Amnesia : The Dark Descent

I had a sense of nervous anticipation starting up Amnesia: The Dark Descent for the first time. People had been telling me that it was the scarcest game they have ever played, or that they were not going to play it because of what they had heard about it. This had me wondering, would I find it scary? The survival horror genre is one that I have not gotten into before, but after playing through Amnesia, I think that it is one that I will be looking to play more of.

The small instructions at the start of the game help to heighten the sense of anticipation for what's to come, I do suggest following them, they do help to make the game an amazing experience.

The Story:

Throughout Amnesia you find pages from the diary of the protagonist Daniel, in which the tale of how you came to be at Castle Brennenburg, what you are doing there, and why you are in your current state of Amnesia is told. They convey the story for each "chapter" well, the first time the you pick them up they are read to you by Daniel. 

However when it comes to telling the overarching story of Amnesia there is a lack of flow in how the chapters link together, they feel disjointed. Picking up one of these diary pages also breaks the feeling of immersion that the levels create, this has both a negative and a positive impact on the gameplay, at some points this is excellent as it provides a brief period of calm, but for the most part I feel the game loses its flow when these are read to you. 

Amnesia also uses flashbacks to tell sections of the story, and these are much better executed, the flashbacks generally involve a change of textures and lighting, and are accompanied by audio tracks that convey the story, all the while gameplay can continue if you wish you can keep moving through the level. At the end of the game, I was left feeling a little disappointed that the whole story was not conveyed, however despite all these detraction's the story is great.

The Fear Factor:

The first hour or so of gameplay has an amazingly eerie feeling, creating atmosphere with the sound track, sound effects, screen distortions. I got the feeling of excited nervousness I get when I watch a horror movie. The feeling that at any moment I'm going to get the scare of a life time was present for a long time, and when it finally came I cursed out loud, ran the other way and closed a door behind me.

There is a strategy for avoiding the Monsters and once you get it worked out, the fear factor drops off a little, and you get into survival mode. Getting caught will usually result in your death, typically three hits and your dead, the game does a good job of not punishing you too hard for dying though.

Towards the end I found that I had grown accustomed to the fear, and I had developed a standard way in which to deal with enemy approach to allow me to continue with the game. The appearance of an enemy also became predictable and thus a lot of the fear dwindled.

The Puzzles:

As a Game Designer, this is where my greatest criticism of Amnesia lies. For the most part the puzzles are excellent, their solutions are hinted at, and the player is given the tools to complete them.

However there are some puzzles that are frustratingly annoying to solve, in one for example (spoiler incoming) you have to stop a series of gears spinning to disable some machinery, open my inventory and select the most appropriate tool for this a iron bar, but this item is not usable in here, I tried it from a different position, still didn't work. I spent a good twenty minutes back tracking and looking in every room accessible to make sure I hadn't missed anything. After a frustrating search turned up nothing I resorted to a online walk through, and it tells me the solution is to use a rock. I was flabbergasted with this solution, why couldn't I use the Iron bar that I had, it would have served the same purpose. Regardless of the small quibbles the puzzles in Amnesia will get your brain muscle working.

Final Say:

Amnesia: The Dark Decent, fell short of my expectations, I may however be a victim of hype here, I had been told and read that this game was the scariest game ever released, and while I have not previously put time into any survival horror games, I'm sure that there must be scarier games out there, sure there was some scare moments, but it was not as though I was too scared to continue playing.

I am still a little conflicted about this game, as has probably come across in my writing of this review. One the one hand I am in awe of the atmosphere that the game creates and the effect that it had on my state of mind while playing, with no mechanisms to fight you are almost always in a flight state of mind. But on the other hand the small detractors added up to dampened my enthusiasm for this game. I do recommend that everyone play this game though, if you are one who scares easily, think of it as exposure therapy, if you don't play it you are mission out on one of the best indie games I have played recently.

All game designers should give this game a play through though. It demonstrated exceptionally well how to create atmosphere and effect the psychology of the player, and while the effect you are trying to convey in your games may be very different, Amnesia gives an excellent demonstration of the extremes that you can go to, as well as how subtle things can have a huge impact on the experience of the player.