Amnesia: The Dark Descent Review

I have yet to experience a game that is scarier to play than Frictional‘s Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The fear I experienced didn’t come from the plot, though it takes a journey into a heart so dark that even Conrad would be startled. The fear didn’t come from grotesque monsters, though Mythos-flavored malevolence stalked my every step. The fear didn’t even come from the giant dungeon I was attempting to navigate, though it was truly dark and creepy as shit. The fear came from the visual, aural, and player feedback that was unlike anything I’ve experienced before nor since. Amnesia set the bar for horror games.

The Mythos of Amnesia

After being listed in my five PC games to brown your trousers, I realized that Amnesia deserved a whole article. I can’t reveal too much about Amnesia without giving “it” away, where “it” is a whole parade of terrifying events and awful revelations. But I’ll do my best.

You take on the role of Daniel, an individual that had witnessed or done something so terrible that he chose to quaff a potion that gave him amnesia. A note from your pre-amnesiac self begs you to delve into the dungeon that lies below to stop an acquaintance working some seriously bad world ending magics (Don’t forget the warning that something hungry and existential is after you so you’re doomed if you simply pack up and run.) It’s a simple beginning that quickly turns pear shaped as the horror within both you and the manor are revealed.

The game play is nothing revelatory: Amnesia is a first person adventure game that will bar your progress with rudimentary puzzles. But those puzzles will force you to poke around the darkness for missing nibs and nobs, and it’s within that darkness that the true action takes place. Not only will that existential force chase you (actually chase you) through the crypts, but a dishearteningly persistent once-human-abomination (that you are defenseless against) will dog your every step. The game will have you hiding in closets, scrambling down halls, and praying that the corner you’re in is dark enough for the monster to not see you.

Amnesia tells a story worth hearing through well voice acted notes scattered through the castle and a few potent flashbacks. By the end of the game you’ll have experienced a truly Lovecraftian tale of dark revelations, horror from outside space, and the temptation of Real Ultimate Power corrupting the human spirit. I naturally can’t reveal too much, but it will keep you entertained and your pulse up through to the end.

Mouse Ruiningly Terrifying

All of this sounds creepy, but I’ve played plenty of games with scary/gross/creepy plots that prove to be an exercise in shooting dumb aberrant zombies more than an exercise in gut wrenching terror. (Clive Barker’s Jericho, I’m looking at you! Giving the player a super powered homing-ghost-bullet is badass but makes monsters considerably less creepy.) Monsters stalking the hallways of a mansion and uncovering your own dark past is potent, but what makes it a scary game?

Interacting with the environment will require you to move your mouse in a way that would mimic your character’s movement. To open a door by swinging it away from you, you face the door, hold the left mouse button, and move the mouse away from your body. Likewise, when a hook-handed monster is chasing you and you need to put an obstacle between you and it, you would hold down the left mouse button on a door and pull the mouse  as quickly as you can towards your body to slam the door shut. To spin a wheel to open a gate you move your mouse in a circle, or in really really quick tight circles as a monster closes in and the gate is your way out. (This also extends to other objects you may have to manipulate in the world, though box-stacking-and-jumping puzzles are mercifully few.)

This all sounds like a pain in the ass, and it is, but it’s used to great effect. There is a world of difference between employing your whole hand and arm in video game actions and just depressing a button with your finger. Your pulse will race as you slam doors behind you, and you’ll lean in close to your monitor as you inch the mouse forward to crack open a door.

The game also measures the sanity of your character, lessened by hiding in the dark (which you’ll do out of necessity) and as you witness That With Should Not Be Witnessed. But your sanity doesn’t merely act as a life meter that ends the game should it run out. I don’t want to ruin what happens when you’re being chased and your sanity runs out (spoilers: you’ll scream like I screamed) but the game does change how the game reacts to your input when you’re afraid. The game’s input lags just a bit to make you feel like you’re scrambling/floating down corridors, perhaps dizzy with fear. The visuals will bend and blur, and the game’s audio cranks it to a creepy-ass eleven.

I wish I had a better vocabulary to discuss the audio of the game, but it’s the scariest atmospheric sound I’ve ever heard. At its most creepy it’s the equivalent of someone pulling their fingernails across a chalkboard, only instead the sound making your teeth clench you’re simply convinced you’re being preyed upon by a malicious universe. Play with quality headphones.

Brown your Trousers

This review is far past due, but I have many friends that have yet to play this game. If you’re a fan of truly terrifying media, ones that push the boundaries of their mediums in new ways to convince your brain that you are actually in mortal danger, then Amnesia is a must-play. It’s a mere $20 on Steam and the game is no light weight: you’ll be getting at least ten heart pounding hours that will really make you question how long you want to play in one sitting. You should experience this game immediately, I’m sure you’ll find that it is the bar that you will use to measure all other scary games.