Alone in the Dark: The Grandfather of Survival Horror || A Retrospective, Critique and Analysis 

Amazing how Carnby can eat everything he finds around in that horrible situation. A cold blooded man...a true reptile.

I remember playing this game when I was 5-6 and having nightmares for years, because I thought the Zombie Chicken was gonna jump through the window! Great video!!

I'm three minutes in and feel the need to tell you have the perfect voice for these kinds of retrospective videos.

Tank controls are not the reason why most classic survival horror games are a bit cumbersome to control. Yes, it is pretty awkward for most players because it takes time to get used too. Tank controls can be as tight as the controls we come to think of as standard. Resident Evil games are actually very tight and responsive despite having tank controls. I can execute very tight manuevers, and I mastered those controls within a day or two when I was a 10 year old child. The response time of your inputs are pretty much instant in the Resident Evil games. What makes Alone In The Dark cumbersome is the purposeful delay, slow movement, and slow attack speed with the inputs that slow the game down a bit more, and that helps to create the pace of the game which needs to be slower than usual. It becomes a game of timing, and subtle execution. Tank controls were not made to create fear, or stress. You can get as good at tank controls as you are at normal controls, even in Alone in the Dark. Tank controls were created because of the fixed camera. With tank controls, every time the camera angle changes, you do not have to adjust the directional inputs accordingly, because you only have to hold forward, or back while pivoting your character right or left to stay on course. Tank controls were created out of necessity, and functionality, not to create fear, or stress on the player although that can be a secondary effect for players who are brand new to the concept.

At 5 and a half megabytes, this game took up almost a quarter the hard disk of my grandpa's 286 PC. Playing it with only 640k of RAM was quite treacherous too, as once in a while the game would bug out and slow down to an absolute crawl while the hdd went nuts. Still - one of my childhood favorites, even though I was just a dumb preteen with zero knowledge of english. I think I was able to sequence-break it on my first playthrough, entering the underground waterways section without defeating the pirate or opening the trapdoor in the study. Moved aside the barrels in the cellar and kept trying to juke the worm until finally running past it.

I'm here because my son told me to watch this and I was not disappointed

Dude talk about timing, you uploading this just before the new remake is announced, great video!

Top man, great analysis and retrospective again!

I love how you explain why I love tank controls (and fixed camra) it is very Underappreciated, misunderstood and underrated.

Спасибо автору что вспомнил эту игру!Это настальгия....одна из любимых видеоигр,играл на 486-ом....таких интересных игр больше не делают.

Great review. Subbed. Game scared me as a kid on 3DO. The good ol days lol

This video essay was so well done! Thank you for covering this. I’m starting to try and catch up on the series now that the remake is on the way. Looking forward to you futures vids.

Very cool video, good work :) I love horror games, the adrenaline rush after the jumpscares and the great stories behind all of this. Can't wait for the incoming new 'Alone in the Dark', I hope that this will be a good continuation of this series. I'm also a big fan of series/games like: 'Silent Hill', 'The Evil Within', 'Layers of Fear', 'RE: Biohazard + Village', 'Soma', 'Alien Isolation', Cthulhu games and many more (too many to write them all here) XD

This was fantastic, this game has always been an absolute favourite since I was a kid. Great work mate Will there be anymore of these on the other alone in the dark games?

You sir have my attention. Subbed!!

Excellent video. AitD is seminal and classic in every regard, definitely in my top 10 games of all time list.

nice video man, subbed : ) i havnt played any of these yet, just bought them all. thanks!

Excellent retrospective, one of my favorite games from my childhood, truly a classic.

Your voice narration fits perfectly. Great video.

Very good video! keep up the good work..it will pay off in the long run! greetings from Europe

Great video! Started this game yesterday and was looking for a video essay on it! Good work 🤞

I missed out on a lot of Survival Horror growing up and didn't get into it until Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube. While I like to learn history of where genres come from, games like this, or early RE1/2/Zero, I just can't see myself going back to play it today. Also, when it's this stringently married to cryptic puzzles and absurdly low ammo I just check out within 20 minutes lol. But I respect that it took this to get us where we are today. Nevertheless excellent narration and can't wait to see what other retrospectives you have up your sleeve. Good stuff! 😇

Very cool videos! I like how it's both a review and walk-through, kinda Discovered this series back when Resident Evil 2 was out for the pc, I went to the walmart equivalent in my town looking for it, but they had no copies of it. They did have a special collection of the 3 Alone in the Dark games, which I got feeling as "poor man's Resident Evil", but of course I was wrong, and Alone in the Dark became one of my favorite franchises, replayed the whole trilogy many times Still got the cds, and recently bought the games at GoG Btw, try hitting the dining room zombies with the rifle or sword when they're "asleep" on the chairs after putting the soup on the table. They fall alongside the chair, dying in one single hit

These are great retrospectives. Can't wait to see what's next. Maybe ff8 and 9?! 😮

You desserve more views bruv', i wish you success in your later youtube carreer.

Your personality,effort makes it worthwhile to listen to as well as learning lot of things. History of games, movies, stories have an ending l wish one day you review Niche games, like Thief for the King of immersion and stealth. Of course they could be already analyzed. One of the most Niche games for sure, is Lifeline on the PS2. Voice recognition is really fascinating, despite how much we have progressed, there is a lack of voice action adventures.

Im big fan of classic horror games but the original AITD trilogy was the tough nut to crack for me, unlike something more accessible like The New Nightmare. You did a great job of introducing the game in exiting way.

Fantastic review. I've watched all 3 of the series you made on Alone In The Dark and I agree with you that the first game was the most innovative and influential. I played the game when it was released and I have to admit that I struggled with the controls and puzzles, I never made it very far into the game, but I loved it despite that. It felt that all the mysteries and answers were beyond my reach, which left my imagination to run wild. Such and incredible game for 1992. The only other game I felt captured the same off kilter camera angles, awkward controls, creepy mysterious story and innovative graphics was the 1994 survival horror game Ectatica. Well worth a look if you have not played it. As expected with a game of this era you will be luck to last 5 minuets before death. Here's a review of the game, but to really understand it you have to go in cold and try to survive and work out what to do. It gives more of an appreciation of the story and the mystery. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Tis160twYc4.html

damn finally a good essay on AITD, well played sir!!!

I dont know if it's because this franchise is getting a reboot or what but I've seen so many videos on this franchise and it makes me so happy. All people talk about is RE and SH. Nobody remembers this game.

nice analysis

I just found you and I enjoyed this video! Immediate sub! I love the possibility of pushing the wardrobe to block the chicken, I was so surprised when I did this by accident as a small kid.

Hi there, I just wanna thank you for your material. I'm currently writing a script for my viedo essay about the inspirations for Resident Evil and your work is one of my sources ^^

Whoa...what was the footage at the beginning of the video of what looked to be a modern remake of the opening attic sequence with the noose etc.?

Just finished it two days ago, such a great game.

Great vid I had no idea that they tried to get the CoC license from Chaosium! Really fascinating Can't wait for the AiTD 2 vid

Great video 👍

There actually is a way to safely read the Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis in the game if you enter the secret room in the library and stand on the pentagram (or Elder Sign more likely) you can safety read both books. I really hope the new remake turns out at the very least decent, I'd love to see this franchise get back on it's feet.

32:21 funny enough I did it first try not even trying XD

15:49 I think you can avoid this zombie too if you won't touch the rug.

Alone in the Dark 2 retrospective, please?

Great video on a classic that I've returned to a couple of times now. If you play modern games, you should check out the new game. It actually does the original justice.

At 2:05 where did this footage come from? Fan vid of a imagined remake? What is the source!?

The most immersive game I’ve ever played so scary

When I was little, I often wondered just what Carnby has done to earn the Reptile nickname - couldn't been just the suit, right? Years later, I've read The Return of the Sorcerer, and to be honest, with a(n assumed) family like that, one would probably end up as cold and unflinching as a reptile.

love to see other people also dedicated a video to this classic, come and check my take on it. Hope we can collab on something in the future

Zombie chicken? I thought they were werewolves or giant rat beasts.

At long last he can return... after all, we gotta move this refrigerator. We gotta move this color TV! Sorry, the visual design of this game just made me think of a certain music video.

That rifle looks an awful lot like a shotgun

32:30 "If you touch them youll die instantly." not true. first they turn into those angry spheres THEN they kill you with one hit

Am I the only one who thinks Raynal looks like Mr.Bean or Mike Mattei?

Free reign not free range 😉

Nothing cryptic about those puzzles. Nope. All pretty straight forward if you ask me!

i strongly dissagree with alone in the dark being the Grandfather of survival horror as that title goes to sweet home on the NES in 1989

how's it a survival horror if it's an absolutely typical adventure game? there's zero survival, no hunger no thirst no body temperature

Good video but the audio is very, very low!