Alone in the Dark (1992) is possibly the most poorly aged game I've ever played, and no, I don't say that because of the early polygonal models, I mean from a design perspective the game is plainly not fun. The controls are very stiff, to run you need to double-tap the up button in a very specific way, there were many times where I would try to run away from a monster but my character would leisurely stroll instead because the game flat out didn't realise I was trying to run. Combat is a pain, you can easily get stun locked by enemies that are faster than you and trapped in a cycle of pain that ends only when you die or reload an old save out of frustration. The game has puzzles of the "What does the game designer want me to do?" kind of variety. Some make sense, like an early puzzle where you find a book about the myth of Perseus and Medusa and you realise you have to place a pair of mirrors to defeat a pair of unkillable enemies. But other puzzles involve things like throwing a statue at an otherwise unkillable suit of armour to kill it, why would anyone think that would work? Speaking of unkillable enemies, this game is full of them, some are justified like giant monsters you areill equiped to deal with, but why are the RATS in the basement invincible? Why would RATS ever be considered a high tier enemy in any game? Was this a bug? The last act of the game introduces jumping puzzles out of nowhere. Sudden platforming on fixed camera angles isn't fun. The game isn't without merit, I like that you can bypass the first enemy encounters by blocking off enemy spawns by pushing large objects in front of them, that's quite clever. And there's some catharsis in taking down an entire room of zombies using nothing but a sword. But honestly if you want an old-school survival horror then I'd say the first Resident Evil did everything this did and much better while making a greater mark on the landscape of video games.
