Alone in the Dark (Wii, 2008)

Spooky goings on in Central Park, would you like to know the truth behind the light?

Atari has taken it upon itself to resurrect Alone in the Dark, the quintessential survival horror game. It's been over 7 years since the last game in the series, not that it matters as this latest incarnation writes an entirely new contemporary story.

The game's focus is based on a strange set of supernatural and bizarre occurrences that are reported from within modern day Central Park, Manhattan, New York. After awakening with no apparent memory, beaten and bruised, its up to you, Edward Carnby, to shake off your violent captors and start investigating the mystery of the park.
Alone in the Dark Screenshot

Atari have boasted the game's innovative "episodic" structure, lightening it to recent drama TV shows such as LOST and 24. The game could be described as an interactive sci-fi TV show which has split into 10 separate episodes, containing between 3 and 5 chapters each.

The idea behind this structure is to allow the gamer to "pick up and play", splitting the game into several "bite sized chucks". The developers have even included a "Previously on..." introduction video for each episode, designed to instantly remind you where you last were.

Alone in the Dark has clearly had alot of backing from Atari, it's been released with a fairly heavy marketing campaign and has 3 distinct versions, one for the PS2, one for PS3 and Xbox 360 (which has clearly had a visual boost) and the Wii version (developed by Hydravision) which has had far more emphasis on the unique Wiimote controls.
Alone in the Dark Screenshot

Because of this disjointed development cycle the episode content of the different versions does differ, we assume this has been based on what works well on the Wiimote. First impressions would suggest that because of this process the Wii version of the game is actually shorter and somewhat simpler.

The game supports both third person perspective and first person perspective, choosing between the two is mostly upto the player apart from certain areas of the game where you are forced to use one or the other.

Alone in the Dark is a hard game to describe, it is somewhat like a "dumbed down" version of Resident Evil where you have some clunky basic movement control but after that it's simply a series of "action" buttons.

For example, walk up to a rope, press (A) to grab it, swing left, press (B) to let go, only the actions important to your progress are accessible (button icons appear on-screen) so progress is relatively straight forward. Because of this simplistic gameplay with a single set path it tends to make the scenes quite static.
Alone in the Dark Screenshot

In addition to the simple button controls are the more "interactive" elements and Wiimote gestures which have been heavily focused on in the marketing materials.

Interactive elements, such as hot-wiring a car and driving it, aren't quite as fancy as they might sound. Hot-wiring is achieved by twisting the controllers to rotate your wires and driving your car is simply holding your Wiimote + Nunchuk in a steering wheel position, both are executed adequately but nothing outstandingly natural.

The gestures are more interesting, for example to access your inventory menu you are required to simulate the action of opening a book using both hands, designed to feel like you are opening your jacket. Whilst these kind of gestures are a nice idea, sadly it can take a number of attempts to actually

when i first put the game in i thought wow this has some pretty decent graphics and i liked the gameplay but then i got 5 min into it and was already stuck it is the most difficult game i have ever played and there are no tutorials either every once in a while a picture will show up in the corner to tell you what to do but its not much help trust me... now the game has a chapter select feature so you can move to the next chapter and that way you never really get stuck but what sucked about that is i got stuck on just about every chapter so i found myself skipping past the whole game basically... now i have been playing video games for a long time and i love a challenging video game but this isnt challenging this is rediculous i have had the game for only a few games and im already bout to trade it in... dont waste your money

The first time i played, it looked ok (i did not see the PC-version before) and the gameplay was not too hard and it looked promissing. But... this game is definitely not finished. They cut out important cutscenes so that you cannot follow the storyline or you can have situations like "hé, what do you doing here??? I thought you were outside??" The ending is even more stupid and full of questions, more than on the PC-version. This bothers me the most. Also you have not the ability to use a lot of items (as on the PC-Version) and there are rather annoying puzzles like the car handling or rope-jumping. Unlike other users, the other controls were not that bad but turning in shooting perspective was also difficult. Graphics are for me not important as long as it not annoys me (it doesn't) because gameplay and storyline is much more important. Sound is ok though. I'm a fan of spooky/thrilling adventure games: firstly this game looked like on of them but after a few houres... no, don't buy this game even if you like the genre A LOT (and believe me: i don't say such things fast).

I like this game what time I have played it when you work play time is limited of coursw the nintendo wii is great.

jdanielnbrenda

Alone in the Dark is an excellent game. I enjoy the action in the game play and the zombies in the game. The zombie charaters make me laugh and the graphics are well designed. I recommend to anyone to purchase this game.