Alone in the Dark 2 - Won!

Written by Andy Panthro

Hey, can you teach us some magic?

We begin this section in control of Grace again, although not for long. With Carnby out of action, it’s time to get to work. Grace only has a couple of items available, and there’s nothing to be found in the captains room. There is a large statue of the captain next to a locked door though, and by putting the loa stick into the captain’s hands, the door opens.

Inside is the witch lady Elizabeth, who is busy keeping Carnby suspended in the air. There doesn’t seem to be anything to pick up in the room, so instead we remember the advice from an earlier book about voodoo (we picked this up as Carnby in the gunpowder room, if I didn’t already mention it) and wave our chicken leg at the veve (a ritual symbol) in order to break the spell. Not sure how much this really mirrors actual Haitian vodou practices, but it causes the witch lady to explode in another fun animated scene. 

Elizabeth meets her electrifying end.

As an aside, outside of the two animated cutscenes that give some backstory for Jack (the pirate captain) and Elizabeth (the witch lady), there’s really so little story here. Even the books and notes are few and far between, and give little information other than hints to puzzles.

With the death of Elizabeth, Grace is teleported to a handy lifeboat on the outside of the ship, and we are returned to Carnby. He doesn’t have long to clear his head and get up off the floor, because a giant pirate rises up out of nowhere and proceeds to try and punch him to death. Every step of this giant causes the ship to shudder, and it seems the only option for Carnby at this point is to run away.

The giant menaces Carnby, time to bravely run away.

I briefly try a trip up to the main deck, where multiple pirates greet me and whittle down my health. I try this again, shooting the accordion pirate and using my sword to kill two others. One of them climbs up on the mast, not sure if this counts as a crow’s nest but I follow to kill him also. Then I have a problem where I can’t actually get back down, Carnby just falling down the hole instead of grabbing the ladder. Eventually I manage to get close enough to the edge for Carnby to climb down instead of fall down.

Does this count as a crow’s nest?

There was something on deck when you first arrive, that I couldn’t see exactly. An acrobat grabs it, and I checked the entire ship to see where he went. Then I realise I have to make my way back up to the crow’s nest, and use the hook I got from the body of the accordion pirate and zipline my way to the other mast. There, the acrobat is waiting for me. This fight is particularly annoying, as you have to fight while on the beam of the mast, and a wrong step is death. When he is dead, he falls and you can just drop off to go collect what turns out to be the old captain’s sword.

Some ‘Goonies’ style acrobatics on the pirate ship.

While this has been going on, Jack has appeared from nowhere and has captured Grace. He’s chained her to the main mast and seems almost impossible to kill. There’s a message about freeing Grace but I try and kill Jack, and after hitting him about twenty times with the captain’s sword, instead of killing him the entire ship explodes. Not sure what that was about, but I guess we lost (later on it suggests Jack has set the cannons to fire back towards the ship). Good thing I’m saving every couple of minutes!

The ship explodes!

Reloading, I try and lead Jack away from Grace so I can try every item in my inventory to free her, and of course it’s the pliers that do it. Perhaps obvious in retrospect but it never feels like anything is obvious in this game. Once Grace is free, there’s a message about stopping the cannon (presumably what blew up the ship last time). I head over there and Carnby takes the fuse out. Now it’s time for a thrilling one-on-one sword-fighting duel between One-Eyed Jack and Edward Carnby. By which I mean I stand in place, ready the captain’s sword, and press the space bar and right arrow key, so that Carnby swings his sword and Jack walks into it. Around twenty hits later, Jack falls to the ground… and then gets up again to take a few more hits. After those few more sword swipes it’s finally over and we get a cutscene to finish.

The final duel, such as it was.

Carnby and Grace make their way to a lifeboat and head out of the cave as Jack once again comes back and fires a cannon, collapsing the cave on top of him presumably. Carnby and Grace escape, watching as the cave collapses (and turns into a skull face), while the mansion above is zapped by lightning and disappears.

Didn’t manage to get the best shot of this, but you can see the mansion glowing.

Carnby rows away in the final scene, with Grace giving us a wave as the game declares THE END!

FIN