Review: Alone In The Dark

Edward Carnby is back as paranormal investigator in the 5th game of the Alone In The Dark series, this time taking place in Central Park, New York.
I'm hesitant to have too high expectations as the survival horror genre seems to have peaked a few years ago, but having seen the screenshots and heard about the creative gameplay I was looking forward to see what the game had to offer.

The game starts out with Carnby waking up with blurred vision and no clue of who or where he is. Thrown straight into the gameplay you’re prompted to repeatedly blink your eyes to clear them. As vision gets clearer, it reveals two brutal and mysterious looking men and a third man who looks hurt. The men are talking about what to do with you and when they realise you’re awake, one of them is ordered to take you to the roof for execution.
On the way, the wall suddenly cracks open in strange places and swallows your captor leaving you alone in the dark.
Trapped in a collapsing building overlooking Central Park all you can see is a city posessed by some evil force that not only taunts and swallows humans, but also possesses humans, turning them into vicious zombies.

In the first episode, the escape out of the skyscraper, you learn the movement basics, how to climb up cables etc, and you get introduced to different ways of interacting with objects. With hints showing on the screen of which buttons to press to do what, it was easy to get a feel for what you can do with different objects.
You can drag around heavy furniture, pick up lighter items such as chairs and fire extinguisher and use them as weapons as well as tools, and smaller items you can store in your inventory which is presented in a really cool and innovative way: a first person view into your pockets. It’s important to note also that game play doesn’t stop when you’re in your inventory, so you had better be quick selecting your items.
From here you can combine stored items, for example making bombs by filling empty bottles with fuel, or using a spray can with a lighter to make a mini-flamethrower, etc.
A great way to encourage creative thinking and freedom to interact with the environment in many different ways, however it can be very intense and frustrating when you’re surrounded by zombies intent on bashing your head in.

The items you can store aren’t often easily found, so you might want to save your homemade inventions for when there doesn't seem to be any other alternatives, but luckily there are other ways to defend yourself.

The combat system is easy and intuitive. Basically any object you can can pick up, can be used as a weapon/tool in some way. While holding an object and moving the mouse from side to side, up and down, clicking the use button will make you hit in different ways depending on which angle you held the object in, giving you a variety of different combat moves and I really enjoyed beating up a zombie with a frying pan though it might not have been the most effective weapon.