9/19/2023 0 Comments Amnesiac movie reviews![]() It’s not always perfect - there’s a fumbly monster encounter here and there, and the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying as I was hoping - but the journey was great. It’s less about finding arbitrary items that act as a key to progress and more about seeing what you have around that looks like it should work.įrictional has spoken about the idea of using its experience from previous Amnesia games and Soma (which is brilliant and, conceptually, one of the most upsetting games I’ve ever played) to avoid the usual horror game pitfalls, and it has succeeded to some extent. You’ll be looking around for clues or things to manipulate as you piece it all together and even minor tests have a pleasing coherence to them - pulling out loose railings to make room for something, say, or working out exactly how to break through a loose floor. Even some of the puzzles veer into unpleasant concepts at times, but whether it’s a nightmare or not there’s always a pleasing physical solution that rewards investigation and logic. Whether that’s stumbling into some unholy mess that explains what happened via body part placement, or just… baaad rooms. The story goes to some dark places, which is reflected in the areas you find yourself in. ![]() There are surprises, and at least once in the game I opened a door, muttered ‘Fuck, no’ to myself, and closed it.Ī lot of unpleasantness is environmental too, meaning even without any direct physical threat there’s a constant creeping sense of unease around. However, it feels like Frictional has tried to address this issue: there are corridors with monsters in, but there are also other things to make sure you don’t really get a chance to relax - sudden changes in pace, or varying setups that lessen the chance of settling into a less threatening rut. I was worried that this might fall into a familiar horror game trap where, after the initial scares, you get used to being caught and it just becomes another way to restart a level. There are throaty, guttural vocalisations and screeches to accompany the footsteps, with an emotional range that touches on anguish at times and just generally makes you want to be as far away as possible. It’s the sound design that sells it though, especially as you so rarely get a good look at them. They gibber and twitch, or lunge through the darkness searching you out. The monsters are horrible as you might hope. It makes the creeping more desperate and risky, as you trade some of your character’s mental wellbeing for a quick safety check to see which direction is best to NOPE off into. That means you have to navigate past danger with furtive glances and peaks, balancing the need (and occasional want) to see the bad thing with the damage you know it’ll do. Just seeing a creature can affect a fragile psyche, already shaky from hiding in the dark to avoid detection. It's still stressful, the noises - like popping, boiling tendons - is anxiety made sound, and while the fear of failing weakens over time, the stress rarely does.Įven once you get used to it, the whole ‘looking at nasty stuff makes you go mad’ thing continues to make monster encounters a far more tactile experience than the usual stealthy creeping. A few hours in, though, you start to realise that you can actually endure quite a lot of madness (2020: The Game) and surviving becomes more a pressing need than a desperate one. The first time you flail around in the dark as your vision starts to fail it is A PANIC. It’s a great idea, although perhaps not always clearly executed as it needs to be. Fail to escape the source of the fear and you’ll die and do-over. It causes black tendrils to cloud your view, as flashing visions pop on screen with jutting noises that are scares in their own right. ![]() And darkness itself is almost the real enemy - a fear mechanic means spending time away from light, or looking at horrible things, chips away at your sanity.
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