Review: Alone In The Dark: Illumination (Steam)

Rating: 0
Author: Jim Smale

by Jim Smale · June 12, 2015

A darkness has fallen over the town of Lorwich. Monstrous hordes emerge from beyond the realm of nightmares to sow chaos on the land. As one of four heroes, you must battle the minions of the old ones with the force of arms, and the power of illumination.

Pros:

Average graphics.
Video options are plentiful including: AA, V-Sync,Resolution, View distance etc.
Steam Achievements.
Steam trading cards.
Four difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane.
Can re bind controls and you can get a controller to work somewhat.
Three game mode options: Single player, Host game and join game.
Four characters to choose from: Hunter, Witch, Priest and Engineer.
Three areas with four levels within each.
Online co op.
Earn exp and earn upgrade points.
Unlock tree with 3 areas to choose from. Common will have you shaving time off reload times or speed up stamina. Skills can allow you to carry more weapons or equip new skills overall.
Ammo and health is littered all over the levels.
Stamina bar which is used for running.
Atmospheric due to a decent musical score and excellent lighting.
Random elements like enemy spawns and item placement to mix it up.

Cons:

Long loading times with the initial load being particularly long.
No native controller support.
Choppy frame rate with frame drops happening every time lightning strikes.
No tutorial.
Cannot reset to default in any of the options. Key binding being the most affected.
Non existant story, All we get is a wall of text at the start of the level with some small text down the bottom left.
Generic gameplay with nothing new added really.
Gameplay is a horde mode with objectives chucked in.
Stamina bar depletes far to fast and without running the game you walk so slowly.
Objectives always show on the screen as an outline. No guidance on how to get there just a display of what it is.
Online community is already low with a lot of trouble finding and connecting to players.
Clunky controls.
No FOV slider, As default it is way too close and feels uncomfortable.
Customisation is just pathetic with it being just skins.
A lot of turning lights on.
AI is not clever and never cause an issue unless they are grouped up.
Only a handful of guns in the game. Hunter gets to use 3 of them whilst Priest and Witch only get a pistol. Engineer gets a pistol AND a shotgun but thats all there is.
Co-op is lazy with it feeling more like people playing at the same time rather than playing together. The game just adds more enemies and increases the spawn.
No mini map.
Enemies can spawn anywhere including right behind you in a locked room.
No voice acting or cut scenes.
Doors and gates randomly lock which is frustrating.
Hardly any objective variety with most of them being fetch quests.

In Summary, I never find myself in this spot often, But man this game is really bad. I mean it just doesn’t serve a purpose in any way. It doesn’t do anything special, Hell it doesn’t even do average very well! The view is terrible and you can never see behind you or react properly. The co op is just weak when it decides to work. I mean the alarm bells should ring when a game called Alone in the dark illumination is a game where you are not alone and not in the dark. I wanted to like the game, I mean I like the AITD series but this game drops a deuce on the series and leaves a bad taste in your mouth and leaves your wallet feeling violated. Don’t even get me started on the price, Top price for a game, A game…Pfft its a broken promise, A broken dream wrapped up in a big clunky mess of pixel poo. Avoid this game and it will forever go down as a wasted attempt at reviving a once great franchise.