That's right; as you can see, the main character, Edward Carnby, is undergoing a bit of a makeover. It's out with the genero-look you see in these screenshots and in with a more contemporary action hero look. They've yet to incorporate Mr New Look into the game itself (even tiny changes to the character drastically alter the way the game plays out, apparently, so they're still balancing things out), but we saw the new model in action and the detail on the character's face is breathtaking, particularly close-up, where you can practically feel the coarseness of Carnby's scar. But despite the character redesign, he's still the same Carnby that strolled around the Derceto Mansion in the original game. In fact, Nadal claims that canonically, this new game is "the direct sequel" to the original game, which does cause a few continuity based problems. Not least because the original game, you might recall, was set in the 1920's.
How Carnby comes to find himself in 2007 has not been explained to us, nor will it be, as publishers Atari want to keep the story under wraps until the game is released in order not to spoil it for the player. And seeing it in action yields no real answers, as at first our man Carnby is suffering from severe amnesia, unsure of where- and when- he is. Hence, he has to adapt quickly to his new surroundings to survive, a process made difficult by the circumstances of his reawakening. By now you may be aware of the opening segment, where a bleary-eyed Carnby is led through a building by his mysterious captors. Then suddenly a strange creature burrows through the walls, the entire building collapses and Carnby ends up hanging by one arm around thirty feet above an eerie Central Park. And thus Alone In The Dark' s first cliffhanger is a literal one.
Alone In The Dark thrives on these kinds of pay-offs to keep the player hooked. You may have heard that the structure is based on that of episodic TV shows such as Lost and 24. Each "episode" lasts around forty minutes to an hour to complete, and come in five "parts," all of which have some kind of pay-off that will hope to keep the player glued to the screen. It's a reaction to recent findings that as the average age of gamers goes up, the average free time they have to play goes down. Instead of groaning at the prospect of a plodding 60 hour quest for the Golden Pomegranate a la ZeldaorOkami, players can relish the chance of playing an "episode" of Alone In The Dark - with a beginning, a middle and a satisfying conclusion. And the plan is for this to be some kind of perpetuo-game- the boxed version acting as a kind of boxset, with additional episodes released regularly over Xbox Live. There's even an unused segment of the park set aside for future storylines. Intriguing- but just how intriguing depends on the cost.
