Thursday, June 23, 2011

Alone in the Dark

So I'm sitting on my couch thinking "I have absolutely no games to play!" when I remembered that I had just picked up Alone in the Dark a few days ago. I had this epiphany at around 12:00am this morning, so I couldn't exactly form a very intelligent or even sensible review of this game with the 30 minutes I will play of it before I go to sleep, but I gave it a shot anyway, Of the first 30 minutes of Alone in the Dark, I realized one very important thing, noticing the warning signs of a bad game are very helpful tools. I noticed that this game was going to be a grind the second I was shown the first actual button prompt, "Press right stick to blink"... I mean, really? Why on Earth would I want to make my deranged Survival Horror protagonist blink?! Maybe this mechanic is just part of the tutorial of the game, but I have seen several people die so far, so I assume I am somewhat in the game. (Though I have yet to encounter an enemy...)

As far as survival horror games go, this game is delivering somewhat. Given I died within the first five minutes multiple times due to lack of an objective, the game looks legitimately scary. If I were to pinpoint exactly what has scared me the most, it would probably be the lack of an enemy. Honestly, there is nothing worse than seeing glimpses of an enemy tear someone apart, only to have them vanish before you can lock your gaze upon them. If they keep this shrouded terror in the shadows, I expect some sucker punch scares and very tense situations further in the game. Hopefully, the horror and surprise will make up for the strange mechanics and the awkward controls.

Now, to get to the reason I actually picked up this game in the first place. I had heard stories from a friend of mine about a game with a very interesting build-your-own-weapon- mechanic, and, seeing as how Dead Rising 2 felt like more of an arcade game to me, I wanted a survival game with a building weapons mechanic similar to that of Dead Rising's. Have I seen any of that yet? No, but that's just because of my failure to comprehend what the tutorial meant by "follow the man with the gun's instructions". ( I decided to take the "I'll do what I want!" option and did the opposite of what he instructed several times, and each time was met by a butt-stroke to the back of the head.) Well, seeing as though I have literally seen about 15 min of actual gameplay, I will save the actual review for later. Until then!

"Live Love Laugh Ragequit"
- Blade579

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