Add this to the list of horror games I have played. The game in question is Alone in the Dark and I have been chugging away at it, flaming Humanz, fleeing Ratz and whatnot for the past few weeks. I have not finished it yet but am this close to the end. In fact, I am at the last sequence and I should be done with it in a few days. That's when I'll write up a review for the game. For now, I thought up of a few things that have been bugging me about Alone in the Dark.

1. What's with the driving?

Honestly, who came up with that? Alone in the Dark does a genre-bender of sorts and throws in a number of driving sequences into the game. This means, for the most part, you must hot wire a car and zoom off to your set destination whilst avoiding Humanz. Who can jump on your car and poke at you I might add. Not to mention the crazy bats which can lift up your car and drop it from dangerous heights. Oh and then there is the race against time sequence where the jittery driver must speed down the highway whilst avoiding this giant creature that is wreaking havoc all over the show.

From what I have seen, a lot of other folks also hated the driving sequences. At the same time, there were a number of folks who loved this addition. So it might not be so bad for you, especially if you love funky little car chases. Driving didn't appeal to me so I got bored of any sequences that required extensive driving. Which meant that it took a while for me to get back into the game once I set it aside. I suppose you could always skip the driving sequence ….

2. Skippable Sequences

Or not. That's me answering my own question from the last bit. Alone in the Dark provides an interesting little breakdown of the game where you can skip sequences in any episodes of the game. I take it the game developers foresaw folks whining about the driving?

While the skip option works well in theory, it does have its disadvantages. I must admit, I skipped the timed car chase sequence and went onto the next bit. Which turned out to be a big loss since I ended up losing my stash. When I had reached the big chase scene, I was all packed up with goodies I had been picking up all over the show. It turns out, if you skip a sequence, you end up with a gun and the lighter. And if you had the upgraded gun prior to this, don't expect that to be in your stash either.

Alright, so in a way it makes sense. There has to be a penalty for skipping bits of the game. It can't all be a walk in the park (oh boy). But the way I see it, why give that option in the first place? Skipping works out okay in most cases but sometimes you end up in a scene where you need a certain item to defeat the bad guys. Sure you had it (batteries, explosive bottles, bullets etc.) in the last sequence but they are all magically puffed away when you skipped a sequence. Meaning that it is harder for you to kill the first monster of this sequence.

A good solution would have been a set stash box like in the earlier Resident Evil games. There, you were given an inventory box which was placed in a safe room. Thus, anything you picked up could be brought back and stored here. Surely that would have worked nicely for this game?

3. Saving the game

This is a complaint I have about most modern games. I want to be able to save the game whenever I want or at least at closer intervals than is currently allowed. Otherwise you end up playing through a whole bunch of sequences before your progress is saved. Having to replay those sequences again, on another day, because you missed the save point the day before is mind-numbingly boring.

Thing is, I can't always play for longer periods everyday. When I do play I might have to stop because something comes up on my side. And I would be annoyed if all the effort I put into killing the Humanz and driving that stupid car across the park was a waste simply because I missed the save point by this much. I don't think this feature will change anytime soon though.

4. Camera angles

Arrgh! When the game is not in first person view, the camera angles leave much to be desired. And yea, I have fallen off a cliff or two because the overhead view didn't help me move around. Actually, it also comes down to controls where you can't make Edward, the main character, look around and move about properly. It reached a critical point when I went into tackle one of the Roots of Evil in a flooded basement. You have to love that bit where you shuffle along slowly down a corridor, in first person view, and then, just as you realize that there are ratz in front of you, the damn viewpoint changes. Again with the aargh!

5. Sara

I know I complained a lot about Sheva and her irritating habits (RE5) but I never realized that a zombie blasting partnership could actually be worse than that. Well, it very well could. Say hello to Sara, some floozy you rescue in one of the broken down buildings in Alone in the Dark. She doesn't help you shoot down anything. Oh no, she yelps and screams 'Get away from me' which is a game hint that 'Hey, the enemies are, like, really close'. 

I wondered why they even included her in the game. After a while, I figured she was a replacement of the helpful tips section of the game. Every time you get stuck in the game and you are wandering around, trying to figure out what to do, she will pipe up with 'Oh, I think you can use his keys'. Erm, lame! And somewhat insulting.

Oh wait, it gets worse. I was going to joke that she was the inevitable love interest for Edward, our main macho man. Since she is the paper clip girl of this game, she's probably not locking lips with him anytime soon, right? Right? Wrong. Wait for an annoying resuscitate and make out with Sara sequence further into the game. 

I must admit that keeping aside these 5 annoyances, I really did enjoy the game. It had a lot of positive aspects to it as well. In fact, it had some features which, if it had been included in RE5, would have made it a more likable game. I'll save the 'What's to like about AitD' for another time though.