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"Are you Alone? Where survival horror began."

It seems that every other these days is a 'survival horror' game. You know the drill - you wander around in a spooky location, viewing the action from a 3D perspective, all the while being assaulted by zombies, monsters and the like. Yet while the term 'survival horror' was first coined by Capcom with their Playstation gore-em-up Resident Evil, the first real 'survival horror' game debuted on the PC a little game called 'Alone in the Dark'. Alas, the game is no longer available commercially, though it can be found on many of the 'abandonware' sites on the internet, without it there would be no Resident Evil or Silent Hill. In fact, we'd probably all be playing Bubble Bobble 6 if the game's French designers hadn't introduced gamers to the world of horror.

Sporting a storyline inspired by the work of author H.P. Lovecraft, the premise behind the game was simple. Playing as detective Edward Carnby - or his female counterpart, though the game was the same whomsoever you played as - you had to escape alive from the mansion you had unwittingly ventured into. This was no easy task since there were dark forces at work - as evidenced by the impassable Lovecraftian monster which lurked behind the main doors of the house, forcing you to head deeper into the mansion to find a means of lifting the curse on the house and saving your own soul - not to mention discovering why the owner of the house had been damned in the first place.

Granted, Alone in the Dark looked a bit rough compared to today's efforts, though it was one of the first true 3D games to hit the PC. It also kept you scared all the way through - even when nothing was happening. Things were quiet at first, but then you heard a growling noise and a dog-creature burst through the window - something that will sound familiar to Resident Evil fans. You could fight the monster with your fists or, if you were sneaky, you could push a cabinet in front of the window to stop your foe entering, leaving you to wander around for a while, feeling smug. Until, that is, you heard the creaking of a trapdoor which opened to reveal a zombie, hungry for 3D polygonal brains. Then you'd be given the freedom to explore a few more rooms, until you heard the sound of shuffling feet and lo and behold, another zombie came around the corner. But should you use the shotgun you'd picked up and risk being unable to deal with whatever was lurking around the next corner, or give the fiend what for?

Alone in the Dark was actually closer in tone to Silent Hill 2 than any of the Resident Evil games, since the designers of the game used their monsters sparingly, preferring to give you a moments respite to consider your situation instead of throwing zombie after zombie after zombie at you. Only the zombies would wander after you from area to area - you didn't need to worry about the larger abominations coming after you. What really put the fear of God into the player - it certainly scared the living daylights out of me - was the game showed a cutscene of you from the viewpoint of another monster, without revealing what was looking at you, knowing something was lurking round the corner. Some monsters were invincible too, until you'd got the proper weapon - you knew you had to go into the library to get an item you needed for a puzzle, but you also knew the monster couldn't be killed - yet - and that it had a nasty habit of walking through walls. And the sound effects were fantastic - creaks, moans and groans all eminated from your PC's speaker - yes, the speaker - even if you didn't have a soundcard, the game used fancy trickery to get the usuall one-tone PC beeper to bring the mansion to life.

Unfortunately, subsequent Alone in the Dark games were nowhere near as frightening, eschewing the dark denizens of Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos in favour of - er, Ghost Pirates and Ghost Cowboys. And don't even get me started on the remake which somehow transformed Edward Carnby from a mustiachioed fifties detective into a black trenchcoat wearing goth. Still, if you can track down a copy - either on E-Bay or by looking on a number of abandonware sites, and enjoy a little piece of gaming history. Just don't play it with the lights off.

Yep, true.

Anyway there would be survival horror games if alone in the dark wasn't made there was suvival horror games out before alone in the dark not that i had one i read about them somewhere.

Resident Evil is AWESOME.

i think they are all NOT scary not good and not interesting they are boring

rubbish

Fair enough. I hope you're referring to AITD :)

It's rubbish now, and it was always rubbish.

Blank wrote:
> I stopped reading after the first paragraph, because to say that
> without Alone In The Dark we wouldn't have Resident Evil I think is
> slightly overstating the importance of AITD.

AITD is rubbish now though. RE, SH and PE are far better.

You wrote an a4 page on Alone in the Dark?

I had all 3 games, and to be quite honest, after 10 minutes of playing I was pretty much bored to death with all of them. Terrible polygon graphics, poor sounds and frustrating trial and error gameplay.

Mind you I've never really liked those so called survival horror games. I had Dino Crisis for a while, but it sucked. Silent Hill wasn't bad, and is probably the only game of that type I found partially enjoyable. I mean, how much replay factor do they have? None? I thought so. Once you've seen everything, they won't scare you or even entertain you again.

If you're going to write large features on classic games, choose a good one next time, and surely this should live in the classic games forum.

/rant

I hope you don't win Gameaday, Hannard.

I don't like you.