Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)

The first Amnesia entry is a survival horror classic from Frictional Games that redefined the genre when it released. Instead of giving players weapons or combat options, it makes you completely defenseless, forcing you to run or hide from grotesque creatures that stalk the corridors of a decaying castle. This sense of vulnerability is amplified by the game’s sanity system: staying in darkness or witnessing horrifying events slowly unravels Daniel’s mind, distorting vision and sound to create an even more terrifying atmosphere.

The physics-based interactions, like manually opening doors or pulling objects, help immerse you in its world, making every action feel more tactile and tense. This was a standout at the time this released, similar to the fist time the gaming industry experienced the Half-Life 2 features for physics-based mechanics. Coupled with haunting sound design, oppressive visuals, and clever environmental storytelling, Amnesia creates a suffocating sense of dread that few horror games have matched.

This title is not for the weeks at heart, I consider myself very bullet-proof when it comes to scary titles, but this one got into my nerves, regardless. In my opinion it’s still considered one of the most influential horror games ever made, inspiring countless successors and streamers alike with its unique blend of helplessness and fear. This also helped popularize the "Lets Plays" YouTube videos at the time, which featured entire games being played, reacted and commented, in the video platform. One of the channels that exploded in popularity was the PewDiePie, with his funny an exaggerated reactions provoked by the game's horror scenes.

My first foray into the Amnesia world, 13 years after its release, and what can I say? The fans were right. After all this time, with several dozens of horror games under my belt later, The Dark Descent still delivers.

Effective horror is often a matter of exposure. Susceptibilities change as you grow older and come into contact with things. I still remember being a toddler and sneaking into the living room Friday and Saturday nights, going through my parents’ randomly recorded VHS tapes or turning on the TV to catch all the scariest horror offerings I could get my tiny hands on. This was how I got exposed to classics like Alien, The Amityville Horror, The Shining, Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street and so on. The jury’s still out on the effects of these on my long term sanity, and I'm still not sure why I decided to do it when I had no one pushing me into the horror medium back then. But I remember lying awake in bed at night after my unsanctioned childhood horror sessions, waiting for the monsters of fiction I had just witnessed on screen to come to live. It was exhilarating.

Years pass, exposure increases, jadedness does too, and I, like many others, become almost imune to the emotional impact of horror in films and games, with the occasional, very occasional, surprise. Amnesia: The Dark Descent was one such case. Even amidst all my more recent horror gaming experiences, the game can still evoke quite a sense of real tension. A key factor for this is its atmosphere, which is undeniably on point, as is sound and voice work. Brennenburg Castle feels very claustrophobic at times with its maze-like interiors, able to truly disorient the player especially without the help of a map. The sanity mechanic, which I believe was quite unique at the time, really adds this layer of dread to the experience, especially in the beginning because a) you’re not quite sure what to make of it, and b) the game makes stellar use of sights and sounds to elicit an emotional response from you. And even once you get somewhat used to it, it still comes with some impact. The puzzles are interesting, engaging and logical in their mechanisation with only the odd exception, and I absolutely love the interactivity nature of most objects. On the whole, I was taken on a sick, twisted journey, the likes of which had rarely been this well told back then. There are some deliberately shocking moments and story beats, and I often found myself pondering on the weight of what I was actually looking at. Few games manage to instil that type of pause in me these days, so kudos for that as well.

There were some things I had issues with, for sure. I was particularly annoyed by the schizophrenic visual filter that kicks in whenever Daniel experiences a flashback, since that irritates much more than it enhances. Controls felt a bit dated at first, but I did eventually get quite comfortable with them. I also found the ending slightly underwhelming, partly due to its abruptness. Finally, though unrelated to the main game itself, I found Justine so not compelling that I couldn’t bring myself to finish it, even considering its incredibly short runtime.

That said, I had an awesome time with The Dark Descent. The Penumbra series, Frictional's first games which inspired the Amnesia IP, would’ve perhaps been a bridge too far for me to cross today, but I feel this struck the perfect balance of how far back I was willing to travel and still fully enjoy the experience. I can absolutely understand why TDD has garnered such a cult classic status over the years, and I can easily recommended it for any survival horror fan who hasn’t come across it yet. 8.5/10

I respect this game immensely. I really do. The influence of Amnesia: The Dark Descent is undeniable, as it helped usher in a new era of first person horror games that were actually scary, at a time when the genre mostly consisted of action games with occasional jump-scares. Amnesia is a tense, claustrophobic experience that messes with your mind the longer you play. The constant struggle to find more sources of light to stave off insanity, the game's central survival mechanic, keeps the player locked into a constant feeling of desperation. The horrific being that follows you throughout this eerie castle is also incredibly memorable.

Unfortunately, this game loses points when it comes to presentation. Certainly not the prettiest horror game I've played, everything has that "vaseline smeared across the lens" look that so many games were rocking around this time. It also features some of the most aggressive motion blur of any game I've ever played. I was a bit late to the party on this one but this game looks rough even by 2010 standards. The other main issue is one that people almost never talk about: the ending is incredibly flat and underwhelming, featuring a final boss encounter that's kind of laughable given the game that precedes it. I hate it when a game fumbles in the final stretch and this one is one of the best examples I can think of in that regard. But thankfully, The Dark Descent is still enough of a success that it put a small studio on the map and lit a way forward for the survival-horror genre at a time it needed some serious guidance.

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Story= plot, engagement, characters, world-building

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

Gameplay: 3/5

Story: 3/5

Presentation: 3/5

Overall the game starts off good with a lot of intrigue and little scares here and there, but once you know that you just hide for 30 seconds and the enemies will not be a threat it starts to become less scary and enjoyable. It becomes just a waiting game with a lot of darkness. There were a few environmental puzzles that felt unique, but they didn't make the game much better. A slightly recommend this game for horror fans and walking sim/puzzle game fans.

How many SpOoOkY games have I played so far this Fall? One, two, three.. THREE SPOOKY GAMES!

RxBrad's SPOOOOOOKY Halloween Game number three is Amnesia: Dark Descent. To read all of the hype on this game, you'd think that you're guaranteed to be so scared while playing it that you'll poop your pants!

But sadly, my pants are devoid of poo.

At its heart, Amnesia: Dark Descent is a Resident Evil-style game, minus the ability to fight back against the baddies in any way. It's a walking simulator where you occasionally have to run, hide, or run & hide from a shambling monster. But it'll be an hour or two before you even see your first monster. Until then, you have puzzles.

And puzzles are what make up the vast majority of this game. The quality of these puzzles varies widely. Some of the multi-step machine activation puzzles can actually be satisfying when you pull them off.

Many puzzles fail at being truly puzzle-y, and just involve a series of three or four switches. There's no actual logic behind how the switches have to be arranged. You just have to sit and switch them around until you happen to find the right combination.

And some puzzles are just plain dumb. About halfway through the game, "throw a rock at it" becomes a solution to several puzzles. This is especially infuriating when you didn't even realize that your character is capable of throwing things (throwing is accomplished by hitting L1 while holding R1 on an Xbox controller, by the way). And it's exponentially maddening when the game leans so hard on hiding actionable items & target setpieces in the extremely dark environment.

Unlike most walking simulators, your character has health. You can die if you take enough hits. However, you soon realize that dying is of such little consequence that you start using it as an easy way to pass an area. This is because, when you die, you're basically dropped back in the same place you were, but with full life, and usually whatever killed you has disappeared. This also takes away from the "scary" aspect of the game.

There's also a "sanity" stat for your character. The more spooky things you see (monsters, a slight breeze, a dark room without a nightlight), the more your character "loses his mind". Losing your mind is apparently like getting drunk in other games, because the main effect is that everything gets blurry and your character starts to get tipsy.

Maybe it's just the curmudgeon in me, but I was extremely underwhelmed by Amnesia: Dark Descent. The graphics look extremely dated, and it has a very low-budget feel to it. While the (somewhat sparse) voicework is solid, the gameplay itself is lacking. I'll still play the sequel, since I do own it, after all. I'll just go into it with a lot lower expectations.

Amnesia is no ordinary horror game, rather it’s especially well made. The game obviously aims to make use of all your senses. Everything you see, hear, and almost feel and smell, is carefully constructed to create an experience. Nothing was randomly placed, what your senses registered had it’s reasons for being there. The storyline was exceptional and how it unfolded made everything worthwhile. There were a couple of tense scenarios in the beginning of the game, but after awhile I got used to the sense of constant impending doom. So frolicking in the dark, with the evil beast not far behind, almost became peaceful and tranquil. Due to the game’s mechanics and gameplay, you are forced into a state of constant vulnerability, but that only made progress in the game that much more rewarding.

The fact that the main character goes through the story, with all its uncertainties and emotions, at the same rate you are, created a unifying and empathetic experience. The story had very seductive and immersive elements to it, blinding you to what is to come.

I can understand if the game is too uncomfortable or stressful for some, but try to push through it, the story behind the game needs to be discovered and ultimately exposed.

It was pretty good, I guess. I was genuinely afraid for the first few hours, altough mostly of jumpscares specifically - I'm terribly jumpy but not easily spooked. Horror movies do nothing for me. Games on the other hand... The Immersion you can experience here is just something else. You don't get that kind of stuff from a movie. Slowly opening a door is tense.

Thankfully there are not too many jumpscares here. I wonder if a horror game without jumpscares could even be considered a horror game. I'm not terribly experienced with this genre, but I guess a few of em gotta be in every horror game - I guess they're necessary, even though kinda hate them. While playing I had these weirdly juxtaposed feelings, on one hand I was curious, really wanted to progress and explore. On the other hand really wanted to stop playing, because I was pretty damn afraid. I haven't experienced that before, but I guess that's par for the course for a good horror game.

I liked the looks of the game and the architecture of it's castle. It was fun to explore, mostly. The insanity mechanic was interesting at first, mildly annoying later and hardly used in the endgame. The monsters looked great, but were pretty easily avoided after initially encountering them. They did get me one (or two?) time(s) and after that, a great deal of tension was lost for the rest of the game. Again, that's probably natural for horror games. The music was nothing to write home about, but the sound design was pretty amazing. All those cracks, screams and voices in the players head, coming from all kinds of directions, or even seemingly from specific rooms, made the experience so much more tense and immersive. I expected some gore, but was disappointed on that front.

Unfortunately, the puzzles, which are the most that Amnesia has to offer in terms of gameplay - apart from running away, hiding and scavenging - weren't my cup of tea at all. I hated them to be honest . At first they were okay but later on they could be summed to this: Find stuff other than lamp oil, tinderboxes and healing potions and combine with interactable spots in the physical space or push/pull some levers. Doesn't have to make sense, just jam everything together and you might see new path open up. Of course there's some sense to it all, but it just felt too formulaic and gamey - in the end I wouldn't have to know any thematic context or what exactly the objects are, just find and interact with everything. There few puzzles that amount to more than combining two or more things, and those tended to especially annoying, like that "putting three weights in the same position as the three weights in the next room"-puzzle.

At about two thirds of the game I lost interest, but picked up the game again a few days later to finish it. I gotta say the last part of the game had pretty cool level-design, but by that point I lost the little interest in the story that I had. When the ending came I just waited for it to be over.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” – H.P. Lovecraft

This was without a doubt one of the most disturbing & psychologically thrilling games I have had the pleasure of playing. The Lovecraftian qualities were definitely in full force with the sanity of your character changing when witnessing terrible events being the shining example. You play as Daniel, a character who as in the title, is suffering from a form of Amnesia. Right off the bat there are events that, if playing under the right conditions, will send a chill right up your spine. I tried to always be playing in a peaceful environment with headphones to really get the full terrifying effect.

You will find notes in various areas that will begin to help you piece together what exactly you are there to do and how it was that you got there. The feeling of being unsure about these things while also having to make your way through such a spooky setting is something that was very new to me and was pulled off very well.

Amnesia does not let you get settled, when you are about to get used to the way that it is scaring you, it changes tactics and grabs you right back in the clutches of fear. I honestly had points where I had to take a sanity break for my self the same way that you have to dodge, run, and take one for Daniel if you wish to pass on to the next stage. Speaking of the sanity in the game, it is a genuinely weird feeling the first time that Daniel starts to lose it. The walls begin to appear to move, the noises become more violent and terrifying, it even goes as far as to break the third wall and make you believe that you have actual cockroaches crawling across your computer screen. Sure this trick is one that will only work once and you know whats going on when it happens again in the game, but I seriously jumped back from my screen the first time to inspect it because of how immersed I was in the moment.

Click here for the fully terrifying review... https://thewellredmage.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/amnesia-the-dark-descent/