It's also one of the first zombie games and an early example of the use of polygonal characters in a game.īut Alone in the Dark is unique for avoiding quirks that take you out of the game (let's forget about the silly voice work slapped onto the CD-ROM version, shall we?). You also see in Alone in the Dark the first instance of The Thing Breaking through the Window, a standard device in any survival horror game. It's an example of showing you what you're going to see later as a bit of foreshadowing. The opening scenes show Carnby walking through the house up into the attic, where the actual gameplay begins. Survival horror? It sounds like you're on a trip with Outward Bound and someone forgot to pack the granola bars.Īlone in the Dark begins with a device that Half-Life used to brilliant effect.
Now it's given us the name of an entire genre. It was that stilted mastery of the language that gave us names like Donkey Kong and Jet Grind Radio and instructions for our VCRs. Although the genre of "survival horror" began with Alone in the Dark, it didn't get a name until Resident Evil's loading screen, which read, "Welcome to the world of survival horror." It was the same sort of clunky Englishification that characterized all the dialogue in that game. Even the PlayStation's Silent Hill, arguably the best horror game on any platform, features some unintentionally hilarious dialogue. The minute someone opens his mouth, most horror games become badly translated cartoons. unit (Resident Evil) or military experiments (just about any contemporary horror game). But then you uncover ludicrous storylines about revolting mitochondria (Parasite Eve) or the Raccoon City Police Department's S.T.A.R.S. Titles like Resident Evil are all good and well with their high-res pre-rendered backgrounds and zombies slathered in gore textures.
"My idea of a paid vacation," he quips.Īlthough the hard-boiled detective stuff is dropped after it's established (there is no voiceover character commentary in Alone in the Dark), it's a much more auspicious beginning than the kind of laughable stuff that passes for horror in games these days. I don't care to think what my banker calls me." It's 1920 and he's a down-on-his-luck private detective hired to investigate a suicide at Derceto, a storied manor with an eerie past. "The few friends I have call me Carnby," he writes, "the others call me the Reptile. In the introduction to Alone in the Dark, Edward Carnby introduces himself.
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