Alone in the Dark Review

To convey a sense of dread and horror, the game effectively combines several visual and audio components. Devastated areas of Central Park covered in creepy-looking fog, coupled with a solid number of spine-chilling tunes, make for a solid atmosphere.

There are one or two things that could've been done better. For instance, design choices for certain types of monsters. Specifically, the headcrab-like creatures that frequently attack in droves and behave pretty much the same way as those in Half-Life 1 and 2. If I'm not mistaken, they even sound very like those we've seen and heard in Valve's shooter. While we're on the subject of sound, the voice acting is substandard when compared to a great number of today's top releases.

Make no mistake, there's quite a lot to enjoy in this game. In most aspects, it stays true to the traditions of the genre, provided you can stomach the unnecessarily lengthy prologue and the aforementioned drawbacks (bad camera, lousy voiceovers, atrocious vehicle physics and so on).

The developers deserve praise for moving slightly beyond the constraints of the genre. Overall, the gameplay mechanics are enjoyable, as is the cool combat system. Although as much as we'd like to overlook certain downsides here, ultimately, it feels like Alone in the Dark could've amounted to a greater single-player experience if its makers made a few different choices in terms of design and if they found more time to fix a number of issues we noticed in the Xbox 360 version. If you're willing to overlook these, there's no doubt that AitD can deliver what you expect of it - a challenging survival horror game, with a reasonably interesting plot to keep you going until you've finished the last Episode.