Alone in the Dark

Barely meets the threshold of above average; in nearly every respect, the Alone In The Dark 2024 remake is middle of the road, verging on bad. The gameplay is average, the level design has its moments but too often flounders with long stretches of nothing, and too often the lovingly designed mansion is tossed aside for far more linear levels with little of interest mechanically and sometimes aesthetically. The combat isn't awful, but the movement is too stiff and has no flow when you're not dodging, and the way throwables are handled is just wrong. Weirdly, the game is also persnickety about when combat occurs; there can be hour-long stretches where nothing happens, but it's more flat and boring than inspired.

While the puzzles are okay, and I enjoyed the dive back into old school document poring to find keys and codes, they still feel a bit disappointing, especially compared to games like Signalis. And without tense combat, or even regular enemy encounters, backtracking and fetch quests just become this annoyance rather than a part of the gameplay loop. It's framed far more like a modern action game than survival horror because there are no save points, the game just autosaves, health and ammo drops are regular, and the overall progression is straight-forward and requires little critical thinking, taking you out of the experience and revealing the skeleton of the game for being as bare bones as it is. Even the presentation is kind of bad. Some art design looks fantastic, like the callbacks to the original whenever the scenery incorporates vomit green lighting, but the game relies on jump cuts, scene transitions and non-Euclidean environmental shifts, and the technical performance in these parts is so bad it kills the immersion instantly. As do some of the worst character models I've seen for a game of this renown and budget. David Harbour and Jodie Comer fall straight into the uncanny valley and never escape it, and unfortunately their voice acting sucks ass too.

So what saves AITD24 from total mediocrity? The story. Although for the most part it's also pretty cookie cutter, and feels slapdash in tone and impact. The game is sometimes spooky but never really scary or nerve-wracking. Mostly, it's just weird. None of the characters behave like human beings around each other, and this hits a fever pitch as the game nears its conclusion and the various plot threads, both underlying and overt, amalgamate into a free association pile-up until I had no fucking idea what was happening, even with obvious nods to well-worn Lovecraftian iconography. On the one hand, this does lead to some inspired setpieces and puts a weird spin on the psychological horror aspect of the Lovecraft inspirations, almost approaching a Lynchian surrealism with the pure mania of it all. On the other hand, it's pretty hard to get invested when you have next to no grounding for your perspective to latch onto in the story; there's this uncomfortable disconnect between yourself and the protagonists, and the protagonists and the side characters, but it just feels accidental, or not as sharp as it should be, and it lacks the impact to be a true mindfuck even on the level of something like Angels Of Death. It's definitely worth playing to the end just to see what happens next. Perhaps a replay with the alternate character will make things make sense, but all other reviews seem to indicate this is not the case. Either way, while not terrible by any means, AITD24 is too average to be anything other than disappointing, brazen third act of the narrative excepted.

EDIT: After a replay with the second character, seeing that barely anything changes besides the penultimate level, which goes against the themes of reconciling personal trauma if you ask me, I'm dropping this down a half point. Still a few cool moments, but the whole is bland as fuck.

AA and AAA single player horror games are quite rare these days, so one must take what is on offer, and thats really the spirit I came into this title. The series only meant frankly bad games for me and I have no attachment to the IP, but sometimes a remake is what it takes to empower a franchise. And they nearly nearly nailed it.

You start the game by picking one of the two main leads, and are thrust head first into a mysterious disappearance of a member of a wealthy family. Things quickly descend into the surreal, with time travel, lovecraftian elements, weird characters and a convuloted plot. It features some surprisingly good voice acting and motion capture for a game of this budget. So far so good.

Gameplay is divided between exploration and puzzles, as well as some combat sections. A heavier focus is given to the exploration side of the game, thankfully as its by far its strongest part.

The mansion is really enjoyable to explore, as you gradually unlock rooms and find optional secrets. There is a very clear influence from the modern resident evil remakes, but thats only a good thing in my opinion. Puzzles are a bit more complex and take more thought to complete, but remain enjoyable all the way through. The game also transports you into other places for more linear sections, offering a nice variety of locals. The atmophere of New Orleans is very palpable throughout the entire game, and feels right at home with the themes of cultism, alcohol and petrol industry. The soundtrack brings back the somewhat predictable but charismatic jazz, blues and folk of the era, greatly contributing to the atmosphere.

Combat is frankly terrible, with awful gun feedback, enemies that hit you and lock you into place until death, and a main character with less agility than an hospice resident. The weapons on offer are very predictable, and the feature melee weapons that break after half a dozen of hits, which are never enjoyable. The enemies themselves are very weak and contribute nothing to the horror aspect of the game. There are a lot of technical issues that show up in the combat and make it a frankly miserable experience, like getting stuck on terrain, rooms being way too dark to see anything and bad control bindings. The game really as a lot of issues in this aspect, and its a hidden blessing that combat sections are so few throughout the game.

I will reenforce that the combat is so bad that it basically killed of any replayability that the game has, since the two protagonists can unlock slightly different routes and powerups, as well as the multiple endings that the game has.

Truthfully, the flaws in here are so severe that I can only really recommend this to someone thirsty for single player horror with a moderate budget. There are much better quality to be found in modern indie games, as well as cult classics from past age.