7 Video Games That Messed With Their Source Material

4. Alone In The Dark

While a lot is said about Resident Evil and Silent Hill’s impact on (and somewhat creation of) the survival horror video game genre, not as much is said about the outstanding 1992 Alone In The Dark, which still manages to illicit scares from its well threaded tale of terror to this day.

I mean true, the graphics are a little funny by today's standards, but trust me, opening a door to find this weird green zombie is still at the top of my childhood nightmares list.

The series took an extended hiatus after 1994’s Alone In The Dark 3, but when a reboot of sorts was announced in 2001 there was a huge resurgence of interest with many hoping it to be a direct challenger to Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

What we got though, was an imitator of these titles rather than an innovator whose gimmick of the narrative playing out like a TV show meant that the tale felt disconnected and padded out.

Worse still, there was now a huge focus on action, and unlike the original game which instilled fear using enemies that couldn’t be defeated, here it was a case of beating down anything in your way. There were moments of brilliance, such as the use of a 'spreading fire' mechanic, but all too often this would mean that puzzles boiled down to lighting a match on this or that.

It wasn’t a terrible game but it was clearly copying a lot of it’s selling points, rather than remembering what made the original games so successful.