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Author Topic: Amnesia: The Dark Descent  (Read 7089 times)

ackblom12

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Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« on: 20 Nov 2010, 23:51 »

Amnesia is a horror First Person Adventure by Frictional Games, the same developers who made the episodic series Penumbra. Now, I bought this off of Steam a good month or so ago intending to not play it until I could play it properly, in the dark, with headphones and little to no distractions. I finally remembered to do so tonight and goddamn this is some impressive work.

Here is the trailer for the game if you have never seen it.

The game is set in the 19th Century in Brennenberg Castle and Daniel (you) has no memories outside of his name and that something is hunting him.

Part of the appeal to me for this game is that there is no manual save system. The game autosaves but gives no indication when it is, and otherwise you can only save on exit. It gives it a much more natural fluid feel and avoids the whole nasty immersion destruction that habitual saving causes. It has both Physical Health and Sanity as stats and witnessing horrible events, creatures or simply being in the dark cause you to lose sanity and can cause hallucinations. If you've ever played Eternal Darkness you'll know how fucking awesome this can be. Amnesia hasn't broken the 4th wall just yet and I'm hoping they keep it that way, no matter how awesome it was to think my save game got corrupted in ED. To regain sanity you need to go into a lit area or light your oil furnace, which you have to collect oil for, and tinder to light torches, candles and other such things. I've only encountered one creature and even looking in the general direction of it caused a severe drop in sanity and the less sanity you have the easier the monsters can detect you and dear lord if hallucinations start when you have been detected I imagine it would be insanely intense.

So yeah, the game is fucking awesome.
« Last Edit: 21 Nov 2010, 10:48 by ackblom12 »
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Aurjay

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #1 on: 21 Nov 2010, 00:09 »

the sound and reaction to sound was the best part of the whole clip. Actually could tell the character was getting scared. Another amazing part was the use of the environment to barricade himself in. Why hasn't that been used more is beyond me. Looks like a really great game and would love to give it a shot.
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ackblom12

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #2 on: 21 Nov 2010, 11:29 »

Honestly I think part of it is because there have only been a tiny handful of horror games that don't include combat. Even Silent Hill, one of the most lauded horror series, had required combat sections and while you could run from most normal encounters, once you got things down it was pretty easy to defend yourself despite the terribly clunky combat controls. The closest I can think of is the Clock Tower series and it is... not all that good. The first one I've seen several videos of gameplay and it looks much closer to what would have been optimal for it, but by Clock Tower III you just ran and even had a minor method of fighting back with Magical Japanese School Girl Holy Water.

It was actually a big part of the problem with Penumbra: Overture, the first episode. It was quite good but it included combat which was clunky as fuck, It was quite good despite that but it was a huge improvement when they removed combat from Black Plague and it was a damn good decision to keep combat completely out of Amnesia.
« Last Edit: 21 Nov 2010, 11:44 by ackblom12 »
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Aurjay

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #3 on: 21 Nov 2010, 16:41 »

I'm not really a big horror game player for all the reasons you mentioned above. Usually the scares or jump out of the ceiling type that bores you after awhile. Also the combat is horrible and gets frustrating. I think the last one i played was silent hill1 and just gave up on the genre after that. Might want to reconsider it now though.
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PenguinNinja1408

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #4 on: 22 Nov 2010, 10:07 »

Amnesia is one of those games that I want to WATCH someone else play. I can't play horror games myself... I get freaked out and stuff.
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Scandanavian War Machine

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #5 on: 22 Nov 2010, 10:29 »

This is on consoles too, right? I remember hearing pretty good things about it and I think I saw it pretty cheap at Gamestop when I was picking up Assassin's Creed Brotherhood the other day. I considered getting it but then I remembered that I had no idea what it was and also that I was broke.

Might have to pick it up now since I'm almost finished with ACB and actually have money.
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ackblom12

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #6 on: 22 Nov 2010, 11:11 »

PC only unfortunately, but it's only $20 at full price. It has a simple enough control scheme it would work great on console but I think it's the licensing costs that keep them from bothering.

Ok, technically it's available on PC, Mac and Linux but still no consoles.

The Amnesia site also has a demo if you don't have Steam.
« Last Edit: 22 Nov 2010, 11:33 by ackblom12 »
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MusicScribbles

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Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
« Reply #7 on: 07 Mar 2011, 13:36 »

Hey, so guys this came out and is fantastic.

By fantastic I mean holy hell it is that Lovecraft short story The Outsider almost plus it is probably the best game to play alone in a dark room with your headphones on throwing your eyes interminably at the glowing screen upon which you slowly go insane and likely die once or twice.

Let's talk about Amnesia!
Also, we can talk about Penumbra, if you want.
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