Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2378 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Atari
• Released on: 2008-06-20
• Platform: Nintendo Wii

Amazon.co.uk
There’s something strange and frightening happening in the middle of New York City’s Central Park; something whispered to have been intentionally kept secret; something that players are compelled to explore in Alone in the Dark.

Known today as a safe haven for New Yorkers yearning for relief from the stresses of their chaotic metropolis, history records that Central Park was built on a useless swamp, yet as the New York City skyline hurtled towards the sky over the last 150 years, making the city the most expensive real estate in the world, the park has remained untouched. Why? Civic pride? Perhaps, but the recent strange happenings in and around the park are casting doubt on that, doubts that require investigating.

The return of an iconic series

Paranormal PI Edward Carnby. .

Stunningly spooky views of NYC. .

The odd wildlife of Central Park. .

A whole new inventory system. .

Enter Edward Carnby, Paranormal Investigator
Despite the title, Alone in the Dark is actually the fifth game in a series that dates back to 1992 and centers around the experiences of Edward "the reptile" Carnby. A paranormal investigator by trade, Carnby is looking for answers to the strange events and horrific creatures reported in and around the park, but gets more than he bargained for when all the mysteries and terrors of the park spill out over the course of one apocalyptic night. It’s the player’s task to avoid the new frightening dangers of the park as you search for the answers to what these supernatural occurrences mean and why they are happening.

Gameplay Based on Full Player Immersion
Packed full of action and vivid in its realism Alone in the Dark goes to the extreme to keep players engaged and immersed by plunging them into the heart of the action in real-time at every turn and challenging them to survive using full movement control. The goal here is to allow players to do or at least feel that they can do more or less whatever is possible in real life, within the game.

Need to avoid a blast of steam or an eruption of fire that has shot up in your path? You can simply side-step it or you can handle the obstacle with a little more panache by using the environment around you, for example by swinging around it using reachable pipes or wires. In another situation you may be challenged by attacking monsters. No problem. You can take the path of least resistance, again by side-stepping them or placing an obstacle between yourself and them, but if you are feeling like taking out a little aggression you can pick up a board, chair, box, etc. and have at it. Nearly anything that you come across that would be usable in real life is usable in game and can be wielded in several different ways.

In addition, game developer Eden Studios has done away with a few in-game conventions in favour of real life upgrades. Instead of old-fashioned health bars Alone in the Dark uses realistic body damage and physiological effects to show players how much damage has been done to Carnby by the new dangerous nightlife of Central Park. Basically this means if Carnby has been taking a licking he’s going to be a little bloody. Monsters use sensory perception of all kinds to find their victims, so players need to keep aware of Carnby’s physical state, as well as the impact he has on his surroundings. Also gone are traditional inventory systems that take players out of the game while you switch or check items in your possession, replaced by an in-game inventory system where items are carried in the folds of Carnby’s trench coat. This allows you to stay in the action the whole time. Sticking with the realism theme, the number of items that Carnby can carry is limited, but since ingenuity is built into the system, items can be combined or their uses altered, mostly with tape, so players can adjust as challenges arise.

TV Style Intensity That Keeps You Hooked
Built around a unique television style episodic narrative game structure, the storyline of Alone in the Dark is split into a number of distinct 30-40 minute episodes, doled out one at a time as you play. This new way to progress through the storyline ensures that players can enjoy the game regardless of the amount of time they have available without ever feeling lost. Each time a saved game is launched, the episode will begin with a video summary of the previous episode to quickly re-immerse the player in the story, removing the need to remember where you were or what you were doing at the end of your last play session. In addition, every episode will also close with a nail-biting, cliff-hanger ending to rattle players’ nerves. And when you choose to leave the game, a video teaser of the next episode will play to leave players always wanting more.

Vivid Photographic Rendering
Even on a bad day, and this will be a bad one, Central Park and New York City are something to see. With Game developer Eden’s proprietary Twilight technology and rendering engine, players can expect to see everything from the City’s famous landmarks to the manifestations of the evil that have been festering in Central Park come to life as if you were there. This lavishly detailed game world takes advantage of highly realistic and advanced cinematographic effects including depth of field, camera focus, numerous light sources, moisture, reflections and High Dynamic Range effects.

Whether it’s the innovative game play, the unique episodic game structure, the advanced physics or the return of a ground-breaking protagonist recast in the modern era, Alone in the Dark holds something for players willing to take on the mysteries and dangers at the heart of Central Park.

Manufacturer's Description
Central Park is hiding a secret. Built as a safe haven not only for the people of New York, but for something else entirely. The vast parkland has been protected by generations of guardians while the most expensive city in the world reached skyward on its fringes. Now the truth can no longer be contained, and paranormal investigator Edward Carnby finds himself inexplicably cast into the eye of the storm as over the course of one apocalyptic night he must uncover the earth-shattering secret behind Central Park. New York will never be the same again.

Customer Reviews

A very unfortunate disaster..
Like a lot of people, I was really looking forward to this game, because I had read a lot of interesting things about it, and I saw the trailer where the man is doing all the cool things with his wii-remote. Unfortunately, the game is a disapointment on almost all levels. What could have been an extremely enjoyable survival horror Wii game turned out to be a huge letdown..

Firstly, there are a lot of good ideas in the game, and it seems as though the developer at least tried to make the Wii version slightly different from the others. For example, you can swing your wii remote to affect the objects you carry in the game. Some other good ideas were the inventory, which involves you literally going through your coat pocket to pick up items, and the healing system, which involves having to spray and bandage up your wounds with the wii remote.

In theory all of that sounds great, and many Wii owners will probably rush out and buy it (like I did), but the controls aren't very well implemented. Most of the wii-specific controls are overly sensitive, or are just tedious and stop you from enjoying the game. One particular example is the driving controls, where you hold your remote and nunchuck vertically to simulate a steering wheel. Absoloutely horrendous. Way too sensitive, and makes the driving sections almost unplayable (especially as you are timed, and many unfair obstacles stop you from going anywhere!)

The graphics aren't even up to PS2 standards, and this would have been forgivable if the game was fun to play but it just isn't, due to the stiff control and dodgy camera views. Whenever you are close enough to see someone's face, you can see how angular and bland the graphics are, and this is a real shame considering how nice the other version look. The fire is just a messy yellowish blur, and the cars look blocky and lame. Also, lip synching with the swear-filled dialogue is horrible, and some of the characters just look plain thick!

If that isn't enough, the actual structure of the game isn't anything great either. For the first few missions, it is often hard to know what you are meant to be doing, and not in a good way... Sometimes, you will be stuck for ages trying to find a way out of a room, only to find that the cause for your difficulty was just a bad camera angle, or a design flaw. (Can I jump on that ledge or not? Can I pick this up? etc...) Its nice that the developer included a DVD-style chapter menu to choose other levels if you're stuck, but doesn't that just defeat the purpose of playing it in the first place?

To be honest, my hopes were really high for this game, but it is a poorly designed, rushed, and almost unplayable disaster! The dodgy controls, irritating camera angles and boring mission structures were enough to make me hate the game completely. It is just about playable in some sections, but it's never truly FUN, and when you realise that other games like Resident Evil 4 are available, it's just a waste of time! Don't let the trailers fool you - this is an unfinished and poorly made game - just buy Resident Evil 4 instead because it's fun and very well made, and just puts 'Alone in The Dark' to shame.

Annoyed In The Dark
Alone in the Dark (Wii)

Oh, why didn't I listen to all the other reviews!? Surely it can't really be that bad, I thought? Well it was, and I only owned it a few days before giving up and trading it in.

It just wasn't any fun at all, mostly because of the awful control system. It starts not being fun straight away when you have to keep tapping the "blink" button for 5 minutes to keep the screen focussed (as you awake from a daze). It then continues not to be fun as you spend ages taking your gun in and out of its holster when you really want to open your coat to access the inventory. Oh, and there's the occasional spinning round and round in a circle when the cursor's off screen.

Game controls should be intuitive and easy to use (see Resident Evil 4 as one of many examples) - they shouldn't get in the way of your enjoyment of the game, or impede your progress.

Now it's true the graphics aren't that great, but that doesn't necessarily matter if the game plays well. However, even ignoring the badly designed control system, there are other problems ...occasionally, I even got "stuck" in the scenery and had to quit the game.

Also, the "Real World Rules" which the game brags so much about are annoyingly inconsistent. For example, some chairs you can pick up and use whilst others are just "scenery" which you can't affect in any way. Similarly, you can perform huge death-defying leaps when the game needs you to get over a dangerous pit but you can't hop over a two foot wall if the game wants you to use a different route.

On top of all that, there is no way to bypass the cut scenes if you die and have to replay a section.

I don't think I've ever experienced this level of frustration with any game before on any platform and after just a few hours of play I decided it just wasn't worth the effort. A huge disappointment, and a complete waste of my time and money.

A Perfect Example of a Good Game Made Badly
`Alone in the Dark' on the Wii is the fifth game in the long running series of survival horror games.

I'm one of the few people (going by the reviews on here) that played through the whole game until the end...and it was hard work! Not because the game was particularly difficult, it is because of such poor controls which are just way too fiddly and too complicated for their own good. Some of the controls work well such as the nunchuck control to move about and the shake of the Wii remote to hit things with various objects, but there are just so many controls to learn for such a short game that it just feels like one big chore to play. Swinging either the nunchuck or Wii remote to the left or right will bring out the item held in the characters hand (usually a flashlight in the left, a gun in the right) but you'll get points in the game where there'll be a couple of enemies that you'll need to attack at once and when moving the remote it will put your weapon away, which is extremely annoying. The worst controls in the game are the driving sections which are ok in large stretches of level with a wide open space, but when it's quite closed in (like when you first get to drive a car) it is really, really hard to steer around obstacles and tight corners and I was going crazy with frustration after a few minutes.

The graphics are probably the worst that I've seen so far on the Wii, looking not much better than an early PS2 game. The characters are blocky and unrealistic, with cardboard looking hair, square fingers and no skin or clothes textures. The levels themselves would have been amazing if the graphics were better with some very impressive designs such as when the character is hanging off the edge of a sky-scraper and the gradual destruction of the building in the opening level. The picture is also very blurry and grainy (even when played through HD component cables) which does strain my eyes a lot when staring at the screen for a short while.

The camera angles also are very bad where you won't know what you are aiming at, so it is always best to hold the Z button when battling enemies.

The sound and music is great but the voice-acting is appalling, with some of the worst dialogue I've heard since the original Resident Evil game.
The length of the game isn't that long once you know what you're doing and where you're going. One feature that I really liked about this game is the DVD style chapters that you can use to skip portions of the levels (which are split into 4 per level) if you are stuck and are finding it hard to get any further. Not that this game had me stumped at any point anyway.

Overall this is a game that would have been brilliant if the controls had of been more user-friendly and the graphics were much better. I think I'll give it a go again on the PS3 when it's released later this year (I don't own a 360) as with the HD visuals and the "normal" controls, I think this could be really good. Probably worth a rent on the Wii but again this is a game that just isn't suited to the Wii's innovative control system.

Gameplay - 2/5
Graphics - 1/5
Sound - 3/5
Lifespan - 2/5
Overall - 2/5