Alone in the Dark

One of my very first PC games were Alone in the Dark. Then I saw it first time I was really impressed. 3D objects in beautifully drawn 2D world, and action/adventure style made me excited. Horror story was excellent, and quite new to me. The most thing I like even now is game’s balance and integrity: all parts fit very well. There is a story, told from numerous books. There are some fighting with fists, knives, sword, rifle and pistol – each with it’s own advantages and disadvanages. Environment interaction was revolutionary for me: you need lamp to see in darkness, but you can put it down and still see, water douses the light, things could break, things have weight, and throwing heavy objects will also hurt enemies. And also there is exploration: hidden rooms, hidden containers, hidden objects.

There are two bad types of horror stories/movies/books. In ones, you are helpless victim and can’t do anything, chaised by invincible “slasher”, fealing only fear and desperation. In others, you have chainsaw or machine gun and shoot in hordes of zombies, feeling only anger. AitD is niether of them: enemies are equal to you. You have advantage of weapons, but they have advantage of surprise, so you can win if you will not panic. Amount of action is very well balanced and enemies vary, so, considering different weapons, you will have a unique fight each time, not repeated hitting the target.

Game works very well from DOSBox. Just put speed counter low at the beginning, or game will not recognize sound device. And this trick will also make it easier for you to “run” by double-pressing “forward”.