One of the scariest horror games on earth, not to be taken lightly, this game will give you hallucinations at night and wouldn’t let you sleep. The environment shown in the game is so creepy that to progress a player has to dwell deep into his soul to find the courage needed to play this game. Unlike other games, Amnesia doesn’t offer the player to use weapons not a single item can be used to fight the monsters wandering the darkest corners of the castle. This exception gives the players a most horrifying experience throughout because without weapons it becomes extremely difficult to sneak your way past the monsters or sprint when seen by one.
Amnesia is all about three aspects :
Darkness, Sanity and Amnesia
Let me elaborate the above aspects by telling you this captivating story in a nutshell.
The main character of the game aka the protagonist, Daniel wakes up in the hallway of a castle. He suffers from Amnesia and couldn’t recollect the past events which has led him here. He notices some pink fluid type trail on the floor which he follows and ends up in a room with a note written on a piece of paper. He reads it and discovers that he is on a mission and the note is addressed to him meaning he himself wrote that note before losing his memory. The note tells him something about a shadow monstrous and supernatural that has been following him for a long time and to get rid of it he needs to find Alexander who resides at the Inner Sanctum of the castle.
The journey to find Alexander and to expel the supernatural entity that is haunting him, is filled with excitement, adventure, stealth, anxiety, confusion, amnesia, thrill, darkness, sanity and horror.
This is where excitement, adventure, stealth and anxiety comes when Daniel embarks on a mysterious journey through the castle. The atmosphere of the castle is dark, scary, full of terrifying noises, sounds and thuds can be heard approaching near and near but no one is actually there and it seems as if the evil spirits are watching Daniel’s every movement and waiting to possess him when he’s at his most vulnerable. The state of mind becomes so excited and confused at the same moment that anxiety takes over which makes this adventure a living nightmare for the players.
Without any weapons to protect themselves, the player’s aptitudes are stealth and acumen. Exploring the vast areas of the castle takes a good strategy to be followed because if you don’t remember which rooms you have left out and get lost then the whole process may become counterproductive. The approach should be simple and one ought to cover each room at a time. The monsters in this game are very violent and ferocious. They will hunt Daniel down if caught and would break down doors if they see him running into the room and barricading the door from the inside. Only two lethal strikes of this abomination would kill Daniel instantly.
To be safe, Daniel has to implement a unique strategy involving stealth, thrill, sanity and darkness. Daniel has to movie cautiously without alerting the evil lurking the corridors, hallways, passageways of the castle. The game developing team has integrated a Physics engine into this game which enables the players to open the door by pressing the left mouse button when hand icon appears and dragging the mouse up and down to slowly open the door. This technique is very useful to take a peek into the room by opening the door a little bit. But when on a run from these monsters the only viable solution is to get inside a room, close the door and move the table or heavy objects to block the door and hide yourself inside a wardrobe or almirah.
Hold down LeftMouse and move the mouse in order to move the door. Press RightMouse to throw the door open or shut, depending on the direction you face.
The monster will come searching for you, will break down the door and hastily look for you in the room making heart beat-fastening growling sounds. It doesn’t matter you hide in the darkness or in the room without a wardrobe but blocking the closed door, the monster will chase and kill you once you are seen.(see video below)
After telling you all this now comes the time for the most terrifying and haunting experiences for the players, the Sanity. The sanity is shown at the inventory screen with a picture of heart and brain and the condition of it when affected by sanity, usually the picture is fine when sanity is okay but the picture worsens when sanity decreases. But the real experience is felt when standing in the darkness, during the encounter with a monster or a happening of an unsettling event. As soon as Daniel sees a monster or watches a door which gets open by itself or a gust of wind so strong that shakes Daniel to his core or stands in the dark corners, the sanity gets disturbed which makes Daniel’s vision blurry, his heartbeat pounds faster, his voice stammers and becomes breathless. Unable to walk properly, fumbling all over the place ,to control Daniel and to hide him becomes a tough job especially when a monster is after you.
Beware! When standing in darkness your sanity will slowly drain. Turn on lights in the environment using Tinderboxes or search for other sources of light.
If you keep on looking at the monster once it has noticed you it drains the sanity fast forcing Daniel to fall on the ground and starts experiencing hallucinations of bugs and disgusting cockroaches crawling the floor besides him. This leaves him completely vulnerable and the monster rushes and kills him in two blows. Also while hiding in a room inside a wardrobe, the sanity decreases when the monster sees you and starts chasing you. The condition worsens and fast breathing and hard heartbeats are experienced when the monster destroys the door and searches desperately for Daniel.
Hence, stealth keeps sanity okay but darkness disturbs sanity and as Daniel is already amnesiac, the whole thrill and adventure which you are about to experience becomes a horror.
Horror is not only due to the things mentioned above but also Amnesia. As I have pointed out earlier, the players will lose their way inside this enormous fortified manor if they forget the layout of the place and from where they came from giving them a feel of amnesia in a more real way. This game also entails a lot of puzzle solving which demands players to remember places they sought earlier and have relevance in one way or another because these have to be revisited again to complete the unfinished puzzles or riddles.
Last but not the least. I have to declare one more thing about this awesome first person survival horror game that though this game was only released on PC, Mac and Unix, it didn’t leave any flaw of not being launched on PS3 or X360, this major achievement was only possible because of its game developers who have created the most frightening computer game which has received accolades throughout the world including the award for ‘Technical Excellence’ and another for the sound effects recorded and presented in the game which are too good for which ‘Excellence for Audio’ award was conferred on Frictional Games. The creepy noises coming from a distance as if women and children are screaming and scared for their lives and footsteps approaching but no one is there and other thudding or creaking or growling sounds making the atmosphere ominous is absolutely mind-boggling.
I suggest all the viewers to play this game. But first let me warn you “Please don’t play this game after midnight because once you play it past 12 there is no going back, Amnesia will devour you and soon you will be like Daniel feeling the experience alike and may have hallucinations at night or even start having Ncytophobia“.
Don’t blame me afterwards that I didn’t warn you before. This game is for people who love horror, grotesque demonic beings, occults, supernatural evil entities, shadows, abominations, love getting jump scares and goosebumps from them and other such paranormal and crazy stuff.
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A sequel to this game is Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs which was released on 10 Sep, 2013 also on PC, Mac and Unix.
But a latest game is in development which will be released on 22 Sep, 2015 on PC and PS4, by the same game company, Frictional Games. The name is SOMA.
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Top Photo by Clarence1996 is licensed under 
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Photo28 by Shaurma is licensed under 