Alone in the Dark intro

I figured that since there is a new Alone in the Dark game coming out in 2008 it would be a good time to post some game play from the original.

This is the intro, where Emily Hartwood walks through the mansion Derceto in 1925, Louisiana. I love the frog here. The owner of the mansion killed himself and you are there to check out the piano for some reason, which happens to be in the attic. You could also play as a male character, Edward Carnby, who I show in the other AITD video. This choice of character and gender was actually a pretty novel feature for the time. Of course, you quickly discover there's more to the house than old pianos and begin to uncover a convoluted and twisted plot about the Civil War, the occult, and zombies.

The game uses re-rendered backgrounds along with poly characters, monsters, and objects. The game move SLOWLY, but this pacing really adds to it's overall creepiness. Once you get downstairs (and, ultimately, under the house) it can be legitimately scary. (more...)

I figured that since there is a new Alone in the Dark game coming out in 2008 it would be a good time to post some game play from the original.

This is the intro, where Emily Hartwood walks through the mansion Derceto in 1925, Louisiana. I love the frog here. The owner of the mansion killed himself and you are there to check out the piano for some reason, which happens to be in the attic. You could also play as a male character, Edward Carnby, who I show in the other AITD video. This choice of character and gender was actually a pretty novel feature for the time. Of course, you quickly discover there's more to the house than old pianos and begin to uncover a convoluted and twisted plot about the Civil War, the occult, and zombies.

The game uses re-rendered backgrounds along with poly characters, monsters, and objects. The game move SLOWLY, but this pacing really adds to it's overall creepiness. Once you get downstairs (and, ultimately, under the house) it can be legitimately scary.

This game was released in 1992, from Infogrames, and stole much of the thunder from the CD-ROM hype machine The Seventh Guest. It took the industry over a decade to learn the lesson here, that gamers want quality games and not multimedia crap. AITD also laid the groundwork that many other later games borrowed quite heavily from, especially Resident Evil.

There were several sequels. AITD2 was on (iirc) a pirate ship and AITD3 was in a western ghost town. I think AITD2 and 3 only allowed you to play Edward Carnby. Shadow of the Comet was an indirect sequel, set in the same world but with different characters. The series was resurrected for modern consoles and PCs in 2001 as Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, with a younger Edward Carnby. Then Uwe Boll and Christian Slater pissed all over the AITD legacy with a crappy movie tied to the game in title only in 2005.

Plus you gotta love those triangular boobs on Emily, long before Madonna ever thought of it. (less...)