Alone in the Dark (2008 Video Game) User Reviews (16)

Tried too hard... failed big time.

[insomniac_rod · 5/10 · 24 July 2009]

This video game had plenty of potential and was even the most awaited Horror-Action game in 2008. Was it worth the wait? My sincere answer, with all the pain in my heart is no.

I'm a huge fan of the original PC games because those were extremely interesting and mixed creepiness with inventive and fun game play. You didn't get tired of them.

With the new millennium consoles you might think that graphics, game play, and plot should be spectacular, awesome in terms of quality... ...this game tried too hard but failed on all aspects.

The worst thing about it is the tedious, exasperating game play. You just don't get used to the controls because in some important moments you need to put in practice your survival skills in video games but with such complex button combinations and joystick action; you just don't get into the game's atmosphere.

The plot is surely interesting and gives plenty of territory to explore for the gamer. I thought it was as great idea of driving into the city and exploring the most bizarre places on it but things tend to get repetitive and boring after a while.

The graphics are spectacular and make justice to the new consoles but remember, graphics and powerful sound do not assure a great game overall.

This game tried too hard but failed big time. There's nothing else to add.

Its end episodes ruin everything great that goes before them.

[Freedomisanillusion · 6/10 · 30 November 2008]

As a PS3 owner, I was at first frustrated when the game wasn't released on my console, then quite impressed when I found out I'd be getting a version that fixes the problems that all the reviews pointed out.

The game is good. It could've been great, had it not been for the last episodes, where the tension and innovation the game has gives way to utter tedium, but sadly this tedium unravels its success.

I really enjoyed many things about this game; the inventory system does something I've been waiting for for years - accurately reflects what a character can actually carry! Much as I hold Deus Ex on a pedestal as one of the greatest games of all time, it annoys me that you somehow managed to conceal a GEP gun in your leather coat...

I also liked the healing aspect, though it annoyed me that Edward Carnby's leather jacket also healed.

The combat is the game's true success - centred around fire, this is a brilliant game which allows you to come up with many ways of killing your zombies. The only true way to get rid of them is setting them alight, but whether you do this by knocking them out and dragging them into a fire, or shooting them with explosive bullets, or using an aerosol can and lighter, Molotov cocktail, or smacking them with a chair/bat/broom/axe you've set on fire is up to you - and it's very enjoyable. There are also several boss battles - which while they can be incredibly difficult, are exciting and tense pieces of gameplay.

The acting is fairly acceptable - Sarah's voice-over often ranges from out-of-context to just terrible acting, but other than that it's pretty good. The script does use "fuck" far too much though - I suspect it may have been written by someone not native to either a) New York or b) English as a language.

The graphics are also quite good. Not on Uncharted levels of beauty, but they're very cool. The stage design is also amazing at times - though it will last you a mere ten seconds of gameplay, there is a point where you have to climb up the floor of a bathroom that is hanging off a cliff 90 degrees from its usual place.

And the game's puzzles range from obvious, to easy, to really challenging - so it's a great range of skills needed, and makes for a much more realistic gameplay.

All these good things, however, are entirely undone by the games end stages. I'm not complaining about an unhappy ending - it's entirely appropriate to the mood of the game - but mostly, the INCREDIBLE frustration one feels having to run around Central Park for five hours burning roots. I don't like to exaggerate, but it ruins everything that goes before it, and I refuse to use the games skip-to-the-next-sequence mechanism (though I do think it's nifty...) The ending is also rather rushed, and it feels disconnected from the rest of the game.

It's a real shame that this happens, because the game has some really amazing points in it. There are many more things I haven't mentioned - that you rarely actually know what to do in the game is in no way a bad thing - you're thrown into this mix with the characters, and have no idea what to do except react as you would in the same situations.

It's a smart game which does some really stupid things. It missed the mark by only so much, but when it missed it fell right into its own abyss.

my personal opinion in this game after finish it

[immortal_devil_kad · 5/10 · 15 July 2008]

this game i was waiting for release it i just found it in the market yesterday and ofcaurse i buy it whatever! the game is nice specially the sound tracks and the secrets are easy but the end of the game is very bad its have no meaning i was about to cry when i see the game credit its not cool end. any way this game mixed its have some parts like prince of Persia and some other times like tomb rider beside its like silent hill. anyway i give this game rate 5 because the control is not very good beside its give the player high tension and drive inside the game is not cool at all. advice to you if you going to play this game don't be very xited just play it for fun i mean come on i finish it in just 6 hours. good luck players i hope somebody enjoy it:P

Good game but has almost nothing to do with the series

[peterroeder34 · 5/10 · 22 May 2012]

I have played this for PS3, and it is a good game but it is not a horror game and it has hardly anything to do with the other games in the series. The game from 2001 called The New Nightmare is a great horror game based on the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. This game is just an action game. There is hardly anything that makes it into a horror game. It is hard to understand why they would not try to satisfy the horror fans of the genre. Instead this is more into the action genre. I do not really have much to say other than that. They might as well not have made the game if they did not intend to make a great horror game. Clearly fans of the series are expecting great horror in an Alone in the Dark game.

Proof that graphics don't make a game

[lodewijkpollemans · 1/10 · 13 July 2008]

I returned this game back to the store a few days ago. And to give all of you a impression of how many times I'm so disappointed with a game that I return it to the store; the only other game I ever returned to the store was Lord of the Rings for the Super Nintendo in 1994. Anyway, I used to have this game for my XBox 360 and that is were I am basing this review on.

I really had high expectations of this game before it was released. I am a fan of survival horror-games and although The New Nightmare was also kind of a letdown, this game almost brings new meaning to the word 'frustration'. I actually am the last guy to ever complain about bugs, since I am not much of a nitpicker and I usually go along playing the game but Alone in the Dark 5 just makes playing almost impossible because it is constantly irritating the player with bugs and other technical game-flaws.

A example: as you progress in the game, you will have to climb outside a giant building you'r in. In the climbing-sequence that follows from there, I managed to actually climb on top of the building and outside the level. I even kept the game paused on that moment to show a few of my friends how the hell that is possible. Bugs like these are not small, and add to that that the controls really don't work and you've got yourself a downright annoying 'game'-experience. The driving-sequences also just seem to be there to show you the nice graphics. True; the graphics look impressive and are the only thing together with the very atmospheric and epic soundtrack that I actually enjoyed.

The game is also presented as a TV-show DVD (or something like that), and although it does set a nice vibe you can skip the game right to the end if you want, just like a DVD. I could go on forever about the bugs; there is also a first-person view available in this game, but it is really pointless since every time you perform a action the game automatically switches back to third-person view. This game also isn't scary what so ever. Resident Evil 4 was also very not-scary to the point that it feels more like a action-game then survival horror, and that is also how Alone in the Dark 5 feels sometimes; like a bad Resident Evil 4 ripoff. Alone in the Dark used to have a lonely, eerie, and desperate atmosphere but all that is scrapped and replaced with a Hollywood-type of directing, with the same annoying and tasteless characters who say the word 'fuck' all of the time just to look cool.

If the people behind this game didn't obviously rush this game up, it could have been a nice action/adventure game. But now it is just a irritating experience that you want to avoid at any cost. Hopefully the creators will realize this flop and go back to the drawing-table with Alone in the Dark because the series really deserves a better fate then this.

Has great potential

[BoxcarRacer182 · 7/10 · 9 July 2008]

I was just as excited for this game as you guys were hearing all the hype on how the fire will play out sounded like a pretty cool idea, i bought the game about a week it came out only read 2 reviews about it which one said it sucked and the other said it was great so i decided to see for myself...

Heres the thing, the graphics are extremely well played out think of Dark Sector if any of you played it, the fire looks and plays amazing looks very realistic the acting isn't bad but it isn't great, the writer was going for a more new york type tough guy with the main character, so every now and then you might hear him bleep out the F bomb when not needed seems like the character is hiding behind the word a lot but the language also brings realism with huge monster, zombie like creatures running around there's a sense of fear in the characters so the (F) word plays well with it.

Now i gave this game a 7 out of 10 because the controls absolutely suck, your controller has 2 analog sticks but unfortunately only the left one moves your character the right one only makes the camera move up,down,left and right. The fighting system is weird to, you cant fire your gun unless you switch to first person which can get annoying also another thing that has its pros and cons are the enemies you can only kill (the zombie creatures) with fire for me its a cool concept because it brings a sense of panic because knowing i cant kill this enemy without a certain element but to others it might come annoying which is understandable.

i wouldn't suggest buying the game, but if you want to ill say its worth it but i would highly recommend to rent it first! after your done there is no replay value...its just done. Good Job!

It seems the Uwe Boll movie cursed the game

[tyranid_slayer · 2/10 · 9 January 2009]

A good few years before the release of the playstation 3 i remember seeing the trailer for the new alone in the dark game. I was excited it looked really good, simply because we haven't seen an alone in the dark game for a long time so it would be a welcome come back.

I got the game on offer for £25.

This game is so awful i didn't even bother to finish the damn thing. I'll tell you why this game is so bad. Firstly, the whole game is a gimmick. When we were shown tech demos the only thing they seemed to demonstrate was the games fire effects. Yes OK the fire effects are very nice and fire spreads realistically and fire weapons all work very well. But the fire is a gimmick because the only way you can kill enemies in the game is with fire. It's practically forcing you to always use fire and there is never much variety. The second gimmick is the DVD skip feature. This feature like the name suggests means you can skip difficult levels and play the next "episode" and then keeps you up to date with the story with a "Previously on Alone In The Dark" opening scene. The back of the box suggests you don't even need to play the game and you can see the ending, this is a lie because it doesn't even let you see the end because of lack of skill or power etc. Another thing wrong with it, well the most spoken of problems with Alone is the CONTROLS. I got this game for xbox and it may have a chunky controller but c'mon. You can switch between third and first person. First person is easier to work but you have to blink constantly ( yes i said blinking i thought it was stupid too) by pressing the thumb-stick down. In third person you can only control Carnabey with the one left stick which is sometimes difficult to manuvere considering you can't work with the right stick too. Clunky controls cause problems with combat, particularly because this joins in with the fire gimmick. attacking with a melee weapon is controlled by swinging the right stick but this is so tedious and the melee weapon must be on fire for the enemy to die. Then there's inventory and healing. The whole quick view change to the inside of Carnabeys jacket to see the inventory is all well and cool but its kept in real time and you can be injured while going through your inventory which take you right out of it. The inventory is all very messy and sometimes un-useful objects take up too much space. then there's healing. To heal yourself you go inside your jacket and pull out medical spray (resident evil 4 anyone?) or bandages then press down and use the analogue stick to select the part of the body you wish to heal. Why couldn't you just select the medical appliance and then just let that add on health rather than friterring away by doing a stupid medical mini-game. Writing and story. Oh dear the story. Well Edward Carnaby has amnesia and Satan is trying to take over earth.....something like that. The writing is the worst part because the story is so simple and clichéd that it just had to have bad writing to make it whole. Most of the dialogue is like a teen horror movie with just a horrendous amount of swearing. The other Alone In The Dark games were intelligent with good writing so why does this one resort to cheesy, corny vulgar dialogue? Then there's driving. Driving is just sooooooo tedious. Hit a pebble and your car will swerve off course and some times a tiny nudge on your movement stick and your pulling off drifts and the big pushes on the movement stick seem to cause you to turn corners slowly. I gave Alone In The Dark 2 stars and thats because of the driving mission near the start of the game. Although i hate the driving the whole scenario was very well presented, the graphics were very sleek and the musical score in the sequence was exceptional. If you've played it you'll know which scene i mean. Worst Game Of All Time Or Worst Game I've Ever Played

A decent action-thriller adventure

[wadehatfield98 · 8/10 · 10 May 2011]

This game I have been wanting since it's release back in 2008. I finally got my hands on it and have beaten the story. This game isn't all that bad as many people say it is. The only problems that bothered me were getting use to the controls (which took a couple of missions), and a few glitches. But besides that, this is one of the challenging games I have ever played. It took me 56 times just to beat the car mission. Did I get angry? Yes, I not going to lie. You need patience to play this game. I enjoyed it. It wasn't what I expected it to be, but it did have a good story. The game's plot is a journey worth pursuing. The story was very entertaining and I liked the main character. The music score was fantastic. It fit the mood of the intense action scenes and thrills. The gameplay was a little different from other games, but you get use to it. It's fun to play a game with different controls then play other games which have the same controls. The monsters were very detailed, the demon-like-zombie guys were cool (but put up a challenge), the fire effects were stunning. You just got to take a good look at what the game is. It's one of the best game I played in the last decade. I want a sequel.

8.5/10

I played this alone in the dark

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 7/10 · 4 May 2010]

I'd never played any of the previous four AITD video games so I figured I'd be lost an unable to keep up with this one, but the previews looked good so I added it to my wishlist, where it remained until the price came down.

You play as Edward Carnby, a man who has lost his memory. Edward wakes up in a crumbling Central Park West apartment building. A supernatural force is ripping through the walls and turning the inhabitants into mutated killers. A huge earthquake rips Manhattan apart and on top of that there are ugly monsters spawning all over the park. It's all part of a prophecy (yawn) in which Edward must prevent Lucifer from entering into the world.

The plot is mostly mumbo-jumbo. But the main strength of the game is the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere that turns a supposedly safe environment bustling with people (Manhattan island) into a lonely, apocalyptic nightmare. As a survival horror it's not as good as the Resident Evil series, and it doesn't have tension that made those games so good. I never felt scared to look around a corner or felt fear of what was lurking in the darkness beyond the character's view. But it's fast moving enough and gives you plenty of monsters to shoot at (though it's never satisfying enough and totally bloodless). It's also the 86th game in a row I've played that features Central Park.

Despite my complaining, I never got bored with the game or felt it was hard to control (I played the PS3 version, which improves on the Xbox 360 release). Though when driving around a shrub or a bush is completely impenetrable to a two-ton car and it's kinda infuriating. The fact that trophies are handed out left, right and centre makes up for it.

The ending hints at a sequel, which has yet to materialize. But AITD is a fine way to spend a few bucks and a few days playing.

Graphics B+ Sound B- Gameplay B Lasting Appeal B

Do not buy, do not play, do not subject yourself to this game!

[dialsforsam · 1/10 · 10 August 2013]

OK so I was browsing in my local Game store and came across this game on sale for £1.99. Thinking that I couldn't go wrong for that price (oh how mistaken I was) I decided to buy. This game is without doubt one of the worst I have ever played, the graphics are mediocre, the animations are stiff, the voice acting is bad and the gameplay SUCKS B*LLS! There are parts in this game that are so bad (near the start a small puzzle involving a fire extinguisher) that you just feel like the game hates you. I have heard a lot of people go on about how this game had great potential, I didn't see it, you have a gun you can only fire when you switch to first person view mode, not that it matters though because some enemies can only be killed by fire WTF man.

If anyone feels the need to play this game go ahead but do so at own risk. 1/10 and that is only because I cannot give it a 0/10 on the rating system.

An ok but buggy game.

[czlapaj-514-73534 · 7/10 · 1 November 2018]

First of all i like the Alon in the Dark series. And games like Dark Sector, Wanted: Weapons of fate or Bionic Commando.

This one was made in 2008 so it looks a bit like them. And the ideas the developers had about this was ahead of its time.

Yes you need to burn the enemies. But you can do in many ways: -beat them up and drag them into fire -use the gas from a tank and blow a car along with them -combine stuff to make explosive bombs. molotov coctails etc -use the lighter liquid to pour it on the ground and light it on fire -do a spray+lighter combo!

Dont listen to people that say killing the enemies using fire is stupid. They just didnt had enough imagination and will to chceck out all of the combine options etc.

The inventory, healing, fighting is awesome and really one in a kind. The only downside is that the game feels rushed and a has a lot of bugs. For the best one buy the ps3 version

Don't get this out of the bargain bin...

[Rob_Taylor · 1/10 · 28 February 2015]

It's horrible, plain and simple. I don't know if this was considered good back in 2008 when it came out, but it hasn't aged well, if so.

I mean, the graphics are okayish for a game of its age, but good Lord! The controls! It seems that a large part of the gameplay is actually wrestling with the controls which are horribly non-intuitive. It's almost like someone sat down and said "How can we make the controls so annoying that the player wants to give up?" and then did so.

You look around with one thumbstick and move with the other, just like most games. But here, you can only look a little to each side. If you want to look over your shoulder you have to work both sticks and physically turn the character. It doesn't sound so bad when I put it in writing, but trust me! It is very annoying in practice.

Additionally, certain aspects of the game must be played in first-person mode and some in third-person. It's like they couldn't decide which to use for the game and just put both in. That tells me that the game is badly designed. If you can't play the entire game in one mode then you haven't designed it properly. The constant switching from one mode to the other is just woeful.

I didn't get far into the story, because the controls made me give up, frankly. I suspect the story was way better than the gameplay, so it is a shame, but what can you do? If you are tempted by the sight of this in a bargain bin in your local game store take my advice, which is... Even free, it is overpriced! The control system and playing modes are just terrible.

SUMMARY: Frustrating controls and schizophrenic viewing mode make the game unplayable. It's that simple.

Awful, and a insult to the series

[morkulv_athferion · 1/10 · 27 November 2008]

With the end of 2008 nearing, this is definitely the worst game that has been released this year. Not only is it not scary at all (which defeats the purpose of naming the game Alone in the Dark in the first place), it has some of the most frustrating controls in video-game history. On top of that, all the enemy's in the game can ONLY be killed with fire. You can hit a enemy with a axe or anything not-flameable and it will not kill them, so my immediate first question is why have those weapons in the first place then? Sure, you can knock them out for a few seconds, but when you play a game and hit a enemy at point-blank with a axe, you expect it to die and nothing else.

About the controls. It really takes time to fully explain the lack of good controls in this game. When you switch to first-person, every time you perform a action it switches you back to third-person. The melee-weapons you can swing around by moving the right-thumbstick on Xbox 360, but this feels so stiff it really makes you wish you could just simply kill the enemy's with a well-placed bullet in the head like in GOOD games. It just feels sometimes like the game is constantly bothering the player with such frustration. On a more silly note, the game actually rewards you with a 'blackout'-achievement for completing a level without skipping it with the included DVD-like menu.

Lets get to the voice-acting. Well, if you thought the shittyness would end here, you are wrong. The voice-cast are constantly sounding like they are really desperate to sound tough with the overuse of the word 'fuck' in the cut-scenes. It makes you feel like watching a really crappy Hollywood B-flick with no interest for descent script-writing at all. Especially Carnby just sounds like a douchebag, but overall the voice-acting really makes you wonder sometimes what point the characters are trying to make with all the excessive cursing. The music in this game on the other hand sounds atmospheric.

The horror-elements are completely none-existent. The entire game relies on predictable scripted and boring action-sequences, so the entire scare-factor is thrown out of the window in this game, unless zombies with scars and cracks in floors and walls scare you. If you are a fan of the Alone in the Dark series and hated the movie by Uwe Boll for obvious reasons, I friendly suggest you to stay clear of this horrible game. This hyped modern installment of Alone in the Dark has a lot of nice potential ideas, but uninteresting characters, laughable dialogs and broken controls make for the worst game of 2008.

Welp

[daniellagorley-55927 · 5/10 · 5 August 2021]

I've had this game for the 360 since middle school. I am now 22, married and cannot beat this game because it's tricky and terrifying! Story's really really good though and won't stop playing till I beat it or my Xbox 360 succumbs to the red eye of death.

Potential great game ruined by too many styles and ideas mixed in

[kellcooz · 1/10 · 6 April 2024]

This game had amazing innovative ideas that were just poorly executed and handled. It was the result of too many ideas and styles mixed in, and I feel the game would've fared better had they stuck to just one perspective (either 1st person or 3rd person OTS). The game's story is unfortunately not that good and suffers from poor pacing despite having an engaging atmosphere and setting. The driving controls were atrocious, you barely have any control on the car which feels either slippery, sluggish or unresponsive. The melee combat is very awkward and it's quite hard to describe even when shown in video, because when picking up a weapon (I used letter E), Carnby's attack stance and movement (the arms) is controlled by the mouse, like ala motion controller. It was hard to control because the 3rd person camera is tied to the direction keys (WASD), while you're trying to direct, ala motion controller again, the arm swing animation and attack (press left click) by moving the mouse around. It made for exploring and traversing (especially in platform sections) very difficult. The only time the game controlled well was during 1st person aiming with gun, where camera control is tied to mouse, while using WASD to move. It's another of those awful PC ports where button prompts are console instead of PC prompts. Alone in the Dark 2008 has easily one of the worst PC ports I've ever seen alongside Silent Hill Homecoming and Splinter Cell Double Agent.

stops working in many places

[alexsisodiyaalex · 1/10 · 1 January 2022]

I played very hard without watching this game and wasted a lot of time even after that it gets stuck at some place and I just want to say one thing that alone in the dark PS2's mother's money wasted ...Fuke you alon in the dark 2 development in all ..