Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

The Good
This game is frightening, and for that I love it. I do not scare easily and this game makes me jump out of my skin. The game has a very eerie atmosphere which gives you the sensation that something is lurking in the shadows and is going to grab you.

That's because it is... and it's when you least expect it.

The game is well designed from ground up, and it's quite obvious from the start that you are playing a quality game in which the developers didn't rush through the production. Every detail is very well thought out and executed. The use of atmospheric horror music (more of a horror sound-scape than music) and the storyline contributes to the effective creepiness of this game, as do the graphics and graphical effects which are extremely intricate.

The story, too, is very well written. It's a progressively challenging game, employing the usage of puzzles, but is not ridiculously bogged down with them; and they're not extremely complicated. The puzzles are less complicated than trying not to waste your ammunition or first-aid kits by the end of the first disk!

The controls and cameras are perfect, and if you're using a dual-shock joy-pad (recommended) you can swing around a flashlight in 360 degree angles. There's plenty of horrific landscapes, monsters and other audio visual treats. The game is complete horror mind candy.

It completely surpasses the older Alone in the Dark versions for Macintosh and PC. As a matter of fact, it doesn't even resemble them. The New Nightmare is completely authentic, and extremely realistic (as compared to the older versions which had cartoon type monsters).

This is an amazing work for the Playstation platform (and other platforms) which should not be overlooked.

The Bad
I don't like how little ammunition and first-aid kits there are, but at the same time I love that there's just enough. It adds to the realism of the game.

The only thing I don't like about the game is that there isn't more of it to play.

The Bottom Line
An intoxicating, twisted horror game which encapsulates you into it's atmosphere, forcing you to become part of the game. You'll feel as if you're living inside a horror movie, complete with the horrific sound-scape, landscapes and psychology to complete your nightmarish world.

The Good
My god I expected a lot out of this game. I'm a big fan of the Alone in the Dark series and when I heard the main guy behind the prequels also made this one I really thought this would be yet another super cool AitD game... but no, this world we live in is evil and all good games turn bad. It seems like the developers have played far too much Resident Evil when they made this game, it has far too many similarities.

But all in all, it's not that bad a game. The music's okay, the game is okay for playing through once with each character, but nothing more... and yeah, the graphics is more than okay too.

The Bad
Well, the game is basically Resident Evil only a lot better in comparison. It doesn't have any good storyline. The characters are dull and a big cliche. I was hoping to see once again the good old Edward Carnby in action, but it's just a different guy with the same name. Actually, they made a really silly addition to the storyline where they explained that every now and then a person called Edward Carnby is borned and is destined to rid the world of evil yaaaawn the last time I heard similar crap was when I playing Resident Evil. They should have called the main person something else so it wasn't an insult to the old cool Carnby.

There's also more things which seem to have taken from Resident Evil... the game is far more action oriented than the original AitD series, the puzzles are more rare and more simple in this game (though lightyears ahead of Resident Evil), the voice acting isn't exactly good, the storyline is crap (yeah, I mentioned this already, but it is really crap).

The game was released for quite a few machines, PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, GBC and PC. Not often you see that... just too bad that the PC port in particular has some really bad flaws. It seems to have inherited the classic console gripes, almost no options, an extremely silly save system and horrible controls. This is nothing but an insult to pc users. And yeah, one thing, the pc port has far too big machine requirements. The PS1 is a very weak machine, yet they actually bothered to port it to that machine, why not have graphical options in the pc version to make it so it plays like the PS1 version and have small requirements? It shouldn't be hard... but nooo, they didn't do it, and you need a ninja pc to play it. Actually, if you have a weak computer you're better of buying the PS1 version and play it in an emulator, which is a real shame.

The Bottom Line
All in all, it's a nice game. It just isn't as good as the other Alone in the Dark games. Fortunately it's a thousand times better than the Resident Evil series. As I said earlier, it's nice to play the game through once and nothing more, if you aren't rich you should buy something better though. And yeah, Resident Evil fans (yeah, that means you weirdos in the corner of the room!) should definately get this one and see how Resident Evil should have been made.

The Good
Just finished the game and had to write a review, it just didn't allow me to wait any longer and try playing with another character. It blew me off the chair having more to offer than I was willing to accept. The game is brilliant technically, subjectively or objectively looking. You pick a spot, and you'll find it laughing back atcha with its greatness. It wasn't long ago I got attracted to this horror-surviving genre, realizing they offer one of the best stories in general, and every fear you need to confront will be rewarding.

Now, after an intro opening, Edward Carnby, a PI, and Aline Cedrac, a scientist, are set to go in pair on Shadow Island, not knowing what awaits them there, and thinking of it as a part-time job... which will eventually arise to become a challenge in saving their own lives. But just as their hydroplane was approaching an island, a raging storm surrounding an island forced them to jump earlier. Thus separated by the fall, you're given a selection over Carnby as a man of action, or Aline, intelligent and beautiful companion to whom he had to protect during the trip. The best part of it is that each cahracter plays its own role, so wether you choose one or another, the game will look entirely and completely different. Some places will correspond since you're both stuck on the same island, and you'll run to each other occasionally when in need, or use walkie-talkie for communicating with each other, but inside stories and quests will be entirely different. We usually see games where just character is different, but most of it is the same. Well, this can count as two separate and different games. No wonder this game will strike you as short when you actually get to finish it.

Ingame models of Aline and Carnby are simply amazing, breathtaking. Moves, running, climbing, using a flashlight and achieving certain effects like rain, never-so-good-b4 terrain and atmosphere. On the other side, monster models look rather below the belt, I mean, either they had to look so low-poly for faster performance, or they did that on purpose. Either way, other ingame characters and monsters, beside the main cast, are everything but good looking. Though, that won't affect the atmosphere when it gets a grip upon you.

Voice-acting speech is incredibly good, hmmm, isn't this a french game? ;) Anyway, voices are simply perfect and dialogue between Aline and Carnby are really amusing for the ears, hehe, from the start when they talk as two strangers, 'til the moment when they start to have feelings for each other... appreciating being stranded in the land of horror, even if only 'cos it brought the two of them together. It's amazing how such a game of short radius can still only show you the surface of it so you can never guess what lies beneath, beautiful cinematics, nicely developed story with a strong grip of the background, eeriely real atmosphere, and places for which you'd never dream of to find in game that makes you think you'll be playing it in some spooky mansion for all the time.

The Bad
The game doesn't vary too into the music atmosphere and there are few songs (if you can even call them songs) that will mostly change depending on the place and suspense, but remind of sound effects more than of instruments. But yet if it's for achieving the atmosphere, well done, I'll sayeth :)

As for the monsters, just a bit more polygons wouldn't hurt, and there didn't seem to be more than 10 types of different monsters, so they could do a bit of detailizing on it. I admire the way they sparked a touch of details on all the other things. It's unbelievable real.

Also, a small portion goes to picking up the stuff. It's made so you can clearly see things like objects or weapons where they are when you flashlight them, but even then some of them cannot be picked, or if they can, you really ned to be at the exact position, sometimes hard to achieve, so you oftenly wonder wether it's a bug and you cannot pick it, or are you just so new with the controls.

The Bottom Line
This 3CD heavy/light adventure is well worth the seeing. I never could get attracted to the trilogy of "AITD", but strangely, I started with this one. It's not that I haven't played prequels before, it's just that they didn't show me anything but the technical achievment at the time. Now, I'm thinking I just might be wrong on that, but they had many illogical puzzles and such things, whereas this game won't give you much of a headaches covering that territory. I cannot compare it to "RE" series since I haven't tried them yet (though I intend to), but this game has really serious visuals to admire, as well as effects, so playing it will feel pretty alive. I'm just glad to see Europe is more than capable of making wonderful games that can compete with the marketplace. So far, I can tell that I haven't ran into any game with so good ingame graphic, cinematics of even greater quality I saw, but not the ingame, and that's the part we players control. Way to go Darkworks! :)

The Good
In a way, The New Nightmare closes a full circle. The original 1992 Alone in the Dark game developed by Infogrames for DOS was a major source of inspiration for Resident Evil, the 1996 PlayStation game that defined and popularized survival horror. By that time Infogrames had already squandered their potential with two rather bad AotD sequels and didn't seem particularly interested in revisiting the franchise. When they eventually did, they outsourced the console-oriented reboot (developed for the Dreamcast and PlayStation) to Darkworks, a relatively new studio which decided to base it on... Resident Evil games.

The similarities are obvious - while the very idea of a predetermined, cinematic camera system was an innovation of the original AotD, The New Nightmare definitely looks and feels more like the first four Resident Evil games (the last of which, called Code: Veronica, was released just 1 year earlier, also for the SEGA Dreamcast). To make the Capcom inspirations even clearer, TNN opens with an RE- or DMC-style intro movie and the game's title being read by an evil-voiced narrator. It's worth noting that Darkworks would later go on to rip-off Resident Evil to much better results with Cold Fear, released in 2005 as Ubisoft's answer to RE 4.

Overall, the Resident Evil influences combined with more experience of the action-adventure genre as a whole definitely do AotD 4 some good. The game looks really good, controls a bit better than the original PC trilogy, it doesn't allow you to softlock yourself or require you to leave items on the floor for the lack of inventory space (then again, it doesn't limit your inventory at all, which goes against the spirit of survival horror).

The Bad
Unfortunately, The New Nightmare is much sloppier and less polished than classic Resident Evil. Interactable objects usually require you to stand at a very specific angle to activate them, the hitboxes of both background objects and enemies are very awkward, as is the aiming system. The puzzles, while not quite as unintuitive as in the original trilogy, can still be pretty cryptic and leave a lot to be desired. In many areas enemies are either located just in front of the entrance or spawn right next to the player character, which is simply unfair.

Alone in the Dark 4 brings back the idea of two protagonists from the original game, except this time - like in Resident Evil 2 - both characters' routes are actually different, although they do share a majority of locations. It's an okay way to pad the game's length without becoming too repetitive, but unfortunately the two paths are pretty uneven. You can tell that a lot of the visual and atmospheric creativity was kept for Edward's playthrough, while Aline's is not only less impressive, but also more unpolished, with more technical hiccups, an annoying timed section, and an absolutely terrible final boss fight.

Plot-wise, Darkworks bring back two classic Alone in the Dark themes - Lovecraftian horror of the first game and Native American magic from the third one - and pits them against each other. On the one hand, the themes of fascination with otherworldly shadow creatures and trying to use them to improve humanity work really well, but on the other hand, the worldbuilding in the game is rather shoddy. Native American deities having names clearly taken from Greek, Latin, and Mesopotamian cultures is an especially blatant blunder.

The Bottom Line
The New Nightmare, borrowing a lot from the Resident Evil series, ends up being an improvement over Alone in the Dark 2 and 3, but it's a still an uneven and unpolished experience that leaves a lot to be desired. 5/10

[played in an emulator]

The Good
The first half of the game --from the great intro sequence to the first 'boss-fight', right before they prompt you to switch CDs- is a quite scary and inmersive experience.

There are lots of "bink" cut scenes all over that add a great deal of interest to the whole package.

The scenario graphics! The game has an ambient like few others. Specially the forest under the rain and the manor levels. If you have a powerful video card, using the 'high-detail' shadows will add a lot of effect. The lights will go off every now and then, and some creatures just flash before you to disappear in the blink of an eye, which will make you jump on your seat a few times and draw your weapons and flashlight, aiming to nowhere all confused. The sound effects add a lot to the ambient, and although the music is kind of weird and does not sound quite 'musical'; it doesn't bother nor add much. Just tags along fine.

One would think that in the times we live in, a game with 'fixed-backgrounds' is kind of retrograde. Well, AITD4 not only shows that is not the case, but even makes use of some really attractive camera angles that would not be possible with the 'moving' kind of background.

The first half of the game really fills in with the 'horror' thing.

The Bad
The second half of the game seems to be the 'survival' part of the package, and resumes itself to a mainly 'run-n-shoot' type of game. Sadly, the control interface doesn't match with the idea; you find yourself dealing with a clumsy character that will have lots of trouble answering to your commands.

Suddenly, all the "bink" animated cut-scenes start being replaced by still images; and while at the beginning there was an animation every 5 minutes, somewhere in the game you start getting this still pictures where you have to imagine what happened.

The game prompts you with a 'yes/no' every time you need to do such silly things as climbing a ladder, which is quite annoying. If I press 'action' on a switch it clearly means I want to activate it, you don't need to double-check asking if I'm sure; it's not like I'm asking you to format the hard drive or something.

Everyone complained about this one, but here it goes again: the 'hot spots'! You will find yourself several times running in circles over an object or a door, while asking yourself 'am I doing something wrong or maybe this this a bug and it will never work?'

The monsters --not being the zombies, which are pretty good- are awful. There are just a few 'breeds', and they're very poorly designed.

The storyline isn't as nearly as attractive as it was in the first AITD. No other AITD had the strong plot the first one had, but in this one you can smell all the intention on recreating the kind of plot that the first had; sadly not being able to accomplish the task. It's a pity, since the ambient is all there for a well-driven strong story; and I think a good plot would have helped the 'second part' issue.

The 'downs' on AITD4 (specially the technical issues) are specially bad since this is the 4th chapter of a saga. One would expect a more robust and polished product by now. Instead, this looks like a first try.

The Bottom Line
A typical Horror/Survival game. Alas, the separation between 'horror' and 'survival' is too clear, which is not good for the final product.

The first half of the game is the 'horror', while the second would be the 'survival'. Sadly, the second half of the game is quite boring and frustrating, bringing down all the great atmosphere created on the first half.

Nevertheless, I think the game deserves a try, if only for the first half. Despite the poorly designed monsters and the clumsy interface, the atmosphere is really scary. Those of us who enjoyed the first AITD, this is how we would have liked that awesome game to look like.

The Good
Those who have parosed the MobyGames sections for the original AitD games at any length will know that I am an old school Alone fan since the first game came out. I have been dying to get my hands on this title and now that I have I can safely say that I'm glad I did. The atmosphere is very dark in this one. The use of the flashlight is very nicely done with the light passing realistically over walls and objects. There are some good puzzles which are reasonably thought provoking and much better than the bog standard fare in Resident Evil. The books are very well written and are interesting to look through. They help shed light on the well crafted story that sits behind the game. You can play as 2 different characters in a similar fashion to Resident Evil 2, however in AitD4 the paths for each character are very different in both story and gameplay. So much so that aside from the overall story and setting it's much like having 2 unique adventures. It's not until you start to get fair way into the game with the 2nd character that you start to realize just how well the game fits together. The questions that you had at the end of the first time through are answered with the 2nd character and it's also nice to see that unlike the 2nd scenario in RE2 which saw you performing many of the same tasks that you had to in the first scenario, AitD does not make you do the same puzzles again, instead you have entirely different ones which not only makes sense logically but also means the replay value is such that you haven't really finished the game until you've played through with both characters.

The Bad
My interest in this game is not without reservation however. It's a shame that Darkworks decided to push more towards Resident Evil than Alone in the Dark and as a result, a lot of alone fans may feel they've been slightly short changed. Some of the puzzles are more akin to a harder version of the RE variety rather than Alone 1, 2 and 3, seemingly dumbed down for a more mainstream audience. It's also a real shame that the game has an unfinished feel towards the end where much of the polish covering the earlier half of the game is absent as the game is reduced to more of a run and gun situation. This also extends to a few continuity issues where we are expected to fill in the gaps with a few things that we shouldn't have to.

The Bottom Line
One of the better Survival horror titles to date, marred slightly by the half-hearted final section of the game. The 2 different characters are completely different to play thorough the game as so there's hours of entertainment to be had. It's a lot of fun but the few of you out there who are fans of the original Alone games who don't like Resident Evil may want to give it a try before they buy. However, I for one will be standing in line for my copy when the next title in the Alone in the Dark saga is released.

The Good
STORY

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is not a direct sequel to Alone in the Dark 2 nor is it related in any way to the previous entries in the series bar the inclusion of the main character. This title is more a rejuvenation of the series and a most belated one at that which features a marvellous scripted engine but somewhat rudimentary game play. The game begins with Edward Carnby heading to Shadow Island in search of his lost partner; Charles Fisk. What unfolds is a tremendously twisted narrative which is very well paced.

GAMEPLAY

You can play as either Edward Carnby or Aline Cedrac (a young archaeologist) and while the two characters play almost identically Aline's story is more focused on puzzle solving and less on combat. Viewing the narrative from the perspective of 2 characters is a great way to encourage players to keep playing the game and while you can get a good picture of the story playing through entirely as Edward to really understand Obed Morton's insane fascinations you must play through as Aline and interact with Lucy several times. Instead of your standard staple of "Zombie", "Dog" and "Special Monster" enemies the monsters you fight with in TNN are actually quite intelligently conceived and some have a sizeable backstory. For instance the Ophtalmacid (the Ophtal part of the name referring to eyes) is a creature that drags you down to it's level to feed on your eyes and you can find this out through discarded journals later in the game while following the long cold trail of an Explorer.

GRAPHICS

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is a gorgeously moody game with a real Tim Burton feel to it. The game focuses heavily on paranoia and darkness and while some enemies are less adverse to light some can actually be destroyed by using it. The backgrounds are gorgeously high quality and fantastically rendered and character models are full of definition and are well animated. Particle effects are also fantastic and this really shows when wielding one of the games bigger weapons like the Plasma gun, which functions like a flamethrower.

SOUND

Mentioned before the atmosphere of the game is immersive and terrifying. Augmented by the chilling, thumping soundtrack wind buffets tree branches and lightning fills a room with illumination followed by a deafening crack that echoes across the island. Then there are little touches here and there such as stepping into the wrong place and being surrounded by a group of enemies, accompanied by a shrill, piercing scream only for them to promptly disappear, leaving you a quivering mess.

The Bad
While the engine is solid there are noticeable problems with it. For instance you will notice there is some serious ghosting apparent when then camera angle is close to the character models. Waving arms leave a surreal trail and although this may have been intentional, if it wasn't it's a big oversight. Also the control scheme is dated and rudimentary. Apart from the standard context sensitive actions such as climbing and opening doors you really can't do much more than you could do in the original Resident Evil. You control well, but it just feels rudimentary. After finishing the game with both Edward and Aline there really is nothing else to do.

The Bottom Line
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is a fantastically rendered game that totally oozes style and atmosphere. It has a tight story, competent voice acting and a solid engine. Unfortunately the game is held back by the fact that is feels kind of rudimentary. When you come away from the experience it is like you are simply playing Resident Evil with a new skin. Things like being able to control your flashlight are really just little gimmicks that only prove useful once. TNN is a game you should own, only don't expect to go back to it too often.

The Good
I have had the opportunity to play this game on Dreamcast as well as PlayStation 1 and even the Game Boy Color version. Alone in the Dark is one of the original Survival Horror franchises, released many years ago, and before even Resident Evil was a gleam in it's creators eye. The plot and storyline from this game was recently sacrileged in a disastrous Hollywood game-to-film by the notoriously inept director Uwe Boll.

The game itself is a very atmospheric yarn following one of two selectable characters, each with unique aspects, and a slightly different path depending on which one you chose. There are many different locations and subplots, including mansions, sewers, observatories, and a wide away of weapons including a lightning gun! You can spend hours puzzling away and musing over the expansive areas, which if you're familiar with Resident Evil, you will have no trouble finding yourself at home here with. In brief, all a Survival Horror game should be, but make sure you choose the Dreamcast version, which has better graphics and gameplay.

The Bad
The slowdowns between angle-changes is appalling (some are several seconds long), and the quality of graphics is diabolical, even by PS1 standards. The controls are also very unresponsive, sometimes the character moves randomly around the screen! This PS2 version appears to be a lame direct port of the PS1 rendition. All in all, the Dreamcast version has better graphics, better speed and better playability than both PS versions.

The Bottom Line
Alone In The Dark 4 is a great atmospheric Survival Horror game, but just don't play it on PS2 - get the Dreamcast version instead! If you like Resident Evil, you'll love this.

The Good
the moment i switched this game on and got to control the character i knew this would be one hell of a game. the character is not exactly light on his or her feet not like in res-evil or silent hill 2 but that does not spoil the game its still good. the music and the darkness are what really make this game good you feel as if you are in a horror movie and that you are trapped in an old house stuck away out in the middle of no where all alone with the things that go bump in the night :). the atmosphere is faultless as is the music there was one part i felt scared at and it was where you went through a grave yard if you used the woman character and it was as creepy as hell you were passing all these vaults that had no doors on them and it was pitch black and you were expecting something to jump out at you from the of the vaults. im not telling you if there was something or somethings that jumped out at you because it would spoil the atmosphere and your enjoyment of the game.

the atmosphere in this game is as good as the atmosphere in the silent hills maybe even better just maybe though. the weapons you got for the guy were: a double barreled 357 magnum or at least that is what it looked like and a tripple barreled shotgun which was great fun in using but you ran out of ammo if you didnt watch what you were doing and a few other weapons that were ok to use like a kind of laser gun that you could charge up with these kind of crystals you found lying at the side of cavern walls. so you kind of had infinite ammo for the laser gun which was usefull at times a plasma gun which looked like a blooming flame thrower when you fired it. and for the woman: a pistol and the tripple barreled shotgun and one or two of the guns the guy had. puzzles were a little difficult at times which was one of my only complaints about the game. but apart from that the game is fine a worthy opponent for the survival horror crown which i think belongs to Silent Hill 2 just now because i havent played the gamecube version of the res-evil yet because it`s not out in the uk yet.

The Bad
one or two of the puzzles were a little annoying and the guy could have been just a little lighter on his feet. when the end credits were playing it had a crppy song playing were was the TESTAMENT song called ALONE IN THE DARK it should have been playing at the end credits. it can be found on the cd THE LEGACY.

The Bottom Line*
if you like survival horror games then i dont see why you will not like this game because it has atmosphere and has good controls not great but good and that is what a survival horror should be like if it is to be good.

better than the 3 A.I.T.D games that came before it far far superior in every way.

The Good
You can play Alone In The Dark as two characters: our hero Edward Carnby or the newcomer Aline Cedrac, an anthropologist, who looks oddly and much to Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series. The stages are well designed. The song is creepy (in a good way).

The Bad
The changes of cameras out of time not allow you to see where the enemy is. The save system is a little annoying. And most of the times you don't know what to do. Basically if you do not like games like Resident Evil, I mean like Alone In The Dark better to pass away.

The Bottom Line
The game with Edward Carnby is a little more difficult, but relatively shorter. Carnby is the player who will spend most of the game looking for keys and killing monsters in tedious combats. With Aline you will need a lot of patience to solve the numerous puzzles, which is great if you like that kind of stuff.

The Good

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare borrows heavily from similar games such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil 2 and it has all the typical cliches one would expect from a game in this burgeoning genre.

There are 2 characters to play as, each with their own story. Veteran gamers will instantly recognise Edward Carnby, even in his modern form, as he was the star of the original trilogy. Do note however that this is NOT related to the others.

I found the game to be something of a rip off of a Resident Evil title. There were zombies, a mansion, another conspiracy plot. Oh yeah, and more zombies. There's even this monster that chases the female (Aline) around, just like the Nemesis did to Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. I think this is why the game failed to attract a wider audience - everything in this game had been done before.

The Bad

There are a few notable glitches, but nothing much. The game can be considered a Resident Evil clone, which may be a good thing or not depending on your taste in games. The tired formula may put some people off.

Great horror adventure, combined with chilling lighting effects, and brain teasing puzzles to keep you entertained. Resident Evil fans may want to rent it.

The Good
The Alone in the Dark series has offered a very early and interesting shot at action adventures. It always focused on the creation of a dense atmosphere and so does its newest addition. The graphics are dark and you will often have to find your way using your character's flashlight.
The game offers two different characters, which leads to different gameplays depending on your choice.

The Bad
The graphics are surprisingly low-res and remind me of Playstation games. Additionally the designers failed to correct one of the most nerve wracking gameplay errors ever. In all Alone in the Dark games it has been a great hassle to find the "hot spot" for a pick up item. That's the area where the game actually recognizes what you would like to do. So you will find yourself often walking from left to right in front of a door, feverishly trying to open it.

The Bottom Line
The game is a horror adventure with good atmosphere, a relatively high replay value (because of the two different characters) and nerve wracking keyboard control.