Edward Carnby is back in the latest survival action horror game from Atari. Being developed by Eden Game based in France, this game has been in development for 4 years… Was it worth it? Oh YES! Xboxer360.com got invited to a play test of Alone in the Dark and we loved the look of it from the outset.
We start off in the game by waking up in a apartment block in New York, Edward only remembers being in the 1950’s and has no idea how he got here into todays world and is now surronded by bad guys discussing how to offload him and control the ‘power’. One of the key points to this scene is the cinematic feel while still being in control and a great feature: blinking. By pressing the Y button you control Edwards blinking to prevent his vision getting blurry as if you have just woken up. This is just one of the realistic features that have been placed into the game that we will come to love and enjoy.
One of the keypoints to this game is the use of episodes… confused? We were until we saw it in action. Imagine you have just bought the new Lost/24/Prison Break season on DVD and you fancy skipping into Episode 3 Scene 4 - Well you can do that in this game. Can you skip right to the end? No.. You will only be permitted to play the final episode when you have completed a certain amount of scenerios in the game, this according to the developers allows gamers to skip past tricky moments and come back to them later. Also at the start of each episode there is a catch up sequence of the past episode - in our eyes this is a great feature for this game making it more movie like than most titles we have seen before.
Moving back to the start of the game we find ourselves trying to escape from a burning building by climbing elevator shafts, dodging burning debris and of course climbing on ledges 20 storeys above ground while dodging falling ledges and electrical cables.. phew that was hard work! Along the way we come across several characters - most of whom will eventually meet their doom but without giving too much away expect 2 characters to follow you on your quest.
Fire is your greatest ally in the game aswell as your greatest foe. The team at Eden Games actually took a year to develop the fire in the game and it paid off as the fire is the most realistic I have ever seen in a game. An example of using fire to defeat your enemies is setting a chair on fire and wielding it in a swinging motion until the enemy catches on fire and burns to a crisp. The combat in the game is very unique and will definatly be a favourite of gamers across the world.
Central Park is the main spotlight of this game and operates like an openworld sandbox game allowing to rome anywhere you like. There will be plenty of side missions available in the Park so make sure you look out for them! Also Central Park has been designed using satelite images so if you know your way around Central Park then you will know your way around the game.
Cars have a great impact in the game with almost every car drivable (I say almost every car as a lot of them will be wrecked) and in my opinion the driving is a lot better than driving in GTA.
Sadly there is no multiplayer aspect to this game but the developers have assured us that by doing this strongly improved the single player game.
I could simply talk about this game for hours and hours but I will probably end up spoiling the whole game! Alone in the Dark will be available in the UK on June 20th so make sure you pre-order your copy now!
