Alone in the Dark 2 - I Am Not Amazed

Written by Andy Panthro

All work and no play makes Carnby a dull boy.

So last time I explored the start of the game, found a weird skip or alternative path, and instead chose to explore a maze. We all love mazes in adventure games don’t we? Don’t we? Uh… well nevertheless, this is the task before me. Now I’ve nothing against mapping my way through a maze, this one doesn’t even seem like the most complex one. What I dislike is the way there’s a gun-toting zombie behind every corner, not as a way to punish you for taking a wrong path, but just behind every path.

I have died so many times, and made so little progress. The zombies are far better at aiming their guns than me, and also seem to be faster on the trigger. If this were The Quick and The Dead, they are the quick and I am the dead. Did I ever mention I’m not a big fan of fast zombies? But I digress. Part of me thinks you’re supposed to just run past them, but the problem with that is some of them also seem to have useful items.

 

Look at this photograph.

From one I get a photograph, which will surely be useful in a puzzle at some point. Around another corner there is a large slab on the floor that looks like a playing card, with a single red diamond in the centre, next to it lies a piece of rope. Another zombie drops a flash (for health) and more ammunition (30 bullets for the tommy gun). This does little help against the onslaught of enemies, but I do find a corresponding area with four playing card slabs next to one another, one for each suit.

As you might expect, stepping on them opens a pit, but purely by accident I step on the diamond one first and this was the correct one. Unfortunately I decide to go back up, because I know I didn’t pick up all the items I need, knowing that in between deaths I saw a hook and a book, possibly dropped by enemies, but at this point I’m unsure. I have been trying to map, but the changing perspectives do make this a touch difficult. If I could clear out the enemies, I could more easily find my way around and make sure I’m not missing anything.

Ace in the hole.

I restore my save again, and continue to try. I suppose given I can save as often as I like, I can just save scum my way through this. This is not really a satisfying way to play any game, and I really dislike having to do it, especially for a game that should not require it. Upon my reload, I slowly but surely try and take out the enemies as I go, as best I can. I collect the rope, I collect the photograph and I collect the book. Turns out the book is about “shorty leg”, the peg-legged ship's surgeon on the Jolly Roger. This is the exact same book I found using the weird shortcut last time, which took me beneath the mansion.

I manage to barely finish off the various gun-toting zombies in the maze, and also find a weird looking statue half covered in hedge next to a demonic face that randomly appears also in the hedge (other than being spooky I have no idea what purpose this serves). Upon making my way towards the end, I find the same four playing cards on the ground again. This time I check the others, they all result in my instant death from electrocution? A bad zapping sound plays anyway and I die. Stepping on the right one, the diamond, leads down into some tunnels. I am close to death, but I do have ammunition, so hopefully this is more of a puzzle section and I can recover a bit before the next fighting section.

Probably just pareidolia.

Down in the tunnels, there are two pathways. The first one leads to a locked trap door, and a healing flask (which I drink). The other has a pirate ghost, who dies in one hit, a torn notebook that I cannot read, and a chest that I cannot open. Stuck for ideas, I move the chest around and this causes a strange altar to rise from the floor. A purple ghost attacks me, and I dispatch it with some quick punches. It drops a pirate sword. The pirate ghost looked like he was holding a tankard, whereas the purple ghost didn’t look humanoid in the slightest, so I assume they are unrelated, but why the pirate sword? This rusty looking cutlass might be an interesting puzzle piece, like for example in the previous game where you had to duel a pirate, or it could just be a random weapon. We shall see.

 

Underneath the chest, that I still cannot open, there was a playing card. Upon inspection it is a metallic jack of diamonds. Not entirely sure of the relevance of that either. I find myself yet again at a bit of a dead end, hopefully now I have the tools to get somewhere else in this place. I think I found the hook outside of this little underground area, and I combine it with the rope (“use” on the rope does this automatically).

A purple apparition appears.

I go back up the ladder, and explore further in the maze. Around another corner is another gun toting zombie, and the first time I die, but on a reload I remembered I had a health flask which helped. This zombie dropped another health flask, so I drank that one too. While doing a little cursory research on the game, I found out that there’s no upper health limit, so you can just drink every health flask as soon as you get it and the number just goes up. It is a funny mechanic though, they look like the sort of hip flask that would have whiskey or something in them, so I can only imagine how drunk Carnby is right now.

The hedge maze fights back.

Unfortunately my exploration comes to a halt when I meet a couple of swinging branches in my path. Punching or kicking does nothing and tells me as much, the sword seems to hit the branches but they do a hell of a lot of damage and I cannot hit them quick enough. A couple of reloads later I manage to figure out a good place to stand and hit them, and chopping them down breaks the pirate sword. Hope I didn’t need that later!

Carnby tough-talking a corpse.

Of course around the next corner a zombie with a gun shoots me dead. OK, let's do this again, chop the branches and this time be ready for the ambush. This time I manage OK, this guy seems to have a peg leg so I wonder if this is the fabled “shorty leg” from the book, the pirate cook. At the end of this section of the maze is a crypt, which I recognise from the photograph I found earlier. The only difference between the one standing before me and the photograph, is that the arm of the pirate is pointing a little too high. Using the hook and rope, I can lever this down and open the crypt door, which leads me down below.

This is actually a lovely little animation of Carnby grappling the arm.

Carnby descends down the ladder into the underground area, before stumbling and rolling down, losing his weapons. Turns out I have found myself in the exact same place as I did earlier, although now presumably by the “proper” route. This time I have more items on me though, I wonder if that will be helpful in future or did I miss something that I could have done beforehand? We shall find out as we progress.

Striker’s body is just oddly left here.

The narrow plank across these stone walkways is awkward and at least once I lose my footing, but along the way I gather the crank and paper bag that are for some reason on the ground here. Usually an adventure game will put relevant items in some sort of reasonable context, but here they tend to be strewn about with little care except that they will be useful in future puzzles. At the end of the walkway is a locked door, and the body of our friend Striker. Next to him lies a pipe cleaner and a torn notebook, the other half of which I recovered earlier. This fills in a little of the plot that we should already know, and is a good point to end for now.

There has been so little reading so far, I hope that improves