244: The Tragedy of Alone in the Dark

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

The Tragedy of Alone in the Dark

The latest addition to the Alone in the Dark series was almost universally panned when it hit shelves in 2008. But while Yahtzee heaped his share of scorn onto the game in his review, he actually has a strange affection for it. Yahtzee explains how Alone in the Dark came closer to greatness than you may think.

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[wooty]

An interesting article there, never played AITD myself but thats intrigued me to maybe have a look at it. It was either the way the game sounded inventive or just your use of "colourful metephors" that made that read all the sweeter

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

A well-written article on what went right as well as wrong with a game that many people have probably forgotten. Yahtzee's ZP on Alone In The Dark focused mostly on the bad points because, let's face it, that's what people expect, and entertainers give the people what they want, right? Right.

Let's not forget that Yahtzee is, in fact, a critic, and not just an entertainer. This article is a fine reminder of that.

 

[carpathic]

God, it is not often that I get an issue of the Escapist where all of the games mentioned are ones that I found impossible to like.

Alone in the dark was another good example of this for me. I got so stuck on the flaws that I couldn't even find the fun. As cool as it is when a game has a neat message, or is innovative in some manner, a game must always pass the fun test if I am going to like it.

 

[Frybird]

I wanted to like this game. I wanted so hard to like this game.

So much Hype, so much excitement, and despite that some of the later previews pointed out things weren't looking well, i immediately pre-ordered the Limited Edition and actually got it delivered half a week before launch.
As it would turn out, the reason for that probably was so that i couldn't cancel my order when the bad reviews came in.

But still, i did my best to overlook the flaws and found stuff to like the game, like the nice presentation and the innovative gameplay elements.

But then somewhere in the more "freeform" open world part of the game (of wich i first of thought it had a nice "lone hunter" vibe to it), it just started to suck so much (with the added repetitiveness) that all my previous fascination turned into frustrated hate.

And so we learn that you better admit it when a game you want to like sucks, because otherwise you'll just suffer afterwards.


But oh well, we still have the soundtrack and one of the awesome narm-iest one-liners ever...AND F**K YOU ANYWAY!

 

[irrelevantnugget]

AITD was a fairly fun game, Ill give it that, I never got passed the first taxi 'run the fuck away from the game crash' as I could never find the right route right after the Mall section.

You got lucky, I never even got out of the stupid burning apartment. At one point (not even 15 minutes into the game) I had to extinguish a burning door. I grab the fire extinguisher, hold the button it tells me to, and press the 'use' button (or was the it LMB? doesn't matter). Good ol' stupid Ed bashes the door with the extinguisher. I try again. Bash. Then I plugged in my gamepad, tried it with those controls, and nope, Ed just prefers bashing the door with the fire extinguisher instead of actually using the damn thing, so I go back to keyboard controls and switch up the controls a bit.
AND NO, HE STILL WOULDN'T FUCKING EXTINGUISH THE FIRE. I uninstalled, and sold this piece of shit. God damn.

 

[DeadAccountMoveAlong]

I really want them to do a sequel. Most games with good ideas and dedication only need one more game to fix a good deal of the problems and refine their thinking. Most of the flaws are managable.

 

[Nomanslander]

I don't know, I thought the game just sucked...=/

The Macgyvering idea was interesting, but then maybe they should just make Macgyver the game instead of generic action horror game #345,559...0o

 

[Nyrad01]

I liked this review more than his Zero Punctuation one because he gave the good and the bad for this game. I can understand why everyone hated this game - hell I even did for the first few levels - but I eventually fell in love with it. I think the only, aside from the awful controls, that I hated in this game was the ending which was... Short, to say the least.

 

[Crossborder]

Ah, finally something by yathzee that i can agree with again! I thought AITD was actually not as bad as everyone says it is.
I mean, it's not great, but it's good for a fun time and that's what counts right?

 

[Jack and Calumon]

I felt the same way about it. Although, I personally thought the hero needed to do one. He had no idea whats going on about anything. He's like a pothead just walked on the set of a movie and everyone thinks he's the main star, and his love interest is shrieking saying it's not him.

 

[Doc Cannon]

I quit the game after 7 attempts to cross a wooden plank. The camera just kept shifting and Edward changed direction while walking to adjust to the new camera position... and fell to his death.
I agree that the many attempted innovations had potential, that's precisely why I tried the game, but they were so badly implemented and flawed I just couldn't go on.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It sure does suck when a bad game could've been amazing if only........

Like Folklore.

 

[Tonimata]

"de jour"

It's spelt "de jour"

And yes, that game was broken in the most literal sense. I can even picture the production lines having a machine that breaks the discs, then puts them back together. Only one side is flipped over.

 

[Magnalian]

The only way to bring inventory puzzles up to date would be to create a game where you can pick up and use every single loose object and tool, and any solution that would conceivably work in the real world is allowed for.

Scribblenauts came pretty close to doing this, with a ton of things you could summon at will to complete the tasks ahead. This didn't work perfectly, though. As Yahtzee pointed out in his review, people don't need complete freedom, as this just makes them recycle old solutions.

Fixing that will not be easy in Scribblenauts 2, but if they can add 10.000 more items, they can probably think of a solution too.

 

[Dimbo_Sama]

Personally I don't understand why they tried to force a love intrest on a 110 year old man.

 

[Ninjamedic]

I think i might try the PS3 version as it it rumored to be improved.

 

[atalanta]

"de jour"

It's spelt "de jour"

It's actually spelled du jour.

Never played the game, but I've always kind of wondered, did you have to keep manually blinking through the whole game?