Metacritic Games

Alone in the Dark (Playstation 2)

Taking inspiration from the presentation style and structure of a number of acclaimed and globally popular TV action dramas, Alone in the Dark is split into a number of distinct episodes in a season-style format. With approximately 30-40 minutes of gameplay comprising each episode, the structure of Alone in the Dark is adapted for an audience familiar with the hard-hitting bite-size delivery of contemporary TV dramas, offering easy accessibility whether the player has hours to devote or only wants a quick TV-style fix. Each time the player launches a saved game, the episode begins with a video summary of the previous episode to quickly re-immerse the player in the story, removing the need to remember where they were or what they were doing. Every episode closes with a nail-biting cliff-hanger ending to rattle players' nerves, and if the player is leaving the game a video teaser of the next episode plays to leave them wanting more. Alone in the Dark returns with a heart-stopping survival experience realized through the use of state-of-the-art real-time physics and unprecedented environmental interaction. Delivering an action-orientated experience within a highly detailed, open environment, Alone in the Dark once again strives innovation and excellence within the genre. [Atari]

Atari
Survival Horror, Adventure
Players: 1
M (Mature)
Developer: Hydravision - Eden Studios
Released June 24, 2008

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

47 / 100

Critic Reviews

78	Gamer 2.0 Alone in the Dark proves that with a little time and patience, a good game can be created from innovative ideas.
70	Official Playstation 2 Magazine UK Flawed, scruffy and inconsistent, but the small moments of magic [do] some way make up for the lack of overall polish. [July 2008, p.64]
58	Play UK Annoyingly its potential is continually squandered by robot mechanics and tedious progression. [Aug 2008, p.104]
50	PTGamers This version has serious technical and design flaws that make it not much fun to play and are indication of a rushed conversion.
50	Thunderbolt An ambitious and in ways progressive survival horror game, whose ambition is hampered by its own numerous flaws. Whether these problems are a result of porting a current-gen title to a last-gen console remains to be seen, but the PS2 edition is very clearly a stripped down version of the impressive 360 game Atari have been displaying.
47	PSM3 Magazine UK Tired, inconsistent and just plain ugly. [Sept 2008, p.78]
42	Cheat Code Central Alone in the Dark can be played in a day. You can actually skip levels if you get too frustrated, but you can save a lot of frustration by just skipping the game entirely.
40	Playstation Official Magazine UK Worst of all, it never feels even vaguely scary. [Aug 2008, p.102]
39	PSX Extreme Alone in the Dark is ambitious, but it trips, stumbles, and…well, breaks. It’s a bad PS2 game and we can’t imagine it would get that much better on the PS3.
30	IGN Nearly every gamplay mechanic fails in one way or another. While the game is functional, Alone in the Dark is a clear case of something that needed to be baked in the oven longer.

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