I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I'm unable to get scared by films, as the constant knowledge of the fictionality of events and my distance from the characters prevents me from feeling any genuine sense of personal danger.
In games, however, you are invited to inhabit the position of the protagonist, their body becoming your body, your collective wellbeing becoming unified. As a result, I am still capable of being scared shitless by games.
I'd heard a lot about
Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I'd heard comparisons to
Myst,
The Ring, and
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I'd been told that the art direction was fascinating. I'd been tod that the gameplay was innovative. I'd been told that it was very,
very weird.
It later turned out that I'd understandably confused it with
The Void, which shares many of
Amnesia's qualities. As a result, what I had not been told, unfortunately, was that the game is
really fucking scary. Proper, psychological, Oh-Shit-I-Don't-Know-What-That-Is-But-I-Bet-It's-Even-Worse-Than-What-I'm-Imagining scary.
As I started the demo, several things occurred to me, in this order:
-I've just been presented with several windows recommending how I should enter the game (with an open mind to narrative play), what to expect (darkness, disturbing imagery and sensory tricks) and how best to play it (with headphones, in the dark, at night).
-I'm now in what appears to be a controllable hallucination sequence. Cool! Like in
Call of Cthulhu!
-I've just found a letter from myself explaining the current situation. This game is all plot-y and deep. I could enjoy this.
-
Wassat?
-Wow, this game is
dark. I'm barely out of the first area and I'm running out of lantern oil and tinder. This game has realism! I genuinely can't see! Shit!
-HOLY HELL OF ALL THAT BURNS, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS CREEPY SHIT
Now I'm too scared to finish the demo, let alone buy the game. I've heard that you can see some horrifyingly constructed set-pieces later in the game, but right now I'm terrified of the monsters I
can't see. The blood-slicked protoplasm that leeches at my passing leg in the darkness, the malicious shadow that extinguishes any glimmers of safety as soon as I reach them, and the water monster.
The terrifying, invisible water monster, the one that splashes in the dark and thrashes in the light, the one that I at first had hoped to outsmart with objects thrown into the water, that yet always manages to locate me and pursue me, the heavy, sloshing footsteps growing ever louder and ever closer as it pursues me through the flooded library, driving me witless with terror as I scramble at shelves and tables, anything to distance myself from this demon, before it drags me down beneath those clinging, icy waters, my vision warping, clouding, shuddering, and fading, before the game leaves me one haunting message.
Stay out of the water...
On a
less personal note, what I
did see before being overcome with terror and going to watch some nice, safe happy television was impressive. Graphics are well optimised for ropey machines like mine, pretty and vivid without causing any meltdowns. Slightly better than
Oblivion in visual terms. The art style is nice, with rare spots of life and humanity presented in warm, rich colour and everything else very dark, washed out and drab. Didn't see so much of the puzzle interaction, what of it there was seemed like a weak point of the game, but it was still fairly solid compared to some of the crap that gets released.
So yeah, I've said a lot, but I am pretty surprised at being scared by something fictional, it's quite a first for me. It gives me the feeling that
Abe's Oddysee gave me as a child, the sense that I'm not supposed to be here, and that the consequences will be horrible.
I expect
Marble Hornets fans will love it. Lookin' at you OddHunter.
Also +1 point for having tactile door-opening.
Why don't you like Murphy? He was hilarious in Rayman 3.