Black Box

The Low-End Mac Portable Gaming Page

ALONE IN THE DARK

Another classic that you could run even on the mostly classical equipment. The game is kind enough to ask us on startup whether we want to run it on 320*200 (slow systems) or the whopping 640*400 (fast systems). Oh dear. But what's the story? "Alone In The Dark" is the forerunner of the "survival horror" genre, that later resulted in the "Resident Evil" all-time classic. "Residen Evil" can be called a clone of "AITD" - it shares a similar way of portraying 3D environment (with static cameras, scattered through the location), similar way of controlling your character and similar storyline (basically consisting of trying to survive an ordeal in a haunted mansion). However, what "Resident Evil" did NOT copy from "AITD" is the extremely poor graphics and sound. Unlike "Resident Evil", most of the "monsters" in "AITD" look more ridicolous than scary. Therefore the game is more boring than addictive. It's not just a matter of simplicity of graphics, but rather of lack of quality control - it looks like everything was designed by some code-minded geek, not a real artist. The character movement is also mostly annoying; the characters are slow to respond, even on a G3/350 (it's not a matter of horsepower, but rather of the way it's all coded).

OVERALL RATING: Recommended only for 040 powerbookers.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: 68040 or PowerMac, System 6.0.7, 4 megabytes RAM

CD-ROM: No (in 1992, it was not in common use, was it?)

SCREEN: 640*400 looks poor on 800*600; but probably it looks better on 5300 or 520 screens.

SLEEP: Compatible

KEYBOARD/TRACKPAD: No problems

BUGS: None detected

MORE INFO/PURCHASE OPTIONS: No idea. I think it's some sort of abandonware by now.


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