If you want to open a door you have to click on the knob and pull the mouse in the direction you want the door to open. You have to move the mouse in relation to the action you wish to perform. But its more interactive than the standard point-and-click. Lets face it, mixing all these elements can be a recipe for disaster as weve seen many times.Īs I mentioned, this isnt a shooter. These are all great influences, and fortunately they are handled with respect and great care to generate a horrific masterpiece of unquestionable pedigree. Lovecraft, the master of the cerebral macabre. We see other elements from games such as Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Fatal Frame, not to mention heavy doses of author H.P.
The movie Memento is definitely one of the games biggest influences as the lead character, Daniel, is suffering from memory loss, locates notes he had written to himself during moments of greater cognition. The story may be old, but the way its told isnt. Amnesia is a great game, and despite its obviously numerous influences, manages to come across completely original. Ill do my best to tap dance around the sensitive areas. Its difficult when describing Amnesia not to spoil the surprises. If this game doesnt disturb you, your imagination is broken. You can hear and sense them while they stalk you, theres just not a lot you can do about it except cower in the dark and slowly lose your mind. The creatures are there, but you dont always see them, until its too late. And dont expect to see a lot monsters, this is not Doom. Its the closest thing youll experience to a living nightmare. I implore you to play this game, but consider a few things first lest you come to the conclusion it sucks. Nothing can freak you out without permission from your mind, and Amnesia will put your imagination to work in overdrive. All too often we rely on visuals to do the work for us, and thats when things get lame. Things are much scarier when left to your imagination.
I use this psychological profiling to make the point that if you like Doom and didnt like Blair Witch, you arent engaging your imagination sufficiently. If you didnt like the Blair Witch Project (not the sequel, no one could like that), then you probably love Doom. Considering I play games professionally, this is about as good a testimonial I can give a game. My house is over a hundred years old, and it really doesnt take a game this creepy to get my imagination going. How good is Amnesia: The Dark Descent? Or maybe you want to know how scary it is? Let me put it this way I had to shut the game down a few times to satisfy myself I was absolutely alone in my house.