2Dark comes from the mind of the creator of the original Alone in the Dark series. This should give you some idea of what players have in store for themselves, but much like that classic series, 2Dark isn’t all that scary, regardless of the fact that other outlets are “fake” freaking out about it being so.
This isn’t to say that 2Dark isn’t creepy because it is, but this is a game that pushes the over the top nature of the story to such an extent that it almost becomes a parody of itself. The story, much like the original Alone in the Dark, simply tries too hard and is something so exaggerated and far from reality that becomes silly. But this isn’t to say the game is bad, because it’s far from it.
2Dark is a solid game that plays really well, but tells a clumsy story that is more interested in shocking you for the sake of shock, than to tell a good story.
You play as a former detective has his two kids kidnapped after his wife is brutally murdered on a camping trip. He spends years looking for them without any clues in the very Silent Hill-like town of Gloomywood. Again, the story is anything but subtle and it helps to constantly pull the player out of the experience.
And who in their right mind would live in a town named Gloomywood. It’s like if you liked in Killsville and complain about all the killing. The whole thing is very 90s in concept and story, and while this is a fun throwback at times, we’ve moved pretty far since those days in terms of storytelling.
All that said though, the gameplay in 2Dark is where the game finds its footing. The game uses very basic polygons (a lot like Alone in the Dark and early DOS games) to build the world you play in. It looks and feels a lot like it was pulled from those early PC days with a look I can best describe as Super Mario RPG, but mauch darker and minus the RPG elements. It’s hard to describe, but that actually helps the game feel unique.
It doesn’t push any boundaries, but the game builds a really fantastic world to play in. In an age where horror games feel like they are required to be done in first-person, 2Dark pulls the isometric style to create something really, well, dark. Stealth is pushed heavily by the game and this style really helps you enjoy the experience.
Let’s face it, stealth segments in first-person games are almost always a pain in the ass. 2Dark avoids this and makes the experience quite fun, while still being really tense. Where other horror games have you hiding or avoiding one person, the view that 2Dark takes allows for tons of enemies to be out after you.
That said the enemies in 2Dark aren’t all that smart, but they are competent enough. The game is built around line of sight, but also around sound. If you stay out of range enemies won’t see you, (think Metal Gear Solid) but if you make any noise you may stir up trouble.
This means you have to be smart and plan in advance if taking the stealth route. If you stumble around int he dark you run a very high risk of knocking something over or even killing yourself in the process.
2Dark will require you to really play with light and dark, but this light comes at a cost. Lanterns and flashlights will run down at an alarming rate, but the game tosses enough batteries and fuel that you’ll probably never find yourself in a spot where you are screwed. But the game also allows for you to go in like a bat out of hell and still get the job done. Learning the layout of levels is essential as well as enemy patterns so you can avoid them in shadows.
Because of how the world is laid out you can play 2Dark however you feel like it. How I played the game might very well be far different than how you approach it. This makes it a little hard to review, but I tried multiple approaches and found them all equally fun. There is no one correct way to take on a level and this makes replaying stages a lot of fun.
Each stage also comes with rewards for how you complete it. The main goal of every level is to save as many children as you can. And you are going to want to save them all because the game is pretty fucked up with regards to kids. Death is everywhere in 2Dark and children aren’t excluded from it. Hell, the game plays off their brutal deaths in some disturbing and over the top ways.
You also get graded on if you collect all the candies strewn about each stage and if you completed the stage without killing anyone. Much like Metal Gear Solid, you can take on each level and not kill a single serial killer or goon, although you are really going to want to the more you learn about them. I can’t say if there are alternate endings for doing this, but I have a feeling there might be.
Combat, if you choose to do it, is pretty simple. You move around withe the traditional WASD keyboard layout, but you control your position with the mouse. It’s quick and responsive and other than being able to moonwalk around levels, I had no issues with it.
You simply click to attack or fire your weapon and that’s that. Anything in the game that can be used or activated is done with a single use key as well. It’s all really basic, but also easy to get your head around.The inventory system is fine, but it seems pretty behind the times in most respects.
As you collects items, weapons, and story bits in the forms of pictures, books, and newspaper cuttings, your inventory is going to get really messy. You have a long bar along the left side of the screen which is fine, but once you reach the limit, another bar pushes out. This means that late in the game you can have an inventory screen that takes up nearly half the screen.
You can, of course, minimize this to be only one bar, but that means switching items or weapons becomes a real pain in the rear. And as going into your inventory doesn’t pause the game, you are going to be frantically running around while you try to find that weapon or item you need. Sure, this makes things tense, but not in the fun way and more in the “Fucking inventory piece of shit” sort of way.
The level design used throughout 2Dark is fantastic, and the team clearly laid things out so that players could take dozens of approaches to completing levels. You can load up a stage and see multiple ways to deal with things which made coming back and trying new approaches fun.
Maybe you want to trap a baddie in a room you lock behind you, or lure some into a trap, or stalk them until you find the right moment to take them out in the dark. It’s really fun looking at a stage and planning your attack.
But I’ll go back to the story once again and say that it’s all really silly and overly convoluted. You really have to go digging to piece together just what the hell is going on. The main villain that shows up at the end of the game came right out of left field; Well, it did for me at least. There wasn’t any really motivation for what he or his people were doing and his connection to the player is paper thin.
The real kicker that manged to piss me off was the twist ending that the game tosses at you. It wasn’t shocking as you could see it coming from a mile away, but the last stage simply blows the impact by using an insta-kill segment to ruin the surprise. You enter the wrong door (the only obvious one available) to the house in the last stage and the game spoils the reveal while killing you. This nearly killed the entire experience for me.
There is also no real resolution to the player characters’ story when everything comes to an end. No real reason why anything was done, and no real coming together of anyone. Sure, completing the game at 100% might change things, but it feels cheap to go out the way 2Dark did. As a character you are probably worse off than when you started this whole stupid adventure.
In the end 2Dark is a solid game that plays really well, but tells a clumsy story that is more interested in shocking you for the sake of shock, than to tell a good story. It’s a lot to do with child abuse and murder, but it feels utterly wasted here. In the early 90s this would have been groundbreaking and newsworthy for what it does, but today it’s simply a good game with a story that simply tries too hard.
Final Score:
3/5
*A copy was provided for review*
// Promoted Stories
About Author
