So, Amnesia got an expansion as part of the Potato Sack-Valve ARG-thingy. It's not really long, but you can get it for free. At least on Steam it was automatically updated, I don't know if that's the case if you bought Amnesia straight from Frictional Games. But, let's cut to the chase. Is it any good?
Still not for children.
Why, yes it is. I'd say that it is overally far more scary than the whole of Amnesia itself (maybe excluding the prison). This time you don't play as Daniel from the original game, but as a woman who wakes up in a strange dungeon with a sight of a creepy monster and sharing the cell with an eerie gramophone of sorts, and a voice telling you that there's a trial ahead. What follows is a Saw-esque horrorshow, where you can either kill or save three persons.
You poor bastard, if only
you knew what's gonna happen
There's only one monster in this 'episode', and he wasn't in the original game. Oh yes, it is a he, and a human, which, in my opinion, makes him only more scary. There's nothing quite as creepy as trying to stay hidden and listen to him yell "I CAN HEAR YOU. I WILL KILL YOU BITCH". The reason why he yells that is revealed during the episode, and the story altogether is rather nice, though the ending is, to say at least, nonsensical.
Oh yes, the episode also features permadeath, meaning that should you die at any point of game, it's game over and you must start over. You can not save at any point of the episode, but as the episode takes about 20 minutes to one hour to complete, it is allright and makes the atmosphere all the more oppressive.
So, pretty much everyone and their grandmother have heard of Amnesia, the allegdely most horrific game in existence. You have probably seen some hilarious videos on YouTube about players losing their, um, self-control while playing the game. Taking place in Prussia some time around 1830-1840 in an old, worn-down castle it has a great setting for a moody adventure. Made by a Swedish company known as Frictional Games, who are known from their previous Penumbra-games. So, how does Amnesia fare?
Gameplay
Disgusting
As you might know, there is absolutely no means of combat in Amnesia. Well, not for you at least, the enemies can easily tear you to pieces. So, what do you do? You stick to the shadows and if that fails, you run as fast as you can. Penumbra-games had a good physics engine, and so does Amnesia, so you can pretty freely pick stuff up, rotate it as you wish and throw it around. Most of the puzzles revolve around this, much like in Half-Life 2 of the Penumbra-games. Puzzles include stuff like opening and closing vents, placing gears to their places and so on, nothing too complicated. While in darkness, you gain a slight 'night-vision', but it isn't all that good and fancy as you might think, but it really enhances the atmosphere.
As said above, your only way of self-defence is hiding, but this has a catch - should you linger too long in the shadows, your sanity will lower, and if it hits rock bottom, Daniel (the main protagonist) is only able to crawl on the floor. Loss of sanity has other nice aspects too, such as hearing voices and making it harder to hide from monsters. And oh yes, should you look directly at monsters, you would lose your sanity and fast. Sanity is restored by remaining in light and progressing in the story. If there is no light in the area, you can use one of your precious tinderboxes to light a torch or you can light up your lantern, which uses even more precious oil. Health can be lost by, you guessed it, getting hit by enemies and other nasty stuff. Health can be restored by progressing in the story and also by using rare potions.
Poor Agrippa
Though some players have said that they constantly ran out of oil and tinderboxes, I noticed that by the time I reached the end, I had a full lantern + 9 extra refillments or whatever they are called and around 30 tinderboxes. But on the other hand, I never use anything unless I really have to.
Atmosphere
Hiding didn't work so well
The game's atmosphere is at the beginning pretty lame, as it resorts way too often to "BOOOO A DOOR OPENED BY IT'S OWN" or "BOOOOOO A MYSTICAL WIND"-tricks to scare the player. Also the soundscape seems a bit monotonous and only distracts. However, both of these aspects only get better as you progress in the game, as the scares get rarer and rarer and the soundscape starts to blend in well. And overally, the game has clearly taken a lot of influences from Lovecraft.
Things aren't looking too bright
The worn-down castle of Brennenburg is really, really moody and offers a good place for horror story, however, I really liked more Penumbra's setting as it was more 'realistic', or should I say, more immersive? But still, finding a naked body in the morgue is one thing, taking a vaccine from the said body's blood is a whole another thing. It's things like these that make the game feel creepier than your average horror game - you are forced to take some actions to survive, and they really feel immoral and disgusting. And oh yes, the guys from Frictional have taken everything they can out from the setting - you visit cellars of all sorts, torture chambers, archives, prison, sewers, afromentioned morgue... and every place will make you nervous. Really nervous.
Yeah, this game is not for children
The monsters are of little variance, but that really doesn't matter, as they are rarely shown and seen. And if you see them, you are either too close, or should be running. And the monsters can be quite intelligent - I was rather amazed when a monster noticed that I was hiding in a room and started tearing the door down. Then I cried a little as it killed me, while I was weeping in the corner.
And if you haven't heard of the water monster yet, just check this YouTube-video. It is really, really tense. Let's just say, I felt safe because there were boxes all around. But then I had to drop into water and the chase began, and I only could breath once I was on dry land.
tl;dr-version: atmosphere gets great about 1/4 into the game, and won't let you go. And the graphics are really good, too.
The story develops in two timeframes - the one which the player is in, and the another, which is told by Daniel's diaries and other notes that can be found around the castle. I don't want to spoil too much, so I'll try to keep that to a minimum. The story revolves around an Orb that Daniel found on expedition in Africa, the curse that the orb has brought upon him and how Alexander tried/tries to help Daniel. The story also features Agrippa (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa) as a major character, who also happens to be a real person, a German magician, occultist and so forth. And Johann Weyer, who is not seen in the game in person, is also mentioned. So you know that something occult is going on. The endings were a bit of a letdown, but still fitting in the contextual sense.
Overall
The game started a little slow and trying too many cheap tricks, but the further it got, the better it also became. It wasn't as scary as the Penumbra-games in my opinion, but is still one of the best new horror games, and I recommend everyone to try it. Besides, it costs less than 8€ on Steam, and there's also a demo available. Should you have a Linux or Mac-computer, worry not, Amnesia is available for Linux and Mac also, so in a sense, it's a true PC-game. If there's something bad to say, it is that level design is sometimes too confusing (I am looking at you, prison).
Whooo boy. Deadly Premonition. It has to be the weirdest game I've ever played. And despite its suckiness, it's really good. And yet it is so bad. It has great atmosphere, except when it goes to total moodswings. Which means, all the time. So, where to start with this game? And please do listen that song, I guarantee it will get stuck into your head. And if you play the game, even more so, because it's fucking everywhere.
Visuals
Well, graphics are a bit aged, and I remember hearing that the development was started with PS2 as main platform, but then consoles renewed. Well, anyway, I think they do the trick quite nicely, and with game being a budget title with price tag somewhere around 20€, it doesn't look all that bad when compared to amount of stuff in the game.
On the plus-side though, the game runs really smoothy and load times aren't too shabby, especially considering that you have a huge countryside town to explore. And well, as said, most of the time things look pretty nice. Then there are times when animations just suck... well, you know. Look at the video if you don't believe. And oh yeah, that video is also a great way to introduce you to the schizophrenic world of Deadly Premonition, with constant moodswings and all. Yes, it is that weird, pretty much all the time.
Gameplay
Well, when it comes to combat, the controls are your standard Resident Evil-controls, meaning, when you aim, you can't move and so on. Movement's a bit tacky, but you'll get around.
In addition to your traditional health bar you also have a pulse bar, which becomes fuller if you run, hold your breath for sneaking or drive a police car while blasting your sirens(!). Oh yes, you can drive a car in this game. Now how weird is that, combining Silent Hill/Resident Evil with GTA-style freeroaming with car. Car controls are, how to put it, bad. But luckily the roads are pretty straight, so not much steering is needed. But still.
Then there's a profiling mechanic, which took me by surprise, as it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the manual, or even in-game. Basically, you collect some pieces of evidence and then our protagonist, FBI special agent Francis York Morgan (call him York, everybody does) starts having mental images which he uses to solve the case. Crazy, huh? Speaking of the manual, I couldn't help but laugh when I read it and noticed, that there would be fishing in this game. Nothing could have prepared me for existence of fishing in a game like this. I mean, how could you be expecting something like fishing and real-time beard growing in a game like this? Yes, you read right, real-time beard growing. How awesome is that?
There's a main questline in the game with 'time limits' on it, but it's nothing like in Dead Rising, you just have to be on time at some date in the place to progress in the story, so you might as well take two-week vacation just fishing and smoking before going to the crime scene. Or you could peek into people's houses to see what they are doing. Or you could do some side-tasks for money and items. Or you could drive around just because you can.
Well, most of the time when you investigate crime scenes, the game warps into a otherworld of sorts, much like Silent Hill. There you pretty much shoot enemies, get money from doing so (oh yes, you actually get money from doing pretty much anything), collect evidence, shoot more evidence and do some profiling. I played on easy because the monsters just took annoingly long to die on normal. There is basically three types of enemies, bosses not included. A generic zombie-like monster, shoot it until it dies. A wall-crawling bastard, that turns invisible from time to time and takes forever to kill, especially if you use SMG or pistol. And then there's our serial killer, the Raincoat Killer. When you encounter him, you are often basically just doing a quick-time event to prevent getting killed. Sometimes you run away from him and then have to hide somewhere, much like in Forbidden Siren. Much of the gameplay is spent around figuring out, who is the Raincoat Killer, and why he is.
Atmosphere
As you may have deduced from above the atmosphere in the game is a bit crooked. And it's quite obvious that when making the game, somebody had watched Twin Peaks a few times too many. Pretty much everyone in the town is eccentric and strange. There's Mr. Harry Stewart who goes around in his wheelchair with a gasmask on, telling his assistant what to say to other persons. And this assistant only speaks in rhymes. Then there's the crazy lady with an object of obsession (a pot, this time). A fat traveling salesman that is ever so cheerful. Then there's protagonist Francis York Morgan who constantly speaks to his alter-ego Zach, even in the presence of other people. Or speaks about serial killers using skulls as urine collectors while having casual dinners with local law enforcement. All this while this cheerful music is playing. What were they thinking? Honestly. This is just something you don't do, not even on meth. And yet they did it, and quite frankly, I am happy that they did. Because it's half of the charm of the game. Or in fact, all of it, because the game doesn't have a good story (although it is quite interesting until it goes whoop-de-fucking-doo-surprise in the end), it can't boast on gameplay merits and music, while memorable, is almost never used correctly.
Story
Pretty much my thoughts
summarized.
Well, it starts out as a horror game, Silent Hill-type at that, and then you suddenly end up in a open sandbox like GTA. Confused, I did not know what to expect, but little by little I got a grap of the game, it's pretty much a detective story with supernatural themes. It's actually fairly interesting, though you might guess the killer's identity if you pay attention to all those little things. And not pay attention to some things, because they're just red herrings. I'm pretty sure the story is there to just mess with your head, as the game ends up from fairly realistic horror-game to having a skyscraper-sized boss. Things like that, and that the ending is pretty much pulled out of nowhere, it's only way past halfway when there's first mentions of the reasons behind why the end is so fucked-up.
Opinion on short
So, what do I think about this game?
I love it, though it is a maimed game.
I can't really see any space in-between.
But you should try it, even if you're no tween.
You may really like it,
be it a miss and a hit.
I don't know how to make rhymes fit,
so I guess I'll just end it.
