izigame.me

Amnesia is an interesting game to say the least. One hailed as a horror classic and an important milestone in the genre. It’s not for me to say whether it is or isn’t as its influence can be seen very clearly in modern horror games such as Outlast and Alien: Isolation. At least these are the closest in terms of spirit and gameplay. Many other horror games would pop out just from the simple success of Amnesia such as Slender and SCP, horror games as a whole got a big boost.
See this game didn’t just kick off the survival horror with no weapons game it restarted the entire genre.
This game really makes me realize just how old I am. Spoiler alert but the game isn’t too scary, like at all. Which surprised me. I’ve had this game for the better part of 8 years now collecting dust in my steam catalog. I had tried a few times to play it but always got too scared and uninstalled it. I had built it up for years as being too scary, only finally touching it again due to the game drought only to end up running through most of it.
The biggest problem is that enemies, the things that are supposed to scare you, will just despawn. Unlike games like Alien and Outlast that have a wandering baddy at all times to keep you on edge you can hide and eventually the monster will just exit the area.
It doesn’t even take that long, only around a minute of waiting and pop, he’s gone, leaving you to run around until you figure out the puzzle or progress to the next area. And as long as you keep your sanity up you won’t have to deal with him again, which is fairly easy as I ended the game with around 40 tinderboxes and a consistent 9 oil canisters.
Then there are the puzzles themselves which are frustrating to no end. It seems like most people had an easy walk with them but I spend 90% of the game running around trying to figure out puzzles rather than being afraid. The problem is some puzzles use items like a point and click while others use physics props.
In two different parts you need to clog a gear to stop a machine, with the first one you stick a pipe from your inventory into it while the other one you physically throw a rock into it (despite having another piece of broken pipe in your inventory). Or how some bridges are lowered with a lever while others just have a rock thrown at them. It jumps between these two different mechanics often enough, constantly throwing off your thought process. It can be very confusing and frustrating but then again that may just be my own stupidity.
The real saving grace of the game is its story and atmosphere which are both top notch.
All this seems to point to a game that is somewhat middling. Doing some things right and some wrong, sort of evening out into this middle ground. I mean if you make a horror game that’s not scary you must have messed something up. But what does this have to do with my age?
Well, for some reason I got it into my head that this game came out in 2004 when it actually came out in 2010. Quite a bit more recent than I had expected which made me less lenient on it. I mean surely there had been good horror games before it at this point, right? They may have repopularized it but surely there had been standouts before it that could better claim the title of revitalizing the horror genre.
You had Dead Space and… Silent hill though that was the early 2000s. F.E.A.R. doesn’t really count, nor Bioshock or Condemned. Looking through the list of horror games post Amnesia is shockingly low and what is there isn’t exactly scary. Silent Hill 2 comes the closest but apart from that there is next to nothing.
It wasn’t Amnesia that was behind a trend or just getting a lot of credit because of the famous people who played it. It was me who was behind. I’ve grown old and I sort of just assumed this was one of those older games from the mid 2004. I thought Pewd’s had just dug it up and popularized it.
It might be a bit clunky at parts and when compared to other games that came out in 2010 it’s certainly not the best looking. But there really isn’t much like it before and still not much after. It was really unique and set the precedent for horror games to come.
I believe art should be seen through a lens of the time. A game like Half Life is a masterpiece but it can’t stand up to a game like Red Dead 2. It can’t be said that it’s a worse game or less of a game due to the limitation of the time. That’s why they can both stand together as great games despite one being a huge, well polished experience and the other being a linear first person shooter.
That’s why, despite its shortcomings, it is well worth a playthrough and I recommend you check it out.
7/10 - Amnesia is a game that was even a little dated for the time in terms of visuals and gameplay but its impact on the medium, its excellent storytelling, and next to none atmosphere makes it stand out as one of the better titles to come out of 2010.