Let’s return to where I started. Here are my final words about Alone in the Dark (2008).
I wanted to make a video to wrap up my Let’s Play series. My plan was to do a somewhat documentary narration of the game that would fit somewhere between SteakBentley’s casual yet informative saunter through the warped corridors of Metal Gear Solid 4 and a court transcript. I had many hours of footage eating up hundreds of GB of space on my PC that I wanted to get rid of too.
I made notes.
And then I had a kid. This will be a common refrain. I’m soon to have another kid. Time is not what it used to be.So, instead, I decided to aim small and focus my thoughts down to the few key observations I hadn’t shared yet.
In many ways, this video will perform poorly by design.
That’s not a deflection or packaged alibi, by the way. Videos are apparently all about the ultra-short and portrait snippets these days. And this game is hardly a head-turner.
Incidentally, video editing remains a god damn time-sink and a nightmarish way to create work (I refuse to call it “content”). I do want to give the short video format a go though. I had similar lofty ideas of a mega-video detailing my thoughts on Braid which may be better received and more easily made as a disconnected series of short videos.
But for Alone in the Dark, here endeth my tale, my saga, my obsession. When I shared this video with Alan and the great Rick Lane, they were surprised the video was only seven minutes long and tasked me to write a review in seven seconds. I’d like to end with that:
Alone in the Dark is a game that makes you blink. First, by making you press a button. Then by presenting an ambition that far exceeds its ability.
