Alone in the Dark Reboot from THQ Nordic and the writer of SOMA

[Morpheus Kitami]

A lot of the original game was clearly meant to be funny too - you get into a swordfight with a zombie pirate, you fall through the floor and get instakilled if you try to take the first corridor after the attic, you have to use an old bow to kill the spirt of an angry Native American guy trapped in a painting who keeps throwing tomahawks at you, you get chased around the library by a giant blob monster, and of course you get chased by a fucking Dune worm near the end. The whole thing should feel like an acid trip where each new room holds some kind of insane shit. It doesn't look like they've really gone for that vibe.

Don't forget you basically restore health by drinking booze.

In the original, if you found a book, you read it for clues and then you dropped it, because it took up weight in your inventory.

Eh? I don't remember this being a factor in any of the original three games.

Even accounting for the game being from the earliest days of 3D poly models, this is still a cartoony design (and the entire concept of the player being beset by oversized zombie chickens with razor-sharp teeth who leap through upper-floor windows is more amusing than scary).

Something that struck me as funny when I finally played the original, was that the spider model that appears when you take the arrow in one room seemed to have been reused in another game published by Infogrames, Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time. I have no idea if that's coincidence or not, but it is interesting. No idea if they intended the games to be funny, since much like Resident Evil's goofiness, it could just be an assumption we make about it since we can't imagine it from the perspective of a non-English speaker with an entirely different culture. (Albeit, French rather than Japanese) A few comedic moments to diffuse the tension is different than trying to be funny. But, putting points in your favor I note the other big pre-RE survival horror game, Ecstatica, was very much intended to be a black comedy in addition to it's horror aspects.

I don't really get this. An over-the-shoulder action game is not the logical way to remake AitD, and has clearly been chosen to try and copy the succcess of the later Resident Evil games.

That's the defacto game genre now. Same way platformers used to be. Now everything uses this camera as it's easy for casuals to control.

Yeah, if you try to do anything other this these days you're gonna get reamed for having poor controls, because god forbid you spend more than 5 minutes getting used to a new game.

 

[Fedora Master]

No DRM. Let's see how "good" this actually is.
Apparently optimization is complete shit.

 

[Hell Swarm]

IGG Games have already released it on the high seas. Easy way to see if it's any good then buy it if it is.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

I don't know, looks uninteresting and just too standard to me, nothing like the wild creativity and lunacy of the original. Plus I hate that hipster hat Carnby now seems to wear and which doesn't feel 1930 at all. And where the fuck is his moustache? Price is ridiculous and the DLCs they sell separately repulse me. I guess I'll pass and keep my untarnished memories on AitD.

 

[Barbarian]

I don't know, looks uninteresting and just too standard to me, nothing like the wild creativity and lunacy of the original. Plus I hate that hipster hat Carnby now seems to wear and which doesn't feel 1930 at all. And where the fuck is his moustache? Price is ridiculous and the DLCs they sell separately repulse me. I guess I'll pass and keep my untarnished memories on AitD.

DLCs?

 

[Morgoth]

The game is already 30% off on GMG if you log in:
https://www.greenmangaming.com/de/games/alone-in-the-dark-pc/

 

[Terenty]

Playing on hard with old school puzzles. Great atmosphere, nice puzzles, deadly enemies. Highly enjoyable

 

[Fedora Master]

I truly was... Alone in the Dark

Mirrors are at least working... fifty percent?

Game feels very consolized. Controls are sluggish (fair, for a game like this I suppose) and there's noticeable texture pop-in despite everything on ultra.

 

[lightbane]

t could just be an assumption we make about it since we can't imagine it from the perspective of a non-English speaker with an entirely different culture.

I remember being scared by the first game back when I played it decades ago and I was younger. The sound was scary, even if the characters were goofy. Then I grew older, played it again, and realized how goofy the whole thing was. The 2nd and 3rd game don't even pretend to be scary anymore.

 

[Darth Roxor]

AitD 3 is plenty scary, at least at the start.

However, 2 is... special.

 

[El Presidente]

AitD3 is by far the best game in the series and will probably be so forever. It also, at least I assume, aged really well.

 

[Alienman]

After about 2 hours into the game, I got to say, I'm having a splendid time. It's very "Lovecraftian" and oozes of atmosphere. So far the story has been building up slowly with bits of mysteries sprinkled all over involving the mansion and its inhabitants. I have also been engaged in combat, and honestly, I don't get why people are so miffed about it. It feels very "survival horror", as the protagonist is not Leon S. Kennedy the ultimate zombie killer. It is a bit clunky sure, especially the melee, but it fits the setting. However, you can dodge and such too - space is the dedicated dodge button. I enjoy it, and so far ammunition has been rare (playing on hard). Puzzles are not very hard yet, but they make sense in the story at least. I recommend turning off the extra help since they kinda spell it out how to solve them. Nothing woke either (yet), which is a big plus. The writing seems pretty mature, especially the background stuff you can find and read.

Some screenshots:

Spoiler

 

[Morgoth]

 

[MasPingon]

This game looks cheap as fuck, like it was made in spare time in Unity. This is triple A gaming now?

 

[Hell Swarm]

This game looks cheap as fuck, like it was made in spare time in Unity. This is triple A gaming now?

It looks and feels a lot like The Evil Within.

Started playing it and 2 hints for people diving in.

Keep on modern puzzles because the game is very very bad at directing the player. The enviroments do nothing to show you where items are and they're not in logical places. Having a circle to alert you to a key hidden in a pot you have no reason to walk up to is essential.

The notes aren't completely written down. When you find the first note it's about a woman getting into voodoo and cuts off after a receipt. The audio carries on a full conversation afterwards. You can't just read the text and move on. Have to listen for full context.

 

[MasPingon]

This game looks cheap as fuck, like it was made in spare time in Unity. This is triple A gaming now?

It looks and feels a lot like The Evil Within.

Started playing it and 2 hints for people diving in.

Keep on modern puzzles because the game is very very bad at directing the player. The enviroments do nothing to show you where items are and they're not in logical places. Having a circle to alert you to a key hidden in a pot you have no reason to walk up to is essential.

The notes aren't completely written down. When you find the first note it's about a woman getting into voodoo and cuts off after a receipt. The audio carries on a full conversation afterwards. You can't just read the text and move on. Have to listen for full context.

What about combat? Looks awful in trailers and gameplay examples. Silent Hill 2 remake equaly bad.

 

[Hell Swarm]

What about combat? Looks awful in trailers and gameplay examples. Silent Hill 2 remake equaly bad.

Plays like every other 3rd person shooter. Feels perfectly fine. You have a melee button but very fragile melee weapons and a dodge button. I've had zero complaints so far.

Going out on a limb here and I'm going to call this "Silent Hill in 2024". It is exactly what you would want in a new Silent Hill game and it will go down as a slightly awkward but great survival horror game. Ammo is tight, enemies are dangerous and often ambush you. It's creepy and puzzlely in just the right way. At first I thought it was RE1 remake in the style of the RE2/3/4 remake but the deeper I get the more I see Silent Hill in it. The puzzle style is very Silent Hill, the melee combat being actually functional and the look and feel of areas and monsters. Everything has that slightly tilted feeling and it does an exceptionally good job of being classic survival horror in a modern package. It's a AA game so expect a few issues with presentation but go into this one with an open mind and you'll get a survival horror game like the PS1/2 era with a few modern aspects. It feels very close to something like The Evil Within or Allan Wake but it's world leans more into RE1 mixed with Silent Hill.

Still recommend the hint system. There's a lot of words in the notes and some of them direct you where to go. They're highlighted in the text with puzzle hints on. But it's not like a glowing quest marker. It's more "Go to the kitchen to find the sauce pan", which is very helpful when the game expects you to solve shit yourself and will happily let you get lost and wander aimlessly.

The male leader reminds me of Frank from Dead Rising but less camp and over the top. He's a macho man who pushes his luck. Emily has barely any personality and I don't like her voice acting. She sounds too modern American woman trying to do an old timey impression. It's immersion breaking at points because she can't hide her real accent and it mismatches the character. Could be me being autistic though.

Would recommend trying / 5

 

[DemonKing]

I'll play at some stage but I've heard it's only 6 hours long so will wait for it to hit Gamepass or deep discount as it's probably not worth its launch price. Also from the reviews I watched it's pretty buggy too so a couple of patches won't hurt.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I've heard it's only 6 hours long

First game is that long too but dieing was so easy back then and we had zero game knowladge, very little English, so we played it for a month

 

[Fedora Master]

After some more time playing, I have to concede that the game is fine. It's not outstanding or anything but it works. Combat doesn't feel very good though, it's just sluggish and trivial. Enter area -> Not-Zombie slowly walks at you -> Shoot and/or hit it until it dies. Maybe it gets better but somehow I doubt it.
The atmosphere is very good, the writers clearly understood Lovecraft better than most game devs. For example, this graveyard at dusk is a nice touch:

There is menace there but also a desolate beauty. It's something out of Fungi From Yuggoth.

The basic enemies are EXTREMELY generic goop zombies though. Some of the later ones remind me a bit of the experiments from The Resurrected (1991)

 

[Hell Swarm]

I'll play at some stage but I've heard it's only 6 hours long so will wait for it to hit Gamepass or deep discount as it's probably not worth its launch price. Also from the reviews I watched it's pretty buggy too so a couple of patches won't hurt.

Seems very unlikely playing it so far. It might be 6 hours a campaign but you have 2 campaigns.

After some more time playing, I have to concede that the game is fine. It's not outstanding or anything but it works. Combat doesn't feel very good though, it's just sluggish and trivial. Enter area -> Not-Zombie slowly walks at you -> Shoot and/or hit it until it dies. Maybe it gets better but somehow I doubt it.
The atmosphere is very good, the writers clearly understood Lovecraft better than most game devs. For example, this graveyard at dusk is a nice touch:

There is menace and there but also a desolate beauty. It's something out of Fungi From Yuggoth.

The basic enemies are EXTREMELY generic goop zombies though. Some of the later ones remind me a bit of the experiments from The Resurrected (1991)

There's a lot of ambushes even early on. There's also faster enemies really early on so where are you getting this from? You have the throwing system as well

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Fedora Master]

I'll play at some stage but I've heard it's only 6 hours long so will wait for it to hit Gamepass or deep discount as it's probably not worth its launch price. Also from the reviews I watched it's pretty buggy too so a couple of patches won't hurt.

Seems very unlikely playing it so far. It might be 6 hours a campaign but you have 2 campaigns.

After some more time playing, I have to concede that the game is fine. It's not outstanding or anything but it works. Combat doesn't feel very good though, it's just sluggish and trivial. Enter area -> Not-Zombie slowly walks at you -> Shoot and/or hit it until it dies. Maybe it gets better but somehow I doubt it.
The atmosphere is very good, the writers clearly understood Lovecraft better than most game devs. For example, this graveyard at dusk is a nice touch:

There is menace and there but also a desolate beauty. It's something out of Fungi From Yuggoth.

The basic enemies are EXTREMELY generic goop zombies though. Some of the later ones remind me a bit of the experiments from The Resurrected (1991)

There's a lot of ambushes even early on. There's also faster enemies really early on so where are you getting this from? You have the throwing system as well

With Edward? There's Generic Zombie, Generic Zombie 2 and Leeches.

The throwing system is dumb garbage.

 

[Hell Swarm]

With Edward? There's Generic Zombie, Generic Zombie 2 and Leeches.

You have the blobby zombies and then the faster ones.

 

[jaekl]

Is this "not shit" like actually a good, fun game or "not shit" like robocop where it basically sucks but won't make you want to lobotomise yourself which is good enough nowadays?