Alone in the Dark 2 - Davy Jones's Locker

 Oh, let this be the end. Let this be the end.

Enemies now turn into skeletons, something supposed to show they're actually dying. Meh

Things start off good enough. In each room is another guard, in each room I defeat him. I'm getting items, health items, weapons, armor. Things are looking good. Then in one room there's a "puzzle" where you have to figure out how move a barrel away from some items. I end up pushing it into the items and reload.

Didn't catch a lot of good action shots here, I'm afraid

This turns out to be not very good for me. After reloading a few of the guards start causing me trouble. Not the melee ones, but the ranged ones. Its not a very good sign that combat basically has no chance of shifting once the fighting actually starts. There's a little chance of shifting if your follow-up blows don't land, but eh...

Stupid push puzzles really annoy me

After some unnecessary amount of time, I get the item I missed...a message in a bottle. I have to throw it, because that's what happened last time. It has a note about "immortals", specifically the damned ones. All it says is I have to kill them twice. As I go outside I note there's another guard walking around. I wonder what that's related to.

Note guard 2, politely waiting for me to kill the other

Next room contains two guards, unlike the others, they drop nothing, but otherwise the room is filled with them. Including "A guite useful key", a poker, and pliers.

You're not supposed to shoot in here, but I wasn't exactly doing that anyway

The key opens up the final door here, containing a tough guard. He blocks...some of the attacks. He dies eventually, dropping a powder keg and a book explaining how to use the powder keg. What follows is another obtuse puzzle.

If you have mail on, the enemies don't hurt you until that's gone. Unfortunately, you can't hurt them period

See, I have to put the powder keg in the room of some sleeping guards. What you might think you have to do is put it somewhere, put the fuse in, light it, run away. That would be too easy. No. This requires some placement, although the game is kind enough to put it where it needs to be. Also, this section seems to glitch out even more, which is great.

So much effort for what should be a simple puzzle

What you have to do is go to the room across the hall, which isn't very easy to see. There you kill the guard and cut the chain on the cannon in this room. Then, you have to find the precise spot to push the cannon into position, this is a pre-decided push once again, once you're done, its over. Just put in the fuse and pop goes the barrel. Inside is a pouch of gold coins...which will unlock a door.

Why do they have short chefs anyway?

This is less insane than it sounds, it just makes the two waiters alert. They're not too much trouble. Then there's a larder I didn't see before, inside the return of the chef with the blowgun. He drops a metallic jack of diamonds which is really more like a deck in shape and size. That unlocks the final door.

No, anything but Grace again!

This reveals Elisabeth, who naturally controls Carnby again. Fortunately Grace has been hiding the whole time and comes in just in time. Its not much of a puzzle to do what needs to be done, the staff on the statue and then the chicken foot on Elisabeth. That kills her straight off.

Elisabeth, three seconds before dying

Then it returns to Carnby, who is chased by a big pirate. The pirate is seemingly invincible, so I run off to the top of the ship. This makes that pirate disappear...for some reason.

Its now or never

Here, I have to finally defeat the main pirate group that's been mocking me on the death screen. They're surprisingly easy to kill, but still fairly involved to do so. The musician, the dancer from earlier, two big spear-throwers, and another guy that didn't make much of an impact. I get the musician through gunfire and the spear-thrower through swordfighting. Then it gets interesting. The other guy is the only one left on the ground, because of how I was looking, I didn't see the other two disappear.

This fight looks nastier than it really is

The first is on the mast, one of the big spear-throwing fellows. He's not that hard. What follows is the last puzzle of the game, use a hook on the rope to reach the other mast.

Turning from the most deadly enemy to the weakest, and he did it himself

Which leads to the least dangerous fight in the game, despite how it seems otherwise. The dancing fellow. He doesn't have any room to move, so I just cut him through. He falls over, and lacking another escape route, I follow.

I've had better final bosses

Then, its the fight against the big cheese himself. This is tricky. Its not obvious how to proceed at first. The game tells you to save Grace, but it doesn't tell you that One-Eyed Jack isn't going to bother you when you do it. So it took me a few tries, during which I never actually died at Jack's hands, but rather at the ends of a cannon firing and destroying the ship by a chain-reaction. See, you have to free Grace, who tells you about the cannon, and then you can disarm that and kill Jack without problems.

Look at Carnby not waving, the big jerk

Jack goes down twice and the game is over. Jack's still alive, but he attempts to shoot a cannon at Carnby and Grace, escaping in a boat, but that backfires, destroying the cave and ship. All is well. For now anyway.

Total Time: 11.5 hours