Ok I'm not going to delve into every deep and miniature detail about this game. I just played it for the heck of it, it looked cool and I needed a new game cos I'd play the hell out of the ones I had.
Driving Mechanics Now just to get it out and over with, the driving in this game is greatly over exaggerated in that it is being blasted as the worst driving sequence in a non driving genre game. The driving is not that bad, in fact it's pretty damn cool. Sure you might not be able to master the steering and ungentle feel on your very first go, but it really isn't rocket science. You're in a car on the run from some big ass monster; you’re not going to worry about traffic laws and speeding tickets. In this game it's the same exact deal. You just drive like crazy until you reach your destination in one piece. You need to maintain a good distance between you and the creature chasing after you as it will catch up with you. As it follows you it ruptures the ground and the city apart leaving a concrete mesh of chaos in its wake. And you do not want to be part of that party mix. That car turns in the direction you want it to turn, it go fast, it slows down and it's pretty durable. What more do you want from a car when you're main thought is "Oh crap I need to get to the other side of the city sharpish!” Oh and the cinematic during the driving sequence are quire spectacular and make me wonder if most of the money really was used on these movie moments more than any other aspect of the game.
Blinking Ok so I heard that one of the things that bug people about this game is the constant adjustment of your characters vision and focusing and the requirement of BLINKAGE. First of all the word constant has no real place in that summary, because it does not occur that often. At the start of the game you’re required to blink a few times to regain a clear vision, but considering that you just rampaged through a race to the finish line or die horror scene and have awoken from unconsciousness, it’s perfectly acceptable that you need to blink a few times. It doesn’t happen that often and most of the time I forgot that it was an action at all.
Fire Mechanics Ok so you can pick objects up and set them ablaze and then use them to set enemies on fire or the increase damage attacking them. So you go to pick up a chair and you see a fire. Oh cool toasty. You walk over to the fire with your new found wooden friend/brain bashing sidekick and try to set it alight. Now one of 3 things can happen and there’s no guarantee as to which will occur each time you want to do this. 1) You will successfully light the object on fire and wahay it’s off to make zombie marshmallows 2) The thing won’t light. It just will not catch fire; you keep trying different angles and approaches and finally give up. You might come back to it in a minute and it’ll work or find a new blaze or object. 3) You burn alive trying to set a chair on fire cos it won’t work and you keep walking into the damn flames. Now the main problem with this arises when you’re enemy is there and wondering why you’re taking such a long time when they’ve made the intentions clear, that they want to kill you dead. You’re back is to them as you fight with the flames of nothingness and the enemies are attacking you and causing you damage. You get hurt and you could die, just like in real life. The only thing about this scenario that wouldn’t happen in real life is the fire not working. Unless it’s one of those crappy video fires. Why do people buy those?? Which brings me to….
Injuries So yeah you can patch yourself up and gain realistic period wounds. No this is not a menstrual reference. You don’t just take a magic elixir and bam you are fully healed, pick up $200 and continue to the next door. You have to medical apply treatment and bandaging to your wounds that take time to heal. That’s quite a cool and realistic application, though it would have worked better if you could heal your minor injuries yourself and get instant health replenishing items around the levels. Now what is the problem with this? Well see my above reason for when trying to light something with imagination embers and being in the same room as the undead is not cool.
POV Transitions This is a pain in the ass. But a pain in the ass that sometimes flutters away and just leaves you with a slight tingly numb feeling in your buttocks. See when you’re shooting in third person it’s difficult to see around you and the quick change to 3rd could be a lot smoother. Plus picking up items is a chore that shouldn’t exist. It’s best to pick up items in shelves ect in 1st person and to pick up objects on the ground in 3rd because you can never see objects lying about clearly in 1st. It reminds me of the map in that retro Friday the 13th game. Where you are now and where the map says you are completely messed up and unhelpful. Where you see an item in 3rd and where you see in it 1st makes the mind boggle and retired after a while.
Melee Hit Detection It’s dodgy. Really dodgy. I swung a bat at an enemy and it took about 3 attempts before it seems to land and cause damage. Sometimes there’s a stall in the melee strikes. When I tell you to hit you better hit you son of a…
Previously on Alone in the Dark… Ok I found this to be quite a cool feature and it made it seem like you were in a TV role, specifically it made you feel like you were in 24.When it first comes on you might think it’s a bit cheesy, it kind of is truth be told but it really is a nice added feature that adds to the episodic feel of the game.
Skipping scenes/levels People complain that if you advertise that skipping levels is a cool feature in the game then the level design must be rubbish and not worth playing through. I think they should of kept it off the summary of the case, but that isn’t what the makers are trying to say. I think they just crammed so much into this they quite think about how to best market it. So they let it slip and boasted about a feature that would seem to lessen the value of the storyline and game play. But why should they care if people skip the stories. Careful now, I’m making sense here. If you made a game with this feature and have been involved in other games before would you care that everyone that had bought it skipped chapters out of laziness or giddy curiosity? I don’t think so and why? BECAUSE THEY BOUGHT IT. Key part of the sentence. The purchased the game, you’ve already made your money so who cares if they jam the disc into a toaster and then try and play it on a DS. Yeah if I were a game designed I’d rather people appreciate the hard work that went into the different areas of the game but these guys wanted to create something cinematic and it is that. So they’ve ticked that of the box and they’ve gotten big bucks for it. I don’t think they really care if you bought the game just to pretend you’re a protagonists in an altered episode of 24 with demonic housewives running amok in New York.
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