Alone in the Dark (teh Dove's review)

Dove

Dove

Half-way Through My Half-life
Orderite
Bad press is all I've heard about it. Dauntless I proceed with torturing myself to gain my own opinion.

First off. My PC is below the minimum specs, but I managed to get it to play with a few tweaks I've found. The most notable was increasing the processing priority to high, since my single core AMD doesn't cut the mustard. Set all graphics as low as possible due to my hamster getting tired spinning my X1300.

Now, lowest settings and all, I thought the graphics would suck balls. I was wrong. Even on the lowest settings this game looks better than some I play on high, or highest possible at 1024/758 my preferred resolution. Decent frame rate as well during parts where it's zoomed. Zoom out and it slugs a bit, but still acceptable. If I had all my parts together for my new juggernaut system, this game would be far too gorgeous to behold.

Sound. Wow. The music is some of the best I've heard in a while. Very fitting for the ambiance.

Controls. They suck. Hands down some of the worst play mechanics I've had the pleasure of trying. Not the ideas behind them, the execution. It's just a damned hard game to play. Given some tweaks, and made more fluid and user friendly, it would kick ass.

Story. Well, the story so far has been as engaging as they get. The game makes you feel like Edward Carnby (demon killer). His attitude inspires me at least. Pretty much cut and paste stuff, but it works really well together. It's much more on par with the best of Silent Hill, than even the recent Silent Hill games.

A very much underrated game. I know some of you guys out there can look beyond the bad, and savor the good. That's why we're Fallout fans. I apologize in advance for the driving parts. There's nothing good about them, but hey. It's part of the package.
 
I was actually interested in this game when I first heard of it but after all this negative press including your review I won't even pick it up should I see it in the bargain bins.
 
Then you're going to miss out. It's a damned good experience.
 
Did they patch all of the broken shit for the PC? The thing last I heard was that the inventory is extremely broken and that the AI likes to bug out and kill you through walls/floors.

Apparently this has been addressed for the PS3, but I can't find any information stating that they did anything about the PC/360 versions.
 
I don't know man, played it for an hour at a friend's and thought it sucked really bad. I know that an hour is not enough to judge a game but my first impression was really, REALLY bad.
 
Dove's knowledge of gaming and this review will allow me to ignore the bad press. I'll get it when I see it cheap. Thanks Dove.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
a friend of mine (well, more like a guy i worked on a mod with when i was still in school) was a level designer for the game. his first...

he was quite disillusioned by the bad press, though he admits the game has major flaws.

but with the right fixes, it could be a diamond in the rough, i suppose.
 
Exactly swa.

Bugs and control issues didn't keep me from loving the Fallout series, so it's not stopping me from having a great time with Alone in the Dark.

Recommendation. I don't know what the issue is with the inventory. It works fine for me when I learned the secret. I use a Saitek P990 for console style games, and if you use the d-pad instead of the analogs the inventory works fine.

The first part of the game was what sealed it for me. Trying to escape a burning and crumbling building was really exciting for me.
 
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