Some men delay their impending middle-age crisis by purchasing a Harley so they can peel away the years as the cold metal caresses their thighs and the hot wind tussles their hair. Others leave their spouses of twenty years for a comely trophy wife. Me--I play action/adventure games. Lara, Indy, the Stranger ... I have become intimate with them all. Pistols or whip at the ready, I am today as likely to blow away an opponent as I was to combine inventory items only a year ago. The choice to decide between force or cunning has involved me in the game's environment and encouraged me to think of myself as a daring adventurer instead of a curmudgeonly puzzle solver.

Hubert Chardot, the progenitor of the Alone in the Dark series, must also be suffering through the hot flashes of mid-life, for as he ages like a fine French wine, the adventure aspects of his games have become less adventurous and the action sequences much more gory. His latest planned trilogy, The Devil Inside, is a monumental opus to Americanized bloodletting. A cross between Stephen King's The Running Man and Capcom's Resident Evil series, The Devil Inside is a marriage of the best and worst elements of console and computer gaming.

The Devil Inside is an action/adventure survival horror game set inside a Hollywood mansion, Shadow Gate, that has been infested by an executed mass murderer and his undead legion. You play as Dave Ackland, ex-cop turned television star, and it's your job to send the murderous souls and their leader back to the depths of hell. The twist, and it is a good one, is that you are doing this on live television in front of a cheering studio audience. If this idea alone would have been elaborated on, The Devil Inside could have been a wonderfully perverse game. The studio audience should have been able to vote on which course of action Dave should take, or different point values could have been awarded for a decapitation versus a leg shot. This kind of interaction would have added immensely to a game that eventually turns into another tedious "figure out which weapon to use to kill every zombie until you meet the boss character" game. Some salvation is obtained through a mildly controversial ending and a costar who steals the show.

Dave has a devil inside of him, Deva, and she can be released by standing upon pentagrams that are placed throughout Shadow Gate. In all honesty, I have no idea why Deva is inside of Dave, and if it was ever clarified during the game, then I somehow missed the explanation. But Deva is an interesting character with her Russian accent and her power to swallow displaced souls. She also has about 10 different magic spells and, late in the game, the ability to fly. I have read some reviews that have referred to Deva as "delectable," but I would be hard-pressed to refer to a computer-generated woman with pointy boobs as delectable. (I think this belies the age and maturity level of most game reviewers more than anything. I cannot imagine any woman wanting, nor have I ever seen a woman with, pointy breasts). Her mysteriousness is a nice counterpoint to Dave's bluster, and it is hoped that further installments of the series delve into her history.

Technically, The Devil Inside sports some gorgeous 3D graphics. A nice feature allows for the game to be played not only from a first- or third-person perspective, but also from a fixed or rotating camera position. There is also a portable flying camera and a cameraman that follow you throughout the course of the game/show. Occasionally, when you wander out of camera range, the screen will turn static like a station with bad reception.

Keyboard-controlled, I encountered no difficulties with movement or aiming any of Dave's numerous weapons that are so common in this type of game. Notebooks and diary pages are scattered about the mansion, and besides providing some interesting reading, they also offer clues to defeating the different types of undead. The commercials that play while scenes are loading are a nice touch, as are the voice-overs by the game show host.

Again, as in the Alone in the Dark series, Hubert has a masterly feel at imparting a gothic atmosphere. Interspersed with American culture--the main hallway of Shadow Gate is a recreation of the great hall from Al Pacino's Scarface--this mixture of otherwordly creatures amid recognizable landscapes adds a touch of familiarity to the proceedings. Playing out the story in a self-contained area like a haunted house is a brilliant idea, and the proceedings are heightened by a claustrophobic reaction. It is in the last third of the game, when it ventures outdoors, that The Devil Inside begins to disintegrate, for now instead of zombies lurking behind a corner in wait, there are hoards of them approaching from all angles. What had been an enjoyable, self-paced romp turns into a video game blast-a-thon. Add to this the frustration of being able to save only when there is a television set in the immediate area (a horrid video game tradition), and all pretense of a mature horror game for adults is thrown out the window.

Puzzle-wise, there is not much to speak of in the game. With one exception toward the end, they are never more difficult than the find-a-key/lever/secret door variety. This is more a game for adventurers who like some light, albeit bloody, action. It is Alone in the Dark to the extreme, with the inventory elements removed. Maybe as more background material is supplied, as the characters develop more depth, and as the player (and the audience) participates more in the proceedings, then the future sequels will be more involving. But for now, I felt as though I was on the outer ring of hell looking in, denied permission for entrance.

Final Grade: C+

System Requirements:
Windows 95/98
Pentium II 233 MHz processor
32 MB RAM
8X CD ROM
4 MB 3D Video Card
Direct X 7.0a
Microsoft compatible mouse and sound card