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Atari Learns from Mistakes, Fixes PS3 Version of Alone in the Dark

The bugs from the Xbox 360 version will be fixed

Sep 19, 2008 23:31 GMT  ·  By
Improvements have been done for the PS3 version
   Improvements have been done for the PS3 version

Atari are barely making profit these days. The launch of Alone in the Dark was supposed to fix that. But the versions developed for the Xbox 360 and the PC, launched in June were  full of bugs and glitches, which drove away a lot of customers. That made critics really tarnish the name of the game, most of them saying that it promised a lot of innovations and improvements but the bugs encountered were just too much. Fortunately, all this will change with the PlayStation 3 version slated for a November release.

During Atari's media day which took place in New York, representatives from developer Eden Games stressed that all of the technical flaws and bugs were fixed in the PS3 version. The reported problems which had been taken care of were the lack of camera control, a stressful and not so user-friendly inventory system which didn't even pause the game when you entered it or really bad car driving physics.

First of all, the camera control now has a dedicated button, in the right analogue stick, allowing full 360 degree rotation. Also, the left stick now only needs a push forward in order to make the player sprint, another problem which got you killed several times in the other versions. The inventory system has been redone, now instead of the jacket popping up, it pauses the game and a scrolling list appears. If you want to drop an item, you no longer need to confirm your action and thus save valuable seconds. Another annoying thing was the battery for the flashlight, being a game which took place at night, the flashlight was something of a must-have, but now its supply is unlimited. Last but not least, the whole driving physics part of the game has been revamped, allowing for a much smoother ride, the car being more maneuverable with no tendencies to drift off the road.

All in all, it's really nice to see developers taking time to fix the problems of their games before launching them. They could have just released the faulty PS3 game and develop a patch for it, but decided to let players have a fantastic experience.