Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Forgetting Can Lead to Good Things

Now for the true purpose of this blog: As I have limited funds, I tend to obtain games well after their peak when they go on sale or I can otherwise obtain them for meager  amounts of money. I believe the developers deserver the sixty or so dollars they charge, I just don’t have the means to give it to them. As such, my reviews will be about games that are at least one year old.  If you are looking at some older games and were wondering what a slightly eccentric gamer thought of them, look no further.

Amnesia The Dark Descent was developed and published by Frictional Games and is quite possibly one of the most immersive games I have ever played.  I am not given to fear easily (usually because I don’t put myself in potentially horrifying situations) but there were times during this game when I had to stop to do something else.  I KNEW it was just a game but the fear persisted, so well played Frictional.

Amnesia is a first person action/adventure game where you take the role of an amnesiac named Daniel. You awake in a castle with no idea what the fuck is going on with only a strange liquid trail to propel you forward.  The developers have said themselves that the whole amnesia thing is typically a bad cliché, but in this case they did make it work.  As you move forward in the game, you discover darkness both within and around Daniel. The story is simple but serves its purpose of making you brave the bleak Castle Brennenburg in search of answers.  

When you first load up the game, it tells you to play in the dark with a good headset.  I fully agree. To truly experience Daniel’s breaking sanity, you need to put yourself in his situation.  Small sounds and subtle camera shifts all add to the ambience of 1800 era Prussia. 

You may know there are monsters in this game, which there are, but the catch is that you have absolutely no way of fighting them. As you are incapable of picking up anything that won’t later solve a puzzle, your only defense is to attempt to outwit these creatures.  There are a good amount of points where you are genuinely trying to trick these beasts, but it often becomes a matter of “OH FUCK IT SAW ME FUCKING RUN ITS GOING TO EAT MY ANUS!” then hiding in a corner, weeping softly, hoping it moves past and leaves your anus intact.

"Hi would you like to buy some cookies?"

As I mentioned above, the game is dark, and for some reason, fragile minded Daniel is horrified of the dark.  So fragile is his mind that his wafer-thin sanity starts disintegrating when spending any amount of time in darkness. Stay too long and he starts hallucinating, falls, and generally makes a blubbering ass of himself.  This will often happen when something hungry for anus is nearby.  To preserve your sanity, you have a lantern with a limited fuel reserve, tinderboxes for lighting torches, and the game’s gamma adjustment settings for light (leave the gamma alone you wuss). The point of the game becomes: find items for light, find puzzle pieces to solve puzzles, find pieces of the story and protect your anus, all while traveling further into the giant castle. 

The graphics are good enough that if you let yourself become immersed, you don’t think about the polycount. The big seller for me though is the sound and music.  Every time the “shadow” screamed at me I tended to bolt straight forward (usually right into danger).  The game-play itself is not very challenging and sadly, once played through; the only reason to play through again is the (very worthwhile) developer commentary. The difficulty comes in forcing yourself to play it. If you claim you don’t scare easily, give this a whirl. I know a few people who don’t like being scared and therefore refuse to play, but I suggest playing even if you find yourself in this category. 

You can't see it, but the coffee maker is just to the right

If you find yourself unable to play this game but want to experience it anyway, I extremely highly  recommend some Lets Play videos, especially this one. Or if you don’t think you want to watch the whole game but want a sampling of how awesome it is, watch this infamous video.

I give this game a “Fuck Yeah!” out of MIND SHATTERINGLY AMAZING. Play it; it’s not that expensive and you’ll be funding the developers ’ next foray into forcing you to procure new pants.