Alone in the Dark Video Roundup

By Johnny Minkley Published 6 June, 2008

Extensive gameplay capture in big, neat and spooky chunks.

It's been a long time coming - not least for fans of the last instalment, which came out seven years ago - but Eden Studios' larks-in-the-park reimagining of the Alone in the Dark series finally hits later this month.

A steady stream of spectacular trailers has ramped up interest very nicely in this Central Park-set adventure. And Eurogamer TV even blundered around in the real park after dark in pursuit of the game's secrets.

Originally a moustachioed detective, series hero Edward Carnby has been treated to a hunky Hollywood makeover in preparation for his grand return. And that's in keeping with the slick TV-style feel of an adventure so obviously in thrall to present-day entertainment colossi like Lost and 24; so much so that the story unfolds in episodic format to suit the structured tastes of today's discerning telly addict.

Game-wise, most positive chatter has been reserved for the inventory system, which enables creative combining of items as both a means of outside-the-box thinking your way through puzzles, and just tearing strips out of enemies and the environment in freshly satisfying ways.

With the game out on 20th June, you don't have much longer to wait before Eurogamer delivers its verdict on one of the biggest single-player games of 2008 - which, if you believe Phil Harrison, are a dying breed. And, as former PlayStation dev boss, he should know.

Before that, we can bring you a lingering and lovingly crafted look into Carnby's world via the magic of Eurogamer TV, having spent a good chunk of time this week capturing exclusive footage from a practically final build of the game. Enjoy.

Fire

Smokey the Bear was apoplectic.

One of the more impressive technical accomplishments in Alone in the Dark is fire. Flames twitch and flicker convincingly; but it's more than simple eye-candy, becoming both asset and danger to our pyromaniacal hero. This clip begins with in a corridor, as fire quickly spreads through the building, showing how flammable objects degrade once engulfed in flames. Next, Eddie-boy improvises with a chair to shed some light on the situation, before frantically escaping a raging inferno.

Driving

The powerful vibration of Clare's new phone took her quite by surprise.

While sneaking around the park after dark will take up the bulk of your time, getting behind the wheel naturally offers a distinct change of pace. Here, taking a leaf out of Niko Bellic's book, Carnby breaks into and hotwires a motor, before indulging in a spot of carpark dodgems with zombies. We're still looking for the dogging option.

Cinematic

Obi-Wan was pretty confused by his sudden relocation.

Minor spoiler action here, with a taster of the cut-scenes from your opening mission. Alone's telly-aping episodic structure will be instantly familiar to fans of shows like Lost, each section beginning with a "Previously on Alone in the Dark..." recap.

Combat

Working security at the late night pharmacy turned out to be a poor career choice.

Using bare fists is so uncivilised. Why risk those delicate knuckles when you can take down your enemies using all manner of bone-snapping implements? Here Edward smacks up some enemies using a pipe, and axe, a gun, a garden rake and a baseball bat, all accompanied by satisfyingly crunchy sound effects.

Items and Inventory

Thank heavens for modern advances in pocket technology.

Much of the game's promised depth comes from combining multiple items as a means of solving puzzles, or simply ramping up destruction. The system's based on real-world logic, not that we'd know much about that, but here we see Edward fashioning a flamethrower out of a lighter and aerosol, creating flaming bullets, and turning a hot dog stall into a firebomb on wheels. Clever boy.

Alone in the Dark is due out on Xbox 360, PC, PS2 and Wii on 20th June with a PS3 version to follow.

Picture of Johnny.

About Johnny Minkley

Eurogamer TV's Johnny Minkley is a veteran journalist with a lifelong passion for games and the games industry. He uses Twitter more than most people use air.

Read more articles from Johnny by visiting the Johnny Minkley archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (36) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • spindizzy #1 4 years ago

    Looks pretty good, especially the attempts to make it seem more first-person than ever - very immersive stuff ... but the dialogue is just AWFUL. What language was it originally written in, because it certainly wasn't English!

  • Killerbee #2 4 years ago

    Looks good. Is EG going to be reviewing / commenting on versions other than the 360 one, because that seems to be all we're getting so far.

    I'm actually quite interested to hear how the PC and Wii versions are shaping up. Presumably the PC will be the same as the 360, but the Wii???

  • tobsen #3 4 years ago

    The first-person movement in the combat clip looks incredibly robotic, could ruin the whole game for me. I hope it somehow feels different in the final game.

  • lambtron #4 4 years ago

    "but the dialogue is just AWFUL."

    Personally I think its one of the better examples of voice acting and dialogue I've seen in a game. I mean, sure there are far better examples, in film, theatre, books etc. But in games what would you say made that look terrible?

  • GooseUK #5 4 years ago

    i have a feeling this game could go either way... something doesnt seem 100% right about it

  • senso-ji #6 4 years ago

    Looks like a cross between Condemned and RE. Very nice.

  • Spooke #7 4 years ago

    The fighting scenes look unrealistic and plastic. There is no weight to any of the weapons and the blows don't register in the way they should.

  • ccfb #8 4 years ago

    Nice advertorial there.

  • ZuluHero #9 4 years ago

    wasn't there supposed to be a demo soon? Any word on that?

  • Danbojones Verified Senior Staff Writer, GamesIndustry.biz #10 4 years ago

    Advertorial? In what way does this resemble an advertorial? It's COVERAGE of a GAME which people are INTERESTED in.

  • kangarootoo #11 4 years ago

    "Nice advertorial there."

    Muppet.

  • bruuge #12 4 years ago

    combat looks meh....driving a bit meh.....fire parts look good......think its gonna be 7/10

  • Lukus #13 4 years ago

    Gosh this looks dull. So, you shoot someone in the knee and all they do is flinch a bit? There's no other ill affects? Ok, what year is this? Surely all games should incorporate realistic damage animations.

  • penhalion #14 4 years ago

    They better explain properly what happened to carnby after AITD 1. Though I suspect it's the old story of guy sacrifices self to trap demon in stone for eternity. Buries self alive with demon and then is dug up by stupid sect and the demon released. The quest probaly involves tracking down said demon and getting trapped with it once again......hey I have to go to these kind of design meetings all bloomin' day!

  • TessaTickle #15 4 years ago

    I'm with Spooke. You can't throw scraps of enhanced realism into an environment and expect people to put up with the tired old non-realistic aspects that you leave in there. Point in case : exploding cars.

    Also, something that jars really badly is when the wrong weight is given to objects : massive slabs of concrete don't bounce and spin around like they weigh nothing.

    This thing has some little nuggets of real-ish looking stuff but they're swamped in an incoherent mess of clunkiness.

    I won't be getting this.

    I'm not trying to be negative for the sake of it but it just doesn't work for me.

  • lambtron #16 4 years ago

    FFS

    What is it with people clamouring for "completely realistic" games.

    Here is how a realistic game would work.

    1. It's you all alone against the world, facing insurmountable odds.
    2. You die.
    3. The end.

    Sounds like fun eh? :D

  • TessaTickle #17 4 years ago

    @lambtron : no one's asking for super-realism. We're just saying that if you're going to try and play in that field ("look ! fire ! physics !";) don't then do a half-baked job of it.

    Cars do *not* explode like that when you shoot them in the tank. Just *stop* doing that.
    You do *not* flatten 3 guys with one swipe of a rake.
    etc.

  • sargemat #18 4 years ago

    looks great. Getting the 360 version of this. In fact i have the collectors edition preordered from Game.

  • systems #19 4 years ago

    Should be good for a laugh. Wrong time of year for this sort of thing though. Start of summer, let's have a nocturnal horror game. Will have to get the curtains closed early for this.

  • kule #20 4 years ago

    Whether the gameplay is any good is still to be decided - but you gotta hand it for graphics & immersion - looks fantastic!
    Edited by 1 at 06/06/08 @ 15:01

  • john_silence #21 4 years ago

    I'm usually not seen gathering in dark places with the "meh" crowd, you know the type, they're skulking somewhere in every thread on EG. But this looks so "meh".
    The voice acting is very annoying; lambtron, good voice acting in games exists (Prey was pretty good, Chronicles of Riddick of course, Bioshock, HL2, STALKER in its way, and many more). I don't see why our standards should be below that of the rest of the entertainment industry - with so many Hollywood writers getting involved in video game scripts I'm often baffled by the awful results. I guess we get shit because too many of us are ready to eat it.
    What I can't stand about AItD is how at odds I feel it's going to be with MY logic. Those insane inventory combinations are bad enough, but now they're going to be in real time!
    *Oh my, so what was it (flinging frantically through pockets, constantly overruning the right object because of fiddly controls): can of fuel + sticky tape + bullets + lighter + gun = three bullets with higher damage. Yay! (is mown down by a zombie who approached at 3" per hour)*
    And I don't like the artistic direction, but that's my taste. I find characters look awful, the girl constantly standing next to Edward in the garage while he's bashing zombies is behaving weirdly all the time.
    It all looks so aimless and slow, just like the way fire propagates in the videos. I hope I'm wrong, of course...

  • Landmaster #22 4 years ago

    Combat looks a bit shit.

    Everything else looks pretty good :)

  • Christafo #23 4 years ago

    the sound of that bat his hilarious.

    gameplay looks bad though.

  • George-Roper #24 4 years ago

    The car sequence looks amazingly bland and flat. Its like GTA4 never existed.

    And the combat. Oh my, how bad does that look?

    6/10

  • APHIZM #25 4 years ago

    Well this game is certainly taking game animation back a generation. At least they've mastered the clay-effect shaders on all the characters. They're not supposed to be clay? Oh...

  • VMerken #26 4 years ago

    So the question that will keep us all awake is: better than MGS4 then?

    Logically speaking, looking at the videos, no.
    Edited by 1 at 06/06/08 @ 19:50

  • El_MUERkO #27 4 years ago

    nice 'BONK' sound from the bat :D

  • JonFE #28 4 years ago

    TBH combat and driving left me a bit cold. There are some pretty impressive things in there (fire and lighting in particular), yet I fear that it could end up as a jack of all trades but master of none. I'll probably wait for the reviews before getting it, although the limited edition looks good...

  • XdarXideX #29 4 years ago

    This looks... well a little bit worse than I was hoping. I sure hope it plays better than it looks like it plays!

  • barnard666 #30 4 years ago

    I think this looks pretty cool...but then I still have my condemned2 sealed, so I doubt I'll get this for a while.

  • Chalee #31 4 years ago

    Dialogue seems weak, and the scripted car in collapsing city sequence isn't quite as epic as I imagined it would be. However the parts in the part when you are let loose and can sue your imagination to come up with interesting ways to see off opponents are looking really good. Considering that these parts should constitute the greater part of the game, I shall declare myself cautiously optimistic (drum roll)

  • Kostabi #32 4 years ago

    Didn't like the look of the combat. Surely a headshot with a sledgehammer should result in a melon popping effect? It's the basic law of video gaming.

    I did like the look of the fire and inventory system though, it reminded me of having to look down at the character's zoobs in Trespasser all those years a go. Surprising it's taken so long for a similar concept to come along.
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/08 @ 08:12

  • timberwolf #33 4 years ago

    blah... 10 hours long, no replay value blah...

  • Darren #34 4 years ago

    Some foreign magazine called PU apparently described this game as "unfinished" and said the camera was unweildly and the framerate dodgy. They gave it 7.5. Doesn't sound terribly impressive to me but it's early days yet and you cannot pre-judge a game based solely on one review.

  • Novitcz #35 4 years ago

    This game is reviewed 5 out 5 here :
    [link url=http://www.forteantimes.com/reviews/games/1 185/alone_in_the_dark.html
    ]http://ww w.forteantimes.com/reviews/game...[/link]

  • DAL9000 #36 4 years ago

    "I have unleashed a wickedness that waited centuries for revenge."

    Good grief.

    That said, though, the driving video seriously gave me a boner. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SOLID WOOD, HERE.