Quality survival horror games are woefully hard to come by on consoles these days, and it's easy to understand why. As hardware gets more powerful and gamers' expectations grow, building a big, beautiful world full of mind-bending puzzles, creepy creatures and compelling storylines is an increasingly Herculean task.

But it's a job Atari's Eden Games studio bravely took on with Alone in the Dark, an ambitious adventure game set in and around New York's Central Park. Alone in the Dark (only nominally connected to its genre-spawning predecessors) wow gold follows the tale of a paranormal investigator who wakes up in a burning building, unable to remember who he is or how he came to be surrounded by menacing thugs.

He soon learns that he is Edward Carnby, a foul-mouthed tough guy who's mixed up in some devilish doings. As he makes his way out of the crumbling skyscraper he meets up with the feisty Sara, and they flee into Central Park to uncover the mystery of Edward's background and the secret behind a stone with mysterious properties.

It's been a point of pride with the developers of Alone in wow gold the Dark that they've implemented realistic fire effects in the game, and they have reason to boast. Flames lick the walls to stunning effect; objects catch fire and can be used against enemies; puzzles, especially near the end of the game, make use of fire's destructive properties; and flames can help light your way in dark corridors. At times, the flames behave so realistically that you forget they're an illusion. Now that's a feat.

The problem is, fire is the only way to kill enemies (inexplicably named "Humanz"), which is interesting at first but quickly becomes tedious. Although, there are many different methods you can use to dispatch your enemies -- lobbing Molotov wow powerleveling cocktails, blowing up cars, using makeshift blowtorches, touching monsters with burning furniture -- your gun (you only have a single handgun throughout the entire game) is useless against them. Unless, that is, you pour flammable liquid on your ammunition to create "fire bullets." Even then, you can only kill monsters by hitting them directly in their "fissures," which are glowing fiery scars on their bodies. Most of the time, you'll find access to explosive items severely limited, which means the most effective and consistent way to kill monsters in Alone in the Dark is to touch them with burning chairs. Yawn.

PC players have the advantage of using either a keyboard/mouse control scheme or a game controller for Alone in the Dark, and all keys can be remapped to your liking. In general, there are a fair number of customization options in the PC version -- including light and shadow, vegetation, resolution and other standbys.

Perhaps anticipating that gamers would want to skip large wow powerleveling portions of the game, Alone in the Dark includes a clever DVD-like menu system that allows you to fast-forward, right up to the beginning of the last level, if you like. Doing so brings up a slick recap segment similar to what you might see on an episodic TV drama. While there's nothing particularly episodic about the story structure of Alone in the Dark, it's a cool addition that lets you bypass some of the more troublesome parts of the game. And it's a good thing, too, because there are segments of Alone in the Dark that are so completely unintuitive and frustrating --including a particularly cheap turn of events near the end of the game -- that you'll be lobbing your controller in exasperation.

In case you're a glutton for punishment, I won't give away the ending of Alone in the Dark. But I will say that it feels like a slap in the face. After trudging through Central Park for hours on end, clumsily swinging flaming furniture at boring monsters, I was presented with what felt like nothing more than a game-lengthening gimmick. As the story, silly as it was, built to a climax, all efforts at sensible pacing were suddenly thrown out the window in favor of more unsatisfying combat and general drudgery. And at the end of it all, I was treated to one of the more ridiculous endings I've seen in a good, long while, complete with my new favorite videogame quote. And not in a good way.