RSS
Home
Great horror games: Alone in the Dark
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
If it weren’t for Alone in the Dark, games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill may never have been created. It was the original survival horror title and though it may not have garnered the success of its aforementioned successors, its place in video game history is solid as a rock. And given the long, hard path the series has had to face, keeping that spot has been no small feat.
*This article contains spoilers.
Alone in the Dark (1992)
The Alone in the Dark series has faced huge pitfalls in the form of abysmal reviews, a horrible film adaptation, and ridiculous plot direction. If any of the sequels to the original had served as the debut there would never have been a series. But that first title, inspired by the works of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, was so new and different that it warranted faith in the future of franchise that well surpassed its ability to entertain.
In 1992 Interplay released a game to PC owners that took an overdone concept and made it fresh. Luckily, the developers at Infogrames took a liking to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft had been, and still is, one of the original masters of horror. His Cthulhu mythos and Necronomicon still hold the attention of horror fans around the world and his writing style was so important to the genre that they gave it its own subgenre: Lovecraftian fiction.
The plot for Alone in the Dark is set in 1925 and centered on a Louisiana mansion owned by Jeremy Hartwood. Hartwood hangs himself and though the circumstances are strange, due to rumors about the house being haunted, his death is ruled a suicide. Players are given the option of assuming the role of Edward Carnby; a supernatural private investigator, or Emily Hartwood; niece to the deceased. No matter which character is chosen, their path will lead to a specific part of the mansion: the attic. Inside the attic is a piano that is important to each character because it may hold Jeremy's suicide note. Once inside the house the door locks and the character is forced to continue on with their quest, and once inside the attic everything starts to go a little crazy.
Strange creatures start appearing and trying to attack the main character. The bad guys include giant rats, monsters and zombies, and not all of them can simply be killed and walked away from. Some require special weapons and some simply need be avoided. Aside from the baddies, there are puzzles to be figured out in order to open doors or simply discover the secrets of the mansion. After some exploring and research the main character discovers that the house is built atop a system of caverns that were used by a former owner of the house named Ezechiel Pregzt. Pregzt was a pirate occultist and he performed various different rituals in the caverns below the house, causing the appearance of the strange creatures that seem to haunt the mansion. Eventually the main character will have to face off against Pregzt in order to leave the mansion.
Alone in the Dark might have passed with the graphics of the time, but it’s not even going to come close to anything made today. The selling point of the game exists within the story and the intensity created by not blowing enemies away every time they are encountered. And it obviously turned out to be a pretty good premise because only four years later gamers were blown away by a new horror title about a zombie infested mansion where players could choose between a male or female protagonist who would solve puzzles in order to find out the mysteries held in the depths of the house. Resident Evil certainly had different plot points, but in essence it was a beefed up version of Alone in the Dark; only this time science proved to be more the enemy than the occult.
Reviews for Alone in the Dark weren’t completely consistent, but it did well for the most part, and one would be hard pressed to find a fan of the genre that doesn’t at least respect the original title in the series. So what happened after the release of the first game? Well, one of the major flaws of the first sequel certainly had a lot to do with downplaying one of the main accomplishments of the first game: horror. Edward Carnby returns to search another mansion called ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, and maybe if they’d had Gordon Ramsay the game would have been a bit more intriguing. Carnby is looking for a young girl named Grace. Both characters must fight their way through Tommy gun shooting, mobster pirates. Edward as a full grown, armed man and Grace as a defenseless young girl.
Alone in the Dark 2 (1993)
Developer Infogramer took a real chance when it decided to ditch the creepy Lovecraftian feel of the first game and replace it with utterly ridiculous plot points and enemies. Mobster pirates, seriously? How was anyone supposed to swallow that one without a hefty glass of fluids and a forgiving suspension of disbelief?
Although Alone in the Dark 2 had its problems, it also had a very unique portion of the game that made for a different survival experience. When playing Grace, the point of the game is not to blast enemies, but usually to hide or set them up for failure. This concept is the most talked about aspect of the game. But just like the first title, it was taken up by a future set of games. The Clock Tower series fashioned an entire series around the idea of a somewhat defenseless main character having to outwit a dangerous killer. So even if Alone in the Dark 2 wasn’t the greatest idea collectively, it did offer up a scenario that could be further developed by a different company.
Alone in the Dark 3 was even more ‘out there’ as far as plot goes. Edward Carnby returns to the series again and sets out to save Emily Hartwood from zombie cowboys. The game was met with stale reviews and gamers that stuck around for the third installment would have to wait seven more years to see anything else from this series.
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare was released in 2001 by a different developer: .jpg)
Darkworks. Though the title is reminiscent of a certain Christmas sweater wearing, dream killer named Freddy, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare was responsible for one of the worst horror movies of all time. The film adaptation of Alone in the Dark was not only panned by critics, it was fried up and served to the dog. The game fared better than the film, due to it's eerie play on light, but not by leaps and bounds. Some critics loved it, some thought it was decent and some thought it was crap. Though The New Nightmare probably lies somewhere in the middle of all the reviews it also may be one of those games that is loved or hated simply as a matter of taste.
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2001)
The last installment of the series to date is Alone in the Dark (2008), not to be confused with Alone in the Dark (1992). It wasn’t a remake and it wasn’t really a sequel either. It also received so many horrendous reviews that Atari, the new developers, threatened to sue certain websites for their negative comments. Their claim was that the reviewers did not play a finished version of the game as it was not yet shipped out. But some of the bad reviews came from gamers that had received the finished copies of the game, so there wasn’t a lot of arguing that could be done. Almost all reviewers have agreed that the PS3 version of the game is better. Most of the issues present in the XBOX 360 version were fixed and extra content was added, making for a much more pleasant experience.
Alone in the Dark (2008)
What can be taken from the Alone in the Dark series is this: sometimes lightening only strikes once. But that’s not to say that there weren’t a lot of great ideas thrown about in the sequels, they simply weren’t implemented well enough to keep up with survival horror Joneses. The first sequel obviously offered up a great idea with the Grace Storyline because it is the basis for a completely different series. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare had something that movie execs liked and it offered up a new way of using light in video games. It doesn’t really matter that the sequels didn’t surpass the first title because the first title was so groundbreaking. And that’s why the original Alone in the Dark is one of the greatest horror games of all time.
If you liked this article, check out these: Great Horror Games: The Fatal Frame Series
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
