The first Alone in the Dark was a landmark title. It was basically the first modern survival horror game. It had you guiding polygonal characters around pre-rendered environments all the while battling otherworldly foes and solving vague puzzles. Sure, it was clunky, but it had charm and atmosphere in spades. The game must have been at least a moderate success because Infogrames greenlit a sequel for PC and 3DO. It later came out on other platforms, but today we’re going to focus on the Panasonic version. I didn’t know exactly what to expect upon loading this one up, but I hoped it was more of the same but refined. Unfortunately I only got half of that. Alone in the Dark 2 might be similar, but it’s not as good as the original. Let’s dive in.
Alone in the Dark 2 picks up a few months after the conclusion of the first game. Edward Carnby returns, and apparently his scrape with the undead wasn’t enough to make him retire. This time he’s investigating the kidnapping of a young girl named Grace Saunders. This leads him to a new mansion called Hell’s Kitchen which is the hideout of a famous group of mobsters. He infiltrates it, and eventually comes to learn that what he’s actually battling against is the undead spirits of a group of pirates that once plundered the seas.
The plot is pretty campy even by survival horror standards. I do have to hand it to the developers though. I’m glad that they stuck with the supernatural pirate theme. They just go a little too far with it. In the last game you fought off all sorts of undead ghouls and monsters. There was only the occasional ghost pirate. Now it’s all swashbucklers here. That’s unique thematically, but the horror elements are noticeably lighter. I wanted to fight zombies and mutated rats again. Now it’s just ghost pirates protecting their plunder. It’s oddly lighthearted. I would even say it’s goofy. When I hear the words ‘alone in the dark’ I’m expecting jump scares and fiendish ghouls. Not goofy pirates that barely look like ghosts. I tried my best to look past this. The rest of the game isn’t exactly great though.
What’s neat is the fact that, like in Resident Evil, you’ll constantly find notes and letters left behind which help flesh out the story. I liked these, but in this case there’s a lot of filler. The game really wants you to care about some of the individual characters and it just didn’t work for me in this case. Names are constantly thrown out and unless it was in reference to One Eyed Jack (the series antagonist) I was left wondering “who is that, again?” What’s interesting is the fact that these memos are all fully voiced. The acting isn’t academy award winning by any means, but for a game like this it’s surprisingly decent.
Alone in the Dark 2 plays just like it’s predecessor. It’s an early survival horror in the vein of Resident Evil, but years before that was even a thing. The game is played from a third person perspective with fixed camera angles, pre-rendered backgrounds, and 3D polygonal character models. Alone in the Dark 2 uses tank controls wherein you press up to move forward in the direction that Carnby (or any of the other characters you play as) is facing. It’s pretty clunky, and this input method was far from perfected at this point. I am a fan of all of the old Resident Evil games, and I’ll be honest, I struggled here. The controls take some definite getting used to. Turning and walking is slow. Despite this it’s also too touchy. In a nut shell it’s the worst of all worlds in terms of controls.
Despite being so old the gameplay is surprisingly traditional for the genre. In Alone in the Dark 2 you navigate small environments while fighting enemies, collecting items and solving light puzzles. Ammunition is expectedly scarce so you have to conserve your bullets. What’s interesting here is there’s a focus on melee combat. You start out with a weak hand gun but it only has eight bullets. Thankfully Carnby can by default fight with his bare hands. Melee combat is awkward but you have a large number of options. To first engage in combat you have to go into the menu and select the attack command. This is a gameplay relic left over from the PC version. The other option is push which is used mostly to interact with the environment.
After you’ve selected the appropriate command you must hold down the A button to go into fighting stance. Pressing left on the directional pad makes Carnby throw a fist with his left arm, right for his right arm, down results in a kick, and up a headbutt. Each attack has a different wind up time and strikes at a different spot on the enemy. Unfortunately there’s some wind up time so you have to hold the direction down until the action is carried out. Combat is slow, plodding, and more than a little awkward to be honest. The fact that you have to access the menu to switch between attacking and pushing objects is superfluous and lame.
You aren’t limited to just bare handed fighting either. Carnby can pick up swords throughout the adventure, and use them against enemies. The dynamic of combat changes when equipped with one of these. You still must hold the A button to go into combat mode, but left/right changes the direction of the thrust, up results in a high attack, and down is parry. It’s actually kind of neat in my opinion. Firearms are also a bit different. The left/right buttons aim, and you hold up to fire. Combat might be a little too complicated and clunky for its own good, but I appreciate what the developers were going for here.
To be blunt combat is terrible. There are too many steps required to unleash a single strike. I understand this was originally a PC game but even considering that it’s too complicated. Then everything moves too slowly. If you’re against multiple enemies at once it’s far too easy to get overwhelmed because while you’re whittling away at the health of one opponent the other is laying into you. There is no real way to fight more than one effectively besides at a distance using firearms. Speaking of which the developers messed up even this aspect of the game. I’m talking about reloading. To do so you have to go into the menu and ‘use’ the corresponding ammunition. It throws the pacing of combat completely off.
There’s also a major problem when it comes to hit detection. Alone in the Dark 2 isn’t messing around, and you’ll need to have perfect aim when attacking. This includes with both melee attacks and firearms. If you aren’t facing the enemy exactly dead on your attacks will miss. It’s very unforgiving. Because attacks take so long to perform a single miss can spell doom as you get pummeled in the time it takes you to leave the attack stance, and rotate your character a few pixels. When it comes to melee attacks specifically the enemies don’t always react realistically, and outside of the audio cues it can be difficult to tell if you’re even actually striking them. These issues make combat wholly frustrating and unfun.
One thing I did like however is the fact that in some instances you can set traps to dispatch foes. One sequence has you unleashing a barrel to knock a ghost pirate out of a window, and another has you playing as Grace wherein you have to cause an enemy to slip and fall to get past them. Some of these traps aren’t required at all. In these cases you can opt to just fight the enemy instead. It’s oddly rewarding to successfully take out a foe using the environment. I just wish this was a more consistent option in the game. It’s definitely rewarding to do so, and I think the game would be more enjoyable if this popped up more often.
Exploration is also super awkward. The game runs at a super low framerate which means it takes a long time to get just about anywhere here. Carnby can run, but considering the game briefly freezes to load each new background it never feels like you’re getting anywhere fast. Also, the fact that you have to manually access the menu to use each item is terrible. The game doesn’t take any busy work out whatsoever. It feels like artificial padding. Even with how clunky, and counter intuitive the game is Alone in the Dark 2 can be completed in just a few hours. If it were streamlined I’m sure the game could be beaten in less than an hour. On the plus side I do really like the fact that you can save anywhere.
At least the puzzles aren’t too difficult to solve. Generally you’ll follow clues to find new items, and unlock doors with keys. There are some instances where you have to use items to get past obstacles. Again I never found this too difficult to figure out. Alone in the Dark 2 also isn’t particularly hard to navigate. Generally you have access to only a few different areas at a time. There is some backtracking, but it’s never too bad. The way forward is always fairly easy to find. Honestly the only section of the game I got frustrated over because I didn’t know what it was asking of me was the beginning outside of the mansion. Inventory management is also not really a problem because you can place items on the ground. You just have to remember where you left them.
Alone in the Dark 2 is not a great looking game. The character models are super blocky and sometimes you can barely tell what the person in question is supposed to look like. Most of the pirates are made to look like ghosts because they have off-green skin. That’s an odd decision considering they’re supposed to be spirits. It’s definitely not scary or even intimidating. The animations are pretty weird most of the time. In particular I hated Carnby’s run which sometimes feels more like a skip. It’s definitely not Resident Evil. On the plus side the backgrounds have a lot of detail to them, and even feature some animations. They look really nice. Unfortunately the soundtrack is weird. It’s full of jaunty maritime tracks to hit home the theming. This barely feels like a horror game because of it.
