Talk about an impulse buy. I bought Amnesia with no idea of what was contained within and the only reason I bought it was because it was only 20 bucks and it advertised happily that it was developed by Frictional Games who developed the Penumbra duology, Overture and Black Plague; both were games I heavily enjoyed.
As the name suggests in this game you play an unfortunate sufferer of Amnesia who finds himself trapped inside Brennenberg Estate, a massive castle located in the Prussian woods and owned by the Baron Alexander. You find a note left to you by a man named Daniel who instructs you to locate the Baron Alexander in his inner sanctum and ultimately kill the elderly man. However Daniel warns you that you are being chased by a demon simply referred to as a "shadow" that will ceaselessly change you through the castle.
It's not hard to guess that this is a Retroactive story; meaning that the story is less about what is happening now and more about what happened beforehand. The game is told in a fairly straightforward way, you pick up notes and sometimes you'll have auditory flashbacks where you will hear characters conversing and interacting with some objects that give you an idea of what happened in the room before you got there.
The decidedly Lovecraftian tale ultimately involves a mysterious series of Orbs that Daniel discovered on an expedition, how the "Shadow" followed him to the Baron Alexander, and his discovery of the fact that the Baron Alexander is a psychopath who is on the verge of discovering a way to immortalize himself by transferring his soul into a new vessel. It's much more interesting than how I described it, but that is because it's a classic case of having to experience it to truly get it. The narrative is very dreamlike and imaginative and it's also backed up by eerie messages that appear on each loading screen that, at first, seem to have nothing to do with the story beyond telling you of people dying in various odd ways but later find their way into context.
Naturally, the most important aspect of the game is the actual game itself and Amnesia is one of the most compelling horror games I have played in years. There is a classic health system but believe it or not, more important than watching your health meter is watching your sanity. Maintaining your sanity is the crux of the game and it isn't exactly easy. In order to maintain your sanity, you must stay in the light and make progress in the story. There are two primary ways to get light going, one is your lantern which you carry around with you at all times; but it quickly drains oil and oil is a precious commodity. There are also various torches and candles lying around the castle that you can light, but to light them you need tinderboxes which are just as precious if not more so than the oil. You may think at times that you have plenty of tinderboxes, but lighting every torch or candle you come across is foolish and you'll quickly find that the tinderboxes go away very quickly.
Even though light is very important it can also be a detriment when the monsters come. Naturally they will see you easier in the light and don't get gung-ho if you know a monster is nearby, you CAN NOT fight. There are NO weapons in the game and it even strays away from the ability to pick up objects and toss them at monsters like in Penumbra. You CAN NOT defeat the monsters. Your only choice is to run or hide. You can hide in the dark and crouch but obviously your sanity will slowly boil away. As you lose sanity you start to snap (You can even hear it! Really, there's a faint and unnerving cracking & snapping noise as you lose sanity.) your vision distorts, you hallucinate, and you begin to lose control over your character. It's also not a good idea to look at the monster because looking at the monster is the fastest way to lose sanity and if you snap completely the monster will have no trouble in finding you.
Monsters don't roam around all the time, in fact they often appear at random and will "fade" at some point but since you can't look at them you have to rely on instinct to know when its safe to light your lantern or candle and keep on trucking. This adds an element of surprise and they have a habit of appearing when you make good progress. When you hear a monster you'll most definitely freak and if you catch a small glimpse hairs are sure to raise.
The game does an absolutely fantastic job of building up suspense thanks to the near perfect atmosphere. The game sucks you in and the sound design is fantastic, eerie and dramatic melodies play and the scary noises you hear will keep you on edge. It's all based on atmosphere and suspense, although monsters will startle you they never jump out of a closet and don't use cheap tactics like that. You will also hallucinate and see disturbing things in the game world, which will drain your sanity or appear due to a lack of sanity. These events will often have you gasp and back away. Simply put this is one of the creepiest games I have ever played and it definitely made me want to sleep with my light on.
There are a few moments where you will face something akin to a boss creature, often resulting in a unique and very intense encounter. The very first one is actually one of the most memorable where you find yourself trapped in a maze of flooded corridors and there is a ferocious monster in the water that follows your every step and if you set foot into the monster, it runs after you and tears you to shreds. However you cannot SEE this monster. The only way to remind yourself it is there is that if you pace on top of the box you are standing on, it will mimic your footsteps and you will see the water splash.
It's VERY intense to hop from platform to platform trying not to get your feet wet, or when you have to find a severed limb from a previous victim and toss it in the water and wait for the monster to eat before slowly turn a valve and raise a portcullis to reach the door. Finally you have NO box to stand on and must run like hell, but once again to open or close a door you have to control it with a mouse and opening a door inward is always a challenge and you must also slam it shut if you want to delay the monster long enough to escape. This part of the game is exhilarating and simultaneously terrifying.
Of course the game isn't perfect. The story, while interesting, isn't really complete. The thing is, it often gets distracted. Naturally, on top of the story about Daniel and the Baron Alexander you have to solve the riddle of who you are and that plot seems to have practically nothing with Daniel or the Baron. Let's also make note of the fact that despite Daniel telling you to kill the Baron and the game showing us many examples of how the Baron is not a good man many of the notes left by Daniel and the flashbacks with Daniel and the Baron all suggest that The Baron was a kind man who saved his life, protected him, and even took him as a prodigy and when we learn of why Daniel hates the Baron it feels a bit sudden and ham-fisted. The story will also trail off into stories about other people and what happened to them in the castle, which is all fine and good for the sake of atmosphere, but these stories will occlude and consume the plot and often have little to no ties at all. Simply put it's simply not told very well.
The game is also what you can call an acquired taste. The game requires a lot of patience, its pacing is very slow even when compared to other psychological horror games such as the legendary Silent Hill 2. Monster encounters are brief and as I said, there is no combat and all the action comes from some of the more inspired monster encounters and the thrill of being immersed so deep into the atmosphere. It may feel dull or repetitive for gamers wanting a more traditional survival horror fare. The game is truthfully more in the vein of a point and click adventure and revolves around puzzle solving and exploration, the horror elements are primarily located in the atmosphere and setting. You'll also have to prepare to do a lot of reading.
However, if you have the patience for it and want a genuinely terrifying psychological horror experience to break you away from the monotony of bashing grisly monsters with bits of pipe or blasting zombies then Amnesia is the game for you. It's a hauntingly unique experience that will mess with your mind and genuinely chill and frighten you. For only 20 bucks on Steam, it's well worth your time and it even comes with an editor that will allow you to create your own horror story and share it online with others. Let's hope the community churns out some equally terrifying and unique stories to live out in the eerie world of Amnesia.
****/*****
As the name suggests in this game you play an unfortunate sufferer of Amnesia who finds himself trapped inside Brennenberg Estate, a massive castle located in the Prussian woods and owned by the Baron Alexander. You find a note left to you by a man named Daniel who instructs you to locate the Baron Alexander in his inner sanctum and ultimately kill the elderly man. However Daniel warns you that you are being chased by a demon simply referred to as a "shadow" that will ceaselessly change you through the castle.
It's not hard to guess that this is a Retroactive story; meaning that the story is less about what is happening now and more about what happened beforehand. The game is told in a fairly straightforward way, you pick up notes and sometimes you'll have auditory flashbacks where you will hear characters conversing and interacting with some objects that give you an idea of what happened in the room before you got there.
The decidedly Lovecraftian tale ultimately involves a mysterious series of Orbs that Daniel discovered on an expedition, how the "Shadow" followed him to the Baron Alexander, and his discovery of the fact that the Baron Alexander is a psychopath who is on the verge of discovering a way to immortalize himself by transferring his soul into a new vessel. It's much more interesting than how I described it, but that is because it's a classic case of having to experience it to truly get it. The narrative is very dreamlike and imaginative and it's also backed up by eerie messages that appear on each loading screen that, at first, seem to have nothing to do with the story beyond telling you of people dying in various odd ways but later find their way into context.
Naturally, the most important aspect of the game is the actual game itself and Amnesia is one of the most compelling horror games I have played in years. There is a classic health system but believe it or not, more important than watching your health meter is watching your sanity. Maintaining your sanity is the crux of the game and it isn't exactly easy. In order to maintain your sanity, you must stay in the light and make progress in the story. There are two primary ways to get light going, one is your lantern which you carry around with you at all times; but it quickly drains oil and oil is a precious commodity. There are also various torches and candles lying around the castle that you can light, but to light them you need tinderboxes which are just as precious if not more so than the oil. You may think at times that you have plenty of tinderboxes, but lighting every torch or candle you come across is foolish and you'll quickly find that the tinderboxes go away very quickly.
Even though light is very important it can also be a detriment when the monsters come. Naturally they will see you easier in the light and don't get gung-ho if you know a monster is nearby, you CAN NOT fight. There are NO weapons in the game and it even strays away from the ability to pick up objects and toss them at monsters like in Penumbra. You CAN NOT defeat the monsters. Your only choice is to run or hide. You can hide in the dark and crouch but obviously your sanity will slowly boil away. As you lose sanity you start to snap (You can even hear it! Really, there's a faint and unnerving cracking & snapping noise as you lose sanity.) your vision distorts, you hallucinate, and you begin to lose control over your character. It's also not a good idea to look at the monster because looking at the monster is the fastest way to lose sanity and if you snap completely the monster will have no trouble in finding you.
Monsters don't roam around all the time, in fact they often appear at random and will "fade" at some point but since you can't look at them you have to rely on instinct to know when its safe to light your lantern or candle and keep on trucking. This adds an element of surprise and they have a habit of appearing when you make good progress. When you hear a monster you'll most definitely freak and if you catch a small glimpse hairs are sure to raise.
The game does an absolutely fantastic job of building up suspense thanks to the near perfect atmosphere. The game sucks you in and the sound design is fantastic, eerie and dramatic melodies play and the scary noises you hear will keep you on edge. It's all based on atmosphere and suspense, although monsters will startle you they never jump out of a closet and don't use cheap tactics like that. You will also hallucinate and see disturbing things in the game world, which will drain your sanity or appear due to a lack of sanity. These events will often have you gasp and back away. Simply put this is one of the creepiest games I have ever played and it definitely made me want to sleep with my light on.
There are a few moments where you will face something akin to a boss creature, often resulting in a unique and very intense encounter. The very first one is actually one of the most memorable where you find yourself trapped in a maze of flooded corridors and there is a ferocious monster in the water that follows your every step and if you set foot into the monster, it runs after you and tears you to shreds. However you cannot SEE this monster. The only way to remind yourself it is there is that if you pace on top of the box you are standing on, it will mimic your footsteps and you will see the water splash.
It's VERY intense to hop from platform to platform trying not to get your feet wet, or when you have to find a severed limb from a previous victim and toss it in the water and wait for the monster to eat before slowly turn a valve and raise a portcullis to reach the door. Finally you have NO box to stand on and must run like hell, but once again to open or close a door you have to control it with a mouse and opening a door inward is always a challenge and you must also slam it shut if you want to delay the monster long enough to escape. This part of the game is exhilarating and simultaneously terrifying.
Of course the game isn't perfect. The story, while interesting, isn't really complete. The thing is, it often gets distracted. Naturally, on top of the story about Daniel and the Baron Alexander you have to solve the riddle of who you are and that plot seems to have practically nothing with Daniel or the Baron. Let's also make note of the fact that despite Daniel telling you to kill the Baron and the game showing us many examples of how the Baron is not a good man many of the notes left by Daniel and the flashbacks with Daniel and the Baron all suggest that The Baron was a kind man who saved his life, protected him, and even took him as a prodigy and when we learn of why Daniel hates the Baron it feels a bit sudden and ham-fisted. The story will also trail off into stories about other people and what happened to them in the castle, which is all fine and good for the sake of atmosphere, but these stories will occlude and consume the plot and often have little to no ties at all. Simply put it's simply not told very well.
The game is also what you can call an acquired taste. The game requires a lot of patience, its pacing is very slow even when compared to other psychological horror games such as the legendary Silent Hill 2. Monster encounters are brief and as I said, there is no combat and all the action comes from some of the more inspired monster encounters and the thrill of being immersed so deep into the atmosphere. It may feel dull or repetitive for gamers wanting a more traditional survival horror fare. The game is truthfully more in the vein of a point and click adventure and revolves around puzzle solving and exploration, the horror elements are primarily located in the atmosphere and setting. You'll also have to prepare to do a lot of reading.
However, if you have the patience for it and want a genuinely terrifying psychological horror experience to break you away from the monotony of bashing grisly monsters with bits of pipe or blasting zombies then Amnesia is the game for you. It's a hauntingly unique experience that will mess with your mind and genuinely chill and frighten you. For only 20 bucks on Steam, it's well worth your time and it even comes with an editor that will allow you to create your own horror story and share it online with others. Let's hope the community churns out some equally terrifying and unique stories to live out in the eerie world of Amnesia.
****/*****
