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

I remember when the first Along in the Dark came out. It was a "hi-tech" marvel at the time. 3D graphic adventure that let you interact/fight with the world around the character. The first game is still great, the second is good, and the third is ok. All 3 installed, ran, and finished without any issues on a newly built PC using Windows 11. Highly recommend! Alone 1 - You can select one of two characters to play at the beginning, but Edward Carnby ended up being the protagonist throughout the remaining games. It is a creepy haunted house game where you have to search rooms, evade/fight zombies, and solve puzzles. The game starts you off at a slow pace to get used to the controls. The controls (keyboard only) take some getting used to, but all 3 games pretty much use the same mapped keys. There are only two issues I had with this game and they apply across all 3 games. The forced camera angles are neat but annoying after awhile. There can be things approaching you or happening off screen that you cannot see depending on where the character is stationed in relation to the camera. Also, the fight system is hit or miss (pun intended). If an enemy hits you, it seems almost instant death as the controls will not allow you to do anything once hit allowing follow up hits by the enemy. Always save! Enemies approaching are always precluded by a specific music playing, so listen for it. Alone 2 - This one is pretty much a clone of the first one with a few changes. You now have human/ghost enemies that say "Hey you!" in their John Wayne / Dirty Harry voice instead of music when they approach (same for #3). A slight change is that you split time between Ed Carnby and Grace Saunders (the girl you are trying to save). Grace is rather annoying to play as her "run" (skipping) is slow. Still it was interesting story overall. Alone 3 - Ok, but it lacked any detailed story like the first 2 had developed. Puzzles were solved with random objects and combos as well.

Alone In The Dark fut, à sa sortie, un véritable événement. Bien qu'il soit encore difficile aujourd'hui de parler de 3D, il n'empêche que c'était considéré comme tel à l'époque, et que cela fonctionnait parfaitement bien. Ce jeu est le père des Résident Evil et autres Tomb raider, en posant les bases d'un jeu d'action recherche à l'ambiance sans pareil et aux énigmes dosées savamment pour nous permettre de progresser en faisant fonctionner nos méninges. Derceto, la maison abandonnée cache des mystères que notre détective, (Edward Carnby ou Emily Hartwood, homme ou femme, au choix) va devoir comprendre et résoudre pour découvrir les raisons derrière le suicide du dernier propriétaire Jérémy Hartwood. Les textes et messages disséminés au long du jeu sont autant de pistes à suivre pour aller de plus en plus profondément dans cette maison de l'horreur, dominé par des forces maléfiques et chtoniennes qui peuvent aisément rendre fou ceux qui osent s'y intéresser de trop près... Ce jeu est sorti en 1992 et,; à bientôt 30 ans, il est bien sûr marqué et très éloigné des critère de beauté graphique de notre époque. Mais cela ne l'empêche pas d'être beau, simplement. A tenter d'urgence si vous ne le connaissiez pas, et à redécouvrir pour les autres, encore et encore.

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!

I bought those games when they went out. They were outstanding. A lot of those reviews are silly and non sense. People here do not take in account how old are those games and how advanced they were back in the days. It was the 386 period. Architectures that had no GPU and CPU between 12Mhz and 40... they were basically overpriced calculators. So all the comments... it hasn't aged well... controls are awkward... it could have been better... 33 years had been passed and you weren't even here at the time. Better rinse your mouth before mentioning those masterpieces...

At first, sorry for my bad English. I played this game in 1993 on my (still working!) old 386 DX 40 desktop pc (by the way, the number 40 refers to its processor's clock: 40 mhz - yeah, you didn't read it wrong: it has ridiculous 40mhz speed... slower than your actual grandmother's obsolete cellphone!! ;-). There was a time when I still had hair under my hat. About this game review, I must say that I spent the last 20 minutes trying to find the words to describe what I felt the first time I played Alone on the Dark - but my lack of English vocabulary prevents me to make justice to this masterpiece right now. But I can say that, as a gaming man, I have tons of PC games in my shelf, from many different categories (strategy, chess, puzzle, adventure, 2D and 3D rpg, racing, fps and many more), and I can assure you that, if you ask me to name only three games that I think that everyone needs to play before death, I don't even blink to give the answer: Alone in the Dark 1, The Lost Vikings and Tomb Raider 1 (not necessarily in that order). So, do yourself a favor and grab this game. PS: No, Gog is not rewarding me to write this review. ;-)