Alone in the Dark - Inferno for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

Alone in the Dark is basically an adventure game with a survival horror atmosphere. Unfortunately, it's not really scary - it's more horror in the goofy sci-fi channel B-movie sense than in the Silent Hill sense.

Gameplay is 3rd person action-adventure with some of the weirdest controls ever. There's a lot of "puzzle" solving, but the problem is the solution to every puzzle basically is either shooting something or blowing something up. The melee controls are absolutely awful - you essentially pick up stuff and "swing" your control stick. The end results are not visceral or intuitive, just awkward, particularly since your controls and the protagonist can get out of sync since Carnby get his weapon deflected or his attack repelled, but you can move your joystick anyway.

Shooting is awkward. Melee is awkward. Puzzles are awkward. Camera is awkward. Graphics and sound are okay, with some real weird moments: one that sticks in my mind is the building collapsing and bursting into flame around the protagonist during a cutscene, but the animators didn't bother to actually animate a reaction to this, so Carnby just kind of stands around staring in one direction as everything around him blows up.

The story and atmosphere are ambitious, but that doesn't mean they're good. The dialog is god-awful, even by videogame standards - this game was made by a French studio and it has the same quality in games like Silent Hill where you feel like something was lost (or made a lot more awkward) in translation. The main character comes across as a dull jerk - not an anti-hero, as they obviously intended, but just kind of an awkward, impulsive jerk.

Too much ambition, not enough polish leads to a pretty shallow, awkward game with some really cool moments and ideas.