Reading the title you can tell that I am once again late to the party, that is if you consider and craptastic game a party.  Surfing the Sarcastic Gamer forums I came across a post by Lono, he found a deal on GameFly where you could buy Alone in the Dark for next to nothing.  Since there's an expected patch, it might be worth it.  Seeing as I love survival horror games I figured it couldn't be that bad, so I ponied up the three dollars and change for Alone in the Dark.  Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare that it was the worst three dollars I've ever spent.

Where do I even begin with this game?  To be honest I've only just begun playing the game because because it's really that bad, it's right on the cusp on unplayable.  So let's start with the good, the graphics.  There's really not much to say here except for the game has some really great graphics, but unless you have a decent HDtv I don't know that you'd even enjoy this.  One my one older model HDtv the game is ridiculously too dark, not that it's still not too dark on other, but I can't imagine what it must looking like on an sdtv.  You know in the menu how you can adjust brightness?  Lots of developers are nice enough to put something in there so that when you can see or just see something in the settings you're at the perfect brightness for their game, at least how they intended it to be.  Alone in the Dark, as any good survival horror game should, has this feature with three logos or pictures or whatever you want to call them.  When you can just see all three you're good to go, well on my tv even at the brightest setting I can only see two.  Now use your brain to figure out how that could effect the gameplay, because that's exactly what happens.

Controls...seriously guys?  I guess designers and game testers must get so used to the shit controls of a game that they stop even noticing it.  If you're looking to experience a complete lack of maneuverability you might be better off stealing a sixteen wheeler, it would be much more enjoyable and it would control better.  I guess clunky is the best way to describe it, it's a chore to just move around the game navigating around obstacles such as rubble can even be a pain.  The switching between first and third person makes even less sense.  In first person you move faster, can turn better, and have much better control of your camera.  Staying in first person can really help you not want to rip your hair out except for the times when the game decides it's time to force you into third person for no apparent reason.  The list really goes on an on, even the button configuration blows.  One really funny thing is some of the jumps.  There will be large gaps you have to jump across, it doesn't look like you can jump that far and when you jump it's very obvious you'll come up short, luckily the game flips to a cut scene and you're magically flying through the air.  COMEDY!!!

The story itself sucks, it's generic, doesn't suck you in and is poorly written.  I've seen a lot of critcism of the voice acting and oddly I'll defend that.  There's no big name actors in this game, which makes sense because this game must have had a $3million budget at best, but the actors themselves aren't bad.  It's the stupid story and horribly written script that ruins it.  You know how 12 year old boys love to curse for no reason and sometimes you're not even sure they're doing it right?   That's this game.  Now if you don't know what I'm talking about then I 'm sorry because that's the perfect comparison so I'm done with this topic.

In addition to spending time with AITD last night I played the new free arcade game Dash of Destruction.  I feel like there's a joke out there that I'm just not in on with this one.  This game is free because it's a marketing ploy for Doritos, plain and simple.  It sucks and should be a flash game on their website where you can earn coupons or something.  There is no reason to play this game EVER.  I guess Ninja Bee wasn't happy with the new level of FAIL they achieved with Band of Bugs and wanted to up the anti.  Well congrats fellas, YOU DID IT!!!