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ENTERTAINMENT
Justin McElroy: 'Alone in the Dark' innovates, but isn't fun
"Alone in the Dark," is a new action horror game from Atari.
Purchase this photoI'm a big drum-banger for innovation. I'm on the record that if a game does something I haven't seen before, then I'm going to look on it more favorably than a game of similar quality that I've seen before.
But this past week I've found that there's a dark side to innovation ... an "Alone in the Dark" side.
AITD is a new action horror game from Atari that's already had kind of a rough history. It's been frequently delayed, often surrounded by too much hype, though. No matter how bad the omens, I wanted to believe in the game, simply because some of its ideas were so cool.
Originally, it was said that the game would be episodic, with the adventure broken up like a season of "24," or any other network drama. But in practice, they're basically just tantamount to levels that you can play in any order you want to. It's not as much of a focus as I would have hoped. Though it is kind of cool that when you load your game you get a "Previously on 'Alone in the Dark'" recap clip.
Beyond just the episodic nature, there's a real cinematic quality to the game. There's great music and some really incredible sequences where the evil plaguing the city is tearing it apart piece by piece.
Combat was supposed to be innovative too, and make no mistake, there are a lot of cool ideas here. You can combine household items to make grenades, pour flammables on your weapon to make fire bullets, all from a smart inventory system that shows all your items in your jacket pockets. It's officially the most realistic inventory system ever. The idea behind melee combat is kind of cool too, with your character being able to swing objects with just a flick of the right analog stick.
There are great ideas like this all through the game, literally.
So, what's the problem? Well, none of it is very fun. There are first and third person perspectives, neither of them work very well. Though the whole coat gag is neat, inventory management is so far from intuitive it's dizzying. The "kind of cool" melee becomes "absolutely not cool" when you realize how clunky the whole thing is.
Perfect example: In one level, you have to escape a crumbling city, leaping over ever-widening crevices and avoiding falling buildings to a really great soundtrack. It's an incredible sequence ... the first time. And the third time. And the fifth time. But by the 17th or 18th time you have to play the scene in its entirety because the vehicle controls are so terrible, the novelty starts to wear off.
Though it's not always easy, I hope other developers play "Alone in the Dark." I hope someone takes these ideas and makes something really great with them. Really, I hope that it's Atari, allowing "Alone in the Dark" to fulfill all the potential they've instilled in it.
Justin McElroy is a freelance writer living in Huntington. His writing appears on video game sites like Gamezebo.com and Joystiq.com.
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