Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

I first played Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare on the original PlayStation, but never actually finished it. After all these years, I finally decided to complete it on PC... and, unfortunately, it wasn't the experience I remembered. The game certainly has a strong atmosphere. The lighting effects were impressive for their time, and the mansion does a decent job of creating tension during the opening hours. There are glimpses of what could have been a great survival horror game. Unfortunately, that's where most of my praise ends. The biggest issue is the pacing. The game quickly becomes a tedious cycle of backtracking, obscure puzzles, and searching for tiny items that are easy to miss. Instead of building suspense, it often feels like it's wasting your time. Combat isn't particularly enjoyable either. Enemies are more annoying than threatening, ammunition management can feel frustrating rather than strategic, and the controls never become comfortable. The story also struggles to stay engaging. It starts with an intriguing mystery but gradually loses momentum, and by the end, I wasn't nearly as invested as I expected to be. I can appreciate what the developers were trying to achieve, especially considering the era, but after finally finishing it, I came away feeling that nostalgia had done a lot of the heavy lifting. There are flashes of brilliance, but they're buried beneath outdated design decisions that haven't aged well. I'm still glad I finally crossed it off my backlog after all these years, but it's not a game I'll ever be revisiting again.