UNFORTUNATELY MY DVD-encoder is completely beyond the meager electronics skills of this wayward games reviewer, but I’ve never been one to let something that simple sway me from my life’s…uhm, something other or other. Whatever, the point is, it’s been a while since I last wrote anything even remotely like a review. The itch has struck again, so I apologise for the pictures being a mixture of Google supplied and digital camera snaps of my TV screen. But at least I’m back on form with my very first X-Box 360 review.
Alas, I picked a rather…colourful game for my first choice. Regular readers will remember that I dabbled with Alone in the Dark on the Nintendo Wii some months ago. I was…unimpressed for the most part but allowed a lot of slack with the flakey gameplay given the overall quality of the story and the experience as a whole.
Sadly, the “next gen†version of the game does not hold even such a complimentary standing as that. The story is, as with the Wii, outstanding, and extremely well scripted. For the most part t’s identical to the Wii, with only some minor differences apart from the ending which is both more and less open at the same time. Mostly in so far as there are two which are dependent on whether or not you pop some lead (no that isn’t a euphamism) in Sarah’s skull or not.
Unfortunately however, even the outstanding plot and scripting, and the addition of a mostly open environment (almost the entirety of New York’s Central Park) do little to make this game anything more than a passable few days. Though it does give you an easy 1000 points for your gamerscore. Not much more than twelve hours of gameplay once you knuckle down to it. Though be warned, the Handyman Carnby achievement can be a real bugger to get.
The control scheme is the real killer for this game. Especially with the driving sections. Though they do make the game flow better, allowing you to move from one location to another much faster than on foot, and without having to worry overly much about the monsters scattered around the area. Unfortunately, the cars are so gruellingly painful to control that it almost kills the game entirely. A number of occasions I came very close to losing all patience and just packing it in. But I persevered, and all I can say is that it was an overall pretty “meh†experience.
Worth looking through for the plot, but not much else. Something to pick up cheap, or rent as I did.
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Audio/Music: 8/10
Plot/Scripting: 9/10
Overall: 5/10
