That's what your presented with when starting a new game of Amnesia: The Dark Decent and from that point onwards you'll be leading your character Daniel on a frightening quest through Castle Brennenburg. Amnesia: The Dark Decent is a survival horror game with light puzzle solving, developed and published by Frictional Games.
There are plenty of questions right from the beginning regarding the story but answers soon start filtering through as you collect notes and diary entries detailing the interesting back story leading up to your current situation. For those that don't like reading rest assured many of notes are fully voiced. Amnesia also dose a brilliant job of slowly introducing the player to new aspects of game play in the early stages, so it's easy to pick up even if your not a veteran of adventure horror games.
The game plays in first person with no 3rd person cut scenes which is just one way the game keeps players immersed in it's atmosphere. Talking about atmosphere, this is where Amnesia shines it keeps you on edge at all times. It's freaky just to walk around this castle and this is before creatures try to eat your brains out. When a shambling mutilated zombie dose emerge from the darkness hell bent on ripping your limbs off all you can do is run like a little girl and hide, preferably in the nearest wardrobe. Yep, that's right you have no weapons at all. Surprisingly that's one of the best things about Amnesia you can't play the warrior with guns blazing, you just got to find a way to survive the nightmare and that adds a lot to the fear factor. You wont find many "BOO" moments that other games rely on to scare players, instead your treated to a relentlessly haunting atmosphere.
The balance between light and dark in Amnesia has been done remarkably well. From a well lit part of the room it's very hard to see anything in a dark area, but moving into the darkness and your eyes quickly adjusts allowing you to search dark places for items. But remaining in the dark for too long comes with it's own dangers. There's an entity in the darkness that eats away at Daniel's sanity the longer you stay there, and before long your vision starts warping you hear freaky sounds and eventually start seeing bugs crawling around your vision, this gets especially intense when hiding in the dark from zombie creatures.
Luckily you will have a lantern to light your way to ward off the darkness but doing so will use up your reserves of lantern oil so it's good to use tinderbox's when staying in one place as they can be used to light up a candle or touch as you search a room. Rummaging around a room is not as boring as it might seem, every action is preformed by emulating a movement with the mouse. To open a draw you need to click and "pull" to close the draw you click and "push". Same goes for doors allowing you to open a door just a little bit to see what's in the next room.
It's not all hide and seek some parts of the game have you on the run in a frightening chase sequence or in a room solving a puzzle. The thing I like most about Amnesia's puzzles is that everything you need to complete the puzzle is within that area or room. The puzzles also very from using a rock to dislodge or smash something to picking up gears and putting a machine back into working order. None of the puzzles are overly hard to accomplish but their variety and inventiveness make them enjoyable. In some cases you also need to combine items within your inventory before they can be used to solve puzzles.
The game highly recommends you to check your monitors gamma, play in the dark and with headphones. Let me add to this, this game is best played later at night when the house is quiet and there's nobody to disturb you. I say this because to play this game is to lose yourself in the atmosphere.
From the eerie ambient sound effects of foot steps and scratching bugs to heart pumping music Amnesia doesn't lack in music department at all. There are times when the mere sound of a zombies howl is all that it takes for you to be heading for the nearest hiding spot.
Since it's arrival in September 2010Amnesia: The Dark Decent has been a very successful indie game taking full advantage of the online PC market selling about 200,000 units so far. Frictional games recently stated "The sales that we have had (and are having) are more than enough to motivate developing a game with the PC as the main (and even only) platform. Based on what we have seen, the online PC market is just getting bigger and bigger, and we are convinced we are far from the end of this growth. We think that other developers that consider making their game exclusive to a console might want to think again."
Overall Amnesia: The Dark Decent is a great game, only lacking a little in the graphics department, but the visuals do the job just fine thanks to good lighting. Not much incentive to replay but for it's low price tag this game is awesome value for money. This is a must have for any gamer into horror, but just as good if your looking for something a little different outside your comfort zone. In fact it's worth playing just for the experience based gameplay.
PC Gamer Guy Score 9/10
Need a Link? http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main
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