It's hard to remember now that the series has been tainted by countless mediocre sequels and a couple of predictably awful Uwe Boll movie adaptations (starring Christian Bale and Tara Reid!), but the original Alone In The Dark was actually pretty darn terrifying. It might not be obvious from looking at screenshots, what with the surprisingly bright lighting letting you get a full look at the blocky graphics which are barely legible regardless, but there was a palpable sense of dread. The weird fiction of HP Lovecraft was a point of reference for the game. His stories didn't really deal with monsters in the traditional sense; the likes of Call Of Cthulhu told tales of ordinary human beings exposed to an element of the universe they were never supposed to know about, and being driven insane by their inability to comprehend it. Difficult to render in a video game, so Alone In The Dark goes for the "unkillable enemy" trope with basically every bad guy in the game, which creates an oppressive and paranoid feel as every room you enter could be your last.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
