Videogame Tuesday: Amnesia, the Dark Descent

Amnesia was my first ever Horror game, and I can safely say it is the perfect game to introduce someone to that genre of videogames. Playing Amnesia I finally got my faith in the Horror genre restored. I really dislike Horror films, but I absolutely love the genre in books. Until this game I would have never thought Horror could be successfully used in videogames.

To begin with the game has some amazing storyline. You wake up in a dark castle with Amnesia and try to find out both your identity and –I’m guessing- some kind of connection of it with the current state of the castle. As all of this happens strange things happen and your character ends up not being the strongest in character. However his weakness to handle whatever is happening around him is totally reasonable. The inability of your character to fight his enemies is one of the major things that create the atmosphere for me. There is no health bar and really no point to fighting those creatures, which really makes you feel even more weak and scared. One more thing that adds to this feeling is the uncertainty of everything. You don’t know who you are, what you’ve done, where you are and why you are there. This adds to two things: A) The unknown is on the things that really frighten anyone and B) It keeps you on your toes and wanting to find more of your journal where you found out about everything.

However all of the world’s good storyline wouldn’t be enough to create a good Horror Story, we have seen after all many Films where the script might have been good but the feeling was never the same as in (for example) a book. What makes a good Horror story? Atmosphere. And Amnesia definitely delivers in this department. The inability of your character to see correctly because he is shaking and because of the darkness causes you to be unsure of your environment. Weird sounds are heard all over the place some being complete natural (wind) and some not so (footsteps). By that point you end up questioning the sanity of the protagonist but your fear still remains. All of that is toped up with the unpredictability of the appearance of enemies and their nature.

As you closing to the middle of the story (I still haven’t finished the game) you end up learning more about the protagonist which result in you being even more scared. When you slowly find hints and clues about what this place and these creatures are and what is your place in all this you certainly don’t feel relieved.

These are a few reasons why I like this game and even though I haven’t played it to the end I would definitely recommend it to you.