Death Of A Legend?

Last week saw the announcement that there will be a movie made about the history of Atari and one Nolan Bushenll who will supposedly be played by Leonardo Di Caprio (best start working on that beard Leo).  Many folks are hoping for exactly what I am, a no holds barred Boogie Nights style flick if those rumours about all the debauchery around Sunnyvale are true.  The Gears of War making of documentary featured food and a masseuse to get the programmers through crunch, Atari had cocaine and hookers.  That makes for more enjoyable viewing (at least in my house).

So that’s the Atari of yore, and back here in 2008 this week brings the release of the often delayed Alone in the Dark for PC and Xbox 360 (the PlayStation 3 version is delayed until later this year but will also have exclusive content).  It’s no secret that this is an incredibly important game for Atari.  The former legend has been on life support for quite some time now, and many people are hovering over its corpse with a nice warm blanket waiting to consign the once great name to the annals of videogame history.

Recently they have taken a step in the right direction, AITD is clearly its banker title and has been pushed back to avoid crowded release schedules and tweaked to perfection.  Phil Harrison jumped ship from Sony to be the company president and if anyone knows how to run a studio then it’s the bald man with the truly enormous hands (trust me, I’ve sat a couple of feet away from the man, he’s a giant).

Naturally my interest in the game goes beyond the nostalgic smiles that are brought to my lips every time I see the iconic Mount Fuji logo, this is a series that did survival horror before Resident Evil and Silent Hill claimed the genre for themselves.  It certainly looks impressive, the tech demos and developer interviews that have appeared on the Xbox Live Marketplace make it seem very nice indeed.  Phil Harrison has talked about the TV show style way the chapters are broken up to make it appeal to the time starved gamer market with short memories.  But will it deliver?  Who knows, I preordered the game on the strength of the name itself and I’m keen to play a single player focussed title with a decent story.

Initial reports seem to say it is good, but not great.  The Times Online had one of the worst fluff pieces I have ever seen that was passed off as a review, but none of the big outlets have published their thoughts yet.
It looks like it could be a high concept game that cost a fortune and will probably bomb at retail.  I hope it doesn’t, there isn’t a great deal out there to play right now and I really don’t want to see the company fade away.  Roll on Friday.

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Category: Videogames