Live from Alone in the Dark Harrison event in London

By Patrick Garratt

Updating live from the Atari UK Alone in the Dark event in London. After the link.

• Phil’s on stage. First game he’s been involved in at Atari was the 360 version of Alone in the Dark.
• He reckons the audience is the hardest he’s ever faced. We doubt that.
• The flight number he gets to Heathrow is 360.
• Great that we’re in a movie theatre, he says. He’s talking about convergence.
• All he’s talking about is the 360 version. He’s just said that the PS3 version is out “later his year.” We knew that.

Eden’s one of the creative forces in European development, apparently.

• The producer’s on stage now. Phil’s off. She’s about to show us a scene in Cental Park.
• Someone’s “drooling like a fucking baby, the fucking vegetable”. Blimey.
• There’s an awful lot of swearing going on. A man that was supposed to kill you character “up on the roof” has just been dragged backwards through a vent by some kind of monster thing.
• Character looking at himself in a mirror. Smashes it in rage. That’s RAGE. My God, he says. Who am I?
• Producer’s talking about “cinematics”. New section. Men talking. Apparently there are ways to torture a man that go way beyond flesh and bone.
• The plot’s got something to do with a stone and a chap who knows how to use its “power”.
• Mixing between third- and first-person constantly. Edwards’s climbing around in lift vents and there are plenty of messages flashing up about what to do.
• Producer’s talking about how the story’s told. It’s completely different, apparently.
• She’s talking about the problems with narration in games. Prison Break, Lost, 24, etc. Why not take that captivation and addiction and bring it to Alone in the Dark? Why not? Plot twists, cliffhangers, series structure, etc.
• Moving on to fire presentation.
• There is, indeed, fire going on. Edward has to rescue a chap from inside a burning room and some woman’s whining about “living walls”.
• Fire’s not scripted, says producer. Apparently heat itself is simulated. It passes through walls.
• Three targets when creating the fire: make it interaction, have it cast real-time light and to make it look convincing.
• They just showed the crashing through the wall and seeing the scale of Central Park bit. To be fair, on a cinema screen, it looks fucking awesome.
• Edward climbing around outside buildings, lots of fire, smoke, rocks falling, etc. The messages pointing to button presses are pretty much constant.
• They’re showing the DVD chapter select menu now. That’s what she just called it.
• She’s explaining how you can skip episodes if you get stuck, but you can’t see the end of the game until you’re completed a certain amount of the content.
• They’re showing the “previously” movie bits now. You get them if you skip sections.
• They’re introducing a new character: Sarah.
• Sarah and Edward are trying to escape the building.You can collect as many objects as you can find, says producer.
• Can use objects in both hands and switch from first- to -third person whenever you like.
• Large objects can only be “manipulated” instead of collected, like chairs, fire extinguishers, and so on. They’re controlled with the analogue sticks.
• They’re showing the inventory system. Edward can look inside his coat, in his belt, and so on.
• Zombies!
• They can see you through windows. This is breaking a cliche, apparently.
• Edward is chopping up zombies with an axe. As you do. Now he’s burning the corpses. Day to day stuff.
• Going outside into Central Park now.
• They’re showing how to combine objects. Take tape, tape flare to bottle, break the flare, stick flare to food cart, roll food cart along, etc.
• Building a petrol bomb.
• Central Park environment is lovely. Mist, night lighting, and so on.
• They stick a petrol bomb to the back of a monster and blew it up. All looks very nice, to be honest.
• Showing the map of Central Park. The producer promises no loading times when running around outside. The map also shows which buildings you can access.
• Vehicles now.
• You can move all around car’s seats, look in the glove box, etc. You can stab a car’s petrol tank, let the fuel run out, drive it against gate or enemies, light the fuel and blow shit up. Cool.
• Going inside park offices.
• Water effects, corpses, etc. They’re using glo-sticks to light the way. Like a really messy rave.
• The 59th Street chase now.
• Eddie’s in a taxi. New York’s gone to shit. Buses are burning. It looks like a warzone, says Sarah.
• “It’s the epicentre!”
• People rabbiting about “the stone”.
• The street’s exploding around the car. Those YouTube movies really didn’t do this justice.
• Flying cars, etc. Quite a long sequence, actually. Lots of orchestral music going on.
• It’s all channelled. You can’t just wander off down side-streets, an there’s no map on screen. No HUD at all, actually.
• Spoiler sequence, we’re warned. People are saying “fuck” every other word. Just in case you didn’t know it was an 18.
• Q&A now. There are no difficulty levels.
• You can skip practically the entire game, apparently.
• Some cameras are fixed. You can’t use first-person with big objects like fire extinguishers.
• The majority of the game is in Central Park, in the open setting.
• Going to interview Phil now. Bye!