I waited specifically for today to do that title even if it is getting a little late. It’s a timed rhyme yo. Actually that’s a lie, today is the first chance I’ve had to mention that Frictional Games, developers of the much lauded Penumbra trilogy, are tomorrow releasing their much anticipated next title Amnesia: The Dark Descent. If you haven’t heard of it then I heartily recommend you go and take a look at the original (spoiler free) teaser trailer and should it pique your interest there’s now a demo available as well. Hurrah!
Since my last post on Amnesia, the game reached its 2000 pre-orders goal and will now feature a developer commentary implemented in much the same way as the Half-Life games. Based on the articles I’ve read on Frictional Games’ blog I expect this to be particularly interesting considering the game’s heritage and the developers’ clear understanding of horror.
Jason Dobry has been tasked with reviewing Amnesia: The Dark Descent in lieu of my video card playing up so stay tuned. In the meantime here’s a few more videos for those of you who see the demo as more of a health risk than a means of enjoying yourself.
Edit: It appears RPS have just posted up a Wot I Think of Amnesia. Check it out here.
Email the author of this post at greggb@tap-repeatedly.com
“I think it is safe to say that Amnesia is the most successfully frightening game to have been made… It’s Thief III’s Cradle as a full game.”
:-S
No, sorry Gregg. Pre-ordered. No reviews or videos for me. I’m banning them. It’s Portal 2 syndrome again. I wonder if you can get Firefox’s Adblocker to disappear all traces of Amnesia from the web.
Although I already have the impression that once I’ve played it, I will try to excise the experience from my memory. One can only handle so much horror, no? Probably why it’s called Amnesia.
Back in the spring, after buying the Humble Indie Bundle, I had the chance to get the Penumbra trilogy for $5, and to pre-order Amnesia for $10. The best game deals I’ve gotten all year – and I STILL haven’t gotten around to starting Penumbra. The Wasteland, and mods, keep calling. But how great to be supporting the indies. Winter is shaping up to be fine gaming time what with Fallout New Vegas next month, and the possibility of Portal 2 before winter’s over. And those are just for starters.
This is just a test to see if I can get embedded links to be visible to me. Move along. Nothing to see here.
http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main
Favicon “grab” seems to work.
http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main
Copy/past from the address bar seems to work.
Now to submit and see if they are visible to me.
Thanks for turning me onto this series Gregg. I’ve played a few hours worth of Penumbra: Overture on your advice and overall like it so far.
The adventure game trappings are making it a bit annoying. It’s hard to be scared when I’m too frustrated trying to figure out where to find some stupid item in the three rooms I’ve combed over 20 times already!
Otherwise, the game seems to do horror better then anything else I’ve played thus far. Amnesia’s trailer makes it look even scarier, which is exciting!
Penumbra: Overture was terrifying because it was so disturbing. The sequel was significantly less enthralling, mostly because I didn’t care for their explanation or perhaps how they revealed it. They just lost something…the unspeakable horrors…the suspense.
Never touched the third game, Requiem, as it literally had no narrative and was more or less just a series of puzzles with some references thrown in from the first two games.
Still, I’m definitely looking forward to trying this one…look for a review shortly!
Of the two videos above I’ve only watched the water horror one and that was enough for me, I’ve avoided the others for fear of revealing too much (like Portal 2). I was actually going to include some spoiler warnings but in truth the people sensitive to them, like yourself HM, know the drill when it comes to vids 😉 It’s one of the reasons why I loved the original teaser trailer because it used a custom built area to show off the game rather than a section from the actual game.
Armand it’s funny you mention the frustration of solving puzzles getting in the way of being scared because I found it was the other way around! Focusing on solving a puzzle while god knows what is lurking about was what made the game so intense for me. It adds a certain urgency and sense of unease to each puzzle which I think really adds to the overall experience.
Yeah I heard the same about Requiem but was under the impression that Black Plague was the best of the first two episodes. Anyway, I’ll know soon enough whether I agree with you Jason because I should hopefully be starting it tonight or tomorrow evening and with it a review at some point.
I saw this game appear recently and planned for a Day 1 purchase. I’m looking forward to some real horror (I’ve only read Eurogamer’s writeup) and unexpected pants-changing tonight.
OK, f$#” this s%$$#&. What the F%$#$??? I managed to get myself stuck after what amounted to 15 minutes of play. Right after I read the first letter, I have NO idea what to do whatsoever. Oh why did I pay 12 Euros for a game that I obviously don’t have sufficient skills to play????????????????
You, adventure games people – help!!!!
haha meho 🙂
Isn’t it odd. I SO want to play this game, but I would simply rather kill myself. The second option is more fun 🙂
Just downloaded and installed. I so love independent devs, and I especially love the ones who program for Mac.
Tonight I will come in from the Wasteland and start Amnesia.
Meho: Hee, hee. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) If anyone else will be playing this in coming days, we could start a Bollocks thread. I know you’re a smart person, but did you read the manual?
“- I am stuck! What to do?
First of all, make sure to check your mementos and see if there are any clues there.
Secondly, look around extra carefully in the level to make sure that you have not missed
anything. The more important items should be fairly visible, so as long as you make sure
to visit every room in a level, you will find everything of importance. Also note that
almost all puzzles can be solved using objects or items from the same level, in the cases
where an object from another level is needed, it should be evident from the mementos.
Finally, if all fails, visit our forums at: http://frictionalgames.com/forum/ and ask for
help!”
That said, I’ll help if I can…once I get to the place where you are. But then, you’ll probably be gone by then.
I have managed to get through. Of course it was just a matter of very badly visible lever that needed to be pulled.
Anyway, I love the mood and the Lovecraftian narrative but I am slightly worried that the rather old skool adventure design will irritate me as I go on. It’s all about heavily scripted solutions to heavily scripted problems and I for one am kinda used to the freedom offered by some other games. However with my first enemy just being encuntered perhaps the action part of the game will make up for it.
From my five minutes in the demo, I’d be worried about this too. I hate it when my rubbery face gets dragged all about town by the face grab cam. I’d rate it as heavy handed as a three hand hand.
I remember you commenting on that in Metro 2033 Helmut. I can’t say I’m a fan of the face grab cam either.
Poking around the demo. Floating hand to move doors and crates, face grab, viewpoint tilting for da horrah, a threefer of ugh. Almost gave up but the water horror is clever and new.
And irritating.
Gonna stick with it for the demo. Open question if I buy but want to be sold.
Interesting viewpoints. I have a review forthcoming so I don’t particularly want to commit to an opinion, but the game’s designed to be played in the dark with headphones on for complete immersion (from the manual). Is everyone doing that?
Headphones might be negotiable, but ALL horror games must be played at night with all light sources extinguished.
Played in a dark room with 5.1 system cranked up.
Finished the demo and won’t be buying the game.
Splash monster was clever as heck, but the adventure aspects didn’t work for me, nor do physics puzzles in a first person in general. The whole thing felt extremely game-y. Hand icon -> floating boxes. Pulsating bloodgoop on walls. snore.
There’s a lot to like and I think it’s halfway there. The stealth/puzzle/lighting/action model is nifty. Making the sequences a tad shorter would help as it’d make the adventure party less tedious. Maybe I’m dumb but box hopping to find the switches–in the dark–then doing it again clean felt a bit off.
Not sold on “ALL horror games must be played at night with all light sources extinguished”. While this one should be, I’d like to see a horror game go full daylight. No bloodblobs, no critters from vents (cough Metro 2033 demo). A bug can dream. Then again, I loved The Suffering so don’t trust me on horror games.
I know lots have complained about the controls in Penumbra and – to a briefer extent – Amnesia, but I find them oddly tactile and satisfying. I just wish there was more I could do with most objects than pick them up and hurl them.
Like Lewis, however, I have no intention of playing beyond the demo, because I would die of fright. And I can think of a variety of other ways I’d prefer to die.
At about 1 hour playtime: I’m not loving it, but I’m liking it with reservations. As Steerpike said, not enough to do. All those books and I can’t take/use any of them? The graphics are kinda old school, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that I am a realism snob. As for the horror of it, I’ve not been frightened yet, but some of the “effects” set me a bit on edge since I have to worry about health, sanity, and light. I’m sure some jumping out of my seat is coming up. Not many puzzles so far, and I love puzzles. Get the generator going, get the water running, etc. Read a book, decipher a code. But Rhem 4 comes out shortly for Mac, and those games are always real puzzle-fests. I may have a very different opinion of Amnesia after 10 hours, who knows?
P.S. What is “face grab”?
Spike: All those books and I can’t take/use any of them?
This is the effect of playing Bethesda’s games. We expect the same level of interactivity with our games.. and no one delivers that!
Looking forward to the review because there’s a lot of design choices I like (run from enemies, don’t look at enemies, use of audio cues) but the demo felt like a mashup of annoying mechanics from 2000.
The water monster is scary the first time (horrible death) and the second an annoyance while doing floating box platforming to collect keycards. In the dark. With Vaseline smeared tilting camera.
How does everyone feel about the automatic save in Amnesia? On the one hand, do-overs are often not to be found in real life, and we have to live with our mistakes and the consequences of them. Apparently dying in this game changes the game. On the other hand, one of the nice things about gaming is the chance to make different choices, correct our mistakes, and get the “good ending”.
Why not savour the atmosphere though Spike? The neccesity to interact with everything isn’t really my thing. It’s a relatively pointless undertaking. What would you benefit, in Amensia from Oblivion type interaction?
Oh and I love the control method in Amnesia etc, it’s amazing!!
Well, the controls are… OK. I didn’t find them amazing, I mean, they do what Half Life 2 did six years ago and do it well, but that’s it I guess.
So far the saving system kinda worked for me but mind you, I still haven’t died once. Let’s see when I do what I will think about it.
The interactivity is a bit of a problem but I basically knew it would be like that when I got into it, this is not a big budget game so I knew only certain objects will have proper physical properties and only certain documents will be available for reading. I f&%$#ing hate reading pages of static text in games so as far as I’m concerned, the less to read the better.
As for scariness, as I said, I am yet to die and I saved and exited last night just as the first enemy showed on the other side of the room, so I expect the vulnerability of the main character to play a major role soon. I loved the flight-not-fight mechanism of the latest Silent Hill on the Wii so having to hide and flee from the horrors in Amnesia sounds appetising. However, so far I haven’t seen anything in terms of horror that hasn’t been in other games. The (in)sanity mechanic is at least as old as Bethesda’s Call of Chtulhu, the scripted scenes, vaseline cam and facegrabs are even older. I mean, it’s all NICE, just not terribly scary or new to me, heh. I guess playing those fucked up Russian games like Void and Cryostasis did a number on me so the Scandinavian take on Lovecraft feels warm and cuddly… I’ll proceed playing tonight and, yes, Jason, playing it in the dark with sound cranked up (no headphones), alone in my room (the wife banished to the living room), the only comforting thing being a cat sleeping in my lap..
It’s manually pushing and pulling doors, drawers, wheels and levers etc. that separates it from Half-Life 2’s controls. It takes interaction that is usually resigned to an automatic button press and makes it an extension of the player’s movement. I think it’s brilliant and really gives weight to the world, something that Half-Life 2 (or anything using Havok for that matter) is sorely lacking. In my opinion it’s a control method that fits so perfectly into first person games that I’m surprised it’s not been ripped off yet. I’m not sure whether it would tire in longer and more expansive games (such as Oblivion or Fallout 3) but Metroid 3: Corruption had similar ‘micro-interactions’ and it never got old, for me at least. I also understand your criticisms regarding certain puzzles requiring specific solutions because I remember Frictional saying that they were trying to avoid that after feedback on the Penumbra trilogy. Hopefully it’s rare in Amnesia, but it sort of comes with adventure territory.
I think, Fink, I’d sooner have the little hand or eye icon denoting something that I could interact with or look at. Without it it would almost be like pixel hunting in 3D, especially if the environments are intricately detailed and populated with all sorts of objects — visual feedback is a good thing. Everybody remembers the noise that Half-Life 2 made when you pressed E on something that couldn’t be interacted with… 😉 I’m guessing the hand/eye icon is just a bit severe for your tastes!
Matt the one thing I took from Penumbra: Overture was that it made use of objects in many more ways than I was typically used to in first person games thanks to the adventure streak running through it. Whether it was physical ‘world’ objects or inventory objects that you carried around with you, the game married two (traditionally) mutually exclusive puzzle types. I’m starting Black Plague tonight so I expect the overall experience to be tighter after the baby steps of Overture.
Spike, ‘face grab’ (as Helmut has so affectionately called it) is where the game grabs your in-game face and forces it to look in a specific direction, taking control away from you:
“Look at this you incompetent fuck. LOOK.”
I dislike it as much as Helmut and hope Amnesia doesn’t feature too much of it.
Meho, be careful with cats. They are fickle creatures. One minute they’re sleeping, next they spear you in the leg and run off at a particularly terrifying moment, adding to the terror. My own cat is quite adept at this.
Thanks Gregg. Now I get it. I didn’t like it either (not knowing what it is called) when it happened for the 1st time early in the game. I am quite capable of turning my head, of my own volition, in the direction of sound, or something seen in my peripheral vision, or upon “sensing” that something anomalous is happening beside/behind me.
Steerpike tells the truth about cats. Heaven forbid a cat in the lap is startled by a loud noise coming from the computer. It’s bad enough for a woman. I wouldn’t want to be a man when that happens. My 13+ year old cat would rather sleep behind the computer where it’s warm, but can be a real danger in the lap when “loud” happens.
I understand people’s concern about the face grab mechanic in games, but I think it has its uses.
I’ve mentioned before, but none of my friends who live in my town play video games. But sometimes I feel a part of a game is so cool that I want to share it with them. The opening bits of Half Life 2 or the first level of Bioshock are two examples.
Whenever I’ve tried this though, I’ve been horrified to watch as they almost always miss the cool or important events and sights around them. I don’t know if its a lack of experience with first person games, or just due to blind exploration and not always knowing where to look. At times like this, I wish the camera WOULD force them to see these things.
Now, I don’t feel I need this same help, but I play a lot (too many?) games, and have gotten used to exploring my environments. Having said all this, maybe an option setting that lets you turn on/off the face grab could be a good approach. Almost like a second easy/normal setting.
The game IS pixel hunting (2.0) in 3D. My complaint was the hold a disembodied object in 3D. Awkward and ugly–HL2 had the same problem.
The mouse pushing/rotating items has been done many times. Never liked it, and don’t here, but tying it to the time pressure is a good horror mechanic. Mostly I wish this had caught on: http://home.novint.com/products/watch_demo.php
The ergonomics would give a physical therapist fits, but three axis control with resistance and feedback is revolutionary. If you ever get a chance to try one (or have cash to blow on a toy) do so. Near peed myself with nerd joy using an early adopter’s unit.
@Fink, I think the “horror in daylight” thing (or something lesser) is what Levine and co. are going for with Infinite.
Metro used the ‘face grab’ often in conjunction with slow motion or altered time. I have the instinctive reaction of pushing the controls away from me when it occurs and I think that the technique is an immersion breaker rather than enhancer. What game did this first?
I think the long forgotten rail shooter Deadly Tide did this in certain parts, but I can’t remember exactly. It’s been a decade and then some.
@Fink: I can stomach the disembodiment, especially considering how difficult it must be to implement fully articulated (and convincing) limbs, but I never really understood the omission of Freeman’s arms in a vehicle. That was weird.
I’ve seen the Novint Falcon before but never understood exactly how it worked until watching that video. As somebody who uses a vertical mouse and has researched a few different interfaces to circumvent the tingling in my wrists a couple of years back the ergonomics look a little worrying– though I’d suspect that the lack of pressure on the underside of your wrist and the necessity to move your entire arm is a plus. It looks interesting and apparently supports Black Plague as well (which I started last night). I’d love to give it a go.
I stumbled across this video review of the Novint Falcon and thought the guy’s reaction just after the 5 minute mark was pretty funny.
“The mouse pushing/rotating items has been done many times.”
You’ll have to indulge me because I’m firing blanks. I can only think of Trespasser and that was… well, we all know what that was.
Wow Finkbug. The Falcon looks interesting – in theory. Haptic/touch are the wave of the future, but I’m not so sure that that particular future is here yet, for computer gaming, that is. Touch on a pad is a different story. At $250 it would have to work very well indeed, in a game-precision way, and be kind to hands/wrists/arms. I watched the video and took a quick peek at the forum. I am left wondering how it handles 2-3 button and scroll wheel mouse actions. But I’m not in the market at that price. Great idea, but I’m not convinced it’s ready for prime time
@GB Now drawing a blank myself. Didn’t Indigo Prophecy nee Fahrenheit? Certain I’ve seen it earlier still but many was probably an overstatement.
@Spike It has three buttons. Don’t remember if there’s a wheel–been quite awhile. I ought to call the guy up and lowball an offer; I bet his lives in a closet.
The item was stillborn and not perfect. It is tiring to use because the resistance or pushback can be quite high when appropriate. High speed vehicle down a rutted road, it trys to jerk the control out of your hand just like it’d be tough to hang onto the wheel.
Completely different experience than a rumble pad, touchpad, or wii/etc tracking. Run the cursor over an object and feel the texture. Swing a wrench and feel it stop dead when it hits a wall. It’s visceral, unlike swinging a sword in open air and the motion continues but stops onscreen when the opponent blocks.
“but I never really understood the omission of Freeman’s arms in a vehicle. That was weird.”
My dear Gregg, The Free Man is not one to tolerate questions. Especially not from the likes of a petty mortal. The Free Man drives as and how he pleases. You shall not question His lack of handiness at 10 and 2.
But seriously, he was using the gravity gun to take the wheel. He’s that effing awesome.
I never even considered the gravity gun being used with the steering wheel. I can now sleep easy. No wonder Alyx gave me a wink when I was driving.
Alyx was quite the winker. And lavish with the knowing looks.
Wait, you’re essentially saying that “gravity gun”, in this context is euphemism for his… Oh my. OH MY!!!
I never finished Penumbra 2, but it was definitely atmospheric and scary. I especially liked, of course, that monsters didn’t pop out around every corner. Both games let the suspense build! Is why I figure I’ll try this one too.