Review: Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC)

Posted by Jeff the Fridge from Cardiff - Published on 12/08/2011 at 08:04
7 comments » - Tagged as Technology

Not many games are scary anymore. The latest Resident Evil game was more of a shooter, F.3.A.R. just wasn’t scary and Dead Space used monsters jumping into your face like a ghost train juts before you tore them apart with your trusty plasma cutter.

The only game that came close to Amnesia’s scares in recent years was the “we don’t go to Ravenholm” level in Half-Life 2, which really freaked me out. Amnesia brings something new to the horror genre by being in a first person perspective but you have no weapons. When you see a monster, the only thing you can do is run and hide in the darkness.

The game starts with you stumbling down a hallway drunkenly saying “My name is...Daniel”. I had that line stuck in my head for ages so whenever my friends and I were talking about games I just slip it in to the conversation. It really annoyed them. The game starts with a simple tutorial but it was enough to get me terrified, with doors bursting open and lights flickering on and off. The sanity mechanic is used to great effect where say if you stay in the darkness or look at a monster, you steadily go insane until you just lie on the floor helpless. The only way to get your sanity back is to look into the light. When I encountered the first monster I hid in a dark corner for five minutes before running to a lamp to get my sanity back. The only problem was that the monster could now see me. Thankfully my parents weren’t in to hear me scream as it whacked my shoulder and roared in my face.

The graphics aren’t great, but the murky art style is very good. The monster is very good and it is obvious that F.3.A.R stole their demon from A:TDD. Still, there is no excuse for a dated graphics engine. There is occasional screen blur and tearing as you run through the darkness away from monsters, but this makes it more realistic. The water effects are good, especially when the splishy-splashy water monster is after you, but it’s not anything special. It's no surprise that the graphics aren’t great as Frictional Games isn’t a very big developer, rarely emerging from the murky confines of Steam and into retail stores. I’m not saying Steam is bad, it’s just you can make more money off a game if it is in a store on a disk for consoles like the PS3 or Xbox 360.

The story is nothing special either. You just walk forwards to your goal of eventually killing Alexander (if you choose to), but most rooms are not in a set order. This could have been a bigger choice mechanic, basically if you go into a room with three doors, choose which one to go through, finish the tests inside then back track to the other two doors. It’s okay, but could be improved on.

A few simple puzzles appear at the beginning that steadily get harder, but this is obviously not the game's strong point. Frictional Games have made a brilliant survival horror, but could really get some help from Valve on their puzzles. If they had got help from big time developers, the game probably would have had much better graphics and more intricate puzzles. Still, the puzzles are better than the failed attempts in Duke Nukem Forever (wipe away tear from eye).

Amnesia is not for the faint of heart. Alexander is a twisted torturer and you find dismembered dog heads as you hear your memory of Alexander chopping them off. You are also forced to go into torture chambers where you see Alexander forcing Daniel to do horrible things to the unlucky victims. If you thought Limbo was gory and spend most of your time on Mario or other great Wii family friendly games, you should probably take a miss on Amnesia. Steadily go up the gore ladder from the bits of bacon and ribs coming from the scientists in Splosion Man right the way up to the strategic dismemberment from Dead Space. If you go right the way to Amnesia from New Super Mario Bros., you will throw up all over you monitor in fear and disgust. People who are used to most modern day games like Black Ops and Mortal Kombat will probably be okay with Amnesia, if a bit disturbed. People who wilfully shot off babies' heads in Dead Space and watch Saw will probably wonder what all the fuss is about.

91%

The best game that scared me in a good few years since Resident Evil 4 and Fatal Frame 2 (the broken neck women...shudder). The only other scary game in 2010 was Alan Wake, but that is nowhere near as scary as Amnesia.

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7 Comments – Post a comment

neilramsden

Commented 57 months ago - 14th August 2011 - 21:34pm

I'm playing Alan Wake now. Love it!

Jeff the Fridge

Commented 57 months ago - 18th August 2011 - 14:25pm

Won't be writing reviews for another week know cos I'm in America

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Commented 57 months ago - 22nd August 2011 - 22:24pm

Epic review, Jeff. Keep up the great work.

I played the demo of Amnesia and that was enough to scare the pants off me. I normally adore horror games ('We Don't Go To Ravenholme' was my favourite chapter of HL2, and I was really sad when it ended).

The idea of making your character defenseless was a bold one and it really makes a huge difference. I remember clambering up on top of a bookshelf and throwing books into the water trying to hit the "thing" that had been following me. It made no difference. In the end I have to swallow hard, grit my teeth and RUN RUN RUN outta there. It was terrifying!

I've just looked up Alan Wake, but it looks like it's only available for consoles. :(