- Nov 19, 2010
- 936
- 1
- 18
I just completed this game and achieved all four endings without FAQs, guides, or videos, and I am extremely impressed. I am telling all my friends about this game because of how much I liked it, and a few have said they will play it.
What a mindblow, I've played scary games before, but none that I felt got into my head as much as Amnesia. It's like the creators wanted to stay away from cheap jump scares and the really predictable horror scares, and instead get into your head and let you scare yourself. The aspect of not being able to fight back at all is fantastic I think, because all too many times games give you that "god mode" feeling where they pump you up and say "hey, ur great, really, save the world. Here's supermech-aliengrade weaponry" but not Amnesia... instead Amnesia tells you, "congratulations, you don't know who you are, you have no previous memory of life before now, you are fragile in a dangerous world and have no way to protect yourself. Your very mind is unstable and you occasionally drift into bouts of insanity or experience waking hallucinations, and to top it off everything including the stone walls that surround you desire to see you dead..... now try to survive..." which is a very neat take on a game.
I wasn't always scared or anything, and a lot of the scares were repetitive, easily avoidable, or just not scary, but there were a handful of times during my play where I either realized that I had forgotten that I was playing the game and had gotten into my character's head, or realized after dying or passing a checkpoint that the hair on my arms and legs was standing straight up and I could do nothing but laugh that I had become terrified by a video game. The sound engineering is fantastic as well. The ambience tracks are very effective, injecting tension or relaxation depending on the situation. The monster sounds are very good, and actually make the monsters seem scary and otherworldly. I actually tried to emulate a monster sound after finishing this game haha, which came out pretty cool. If I had to state one complaint about the sound in this game it's that localized sounds go from stereo center to all the way one side too quickly. Skyrim has localized sounds too, but incorporates appropriate room reverb in the other ear, so that it does not sound completely dry.
A lot of reviews focus only on the scary aspects of this game, but honestly it's only really like 35% of the gameplay, the rest of which is a thick storyline with a choose your own ending, and puzzles to solve in order to move on and progress. I went into the game completely blind, without watching videos or reading guides or anything, so maybe it wouldn't have had the same effect if I had, but for a modern game I was completely hooked and wanted to keep exploring. Anyway, sorry for the rambling review that makes me seem like a total fanboy. Anybody here play it too?
What a mindblow, I've played scary games before, but none that I felt got into my head as much as Amnesia. It's like the creators wanted to stay away from cheap jump scares and the really predictable horror scares, and instead get into your head and let you scare yourself. The aspect of not being able to fight back at all is fantastic I think, because all too many times games give you that "god mode" feeling where they pump you up and say "hey, ur great, really, save the world. Here's supermech-aliengrade weaponry" but not Amnesia... instead Amnesia tells you, "congratulations, you don't know who you are, you have no previous memory of life before now, you are fragile in a dangerous world and have no way to protect yourself. Your very mind is unstable and you occasionally drift into bouts of insanity or experience waking hallucinations, and to top it off everything including the stone walls that surround you desire to see you dead..... now try to survive..." which is a very neat take on a game.
I wasn't always scared or anything, and a lot of the scares were repetitive, easily avoidable, or just not scary, but there were a handful of times during my play where I either realized that I had forgotten that I was playing the game and had gotten into my character's head, or realized after dying or passing a checkpoint that the hair on my arms and legs was standing straight up and I could do nothing but laugh that I had become terrified by a video game. The sound engineering is fantastic as well. The ambience tracks are very effective, injecting tension or relaxation depending on the situation. The monster sounds are very good, and actually make the monsters seem scary and otherworldly. I actually tried to emulate a monster sound after finishing this game haha, which came out pretty cool. If I had to state one complaint about the sound in this game it's that localized sounds go from stereo center to all the way one side too quickly. Skyrim has localized sounds too, but incorporates appropriate room reverb in the other ear, so that it does not sound completely dry.
A lot of reviews focus only on the scary aspects of this game, but honestly it's only really like 35% of the gameplay, the rest of which is a thick storyline with a choose your own ending, and puzzles to solve in order to move on and progress. I went into the game completely blind, without watching videos or reading guides or anything, so maybe it wouldn't have had the same effect if I had, but for a modern game I was completely hooked and wanted to keep exploring. Anyway, sorry for the rambling review that makes me seem like a total fanboy. Anybody here play it too?
I think this game/experiment play alot with primal fear in a subliminal way like claustrophobia, to be alone and the fear of the unknown.. I like such things 
), i don't believe i'm spoiling anyone's fun by saying you can't actually beat the game. if you manage to collect all 8 notes you'll only be rewarded by developer credits and then you'll turn insane anyway. which was kind of underwhelming.
