the biggest ones was the story. Starting in a Lovecraft-style "unknown horror" it decided to change to a "scientifically explainable horror" and no old-Indian mythologies could help the growing lack of interest in the story.
But even knowing the flaws and having finished the game several times now, i couldn't help but by the game the second i saw it.