Alone in the Dark

I didn't really have any hype or expectations for 'Alone in the Dark' when I bought it last week. From what I heard from other outlets is that is was not awful but far from great. That 'Alone' (ha!) was enough for me running out the door and dipping my toes in my first 'Alone in the Dark' game when it launched. Now a year and a half later I wandered into my local JB-HIFI and picked up a few games and 'Alone in the Dark' was one of them. Now that I have played it my opinion of the game is very mixed, so much so that can't actually tell you if it's a bad game or not.
 
You play as Edward Carnby, the protagonist from the first Alone in the Dark games waking up in New York City with amnesia and cultists trying to kill you. After a red demonic crack-in-the-wall kills one of the cultist who plans to kill you, you begin your journey to find out who you are and stop whatever it is destroying New York. Along the way you'll meet up with your female love interest / sidekick Sarah, friend who you don't remember Theophile, and cultist leader sterotype 
Crowley.  The story is quite weak with little to no backstory, complete lack of memorable characters, horrible attempts at humor and so-so voice acting. I can understand why there is so few characters being that it's called 'Alone in the Dark' but having a character you meet and who literally never shows up again shows that writers didn't have much effort in writing the plot.  Classing this as an 'horror' game would be a bold-face lie as the game doesn't attempt anything other then a few uninspired and flat jump scares.
 
With evil demonic zombies and monsters everywhere you go Edward must find whatever he can to defeat this scary threat with the game's 'create you own weapon' mechanic. Edward can pick up different items from the environment and combine them to make tools and weapons to fight the demonic undead. Items like beer bottles, napkins, sticky tape and flares can be combined to make makeshift bombs, sources of light and traps for some of the enemies you must encounter. The system itself is very simple and easy to understand but as the game goes on you keep encountering the same items over and over again with the people of New York throwing away quite an unusual amount of full bottles of beer. The game also doesn't show you what can be combined with what with some of the combinations being absurd likes pouring fuel on a gun to make fire bullets.
 
Combat in general is clunky. Edward, if out of ammo can use chairs, axes, planks of wood and pipes to fight the evil monsters with a chance to stun them but the only way to really kill one of these monsters is another major point of the game, fire. Attacking or shooting the monsters will slow them down and if persistent can knock them out but if you want to really put the undead back to hell the only way is set them on fire. Edward for most of the game is equipped with a lighter so makeshift flame throwers can be made. If flamable liquids and gases aren't in a steady supply Edward can also light wooden melee weapons on fire using some of the fire set in the environment. This aspect of the gameplay is a double-edged sword. While it is very tense and dreadful to have 3 unstoppable monsters chasing you on a quest to find a fire these can last quite awhile. Going through Central Park looking for some bottled gas for half an hour can make the game boring, dull and not worth the effort.
 
One of 'Alone in the Dark''s major problems and the one keep the game from being a great game is the controls. The controls will be 80% of the reason why you will die in the game. The game is played from both the 3rd and 1st person when firing a gun or flame thrower. You can toggle both of these view points any time during the game but both have problems. For starters the 3rd person view is quite restricting with a loose camera, single stick turning, unable to see items which you have quick selected and character blocking the screen. Combat in this view point is quite a fight  itself because most if not all enemies are behind you and turning can seem like it can take forever. The game tries to work around this with a quick turn button but it feels delayed and makes the camera look like it's detached from the game world. 1st person also has problems. Movement feels like your hovering over the ground, turn speed is laughably slow and you're unable to look directly up which is necessary for some puzzles. Melee combat is all controlled with the right stick, which does not work even a bit. Trying to flick the stick from one direction to the other is quite harder then it sounds without it thinking of you just edging it along the controller making Edward look like he is trying out stand-still hammer throw giving the player cheap and easy deaths. The platforming controls seem to get the job done with only confusion when jumping off ropes. But all of these control issues do not even come close to the King of Horrendous Controls in 'Alone in the Dark' and that is the god awful driving controls. The driving controls in 'Alone in the Dark' is some of the worst action game driving controls I have ever seen. Any of the 4 cars in the open world Central Park will drive like that have tires made of melting ice. Cars will often have pieces fly off just by driving over gutters, will often get stuck forcing you to get out and walk, have extremely low health and crashing it looks like you slammed directly into an upturned trampoline.
 
One of the stronger points of 'Alone in the Dark' is some of the puzzles. There is the 'even an idiot can solve this' puzzles at certain points but near then middle and end game can have very tricky and complex puzzles with simple solutions which shine brighter then the fire. These puzzles incorporate the fire system, craftable objects or just plain puzzle solving which gives you the feeling of you being a genus for solving it which is exactly what puzzles should be achieving. You will only wished that the game had more.
 
Graphics in the game has it's up's and down's but overall feels unfinished. The crowning achievement in the presentation is the extremely realistic fire. Fire will burn objects that come close to it, it will destroy wood objects with frightening realism and it will spread as far it it will go. The other graphics in the game doesn't do so hot (Ha again!). Character models look unfinished and the decal on Edward when he gets hurt looks like someone stuck ham on him. Monster designs look uninspired and repeat a lot. The physics engine is completely broken sending cars, enemies and Edward flying in the air at the smallest bang. Animations are nothing special and the character's faces look emotionless during the cutscenes with the average voice acting.
 
The sound has the biggest contrast of all the factors in 'Alone in the Dark'. The music is quite good with haunting choirs and tense build-ups in all the right places. If only it wasn't stained by the awful sound design. The sounds of 'Alone in the Dark' goes from bareable to mute. Most sounds in 'Alone in the Dark' are sounds you have heard from other games or movies but only done is a very poor way. Sound will cut off half way through and during some of the free roam sections it will often won't have the great soundtrack playing. At one point I was in a room with no sound at all, the gun made noise when I shot it but nothing else made a noise until I got outside and had the sound rushed at me.
 
'Alone in the Dark' had massive potential to be an enjoyable game but for every exciting escape sequence, awesome fire, great soundtrack and good concepts it has lackluster level design, boring plot, poor sound design and horrible driving controls pushing it down way below a 'must buy' status. An open-world survival horror game sounds exciting to me and is something I would love to pick up and play, but this just shows that only the very dedicated can pull off.
 
But for what it's worth if you like that concept and willing to look past a few obvious flaws then I would suggest giving 'Alone in the Dark' a go.