Tag Archives: Alone in the Dark

Survival Horror appears to be stuck in a rut. VG247′s Dave Cook asks if the genre has turned into a husk, or if our expectations have merely shifted.

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When developing Alone in the Dark for Infogrames, Frederick Raynal said he had many ideas regarding how to scare players but found the best way to do it was to implement it into something they do all the time: walking.

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GDC organizers have announced the return of Classic Game Postmortems, and this year’s line-up includes talks on Harvest Moon, Gauntlet, Alone in the Dark, and Fallout.

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Eden announced a few weeks ago that Alone in the Dark PS3 was to have an overhaul and a 360 patch was on the way, but up until now we didn’t know what those changes were. Now we do.

• Full 360 camera control: enhanced camera controls allows complete freedom of the camera and better handling of first person view camera movement for even more immersive gameplay;
• Fine-tuned controls: quicker and smoother reactivity of the hero’s movements in third person view make for more rapid movements in nail-biting situations;
• Inventory system more accessible: more logical jacket inventory system with the ability to combine objects using only the D-pad, and more fluid hero movement makes item selection a breeze.
• More tips: players will get all the help they need to get through every situation and get the most out of the game;
• Spectral Vision tuning: a tutorial explains the need to burn roots in order to gain spectral vision and difficulty tuning means less spectral vision is required to reach the end of the game;
• Improved car dynamics and handling: car handling has been tuned to make driving a car a walk in the park in every situation, including increased suspension and reduced drift;
• 59th Street level tuning: one of the game’s most exciting sequences just got better. 59th Street has been tweaked for a more satisfying race against the fissure with difficulty tuning, an added checkpoint at Columbus Circle and clear voice directions given by Sarah;
• Brand new thrilling action sequence: an exclusive new sequence has been added in Episode 6 for even more pace and variety of gameplay in the episode.

Thanks, CVG.

By Mike Bowden

Speaking at Games Convention this week, Eden Studios has said that it is bringing out a patch for Alone in the Dark 360 that will bring the game in line with the overhauled PS3 version.

The salient changes include a more streamlined inventory system and a better camera for on-foot and driving sections.

No date has been announced for the patch although it does suddenly make the PS3 version a different prospect entirely.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

By Mike Bowden

Antoine Villette, founder of I Am Alive developer Darkworks, has told VG247 he believes Alone in the Dark can still be great, but only if Atari is prepared to make radical changes to its format.

“When we took Alone in the Dark in 2001 it was to renew the franchise with names, characters, we tried to put it in a modern base and modernise it a little bit,” said Villette, talking of the Darkworks-developed Alone in the Dark: A New Nightmare.

“Now I think that with this franchise, if Atari wants to do something [further], it has to be a major step towards other things: perhaps other platforms, other game systems, other gameplay.

“Alone in the Dark has this chance to have this fantastic title: they have to work with that. Perhaps to be a little purer about it and move away from what has become the classical survival horror game with Resident Evil, Biohazard, and let it be Alone in the Dark.

“When you forget that there’s been four or five instalments in the franchise, you can do something fantastic with it.”

The last Alone in the Dark game from Eden Studios – still to release on PS3 – wasn’t well received critically, and Atari boss Phil Harrison has already said he doubts another game of its ilk will be greenlit by the firm.

Microsoft just announced that the Alone in the Dark demo is now available on Xbox Live. It’s a 1.35Gb download. Get to it.

Atari put out a release schedule this afternoon confirming the PS3 version of Alone in the Dark for a November release.

That’s it, pretty much. You probably already know if you’re going to buy this or not.

Ow. Eurogamer’s panned the Wii version of Alone in the Dark, and it makes for pretty horrific reading, aptly enough. From the piece:

Alone in the Dark on Xbox 360 was a noble failure, just about clawing respectability from the jaws of disaster thanks to some interesting puzzles and mechanics, but forgetting to make the basic controls work in the process. Alone in the Dark on Wii is a broken adaptation of that borked premise, which leaps into the jaws of disaster, hauls them closed afterwards, and starts stabbing itself in the face with the nearest fang. At times you really wish it worked, because the threat of a good idea or two remains, but it doesn’t.

Read it if you dare.

According to this Videogamer piece, the PS3 version of Alone in the Dark won’t hit until the company’s fourth quarter. That’s October at the earliest.

Developer Eden had previously said the PlayStation 3 version would come later than the other SKUs because it was “not performing as well” on the machine.

Official Nintendo Magazine has what seems to be the first review for Atari’s Alone in the Dark on Wii, and keeping true to previous form the mag slates it, calling it unfinished and giving it a weary 64 percent.

“Alone In The Dark is an utter disappointment,” says the review. “Gamers willing to stick with it will get some great moments out of it but the knowledge that it should and could have been so much better with an extra six months of development (i.e. had they actually finished the game) is almost too much to bear.

“And the knowledge that the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions ARE finished grates yet further. This game shouldn’t be on the shelves in this state; it’s as simple as that.”

‘Nuff said, although quite why the mag’s given it 64 percent if the game isn’t finished is a little beyond us.

By Mike Bowden

Atari just confirmed by email that a 360 demo of Alone in the Dark will be released in the near future.

“The Alone in the Dark Xbox 360 demo is currently being finalized and will be available on Xbox Live Marketplace in the coming weeks,” said a rep.

We’re just asking what you can expect to get in the taster, so more soon, hopefully.

Videogaming247 has learned this morning that one of the UK’s biggest PC magazines is set to deliver a sub-60 percent score on Alone in the Dark, with more wince-worthy marks set to follow in the coming weeks.

This isn’t looking good. Talk in Britain is also emerging that Atari refused to let pre-release reviews go live unless they were “positive enough”, a ploy seemingly mirrored in Holland.

“Within an hour [after posting our review], Atari called to have the review pulled off, claiming there was an embargo till Friday,” Gamer.nl staffer Erwin Bergervoet told Shacknews.

“Our review copy was sent directly to us by Atari and [was] not a pirated copy. They explicitly told [Gamer.nl] that they only let high scoring reviews break the post-release embargo date.”

Expect more on this next week.

Last Alone in the Dark review score story, promise. IGN’s given it a 7/10. We get it. And that’s the end of that.

Atari’s issued a statement to GamesIndustry.biz saying it’s happy with UK reviews of Alone in the Dark, but refused to comment on various legal rumours doing the rounds today.

“We’re happy with the review scores in the UK,” said a rep. “We believe the game speaks for itself.”

The title’s picking up scores in the seven and eight region across Europe, but Gamereactor’s given it a proper kicking in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The publication’s released in all three languages, don’t you know.

Atari just confirmed that the PC version of Alone in the Dark uses the unpopular SecuROM online protection system for verification.

“This requires that in addition to the content on the game disk, players download an additional component via an internet connection in order to install and run the game,” said the firm in a statement. “Once the game has been correctly installed and activated, it can be played whilst offline.

“To install the game on a different computer, players must revoke the serial number when uninstalling from the first machine (this is an automatic option during the uninstall process).”

The game’s minimum spec has also been released.

All the details after the link.

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Eurogamer.de’s posted its Alone in the Dark review, giving a 7/10 and an 8/10 over two opinions, close to its British counterpart.

PCGames.de went for 80 percent.

Expect a flood of these today. We should start running a book on the final Metacritic average.

Alone in the Dark doesn’t seem to be very popular among our Nordic brothers, as it now appears the Gamereactor Norway review wasn’t just an ugly stain on an otherwise brilliant cloth.

Gamereactor Denmark has now chimed in giving the game a 4/10 saying the game has a “clumsy, syrupy control system, uneven graphics and a bad inventory system.”

It is “full of mistakes”, has a “sluggish fighting mechanic” and top it all off it has a “poor camera” and “bad voice acting”.

Gamereactor Sweden gives it the same score – 4/10, keep up! – and sums up its review with phrases such as “worthless atmosphere”, “dull presentation”, “meaningless story” and “monotonous”.

More Alone in the Dark reviews throughout the day.

By Mike Bowden

We skipped this last night as our German isn’t the best and it’s not the sort of thing you want to get wrong. According to this piece on 4players.de, Atari has pulled as ad campaign and is threatening legal action over its Alone in the Dark review.

The publisher’s claiming that the game may have been reviewed from leaked code and can not even be called a review based on that assumption.

4players has published section of an email from a very pissed off Atari through the link. You should probably read it.

As you know, reviews are starting to trickle in around the 6 and 7/10 mark.

Gamereactor’s put its Alone in the Dark review back up, and it’s still got a 3/10 on it.

The site removed its piece after posting it yesterday. It later transpired that code had only been sent through the day earlier.

A “3″ isn’t going to do that average much good, is it?