Fire isn’t just a weapon but also a tool and often an enemy. Lighting a chair on fire and casting it into a dark room will illuminate the surroundings, while breaking the chair and lighting the leg on fire will serve as a basic torch. Fires can break out and begin to torch rooms, with the fire itself controlled by its own physics engine and set to dynamically engulf nearby objects and surfaces based on their combustibility properties. Basically this means that fire can and will spread, making the use of fire extinguishers sometimes important to proceed through a burning hallway.

An interesting and new feature is the ability to drive a wide range of vehicles during the course of the game to more easily traverse large areas. The interiors of vehicles are filled with areas that can be interacted with such as the glove box which might contain items or the visors which might hold a key and spare the player the trouble of hotwiring the vehicle to get it mobile. Driving in the game is much less awkward than anticipated, which is showcased during one scene in which Edward is driving a taxi as the streets around him are literally being ripped apart and buildings come toppling down. Creatures can latch onto the car and try to take swipes at the player or rip pieces off; cars themselves can only take so much of a beating before their engines fail, and between the two it can make for often tense rides.

The game engine is capable of truly cutting edge lighting and shadows, which are used constantly to effectively set the mood. Looking out from an elevator you will see a man backlit by the flickering glow of a raging fire face down unseen foes, while in other areas things like beams of light shine through open windows or pools of water that reflect the horrors of what stand above them. The character models are detailed down to pores in the characters skin textures and barring a few jumpy zombie animations all moved with believable grace and agility. It should go without saying that the fire in the game looks phenomenal, dynamically turning what it burns into charred bits as it spreads and casts its own gentle lights and shadows.

The Wii version of the game doesn’t use the same engine as the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 versions but rather uses an engine built from the ground up to take advantage of the Wii’s hardware. It doesn’t look quite as impressive as the full engine does, but at the same time easily is one of the best looking Wii titles to date. The Wiimote and nunchuck based controls were initially difficult to grasp, mainly due to simply how many things you can perform with them. Once learned however they were intuitive enough and became relatively reliable to work with, a must when you must do actions in rapid succession and don’t have time to fiddle with fickle controls.

Simply put, Alone in the Dark is already on a course set to redefine the survival horror genre. The scrounging for and clever use of everyday objects puts survival on just as equal footing as the horror aspect, and the creative use of fire both as a weapon for the player and as a tool for the gameplay really hasn’t been similarly featured in any game to date. We left the event thoroughly impressed and it would stun us if this didn’t end up being an absolute blast to play. We’ll have our chance soon as the game is set to scare the pants off of everyone on June 24 with the PS3 release set for later this fall.

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