[PlayHalloween] Alone in the Dark: A New Nightmare, l’orrore in salsa reboot

The title Alone in The Dark does it tell you anything? To me, this title brings many, terrifying, memories. It was one of my last PS1 video games and the first ever survival horror. Survival horror was never my favorite genre, I was such an impressionable child that even the narrow passages of the pyramids and the abandoned sarcophagi in Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation they were frightening. Indeed, rather than frightening, they gave me a sense of uneasiness that resembled having a boulder in the center of the chest. I felt the same boulder during the early stages of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, the fourth chapter of the historic saga that debuted in the early nineties. I had in my hands a very important title for the gaming industry, a reboot that carried on the legacy of Edward Carnby and I just didn't know. I was intrigued by the title, despite my student English, “alone in the dark”. And it is from the title that I strengthened myself and went on to discover this title that deserved much more success.

Alone in the Dark: Horror of yesteryear

The debut of the franchise takes place in 1992. Frederick Raynal develops for the French company Infogrames a dynamic horror-themed adventure, it is one of the first examples of survival horror video game ever, a genre that was subsequently consolidated thanks to resident evil. The game was released for MS-DOS, Mac and 3DO and was considered a success as well as being an advocate of a then unknown genre. The first chapter was followed by two more, with different settings and themes.

The first chapter was inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft, the second to pirate legends, published as Alone in The Dark 2: Jack is Back in 1994 and a third and final chapter takes place in the Mojave desert. The stories are all set in the XNUMXs and the character in charge of the events is Edward Carnby, a seasoned American investigator expert in occult phenomena.

Contrary to many survival horror, the first three chapters have a much more similar aspect to graphic adventures, colorful, with pre-rendered backgrounds, in which it is possible to move and above all examine any type of object that we may need later. The key feature is the solving of puzzles rather than eliminating the enemies that are there but in very small numbers. However, despite the lack of clashes as in the following chapters, what reigned was an anxious atmosphere and authentic uncertainty, in which the gamer had to step into Carnby's shoes and move to locations unknown to him.

Double nightmare on Shadow Island

This reboot rides a lot the wave left by the survival horror of Capcom and Konami and the result is a title that somewhat apes the mechanics already seen as puzzles and tank controls already appreciated in Resident Evil and above all the introduction of two protagonists who carry out their events in parallel, meeting and dividing during the adventure. Edward Carnby won't be the only one to delve into Shadow Island, a strange and eerie apparently uninhabited island off the coast of Maine. Accompanying him is the young researcher Aline Cedrac. The duo travels to the island for two different purposes: Edward wants to explore the place because he wants to understand what happened to a friend who died on the island, while for Aline, the goal is to discover the identity of her father.

As they are about to arrive on the island in a helicopter, Edward driving, loses control of the vehicle. The two manage to escape from the accident miraculously unscathed, but in two different places. Alice will end up on the roof of the large mansion owned by the Mortons while Edward will end up not far away, beyond the majestic gates, in the dense bush. Initially, they will use a walkie talkie and a flashlight to communicate with each other; for the rest, they will have to rely on their ingenuity and skill with weapons. Aline will already be in the villa and - entering through an open window - she will find an elderly lady in bed, such Lucy Morton, surrounded by many candles. Edward, on the other hand, will have a not very lucky meeting with a strange man (who will end up committing suicide at the end of a monologue) and then with "nice" guard dogs from the family villa.

Choosing the two different characters is not a purely stylistic question, the gameplay changes radically. With Edward you immediately go into action, above all thanks to the revolver that the detective is equipped with, with Aline instead - raising the bar of difficulty - you will have to explore the villa only with the help of the trusty torch, at first, escaping and using ingenuity. Precisely because of these difficulties, the beginning of the adventure in the role of the gloomy Carnby is recommended. What awaits the gamer are two different titles, two different stories and different puzzles for a common purpose and an absolutely unique and wonderful experience.

Alone in The Dark: A New Nightmare knows how to give an absolutely authentic and realistic horror experience, as you go deeper into the villa and the secrets of the Morton family inextricably united with those of the island, the more the player will want to move forward to know more. The enemies are creepy and varied, the puzzles never too difficult, but average. Both Edward and Alina have a vast arsenal following them and many other weapons will find them on site, getting rid of the enemies at their heels is pure fun and relief, never forgetting that the danger has never definitively escaped because the greatest danger is nestled in the mind of our alter egos.

A Halloween of pure terror

Alone in The Dark The New Nightmare debuttò su PS1, Game Boy Color e PC almost twenty years ago, in 2001. For the European market, the publisher of the title decided to design a remastered version (one of the first examples of remaster at the beginning of the XNUMXs) also for PS2. The differences are especially noticeable on a graphic level, with exquisitely better textures and more redefined polygonal models, improving the gaming experience as a whole. However, experience on PS1 it is more intense and certainly nostalgic: Thanks to the nature of its hardware limitations, the retro style gives one more reason to catapult into this journey of horror. In any case, the PS1 version has a very accurate graphics for the time and - if the parallelism with Resident Evil is not enough - three-dimensional characters move on two-dimensional backdrops of excellent workmanship, rich in details.

What's left of Alone in The Dark is his legacy of the franchise that made survival horror history and it is - to date - only western exponent of the genus. The mistake - if we wanted to call it that - is not to bring news to the genre but to align with famous titles such as Silent Hill or Resident Evil, bringing very little innovative. It was a bit like a choice, by the developers, based on the fact that “this product works and sells today”, without daring more. However, this does not detract from the points in favor of the title which is a a frightening, anxious product in which horror and mystery are the masters. It is a title to be rediscovered in this quite cold and couch potato autumn, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is spot on to play this Infogrames masterpiece set - coincidentally - on the night of October 31, 2001!