When Daniel recovers and clears the rubble to the exit, he regains a bit of sanity. Debris blocks the door and a barrel falls from above, knocking him unconscious. The room in which Daniel currently is starts to collapse. When Daniel obtains the Calamine, the Shadow roars and causes an earthquake. It will not attack you and leaves quickly after spawning. Its appearance is triggered by picking up a bottle of Laudanum in the same room where you find the Orpiment. This is one of the first chambers where you encounter a Servant Grunt. This is possibly the start of the transformation. The second man then demands that Alexander comes down, but never gets the chance as he starts hacking violently. One of his men challenges Wilhelm, who says that they aren't getting out alive. In the flashback to this room, two of Wilhelm's men are drinking the wine that was left by the baron. Wilhelm and his men died in the room because of the tainted wine offered by Alexander, which made their bodies burst, leaving them miserably deformed. The room with the blood on the floor and the flashback occurrence holds a note and a flashback that will explain the possible place of origin of the Gatherers, or some of them. After these events, the room is accessible. One room has a door to the left that when entered, is beat on savagely, and screams of a man are heard.
Only a few small windows that let the natural daylight in can be found.Ī note in the Laboratory tells you to find the compounds for the acidic solution in this section of the castle. I've never understood why so many people feel the need to "crown" a game the scariest when it's such a subjective topic.The Wine Cellar is a very dark and gloomy place.
Not that those other games are bad in any way, but it's just a different kind of horror. Over the years, I have found myself less disturbed by, say, Resident Evil's nonsensical mansions and complexes with completely off-the-wall puzzles and imagery or Silent Hill's forays into alternate dimensions and WTF logic, and more disturbed by warped realism and themes of insanity. That's by-and-large what Lovecraft's writing was known for and I think Amnesia captured that as well, if not better, than any other game out there.Īnd just to nitpick the article a bit, I actually appreciated that the environment seemed to be more steeped in reality than not. As you said, it's more meant to present an unsettling atmosphere with random bits of extreme tension thrown in from time to time. It's really not MEANT to be that shocking, haunted-house kind of scary that you get from most games. Great environments, atmosphere, lighting, sound design and ambience, and decent enough story, though it falls short of Lovecraft a bit (A Machine for Pigs' story will be superior with thechineseroom penning it) Also the way your character's animation is supposed to make him look really vulnerable and terrified is a stroke of genius.Īmnesia's good though. The spider woman that crawls out of pools of blood is a little gorey, but it benefits from what looks to be really good animation, and its paranormal / surreal nature. The Evil Within for example looks a bit too gorey for my tastes, but at the same time, the Safe-head tenderiser guy recalls pyramid head, and we all know how freaky that guy is.
Sinister, paranormal, surreal enemies that get deep under your skin are much better and harder to design. Coupled with the aforementioned gun point, I don't think they're that effective. I'd say the number one rule in creating bad guys is their movement animation, and the Amnesia guys just don't have it. Those mangled dudes aren't scary, just gross looking and sort of cartoony. I really think the enemy design was lacking. Atmospheric and unsettling yes, but outright scary I'm not so sure. The game has a sort of Lovecraft intrigue to it that keeps you playing, but I also think it's down to the game just not being that scary.
With the exception of some of the darker areas, I was largely just really tense, but not to the degree that I felt I couldn't continue playing. Nevertheless, I didn't actually find Amnesia cripplingly scary to play unlike most horror games. However, I think the sneaking around and avoiding them generates a really effective form of tension itself, and in some cases, you can actually flee and re-hide from them, which is obviously intense.
The tension is kind of defused by the futility of it. I definitely found that if I'd been spotted, I was scared for like a second, but then I'd be like "well, I can't defend myself so I may as well let it kill me".