Amnesia: The Dark Descent

[Pip Boy]

Is really, really, really a terrifying game. I find that a lot of the newer survival horror games diminish the creepiness by overarming you *coughDeadSpacecough*, but being a protagonist that is flimsy and easily murdered and kind of insane and unable to use weapons against the horrific nightmare hellspawn that attack is a nice change for this kind of game. There seem to be so many sequences where you must hide, run, or die. In one portion spoiler + huge wall of textyour vision gets blurry and suddenly the room you're in is flooded. As you move through the water, these splashes of water follow behind you getting closer and closer, accompanied by growling noises. If you don't get out of the water in time, whatever it is will reach you and you will die. Whats worse, for the next 15 minutes of the game, you find yourself jumping from box to box (or from box to water to box in places where the nearest box is too far to jump) all the while having that horrific thing follow you in the water. Then you get to another room where there are no boxes, just several doors and hallways. Had to run down a hallway, slam the door behind me (which is very involved and immersive because the game's control method has you grab the door and push it shut rather than "press e to interact with door") then run like hell while I can hear the monstrous growls of the invisible thing behind me as it beats down the door. Could hear the door behind me breaking just as I managed to get through and close another, through about four or five doors with some splits and turns and OH MY GOD THERE'S ANOTHER ONE! AND ITS A DEAD END! SHIT! THERES SOME BOXES! CLIMB ON THE BOXES! FUCK! THE BOXES FELL OVER! GODDAMMIT WHY ARE THE WALLS BLEEDING!? THE WALLS ARE FUCKING BLEEDING HOLY SHIT! At another part, I was standing in a small study with only one door out right behind me. I then began to hear some kind of undead monster banging on that door, slowly tearing it down. With it blocking my only escape, I ran into a nearby wardrobe to hide. Whatever it was broke into the room, and because of the way door interaction works, I was able to slip open the wardrobe just a tiny bit to peek at the monster and watch it shamble around, then leave, without fully opening the door and alerting it. Sometimes such simple touches can make a game so much better..

Even more interesting is the way sanity works. Whenever you linger in dark areas for too long or see that which mortal man was not meant to see, you start losing your sanity. Your vision will blur, everything will turn red, and in the extremes you'll begin hearing voices that aren't there and experience a lag between your controls and in-game actions (that one can get you killed sometimes). However, lingering in well-lit areas, while normally the better choice, makes it easier for zombies and the like to see you, which is another good way to die.

The game also has a puzzle element, sticking to the normal Survival Horror elements of having you slowly explore an area grabbing items as you go that can be combined with other items to make the thing that gets you past the other thing, but its done unlike a lot of games where the devs seem to just "LOL YOU DIDN'T GET THE UNNOTICEABLE SHINY ROCK IN CHAPTER 1 THE GAME IS NOW UNWINNABLE", at least to the point that I'm at everything you pick up and carry around with you seems perfectly logical. I've never seen an item available for me to stash that didn't immediately make perfect sense.

Anyone else played this? Anyone else impressed lately by another pants-shittingly horrifying game?