Alone in the Dark: The Trilogy 1+2+3

In 1992, Infogrames released a little Lovecraft inspired horror romp named "Alone in the Dark". While being a success at the time, no one truly released how much this game would affect the horror genre in video games. AITD started it all-opening the doors for games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The first game is an absolute classic. The controls are for the most part pretty tight, except running can be a hassle. The game has some great puzzles, good traps, and is just fun to play. The sound effects excel-from the moans of a zombie to the creaking of a old door or floorboards. What I also found interesting was the ways you could avoid confrontations. For example, you could push a cabinet in front of a window to prevent a monster from bursting through, or lure a monster into a room, run past it and shut the door, and depending on the monster, it'll *usually* lock them in. While the game won't make you lose sleep at night, you'll giggle to yourself as your making your way through the mansion, wondering when a monster will ambush next. When it does happen, it's surprising, but never scary and always fun to laugh about to yourself. The combat is tight. If you don't have any weapons, you can always beat your adversary with your bare hands, which is always awesome. Let's see Leon Kennedy go mano-a-mano with a Resi Evil monster sometime eh? The puzzles are nice, not too hard and not too simple. Simply put, Alone in the Dark 1 is an absolute classic that should be played by any gamer, horror fan or not. Even better, GOG has been generous enough to give us AITD 2 and 3 to boot. To be honest with you, I have not played much of 2 and 3. From what I have played of 2, it felt more of an action game with supernatural elements as opposed to a full out horror game like the first. Which, in my opinion, is not bad at all, as the first was pretty light on the combat aspect, with only about two dozen enemies total, if even that. You immediately start the game with a revolver, with a zombie holding a Tommy Gun on the ground next to you. Upon trying to retrieve the Tommy Gun, the zombie wakes up and you two get into a fire fight. It's a really cool way to start the game, and there's a lot more fire fights in the game. Check this out if you're looking for more action. AITD 3 is set in the wild west, with Edward Carnby taking on a gang of ghost/zombie outlaws. I haven't really played more than 10 minutes of this game yet, which is a shame, cause I love everything to do with the Wild West. From what I did play though, it was quite awesome, and the ghost outlaws look very cool to boot. All in all, the original game is worth the price of $5.99 alone, but with the extra bonus of AITD 2 and 3 you're really getting a good deal here. I can guarantee you that you won't regret this purchase. If you do, well, maybe it's time to find a new hobby..

Without this game(s) we wouldn't have either "Resident Evil" or "Silent Hill" or many other survival horrors. Yes, the graphics are outdated and the gameplay is silly but the atmosphere is thrilling and every games grants a few good jumpscares and the plot is solid. At this price you can buy it with no regrets. See you in Derceto!

The first Alone in the Dark is one of my favorite games ever and the first horror game I ever played that actually scared me when it was first released. I hadn't played it since the early 1990s and decided to give it a try again thanks to GOG. I was expecting an experience full of frustration with the controls and clunky combat but was pleasantly surprised that it mostly held up. Yes, the combat is clunky and the jumping is tough to endure. But now, it's so much faster to reload in an instant to get back in and try again that it's hardly punishment at all. At it's heart it's a point and click adventure but it tried some different things that I had never seen prior to playing it the first time like the fixed camera with tank movement in sort-of three dimensions and real time combat that was avoidable in certain situations wether it was intended or not. Most of the puzzles make logical sense as well, though depending on your tolerance for adventure games, your mileage may vary on that one. Added to that was a unique story couched in Cthulhu mythos set in the American bayou with pirates and zombies that is fun to uncover, especially if you take the time to let the books read themselves to you. The second and third installments were still underwhelming so you can safely avoid those if you don't share any nostalgia for games of this era. But if you pick this bundle up on sale, there's no reason to at least give the first installment a try. It's definitely showing its age but its a really short game and one that packs a lot of spooky fun into a small package.

Obviously graphics and controls are going to be dated by modern standards. But, it could still be worth it to see the grandfather of survival horror games. The first game holds up moderately well. Combat is pretty awful with enemies stunlocking you or you stunlocking them and no in between. You will have to save frequently because it is so easy to die from getting stuck in a corner or instant kills. Despite those flaws, the first game does have an interesting setting with a nice horror atmosphere and Lovecraftian influences. Overall, an okay, short experience. The next two games are frankly not worth playing. The franchise immediately nosedives after the first game which is probably why the series died out so quickly unlike Resident Evil, the franchise it inspired. The next two games basically completely abandon the horror setting for campy action and force combat way more frequently than the first one. However, there are no improvements to the combat system. So, you're forced to mess around with the tank controls trying to aim with no reticle while the enemies can track onto you. And Edward takes about 3 whole seconds to fire his gun, so the stunlocking issue persists. The Resident Evil series clearly understood the necessity of adding a lock on to this control system. Unfortunately, the Alone in the Dark devs were not as inspired, and so combat continues to suck and has become the main focus of 2 and 3 leading to an overall enjoyable experience. Likewise, the puzzles become more and more obtuse. The game feels like a point and click adventure game with the logical hoops you have to jump through to know what to do. However unlike point and click adventure games, there is no way to inspect the environment or your inventory to get hints about how you should be using your items. It's still worth it for the first game when it goes on sale for 1.49 (which it does frequently) if you really want to play old classics. I'd skip the next two though.

First game is great all around - 5 stars. It's AitD2-3 where, really, they're only enjoyable with a walkthough. Partially for "puzzles" making no sense whatsoever. The other thing is these sluggish tank controls combined with much more unavoidable, and ranged, combat, often while trying to search the environment. AitD2-3 still have fantastic production values, Voice, music, these amazing painterly environments combined with flat-shaded polygons - love this look, even more so than with the original. Even in gameplay there is a lot of creativity, to be honest. They're just terrible to actually play unless you know exactly how it goes. But the atmosphere is there! Jack in the Dark that was between AitD1 and 2 is worth a mention as a neat little Christmas game. Don't miss that one.