Alone in the Dark Notes

Gameplay mechanics

Confusing control scheme.

muddled combat at first

have to pick up an object and batter the opponent to death, locks on with left trigger and swings with right stick. Easy after a few goes.

Problem bit is that you have to drop the weapon to drag the opponent to fire to kill them once downed. Hard bit is getting the game to stop picking things up instead of grabbing the body of the enemy to drag it to fire.

collapsing building trying to be cinematic but goes on a little to long, some nice shock moments and vertigo though. Shades of half life with many extras getting bumped of around us making us think that death is only a twitch away.

Introduces the driving elmements

Quick spin in a multi-story car park then out for a drive through collapsing new york. Pity that gtaiv looks so much more like new york. The collapsing city seems exciting the first time you try and negotiate it, after about ten tries i made it through the short sequence, more often than not i was spun out by random physics glitches and computer controlled nutter car drives than my own driving skills let me down, also the collision detection with the ruptured roads was a little random at times.

SOme platform puzzling with ladders and buses that need corpses piled at the back to stop it tipping, thanks spoiler review for giving me the solution to that puzzle.

Down into the sewers where we see coccoons and eggs????

some puzzles with turning of flaming pipes with valves and moving electric cables out of water to make safe the water filled tunnels.

dark oil on floors give me a few minute grief until we work out that it's just glitchy and holding something on fire seems to get you through.

Boss fight with a load of bats merged to make a tentacle that throws things at you. CHucking bombs into it's belly sees it off.

some more tomb raider type puzzles getting a truck to turn into a makeshift ramp and driving accross a chasm.

puzzle with wires to get elevator to work

inside we meet claw throwing beasties.

cpr sequence, 8 to five breaths seems a bit wrong but never mind a neat idea and very dramatic.

puzzles with laser trip beams which open gates, burning the monsters to get them out of the way.

One bit where you stick a molotov cocktail to a bug which seems to be taking blood back to it's nest, you stick the bomb to it and it goes back and boom.

Having found room 943 you get a scene where theo's ghost tells you a message only it's not explained well at all

i thought he was pointing at a door and wasted time trying to blow it open

turns out he was pointing at a newspaper clipping

only problem was that you have to look in close up directly at what he is pointing to to trigger a cut scene. Once you know that it gets easier but even then it takes some fiddling

Through the templar temple

Next it's through a warehouse the puzzles here are a bit hit and miss one with a forklift truck i was trying for ages with and had to go to a walkthrough only to find out that i had had the right idea only the glitchy nature of where i had to place the forklift blades had made me think that was not the right idea.

Next it's stacking boxes with the forklift which is ok

Then out into a courtyard with the baddie in a helicopter above you making you dance around in the pool of light to escape the black oil which is really irritating

Into a subway car and another head scratching bit until you find out that you can only aim at the bugs once you get up the rope, damn it edward has a narrow field of view.

Then into a big fight sequence with loads of baddies and many a headscratch as to the best way to survive.

Again a walkthrough didn't provide any help really but did show me that you can map getting fire bullets onto your faves which really helps as it saves you jugling with the menu every few shots and makes this bit easy

Inside a big monster bug which reminded me of prey

and then out into the park again.

Now we have some free roaming in the park there are roots of evil dotted about the place, all visible on the map. We have to go there and burn them, all are guarded by some monsters

Some are pretty tricky puzzles invloving pivots and bugs on ropes and moving objects which you have to stick bombs to to get to the root.

One you have done enough roots to gain some kind of mystic vision which power from the roots gives you you can go to the castle.

At the castle you have to use your torch and lense to light up six symbols to get to the roof and after training your lens through a telescope on the moon a reaction occurs and the templar temple is lit up with a beam of energy from the moon. Back out into the park and you have to burn yet more roots there are more of them but they are easier, all sitting out in the open and fewer monsters guarding them hardest bit is gathering all the kit to burn them all.

ok one or two are a bit more involved a car jump to one and one atop a pillar guarded by bats.

last root and they are taking the piss no explosives to be found for miles.

Once into the underground platform level there are some rooms each one contains a puzzle, moving walls dropping ceilings with no real clue as to how to achieve a solution

Its all trial and error and dying hundreds of times.

I had to look up a walkthrough for two rooms and one of them didn't seem to have any real solution other than a glitch.

Then more driving with the ground shaking again ho hum the time limit is falsely low and you actually have more time than you think you do.

sick of blinking five seconds after thinking it was a nice idea.

No dificulty levels

story

staight into the meat of the story a bunch of similarly dressed older men are capturing our hero and a priest called paddington.

The priest is taken one way into a lift and edward another to be killed we are told.

Strange cracks which seem to be alive and bloody appear in the walls moving and grab our captor.

A similar fate awaits Paddington's captors.

We are left alone looking in a mirror wondering who we are, apparently edward has lost his memory, a good story telling device as we can discover the plot anew but be dumped into the middle of things.

Everyone he meets is bumped of in seconds.

Girl gets possessed and tells us that edward used to be possessed to, but somehow he is no longer. The demon seems to want him back. But he must kill him to posess him, which it has no qualms about.

some little jumping annoying bug enemies in a lobby area.

Seems that a stone that we have seen around paddingtons neck is the key to things.

Edward meets up with some girl whoose name escapes me and she seems to be our new sidekick.She is called sarah, thanks previously on

We meet up with Theophile Paddington, he tells us that Edward has been the carrier of the stone his entire life and that he is the only one who can save the world by following the path of light, could he be any more cryptic, before anyone asks him to explain he blows his own brains out rather than become one of the dark monsters zombies.

a bit of running about at random in central park. We have to meet the dead guy at a museum? i am sure all will be explained. The chick buggers off soon enough, too much for the ai to have her running about with us i presume.

Shock revelations after getting to the ambulance where sarah went to easily and we need to divert around an entire level we get our file pulled up and an incredibly efficient database tells us that edward is the same edward from the old alone in the dark games and vanished in the thirties, which makes him a hundred years old or a time traveller.

It's on to the museum we find sarah coccooned by the beasties and have to get her out and do cpr on her.now he kisses her

Through the museum, some fights with beasties

Big boss battle with spider centaur demon, shoot the bugs off him then chuck bombs at him. hiding on squares which protect us from his storm attack.

then finally into room 943 and ghost theo tells us cryptically to knock edward out which sarah obeys. Theo appears in a dream sequence and tells us that lucifer forged the stone to carry his soul and anyone who owned the stone would have eternal life to keep them interested in keeping it. Seems the price is that lucifer can take over the stone carrier for his own ends. Looks like edward has spent seventy years under Lucifers posession doing god knows what.

The path of light seems to involve a templar temple built under central park which needs some ritual to be carried out to banish lucifer or something.

SO we have to get a key and a lock and bring it to the temple i think.

Seems that it's a two part task, good job we brought sarah along as it seems we need her to do something.

through a warehouse with the forklift

out into a showdown with the baddie

crashes helicopter very cinematic

through the subway filled with baddies getting harder now

Out into the park again

destroy all the roots of evil

now i can see the secret alchemist signs or are they templar i don't know

The castle eventually lets us into the spire and we train a telescope on the moon and draw down cosmic energy or something and it points to somewhere might be where sarah is or to the final tree

anyway another trip around the map destroying more roots to be fair you don't need them all

it's just the achievement slut in me.

After they are all done its on to the final tree which is protected by a force field which apparently we can now break through, wonder how? oh ok we lob a bomb over the field which apparently we have been lowering while we score whore. Pity the boss thing looked fun, but one bomb finishes it off.

Down through the bowels of the earth and sarah calls to tell us that there are two stones, so that is what all this is for!

ok the secret of central park is a big stone platform game shaped like the alchemist symbol.

getting very tomb raider now.

We finally reach the key. A bloke called hermes who built the stuff we find underground and some of it very impressive too.

Back to the museum against the clock and into room 943 crowley is waiting and swiftly despatched with a bullet to the head so much for him being a good villain.

Hermes takes us into the temple and opens the door and takes us to a huge stargate which is apparently the gateway to hell. and we should open this because?

Glitches

it just froze on me, only it was only the character that stopped responding the flames and everything else still worked, could pause and go back but no input accepted by the character

jumped up on fork lift truck stuck on puzzle element bar that goes in and out in ep 6 templar area and got stuck in mid air and after about 30 secs died for no reason??

simples puzzles

Tomb raider style find your way through a set, but not obvious path. Only with less intuitive control.

put a fire extinguiser on a pulley to get it up to where you need it

deduce that the bloody fingerprints on a control pad are the combination

Turn on lights by holding wires at certain angles, weird and trial and error at first maybe, maybe there is a knack.

was bleeding to death had to find a bandage.