[h1][i]"We don't talk about Bruno, no, no, no~ 🎶"[/i]
~La Familia Madrigal[/h1]
The story of Alone in the Dark is the story of Frédérick Raynal. Who the heck is Frédérick Raynal? Well, that's exactly the problem. While pretty much everybody recognizes Shinji Mikami for what he did for the survival horror genre, Frédérick was the one who actually created it. Back in 1992. In a game called, you guessed it, Alone in the Dark. Why does nobody talk about that? Well, because of a man called Bruno.
What happened was, unfortunately, a very typical misunderstanding between the creator and the company he was a part of. Frédérick's a visionary. One of those people who are able to think outside the box and create something entirely new. Those cinematic, fixed viewpoints, a certain kind of puzzles (aside from other things, AitD was the first game of its kind to include a grandfather clock puzzle), deliberately stiff movement... It was all him. And when Shinji Mikami recognized what kind of breakthrough it was... Well, CAPCOM still milks the Resident Evil franchise, doesn't it?
Infogrames' CEO, Bruno Bonnell, on the other hand, didn't understand that at all. Remember that scene in The Big Bang Theory where Stuart asked Howard and Raj to “play something they can dance to”? That's exactly what happened. Bruno was like, “Can't you add more shooting?” Frédérick didn't want to. Bruno insisted. Frédérick left. Thanks to which we got Twinsen's little but very big adventure.
But that's a whole different story. AitD? The name stayed with Infogrames. Bruno was free to do as he pleased with it, and he was sure he knew what he was doing. Spoiler alert—he didn't. Like, at all. AitD 2, for example, instantly gave you a Tommy gun and forced you to start shooting. While keeping the original tank controls. People disliked that. They wanted survival horror, not a crappy shooter. Bruno tried to address that in AitD 3. Yet somehow the only thing his team managed to come up with was immortal enemies that both shot at you [i]and[/i] acted as a real-time puzzle. Again, people disliked that. Without Frédérick? AitD simply didn't work. Resident Evil, on the other hand, did. It was obvious that AitD's time was over. Or was it?
Antoine Villette and Guillaume Gouraud thought that it wasn't. Who were those fine gentlemen? Well, they were talented young people who had just founded their own company called Darkworks and even co-developed a game called Les Visiteurs: Le Jeu (based on that famous comedy movie with Jean Reno and Christian Clavier) with Cryo. No, you don't need to play it; it was a complete disaster (extremely confusing and messed up on oh-so-many levels, and yes, I did play it so I can tell). Not the point. The point is—they already had some experience. More importantly, they had an idea. And the idea? It was so simple it was great.
The idea was—CAPCOM borrowed AitD's idea (there's no room for argument here, Shinji Mikami openly admitted that). Let's borrow it back! Not in a bad way, of course; our guys also had their own unique vision, but you know what I mean. CAPCOM “cloned” AitD. Darkworks? They wanted to “clone” RE. And thankfully for us all, when they approached our pal Bruno? Bruno did the smartest thing there was to do—he said “yes.”
I said “thankfully” because yes, the so-called The New Nightmare was good. Shockingly good, actually. It wasn't “the next big thing” for the genre, but it did everything Resident Evil did, while, like I said, actually offering something new, something unique. I'm talking, of course, 'bout the flashlight. And you know what? It's almost like the AitD name is cursed. Darkworks literally made the flashlight thing before Alan Wake. And it wasn't just “something like that,” it was [i]exactly[/i] that! A flashlight that scared away the monsters! Heck, the flashlight even helped us find items! The revolutionary real-time 3D flashlight engine was actually Darkworks' hook in their pitch to Bruno! There was even a certain puzzle in which we were supposed to use the gamepad's stick to light up certain parts of the screen, Wii-style. Yet everybody acts like Alan Wake was the game that invented the formula.
Still, this game [i]did[/i] imitate RE. And it was impossible not to notice (I remember the devs even replying to people who claimed that their game was just “yet another RE clone”). The famous “green and brown” palette of the original AitD was gone too (replacing Lovecraftian motifs with H.R. Giger's influence was not the worst trade-off you could imagine, though). Despite all the “cloning,” though, The New Nightmare is an amazing game on its own, and you should totally give it a chance if you love classic survival horror. With one big “but.” With the “but” being... Darkworks copied Shinji Mikami's work with things like limited saves perfectly but also made one major mistake. A mistake that ruined the game a lot. Like, [i]a lot[/i]. The thing is, unlike what we had in RE, The New Nightmare has... respawning enemies. Ba-dum-tss...
You played such games before? You know exactly why it doesn't feel right. Everything is limited, yet more often than not, simply leaving the room and coming back makes the enemies respawn. Only enemies, not the ammo. And since exploration and puzzle-solving across different areas is a key element of gameplay... It's just way too annoying and can make your life harder than necessary. Not like I don't get what they tried to do (again, it was an Alan Wake before Alan Wake thingy), but... Like I said, infinite enemies in survival horror? That just doesn't work. Especially since those difficulty options that were introduced in Japanese ports of AitD 2 are not included. There's also no unlockables. Darkworks said that they simply didn't think it'd be fun for people to play this kind of game more than once. Especially since, yes, we do have two playable characters and their playthroughs actually feel very different. All that heavily ruined the game and made it inferior to RE. Which, again, is just that. A comparison. With no real need to make it.
And you know what? It's the same exact thing with this port. I mean, unlike classic RE games that were brought to Steam in a slightly updated form and therefore support things like modern gamepads, this here is an old port. Which... isn't terrible, really. Spiral House [i]did[/i] care (they were the guys who added lip-sync and 60Hz support for the European PS2 version). In this port, they've added an extra message for that flashlight-related puzzle to let you know you can use a mouse. And yes, you can. Also, the keyboard controls are surprisingly well thought out [i]and[/i] you can use a gamepad. An old kind, but still. Also, this port was heavily based on the Dreamcast version, which was the better-looking one in the original PS1/DC duo. Unfortunately, Spiral House completely messed up the sound, which suffers from terrible compression, clipping, and even desynchronization now.
In other words, you have a choice? Go play the Dreamcast version. Which is [i]the[/i] definitive way to experience this game. If you don't have any other option, though? The Steam version will do. It will. Even in this form, with a keyboard / mouse combo, The New Nightmare is a gem. A gem that almost saved the series. Why “almost”? Well, here's our pal Bruno again. Walks in with a mischievous grin. Despite Darkworks already making plans for a sequel (aside from other things, The New Nightmare was also a reboot that was supposed to start a new continuity), Bruno and Infogrames decided to make the next game internally. Make it more modern, more action-oriented, and... yeah. Reboot the whole thing again. Darkworks? With Cold Fear, they ended up pioneering “next-gen” horrors and doing the “over-the-shoulder” camera thing before RE 4 (no, seriously, a lot of history between AitD and RE—CAPCOM even planned to publish The New Nightmare in Japan). While Bruno? Well, we don't talk about Bruno. [i]No-no-no.[/i]
