After completing the original Alone in the Dark, I was expecting more of the same this time around. That is not a bad thing however, as I would describe the first title as an aged classic: it shows it's age, but the game underneath the creaks and cracks is still as good as ever and something anyone interested in the game history should give a while. But this would prove both true and false at the same time. The game is more of the same mechanics, but trying to support a style of game that just doesn't match that.
Story: A little time has gone by since the events of the original Alone in the Dark game, and Edward Carnby has begun to make a name for himself in the detective world, particularly when the supernatural is involved. In fact he and his partner Ted Stryker had been looking into a kidnapping case believed to be related to such things, and their suspicion may have just proven right, as the man in question just sent a telegram begging for help and pointing to the infamous pirate of old being the culprit: One Eyed Jack
Well, Ed doesn't keep a lot of friends, much less close enough ones to work in his line of business, and he REALLY hates to see kids in the crossfire, so this just got personal. With his trusty 38 Special in hand, Ed made his way to Hell's Kitchen in California to confront the pirate gang, and maybe this time get them to stay in their graves.
If that DIDN'T sound enough like an action film beginning to you, the first scene when you start a new game will have Mr. Carnby getting out of a taxi in front of the gates to Hell's Kitchen and setting a bomb. The game will then use the resulting explosion by zooming out the title with the resulting fires filling in the text. Further your first action if you want to win will be to wait for the hapless guard just knocked on his ass to get up so you can make Edward beat the tar out of him and take his tommy gun and a flask of whisky as your first items in the game! Consider the tone set.
Unlike the last game, there really isn't a lot of mystery this time around. What you have is a gang of thugs and pirates who crawl all over this building. They are between you, Mr. Stryker, and the little girl who both need some help and rescuing if they want to get out of this alive, and Ed's not afraid to go in guns blazing. Yes the story does evolve a little as you play, but that is more because both Jack and a young lady he is working with both like to monolog when they have one up on the good detective. Yes there are a few books you will find on the way explaining a little backlog to the major pirates who work with Jack, but if you played the first game, you will be shocked at how few and far between these are. There are few details on offer and they really are not of a lot here of consequence this time around which, considering the game it follows, is a bit of a letdown. Still what is here works, even if it's off-brand for a game under the Alone in the Dark franchise. It just feels like they had to move quickly to get another game out while everyone still loved the first... a feeling we will see sadly rear it's head far worse in later sections of this review.
6/10
Graphics: If you remember the first Alone in the Dark you already know what this game is going to look like for the most part. For those of you who are new to the series, the game uses painted/drawn backgrounds to show the various rooms you are exploring, often attempting to show them in strange and unsettling angles as a good horror game usually would at this time. They even include some animations to suggest something is going on (or even just bugs or rodents running across a run-down location). However these scenes are the only flat objects in the entire game. Everything, be it object or character is a 3D model wandering around these scenes to varying effect.
The objects themselves, be it things you can interact with or things that get added to your inventory, tend to be simpler things that do not need as many polygons to look really good, and while they often (but not always) stand out from the predrawn world, do not distract so much as become points to make sure you check out. The only exception to this are the guns... specifically when in the hands of the various characters. When in this situation, they tend to be blocky approximations and little else. This can be expected for the limits the game is working with, but it still disappointing for how good they look in menu or when being picked up.
And if we take a second to talk about that menu, it still carries the same format as the original game, but has cranked up the artwork there too. You will still be presented with three basic fields: a list of objects on top and the bottom split between a picture of what you are selecting (and possibly a number to say how much of it there is) and what actions you can do with it for a nice clean looking interface. But now it is bordered by a nice looking gilded picture frame instead of a much smaller simpler one surrounding each window. Rather, a small dotted line is all the separation you get between the top and bottom where as a shadowy picture of Carnby over a shotgun and a rifle crossed over each other separate the bottom halves. This artwork is even replaced with a teddy bear when you play as Grace and both frankly look really good, even as they fit so well you will forget them being there after a while!
But the weaker side here is, much like the first game, the characters. They are still blocky models with very little bitmapping work done, making them look incredibly dated today. Still compared to the first game, they have increased the detail somewhat on these figures so while it's not the brand new innovation, it is clear the team used the time they had to improve the detail work the engine was capable of. They even went so far this time as to have cutscenes which zero in on actions, allowing for more detail at these times when it will add to the game. A key example will be right in the opening before you even get to the main menu when Ted Stryker tries to rescue the young Grace finding her asleep. The game zooms in on her face where you see her shock at being awoken, before the relief that someone had come to rescue her. And this technique of zoomed in better models will be used effectively through your adventure to add some extra touches as you play. I mean it's still dated overall, but you can see the steps of progress.
6/10
Sound: This is going to one of those games where you are listening a lot to the soundtrack, and to it's credit, the game has a not only a good variety of music, but it's all pretty solid. Still it rarely makes for a creepy tone so much as bouncing between Scooby-Doo-esque and a good old fashioned pirate shanty most of the time. These tunes do generally sound good, but it is way too easy to restart them or, if you take to long, to let them run to the end, and reach a silence I am pretty sure was not an intentional part of the design. It tends to either sound interrupted or result in dead-air for a while.
And the sound effects that will fill that dead air, if at all, are going to be fairly limited. There is plenty of house creaking or footsteps falling... both from you and those who are nearby if the ground is hard wood or tile and the like and the game is great at using these kind of details to their max. But these are still fairly standard sounds when all is said and done, if used remarkable well... with the exception of Grace walking. For whatever reason her walk is marked by some very strange crunching sounds, that just don't feel right.
Voice acting on the other hand, is what you should look forward to, at least the kind of moments like the original game offered. When reading texts, the voice work is every bit as much the cheesy work of it's time as the previous was andis an absolute joy to behold, but now you also get a few character narrations when a couple of the villains want to talk, and my god are they just as glorious. Enjoy these treats of their time... they are priceless. Just a shame "talk" when an enemy finds you is just plain bad. These are too short to really care, but it would have been a perfect trifecta of speech.
7/10
Gameplay: Sadly this is the part of the game that is the weakest. As noted by the graphical section, you will control Edward from a third person view through various "rooms" as you try to rescue Grace Saunders from the clutches of One Eyed Jack, the infamous ghost pirate. Each room is setup with a few cameras to give you different angled views of what you are doing, often at awkward possiitons to make the game look just a little more creepy. But unfortunately the gameplay suffers this time for it.
That scene that sets the tone of this title also sets it for the kind of gameplay you can expect most of the time, from the moment you beat the first guy's face in you will basically destroy everything you come across, most of the time with whatever firearms you happen to have at the moment. This may sound cool, but this game is a tank controlled game which will require you to hold space space and the up arrow to fire the gun you are using rather then the normal point and shoot you might see in most action games. And between that and these camera angles it can be incredibly difficult to aim on your enemies, making this combat insanely frustrating to deal with.
Literally in most cases you will have to position yourself around doorways and corners to ambush enemies in places where they can not shoot back and if you waste too much ammo, reload and try again... and again... and again. Even when you finally get melee weapons (which you will be thankful for) you will find yourself often resorting to the same positioning as most of those weapons swing very slow even as enemies tend to hit so rapid fire you will never get a shot in once they start. And if this game was heavier on the puzzles I wouldn't complain so much, but it's not, This game is basically based around "if it moves, kill it" with tank controls that just can't support it well due to turning too slow to track an enemy you can't even be sure you are aimed at even though they can aim at you very easily... at least while you play Carnby, which is most of the game.
There are a few times, however, you will place as Grace while the detective is in trouble and/or captured. When you play as this little girl, you have absolutely no ability to fight, making the entire experience about avoiding enemies and completing a few puzzles on the way. It's at these points the game feels like it should (and like the original game did). You will only get two of these moments, however so don't get used to them.
The end result is a few bright spots over what feels like an adventure the devs rushed to complete and get a sequel out while people were excited for the franchise, so they had to expand an idea quickly, doing so by just giving you a lot of fights even though the core mechanics just don't do that right.
3/10
Bugs: While Alone in the Dark 2 ran just about perfectly, there are a few issues that you may well see before you finish playing. I myself ran into two such issues: one that was nothing more then a graphical glitch, while the other can effect gameplay and potentially get you killed.
- Is that in front of or behind? Much like the first game, there are occasional places where the game seems to have trouble understanding where someone or something should be in front of or behind objects painted into some of the scenes. In particular, the billiards room did this to me where a "stick sword" dropped behind the pool table, but appeared like it was in the drop slot where the pool balls drop when shot into the pockets.
- Pitchfork's Delayed Flight: THIS however, is the big bug that can hurt your game. About halfway through the game, you will encounter a statue of Neptune holding a trident in the air like he is about to throw it... and he is... at you. If/when he sees you, that fork is going to fly, at which point it will literally follow you all around the house until you do something about it. This in itself is a puzzle you need to complete before you can finish the game, but it is a timing puzzle as much as anything, so if this bug hits, it's not instant death, but it does complicate things. There is a chance when the statue throws the trident, it will not move right away, but rather act like it finished it's first flight before turning to aim at you and fly forward again and in the process hover over the statue. It is kinda funny to see, but it means even if you know how to complete the challenge, you will have to do some fancy footwork to do it.
Digital Rights Management: According to the source I read for these, any modern way to play this game will either boil down to using Steam or GOG to play and the steam copy uses the platform as it's DRM. Seeing as the game is MS-DOS and runs through DosBox, I have a hard time believing this, but your milage may vary. The GOG version, as always, is DRM free. As for the original release, it was either the CD-ROM in which the game used the disc to play, acting as DRM that way, or it was the 3.5 inch disk version, which used the classic "use the manual when starting up" as DRM.
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Score: I would say this is a game that didn't age well if I could be sure it would have been good playing when it came out. However, it's a horror franchise with an engine built on the tension of trying to get your shots in combat right when you have to and avoiding it when you can, but supporting a kill everything that moves type of gameplay.... poorly. Having a good deep story with plenty of twists would not save this game from judgment based on this, but it doesn't even have that. It has enough to make sense, but this too, is a a few steps down from what the previous game did.
As a sequel, this game is a complete disappointment, but even as a standalone game, I would not recommend anyone go near this title... it's not suited for what it tried to do and because of that, it... kinda sucks.
3/10
System Requirements:
- Any CPU running at 1.8 Ghz or better
- 2 GB RAM
- Any GPU that supports Direct X 9.0c
- Windows 10
- 379 MB Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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