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You'll never look at a Game Boy in the same way again - Alone In The Dark is almost here and it's going to be superb.
Astounding. That's the only way to describe what we've seen so far of Alone In The Dark on the GBC.
Given that the machine is now well over a decade old, you'd expect developers to have pushed the plucky handheld to it's limit, but then again, how much can you do with an 8-bit machine? Plenty, it would seem; we have no idea just how developers Pocket Studios have pulled off the almost photo-realistic backgrounds in this game. Unbelievable. Alone In the Dark also shows us that, even with the advent of Game Boy Advance, the GBC still has plenty of life left in it.
Alone In The Dark, of course, can lay claim to inventing the 'Survival Horror' tag created by Resident Evil, given that Capcom's games borrowed wholesale from AITD's original concept. So what we have here on the Game Boy is an investigation of spooky goings-on in a derelict mansion, with plenty of puzzle-solving and shooting beasties. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this is the atmosphere generated; it's obvious that the beautiful backdrops have something to do with it, but Alone In The Dark simply oozes tension and feeling. Not bad for a game designed for a console that can fit in your pocket.
However, as impressed as we are with how AITD is progressing, there are a couple of small niggles - combat is fiddly and restrictive, meaning more untimely death than is necessary, but this is more a result of the tiny GBC screen than anything else; there's simply not enough room to fight monsters, and, of course, the fixed camera angles mean you can't see what's coming up. Also, Edward Carnby - the main character - looks slightly awkward and simian in front of those gorgeous backdrops, serving to remind us that, no matter how impressive much of this game is, it's still running on an 8-bit handheld. Still, he moves smoothly over the pre-rendered backdrops, and scales nicely into the distance, so we can't really complain too much.
So, there's really not too many negative things we can say about this. Alone In The Dark is shaping up to be a particular triumph for the GBC, and an engrossing piece of software in it's own right. It's tremendous to look at and perfectly paced - uncovering the gruesome goings-on in the deserted mansion is a dark delight - and should be exactly the tonic for too much Pokemon. It also shows up Capcom, whose Game Boy Resident Evil was canned due to technical difficulties. Look out for a full review soon......
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