Alone in the Dark 4: The New Nightmare

Product description ------------------- Edward Carnby, detective of the supernatural, returns to investigate the death of his best friend, Charles Fiske, whose body was found in the waters of amysterious island off the coast of Maine. Carnby's investigation quicklyleads him to his friend's search for three ancient s, which, whenplaced in a specific location, will unlock an incredible and dangerouspower. Armed with a flashlight and a pistol, Carnby must find the necessaryitems to survive as well as the clues that will help him escape hisultimate nightmare. .com ---- Edward Carnby, detective of the supernatural, returns to investigate the death of his best friend, Charles Fiske, whose body was found in the waters of amysterious island off the coast of Maine. Carnby's investigation quicklyleads him to his friend's search for three ancient s, which, whenplaced in a specific location, will unlock an incredible and dangerouspower. Armed with a flashlight and a pistol, Carnby must find the necessaryitems to survive as well as the clues that will help him escape hisultimate nightmare. Alone in the Dark 4: The New Nightmare carries on the survival-horror series tradition of intense action and suspensefuladventure. Within its dark and strange atmosphere, conventional rules donot apply. The player must overcome his natural fear of the dark unknownand control Edward Carnby through the game's deep storyline. P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); Review ------ Back in 1992, Infogrames developed a little adventure game set in a Louisiana mansion. At the time, both 3D games and the survival horror genre were quite new, and the result was a classic PC game of suspense and terror. Originally titled Screams in the Dark, Alone in the Dark was the first game to use fully 3D characters on a prerendered background. It also took advantage of the cutting-edge soundcards of the day to create a truly absorbing experience. Infogrames is hoping to recapture that experience with the fourth installment in the AitD series, this time as the publisher. Darkworks is taking over the development duties, and from what we saw from a recent build, is doing an admirable job of capturing the basic feel of the original. But unlike the previous version of AitD, The New Nightmare will be coming out for a wide variety of platforms, including the PC, Dreamcast, Playstation and even the Game Boy Color. The story continues from the original game... sort of. In Alone in the Dark, players took control of Edward Carnby, a detective of the paranormal who barely got out alive. But in The New Nightmare, everything has been updated -- even Edward. Gamers still control Carnby, only this time he's a hipper, younger-looking dude with an itchier trigger finger. According to the developers we spoke to, the name Edward Carnby stays the same, but every 40 years it is bestowed on a young orphan who is destined to live a life tiptoeing around creepy shacks with only a 9mm and an industrial-strength flashlight to protect him. This time, Edward is investigating the death of a good friend, which occurred on the shores of the naturally mysterious "Shadow Island." Since nothing mysterious ever seems to happen on the topless beaches of St. Tropez, players shouldn't be surprised that Edward must travel across the wintry island to uncover the mystery of three missing s. Fortunately, he won't be alone this time. Aline Cedrac is a young archeologist who gets caught up in Edward's quest and pulled deeper into the mystery. Players will be able to play as both Edward and Aline, alternating between the missions to get a better feel for the storyline. Also updated this time around are the amazing graphics. Darkworks has been working hard to develop a proprietary lighting system that makes the shadows and light from Edward's flashlight look utterly convincing. While we only saw a few of the more than 1,200 prerendered backgrounds, they looked almost photographic in their detail. Just as impressive are the subtle segues between the in-game play and the profession CG cutscenes. In one instance, Edward walked up to a carpet, and the game cut to an animation of a serpent coming alive in the fabric and jumping up at the camera. When the camera finally cut back to the game, the transition was smooth and natural. And just as smooth as the graphics is the clean interface. While we moved about in the standard mode, no graphics or interface cluttered up the screen. But when Edward or Aline pulled out a weapon, a small green life bar appeared in the screen's lower righthand corner, with the a corresponding ammo gauge on the left side. They were slight and almost transparent, but they provided plenty of information in a hurry. That sort of minimal interference between the game and the gamer seems to be a hallmark of Darkwork's approach to the project. The gameplay itself should be familiar to fans of original Alone in the Dark series, as well as other horror titles. Moving your 3D character through the prerendered environment is a snap with a gamepad, and the intelligent camera system was always well positioned in the action we saw. There are going to be 12 different kinds of weapons in the final game, which will include everything from the familiar revolver to items a little more supernatural in origin. The 15 different kinds of monsters have been designed not only to e the bejeezus out of us but also to react intelligently to different stimuli. Some will react to light, either to seek it out or to run away from it. Others will react to the sound of a character's footsteps or even seek you out when your is low. The hell dogs will also demonstrate pack intelligence, circling around behind a player to take out the legs and then go for the throat. It won't be easy getting Edward and Aline off Shadow Island alive, but the developers we spoke to assured us that while there is going to be plenty of gameplay, they aren't going to artificially extend the game by making it extraordinarily difficult. The gameplay is going to be a balance of both action and puzzle solving, with an emphasis on puzzles that fit into the tone of the game. Saving games on the consoles will be handled via amulets that have to be discovered, but, once found, will allow games to be saved anywhere. PC players, however, should be able to save anywhere at will. It's a beautiful-looking game so far, and Darkworks promises us that Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare will be ready to go in the spring of 2001. Since the last AitD game came out five years ago, there is some question whether the series has much clout among gamers. And the market is a lot more crowded with horror games these days than it was back then. But Darkworks is taking its time with this one, and if the version we saw is an indication of the final product, we're looking forward to being alone again. -- DailyRadar Review See more ( javascript:void(0) )

• The New Nightmare carries on the survival-horror series tradition of intense action and suspensefuladventure..
• Dark and strange atmosphere, conventional rules do not apply..
• The player must overcome his natural fear of the dark unknownand control Edward Carnby through the game's deep storyline..