alone in the dark

Yep should be getting mine tomorrow went for the std edition £24.99 as do not really need a £44.99 version!

Should be really good only hope that the securom servers can handle the load (unlike bioshock on launch day) as this contains the same type of protection which you have to use before you can play then if you uninstall you have to free up the licence otherwise you lose it.

Game looks amazing but is probably a highly polished Silent Hill/Resident Evil clone (not a bad thing I suppose) as usual the PC version is the best so it is the one to get and Games For Windows means it will support all known resolutions and also supports the X360 gamepad.

Each of the episodes is only 30-40 mins long but thats not a bad thing at all as most games levels are around that long (when you know the solution etc etc) still have the original AITD games and they are all good in their own way, its exactly 7 years since the last game which was ahead of its time (came on 3 CD's and had some good hand drawn art).

Apparently if you preorder the game on the official website you can play it a day early as it will unlock Thursday.
 
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I have it!

Came today.

Very cinematic like resident evil/silent hill/fahrenheit or any other survival horror game you care to think of.

so far the gfx/smoke/shader FX are some of the best I have ever seen.

performance wise it runs ok on an 8800gtx have not been able to use any AA. stutters in places even on an x6800+8800gtx @1360x768 on vista so will give more powerful hardware a good workout. some of the textures for close up objects are very low rez/poor but the rest of it looks stunning in places. Plenty of moments you will jump.

Best played with an X360 controller some of the controls are complex but you get an onscreen tutorial to explain it all with gfx to show which buttons to press. You need to select the 360 controller in the main game menu 1st otherwise it defaults to kb + mouse control.

The install only goes to your c drive (7.57GB) you cannot choose which folder or customise it at all. Also be warned that you need an internet connection before you even install as it has to download or validate the game disc before it will install then at the end it requires another validation for your game serial to the securom server and you have to keep the dvd in when playing.

Guess Atari are taking no chances with this one as it is their last chance for success as their financial situation is dire!!

Game deserves to be popular as it is a little different and takes chances in unconventional ways.
 
I can't get my wired 360 pad to work with this at all. I've updated to the latest driver and the light comes on when the game starts, but it just won't work. On the "Press any Button" screen I can press a button and it takes me to the main menu, but the controller won't work from then on. Any ideas?
 
Got mine today as well, not tried it though as I'm still playing Mass Effect.
Can't wait though looks awesome.
 
jtorry said:
I can't get my wired 360 pad to work with this at all. I've updated to the latest driver and the light comes on when the game starts, but it just won't work. On the "Press any Button" screen I can press a button and it takes me to the main menu, but the controller won't work from then on. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Someone on another forum posted the following:

The game will not be ready to play with the 360 controller after installation.

At the title screen:

-> Enter Options
-> Enter Controller settings
-> Choose to change any key
-> Press any button on the 360 controller

The game will now ask if you wish to use the 360 controller as default?
Choose yes.

All button configurations will change and the game can now be played with the controller.

Hope this helps.




.
 
Nice one, got it working now.

Separate issue. The game says it supports Dolby Digital, but I can't see any way to turn it on. I'm outputting using the digital out on my motherboard.
 
You may want to wait for a demo if you have not decided yet as the game has some really clunky controls in places and the gameplay mechanics seem very poorly tested. I got through on the 1st episode by trial and error (and maybe a glitch or 2) as I could not see what was killing me then when I worked out what to do after about the 20th time I did the exact same thing but this time I waited a second then I survived the debris which had killed me before. Timing appears to be everything and some of the jumps you have to make are very pixel perfect so be prepared to die and repeat some parts a lot!!! The game is very unforgiving as it does not indicate what you are doing wrong just reloads the last save automatically for you to try again and does not give any clues whatsoever which can be a little baffling.

Sometimes you will die and have to restart over and over until you can wrestle the gamepad a certain way to overcome the thing killing you. It reloads very quickly as the HD loads almost instantly plus the game says it works best on multicore CPU's as well as 64 bit OSes but you cannot skip the ingame cutscenes.

Real shame as the game does contain some of the best coloured smoke & shader FX this side of Crysis but the actual gamplay is more stop/start than any Silent Hill game and if you hate disjointed gameplay then this one will bring you close to throwing your gamepad!!

I would give it 8/10 even with the problems as it does have a lot going for it just the style of game does not make it a very smooth experience.
 
AWPC said:
You may want to wait for a demo if you have not decided yet as the game has some really clunky controls in places and the gameplay mechanics seem very poorly tested. I got through on the 1st episode by trial and error (and maybe a glitch or 2) as I could not see what was killing me then when I worked out what to do after about the 20th time I did the exact same thing but this time I waited a second then I survived the debris which had killed me before. Timing appears to be everything and some of the jumps you have to make are very pixel perfect so be prepared to die and repeat some parts a lot!!! The game is very unforgiving as it does not indicate what you are doing wrong just reloads the last save automatically for you to try again and does not give any clues whatsoever which can be a little baffling.

Sometimes you will die and have to restart over and over until you can wrestle the gamepad a certain way to overcome the thing killing you. It reloads very quickly as the HD loads almost instantly plus the game says it works best on multicore CPU's as well as 64 bit OSes but you cannot skip the ingame cutscenes.

Real shame as the game does contain some of the best coloured smoke & shader FX this side of Crysis but the actual gamplay is more stop/start than any Silent Hill game and if you hate disjointed gameplay then this one will bring you close to throwing your gamepad!!

I would give it 8/10 even with the problems as it does have a lot going for it just the style of game does not make it a very smooth experience.
Click to expand...

Thats ****** me off i was looking forward to this :(
 
hmmmmm. was going to buy this on Saturday, however from reading this thread and the fact that there are no reviews even on the usual online places the day before its release (always worrying), I think I will hold off.

Was also put off by some of the footage I saw on Playr the other day as well. It showed a platform-type section of the game which, to me anyway, looked poor and seemed to have an over reliance on quick-time key press events. I was surprised at this as everythng else I had seen had the ResiEvil4 over the camera style screenies. I have to say that this put me off as well, however if this is a small section of the game and the rest is good I will probably pick it up.

From the screens and the movies I have seen, I think I will like it however I don't think I will pick it up until I have read a good amount of reviews.
 
For those who havent gone to the consoles forum go check out the thread in there, supposebly very bad controls very clunky, and the cameras are dreadful, also a lot of review sites are slating its performance.
 
i cant believe this - i have been looking forward to this for ages - preordered it and it'll be here tomorrow all based on the vids which are some of the best ive seen.

well i still hope the nay sayers are wrong but that'll learn me to buy anything before reviews are out.
 
I will give you an example of something that I came across last night in an underground car park. After figuring out what to do I then had a split second to decide how to survive whilst being dragged along the carpark floor by a monster.

Literally you get what seems like 0.5 secs (blink of an eyelid and its gone) of an onscreen gamepad button to hit and have to do it exactly otherwise you get killed and guess what you have to replay the entire game again from the last save which although you can do at anytime it always takes you back to the last event before a cutscene (which you cannot skip). Trust me this gets very annoying as the game is very unforgiving and requires exact gamepad input yet gives you very little help.

Then to complete the first episode you drive a car out of the city which contains some of the most incredible gfx you have ever seen (entire buildings collapse infront of you and roads crack like its an earthquake-this section is very cinematic and just like a big budget action movie) problem is that the physics are buggy as hell so you can easily get stuck on the sinking road then you have no time to reverse so end up replaying the entire driving section again (took me about 30-45 mins to master it).

Another section you have to construct a molotov cocktail but the game is so dumb when you throw it to destroy a wall you have to be pixel perfect otherwise the bomb bounces back and almost kills you (unless you have max health).

The game is so mixed in places it is truly great and the gfx are sometimes the best you have ever seen for this type of game yet its just littered with poor gameplay mechanics and some very low res textures in some places mixed in with high quality gfx usually on the same scene so it is very noticeable especially for me as I game on a 40" HDTV.

The performance is also very poor in places and jerky FPS drops are everwhere god knows how bad the 360 version is as that has bad screen tearing as no vsync the PC with vsync is not smooth most of the time which is very surprising as most of the screens are not true 3D as you get a fixed camera angle and only about 10 degrees of camera movement. Strange thing is the first person 360 degree view is very smooth only the 3rd person view lags!

Some of the ingame face textures are highly detailed but the bump mapping looks a little much in places you can almost touch the screen and feel the skin bumps!!

To be fair to this game when it does something right the atmosphere generated from the gfx are quite good and some little touches work like when you have to set fire to wooden chairs to fight the monsters if you accidentally touch a wooden door it burns as does any other nearby wooden objects but the downside is you can get killed quickly if you stand too near to fire or walk over any burning object which can sometimes mean you guessed it replaying the entire section from the last cutscene. Whenever you get blood in your eyes you actually blink to clear them this is made a big part of the game as the screen goes blurry when this happens. Another neat touch is when you repair your health you actually see your character spray himself with the health spray and you can move around your body to do this as your arms,legs & chest all take damage which can affect how you move through the game.

The ingame physics are quite a big part of solving puzzles but the collision detection is poor in places so that makes it a frustrating experience.

You can actually jump forward in the game by using the inbuilt episode system to skip a chapter (just like a DVD) but obviously why bother as you will miss whatever is coming next.

The game overall is a mixture of very good and very frustrating. Glad I bought it but also frustrated it can make you feel angry very quickly.
 
I got the game this morning, I am very unhappy!

I am unhappy because the quality of the DVD case is of low standard, it's lower standard than the 20p cases from pound land >:|

I got the game on the way to work so won't be playing until later tonight. I wonder how it will run...I'm expecting it to run quite well though and have a wireless 360pad so should be all fine :)
 
I have the game sitting nicely sealed in front of me. My cousin says I shouldn't open it since some sites are giving it fairly bad reviews...





....I told him to shut the **** up :D
 
was looking forward to picking this up today but by all accounts apart from great gfx the gameplay sounds really poor and flawed...

might just pick a copy up from the bargain bin in a week or so
 
Ugh, I have to say I'm hating the way it randomly changes to 3rd person and you keep having to change it back every minute >.<
The controls are baffling as well, I mean who uses right alt to jump off a rope :p
I only played it for 10mins so I hopefully will get into it more.
 
also Euro gamer gave this 7/10 and game trailers gave this a 9.2 user score although i have to wonder how long they have played it for as it was released today lol

guess ill find out in a min as the install is taking ages.
 
Superficial said:
also Euro gamer gave this 7/10 and game trailers gave this a 9.2 user score although i have to wonder how long they have played it for as it was released today lol

guess ill find out in a min as the install is taking ages.
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NO! start playing at 9pm as I will then too and then we can post our thoughts together like some kind of freakish coincidence!
 
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