Is the Monster Gone Yet?
... I'm cowering behind a cushion. Really.
I'm no stranger to survival horror, seriously. One of my two favourite arcade games has always been House of the Dead, particularly the third installment, where you're armed with shotguns powerful enough to send things flying. I can cheerfully run around in Left4Dead (1&2), spraying bullets at the infected while calling them names, and crowing every time I score an especially neat kill (like decapitating one with one smack of the skillet). At midnight. Ditto Resident Evil. And I certainly have no problem with stuff like Bioshock and Nation Red and Killing Floor either. Zombies? I eat 'em for lunch. With a side dish of bullets. Ghosts, like in F.E.A.R.? I just shoot them. Never mind that ghosts can't eat lead.
But then you give me *one* game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where I don't catch more than a glimpse of what is stalking me, where I hear things walking around everywhere I go, and where my vision warps and goes blurry when I stay in the dark for too long, and I turn into a pathetic, whimpering wreck. Part of the reason might be that, up until now, I've always gone around with a powerful enough arsenal to raze half the continent, with more on the wayside. Take the weapons away, and there goes my security blanket. Not to mention the horror of having something stalking you unseen is far, far more traumatising than repeatedly coming face to face with the same monsters. I mean, after you get over the shock of seeing a zombie, the novelty sort of wears off, and you start treating them like just so many more bugs to squash... but how do you deal with your own *paranoia* creeping up on you?
For what it's worth, the developers of Amnesia have gotten the formula right. It *is*, as they promised, completely immersive: there's no introductory movie and no cutscenes to remove you from the action, no image for you to identify as the protagonist (or, for that matter, the antagonist), and nothing at all to prepare you for what awaits when the game starts. It forces you to experience Daniel's amnesia firsthand, and discover just what is going on through voice-over flashbacks and notes and journal entries that you find lying around the castle. The action is physics-based and seamlessly integrated into the gameplay: doors, boxes, drawers are all opened by drawing back the hand cursor; similarly, things can be tossed (especially to distract the monsters!), levers can be pulled up or down, and wheels are turned by making circular motions with the mouse. There aren't any pointless puzzles to distract you from the gameplay: where there are puzzles, they're in the form of locating parts to repair something, or chemicals to mix into a detergent, or something as simple as dislodging a stick obstructing a pulley.
But what really makes it work is the oppressive atmosphere. The game takes part in Brennenburg Castle, from its grand halls and cosy studies to dank cellars and flooded basements. The graphic's nothing to shout about, but who wants a game like this to be *pretty*? This is the sort of castle Lovecraft would have loved: dimly lit, with strange sounds and stranger fogs and winds blowing doors open and snuffing out the lights. Lit candles and torches (this *is* set in the 19th century) are few and far between; for the most part, you have to light your own, with tinderboxes you find all over the place, or shine your lantern, assuming you can find enough oil for it. Light is good - Daniel starts to go crazy if he's in the dark for too long (like The Call of Cthulhu, this game has a sanity meter), but slowly regains it in the presence of light - but then again, light can also be your worst enemy if you have one of the horrifying monsters, who roam the castle, on your heels. And, given that you have absolutely no defence at all against the monsters, you have three options when one spots you: run, hide or die. The shadows are a good place to duck into, but closets - thank the force for these! - are even better. I tell you, at the first sound of danger, I run and stuff myself into the first closet I find.
And if all this weren't terrifying enough, there's Daniel himself. It's bad enough running down dark corridors without knowing what awaits you at the end; when you have Daniel gasping and panting and whimpering in your ear every time he sees something scary, soon even the sight of your own shadow makes you jump. This game really is the worst of your fears come to life - and more.
[This game should, by all rights, be played late at night, in total darkness, with headphones. But I readily confess: I simply don't have the nerve. I play it while there's still sunlight. And even then, the damn game freaks me out.]
Is Amnesia worth playing? Oh yes. And it is a terrifying experience - even *after* you've saved and exited the game. If anyone needs me, I'll be cowering in my closet.
---------------------------------
Amnesia Diary
1. An invisible monster in the water chased me around the flooded cellar, while I threw books and decomposing body parts to lure it away, and opened and slammed shut something like a hundred doors behind me. Harrowing, I tell you.
2. While checking a study for tinderboxes and other usable material, I opened a cupboard, and out fell a pile of human skulls. Daniel gasped in fright. I simply jumped out of my skin.
3. Alexander must have been performing all manner of hideous experiments in his study. There are anatomical charts and bonesaws and stuffed animals all over the place... and the distant sound of dogs barking while I wandered through the rooms. I'm hoping said dogs are only the hallucinatory product of a deranged mind. Daniel's, not mine.
I'm no stranger to survival horror, seriously. One of my two favourite arcade games has always been House of the Dead, particularly the third installment, where you're armed with shotguns powerful enough to send things flying. I can cheerfully run around in Left4Dead (1&2), spraying bullets at the infected while calling them names, and crowing every time I score an especially neat kill (like decapitating one with one smack of the skillet). At midnight. Ditto Resident Evil. And I certainly have no problem with stuff like Bioshock and Nation Red and Killing Floor either. Zombies? I eat 'em for lunch. With a side dish of bullets. Ghosts, like in F.E.A.R.? I just shoot them. Never mind that ghosts can't eat lead.
But then you give me *one* game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where I don't catch more than a glimpse of what is stalking me, where I hear things walking around everywhere I go, and where my vision warps and goes blurry when I stay in the dark for too long, and I turn into a pathetic, whimpering wreck. Part of the reason might be that, up until now, I've always gone around with a powerful enough arsenal to raze half the continent, with more on the wayside. Take the weapons away, and there goes my security blanket. Not to mention the horror of having something stalking you unseen is far, far more traumatising than repeatedly coming face to face with the same monsters. I mean, after you get over the shock of seeing a zombie, the novelty sort of wears off, and you start treating them like just so many more bugs to squash... but how do you deal with your own *paranoia* creeping up on you?
For what it's worth, the developers of Amnesia have gotten the formula right. It *is*, as they promised, completely immersive: there's no introductory movie and no cutscenes to remove you from the action, no image for you to identify as the protagonist (or, for that matter, the antagonist), and nothing at all to prepare you for what awaits when the game starts. It forces you to experience Daniel's amnesia firsthand, and discover just what is going on through voice-over flashbacks and notes and journal entries that you find lying around the castle. The action is physics-based and seamlessly integrated into the gameplay: doors, boxes, drawers are all opened by drawing back the hand cursor; similarly, things can be tossed (especially to distract the monsters!), levers can be pulled up or down, and wheels are turned by making circular motions with the mouse. There aren't any pointless puzzles to distract you from the gameplay: where there are puzzles, they're in the form of locating parts to repair something, or chemicals to mix into a detergent, or something as simple as dislodging a stick obstructing a pulley.
But what really makes it work is the oppressive atmosphere. The game takes part in Brennenburg Castle, from its grand halls and cosy studies to dank cellars and flooded basements. The graphic's nothing to shout about, but who wants a game like this to be *pretty*? This is the sort of castle Lovecraft would have loved: dimly lit, with strange sounds and stranger fogs and winds blowing doors open and snuffing out the lights. Lit candles and torches (this *is* set in the 19th century) are few and far between; for the most part, you have to light your own, with tinderboxes you find all over the place, or shine your lantern, assuming you can find enough oil for it. Light is good - Daniel starts to go crazy if he's in the dark for too long (like The Call of Cthulhu, this game has a sanity meter), but slowly regains it in the presence of light - but then again, light can also be your worst enemy if you have one of the horrifying monsters, who roam the castle, on your heels. And, given that you have absolutely no defence at all against the monsters, you have three options when one spots you: run, hide or die. The shadows are a good place to duck into, but closets - thank the force for these! - are even better. I tell you, at the first sound of danger, I run and stuff myself into the first closet I find.
And if all this weren't terrifying enough, there's Daniel himself. It's bad enough running down dark corridors without knowing what awaits you at the end; when you have Daniel gasping and panting and whimpering in your ear every time he sees something scary, soon even the sight of your own shadow makes you jump. This game really is the worst of your fears come to life - and more.
[This game should, by all rights, be played late at night, in total darkness, with headphones. But I readily confess: I simply don't have the nerve. I play it while there's still sunlight. And even then, the damn game freaks me out.]
Is Amnesia worth playing? Oh yes. And it is a terrifying experience - even *after* you've saved and exited the game. If anyone needs me, I'll be cowering in my closet.
---------------------------------
Amnesia Diary
1. An invisible monster in the water chased me around the flooded cellar, while I threw books and decomposing body parts to lure it away, and opened and slammed shut something like a hundred doors behind me. Harrowing, I tell you.
2. While checking a study for tinderboxes and other usable material, I opened a cupboard, and out fell a pile of human skulls. Daniel gasped in fright. I simply jumped out of my skin.
3. Alexander must have been performing all manner of hideous experiments in his study. There are anatomical charts and bonesaws and stuffed animals all over the place... and the distant sound of dogs barking while I wandered through the rooms. I'm hoping said dogs are only the hallucinatory product of a deranged mind. Daniel's, not mine.