Alone in the Dark (MS-DOS) - Part 2

Today on Super Adventures, I'm going to try to beat the original Alone in the Dark!

This is the second and final part of my two-part article, so you'll probably want to check out PART ONE first. I wrote all about all kinds of stuff, even mentioned Resident Evil a couple of times.

One thing I didn't talk about though, and it's fairly important, is that the game came out in late 1992... so this is its 30th anniversary! It's getting a remake soon to celebrate and from what I can tell it's the kind of reimagining where they take all the stuff from the original game and put it to one side so they can make up a bunch of other stuff instead. I feel like it'll probably have better combat though.

Okay this is the last part of my Alone in the Dark playthrough and I'm playing this with the intent to finally finish it, so beyond this point the SPOILERS will be extensive. With any luck. I mean I can't make any promises here, you can count the number of true survival horror games I've completed on one hand, with all the fingers severed, but maybe this will be the first!

Alone in the Dark (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

Infogrames

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Release Date:

1992 (CD version 1993)

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Systems:

DOS, PC-98, FM Towns, 3DO, Mac, Archimedes

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the Guinness World Record holder for "First 3D survival-horror videogame": Alone in the Dark! I mean the original one, obviously. A sequel tried to steal its name in 2008, but the original proved too powerful and the PS3 release renamed it to Alone in the Dark: Inferno, so as far as I'm concerned this is the only true Alone in the Dark.

Well, except for the classic Uwe Boll movie I mean.

I know everyone that talks about Alone in the Dark also has to mention Resident Evil, but I think it's funny how the series both started off as critically-acclaimed genre pioneers and then suffered very different fates. Resident Evil has had seven million sequels and remakes, many of them pretty great, while the Alone in the Dark games have been racing to catch up to their own movie series down at the bottom of Metacritic. There's a bit of a disparity in how the two franchises are regarded these days, and it'd take a lot more than a terrible Netflix series to change that.

But I still remember how blown away I was when I saw the first Alone in the Dark previewed on the TV series Bad Influence! back when I was a tiny baby. It looked so much more advanced than anything I'd played on the Amiga, SNES or Mega Drive. I didn't know much about PC's at that point, but I was sold, I wanted one.

Then a few years later my family actually got a PC! I loaded up Alone in the Dark on it, pushed some furniture around, got killed by a monster, and turned it off to play Theme Hospital or Sam and Max or something instead. (I'm not a big fan of horror games to be honest). So I have played through first few rooms before, I'm very familiar with them, but otherwise I'm going into the game blind. I don't know what happens next or anything about the story.

Okay, I'm going to be playing the version I just bought off GOG (which I believe is just the 1993 DOS CD version), and I'm going to be writing about it in two parts. This first part is going to be a regular Super Adventures article where I stick with it for an hour and whine about how hard it is, but in the second part I am going to try to finish it. I want to see what this game actually is! So there will be moderate SPOILERS in the first part and hopefully some extreme spoilers in the second.

Mega lo Mania / Tyrants: Fight Through Time (Amiga)

Developer:

Sensible Software

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

Amiga, Atari ST, Mega Drive, SNES, DOS, X68000, PC-98, FM Towns

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm finally taking a look at classic Amiga strategy game MEGA lo MANIA (or Mega-Lo-Mania). It's also occasionally known as Tyrants: Fight Through Time in the US. It's never just called Megalomania, though maybe it'll help someone find this page on Google if I mention the word anyway.

This one's by eccentric British developer Sensible Software, creator of games like Wizkid, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer and Sensible Train-Spotting, so I'm expecting to see tiny men running around the screen at some point. I should probably know already if they're in it as I've played the game before, but that was ages ago, I didn't play it for long and my strongest memory of it is being amazed that I actually worked out how to do something. It's one of those games where the first challenge is the interface.

Here's some random trivia for you: when Virgin Games published the game they decided to release a tie-in single called "Mega-Lo-Mania (Goin' All the Way)" to promote it. I don't think the song has any relation to the game or anything that happens in it, but it does have the same cover at least!

Okay I'm going to play this for an hour or so to see what it's like. Which means I'll either make it through a bunch of levels or just get really frustrated on the first one, depending on whether I'm able to figure any of it out. I actually started making some progress in Populous when I wrote about that, so there's always hope.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 3 - Guest Post

Previously on the demo of Small Saga, our hero Verm and his new friend Siobhan had a disagreement with a cat and rescued a pigeon from a wheelie bin. Now airborne, the pair continue their journey to the rodent capital Murida.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 2 - Guest Post

Previously on the demo of Small Saga, tragedy struck when mouse brothers Lance and Verm undertook a daring mission to steal from the gods. Who dares wield the Titan Reaper now?

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 1 - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, guest poster mecha-neko has decided to mix things up by writing about a game so new that it's not even out yet. It's indie RPG (rodent-playing game) Small Saga!

It seems like it's been nothing but drab sci-fi games forever around here. My previous post was dystopian misery in Crusader: No Remorse, and my next post is going to be a gloomy survival horror derelict spaceship thing. What I need is some wonderful, colourful, adorable game to lift everyone's spirits!

Developer:

Jeremy Noghani

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Release Date:

March 2022 (Demo)

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Systems:

Windows

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It's time to play the brand new demo of Small Saga! Well, it's brand new to me. The Kickstarter ended three years ago, but this latest standalone demo was released this year. I was told there was a cat in it, and that's all I need to know.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Guest PostPart 1 - Part 2 - Part 3