In The Dark

Twin-stick horror shooters are something I buy with no hesistation, cause even if they're terrible, i'll still find enjoyment, somewhere.

That said, I paid like 60 cents, euro, for this, and I wouldn't recommend getting it at full price.

As for quality, there's not much of it. The levels, while different, aren't good looking, interesting, nor are they ever stage for something new. You do the same thing in all 6 stages. Fighting the same 4 kinds of bald man, with mostly the same attack. You have 2 weapons, where the only difference is ammo and fire-rate.
Nothing is pretty, most things are obviously assets, the textures used to make the levels look dirty are so bad you can't ever be sure what's an obstacle until you bump into it. The english is almost so bad it's good.
That all being said, I still enjoyed the hour I put into it, especially for under a Euro. Think of it as a novelty, of a developer who cared just enough to make a really bad homage to Alone in the Dark.
Yes, that's not a joke.

This one is bad... this one is really bad!

You play a paranormal investigator, that is asked by the mayor to investigate the mysterious events in a mental hospital that has fallen to chaos.

PRESENTATION

Pretty bad; lots of typos and spelling errors, controller that doesn't work at the start screen, and sometimes some of the buttons fail to work in the levels. Simple menus. The story is revealed through files, that you find at various places throughout the entire game, which is quite short. Sadly, these files cannot be read at times, obviously due to a bug.

SOUND AND GRAPHICS

Sound is probably the best part of this game; spooky sound effects, groans, lightning, weird eldritch spell noise, all of that. There are some cool lightning effects, and the overall graphic aspect looks appropriate, albeit low budget, but the bad thing is, you cannot tell apart what is an obstacle and what is not! There are furniture pieces such as beds and tables, that you can simply walk over as if they are tiles on the floor, and then there are some amorphous grey objects (slabs?) that stop you from moving; how are you supposed to know which affects your movement? Walls block movement and projectiles, but other times different objects work like that as well, and you cannot tell which is which most of the time. Graphically speaking, there are some cool details like skeletons, asylum debris and rotting paraphernalia, etc., but that's about it. The enemies and player character look unremarkable and forgettable.

STORY

Simple and cliche'd, ultimately forgettable. There is an insane asylum full of crazy inmates that want to hurt you, there is something else going on, maybe all of those pentagrams painted in blood hint at something supernatural??

GAMEPLAY

Pretty bad. The controls are awful if you play with a controller, because your character is eternally locked in the direction your mouse is pointing at; think of it as the clumsiest version of dual stick shooters you have ever seen, but much worse. It's more bearable with mouse and keboard. The protagonist is one of the slowest, most inaccurate shooters in video game history. The enemies never seek you out, they just stay in their corner until they see you, then they start to move and shoot. The game becomes repetitive after 2 levels, and the game itself is quite short (5 or 6 levels I think), it's always the same: find 3 batteries (one by one because your character cannot carry more than one), insert them in a place after much backtracking, find the exit. Repeat. Every. Single. Time. Only 3 types of enemies, some of them shoot rotten flesh, others shoot and move a bit faster, others shoot blood instead. Yeah. You have two weapons, and you immediately figure out that you should use your unlimited ammo gun most of the time, and only use your AK when enemies spawn nearby due to a trigger object.

CONCLUSION

Good concept, even if cliche'd, that could have been a tongue in cheek experience, but was ruined completely due to typos, control bugs, terrible gameplay, an environment that cannot be navigated well due to nonsensical furniture logic (see SOUND AND GRAPHICS). Bugs that make it impossible to read some of the files in game. Lackluster ending with a cliffhanger that really doesn't get you excited to see it reach a conclusion. Overall, stay away from this one. This is the only game in many years, that I truly regret to have played. Even Larva Mortus was more fun, get that one instead, but check out my review for that one first to see if it's your thing.