If you ask who is the progenitor of the survival horror, the first answer that comes to mind is undoubtedly Resident Evil and probably no one would correct you. However, to be honest, many concepts of survival horror of that kind, the puzzles, the fixed camera and the dark atmosphere had already been brought to light by a game of 1992:
Alone in the Dark. The game designer of that title is Frédérick Raynal, a French author who two years later takes care of another important title for the time: Little Big Adventure.
Now, after years of distance from the horror and six years after his last game, Frédérick returned to his first love with 2Dark, a distressing game with an isometric view that mixes puzzles and stealth and that will ask us to complete a very important mission: to save children.
2Dark is a horror that will test you with a decidedly macabre atmosphere
IN BED THE CHILDREN
In 2Dark we will have to explore mazes and dark places that have become the hunting grounds of serial killers who have kidnapped and sometimes killed children.
It is good to clarify immediately that despite the cartoon aspect we are faced with a game that is not ashamed to dive head into the darkest parts of the human soul, showing in some cases scenes in which there are not only dead children, but that they are also deprived of entrails or used for horrible experiments that we will let you discover.
We happened to find a child imprisoned alive in a box full of corpses, watching incidents of cannibalism and so on. The weak of the stomach are warned. Our alter ego is called Mr Smith, an ordinary man who has lost everything one day when his wife was brutally murdered and her children were kidnapped during a very quiet camping trip. After the prologue we find him 17 years later, alone, tormented by remorse, by the sense of emptiness and without work. All he can do is start a personal crusade to free the city of Gloomywood from the murderers who live there and free the children who can still be saved.
To succeed in our task we must move with caution, avoid the traps, exploit the objects that we will find around and above all do not make noise, exploiting the darkness and the faint light of a torch that obviously will be discharged at the wrong time.
Each level will offer an ever more challenging level of challenge, in which very often we will be forced to start from scratch or from the last rescue because maybe we have not seen that trap or the tension has led us to discover and kill the henchman on duty. If you like to go on by attempts you will feel at home, otherwise remember to save often.
ALONE IN THE DARK
2Dark is a title almost entirely focused on stealth. Being discovered means in most cases being killed, especially in the most advanced levels. The only solution to survive is to avoid conflict when possible, to hide in the dark, not leave footsteps and hit behind.
The surprise attacks in fact will almost always kill the enemy on the spot. If we want we can exploit the firepower of a gun, but the shots will be very few and we will make so much noise we will often attract unwanted attention.
Avoiding the melee will also allow us not to rely on the control system, which does not give great problems in the exploration phase, but is not particularly precise when it comes to being precise and detect collisions in a sensible way.
Escaping quickly, aiming, continuously clicking on an enemy to hit him with a fist or a stick are activities that require a certain skill and promptness,
but sometimes the game does not seem to understand our commands. We happened to fight with an enemy and watch the ridiculous scene of two men milling shots at a short distance from each other without hitting, not the maximum for a game that focuses entirely on the atmosphere. Another part of the yoke with which we must often struggle is the inventory.
With two hands we can only use two things at once and the object we are holding is indicated with the small symbol of a hand near its icon.
The problem is that the symbol is red like the menu and this does not allow you to immediately have a good glance. To combine several items on our menu we will have to drag one of them to the other, such as the batteries towards the torch, an operation that can be cumbersome, especially if we are fleeing or carrying the children safe. This for the PC version, we do not know if on consoles the yield is better.
