Amnesia: The Dark Descent Review

Amnesia is not a game you play to win; it is a game to win to stay alive. The tutorial screen says this is the attitude with which you should approach this game. It’s not wrong.



The horror genre of gaming is rather narrow. Penumbra seem to have the market niche with several titles. Horror gaming has been something of a delight for me ever since Waxworks back in the early 1990s. It was a terrifying puzzle game, although moreso for the implication then the fiddly level design and problem-solving.

The gameplay of Amnesia, however, is a little more sophisticated. Essential you are working your way towards the inner chambers of a gothic castle to discover the answers to a murder in which you are involved. The puzzles between the levels are generically designed yet intuitively straightforward (fill the acid to melt the barrier; find to key to open the door; step on the invisible pressure pad... no, not that one!)

Unique (in its emphasis in an FP game) though is the insanity meter. While you have a health bar that be reduced from attacks by horrific-looking monstrosities or falling scenery, you are much more likely to lose your sanity through looking at monsters, or staying in the dark too long. However, if you stay in the light, monsters are more likely to stalk you. And so the game is a balance of moving from light to dark.

Light is frugal resource in this game. You lantern has barely any fuel, and the tinderboxes that illuminate fixed light points are in incredibly short-supply also. After the first twenty minutes or so, you begin to realise how sparingly you need to create your own light, and grow used to creeping through the dark.

Hiding in the dark holds a few surprises, though. The game will distort your vision, or play disturbing flashbacks to gruesome events, when you stay too long in the dark. The AI director will adjust the music, the breath of your character (which is enough to affect your breathing too, I find) and your visual acuity in response to the fear that your FP character suffers.

Like with watching horror films, I think should only experience this game in bite-sized chunks. A few Christmases ago I watched about 7 horror films over three days. After a short time I became sanitised to the same events, particularly the metaphor of the female figure becoming corrupted as she rises to overcome the crises of the film (i.e. kill the baddies) which occurred in most of them. This game might suffer from that same issue.

Recommended in your playing experience is to wear headphones and to ensure you are in a darkened room. Preferable at midnight. Like with experiencing a horror film, though, the game is genuinely disturbing. Unlike manhunt, the gore level is low (although dismembered corpses and implications of torture are rife). However, to desire to be scared is an evocative emotion.

I cannot play this game for more than a short time. I played a gameplay video from youtube to one of my classes recently, and they weren’t impressed. Neither was I. Probably just as if you would be if you watched, say, The Others in a park with a childish football game in the background while an ice-cream truck blared for your money. However, given the right environment, this is an immersive gameplaying experience that, should you appreciate the horror genre, will offer you an experience that will stay with you while you sleep.