It was okay

[Jashin]

I played Amnesia. While I think this generation of games is largely devoid of titles like this, there were quite a few about 10 years ago, up to 4-5 years ago. It's not a true Lovecraft game like Dark Corners of the Earth, or have the tension of a true shadow-based stealth game like Thief. It doesn't help that I don't get scared by videogames except for rare, few times.

When the Yithians first appeared in front of me in DCOTE, they were so huge and alien looking it scared/thrilled me, I also enjoyed cameos of shoggoth and the flying polyps. All 3 were so terrifying to look at you just had to avert your eyes, yet none chased after me to get me (well maybe the polyps). But an elephant man/slasher? I'm no more scared of it so much as I just don't want to be inconvenienced by dying (which is a form of fear I guess). Several times during the game I imagined in my mind how I'd kill it if I were there in the castle, how I'd fight it using the stuff there: trick it to be crushed by a boulder, or maybe with a torch in one hand and a stone tied to a pipe in another, etc. etc.

I have no regret buying the game, I'd like to support an indie developer who tries to make complex games other than gimmicky/puzzle games. I was so disappointed when Headfirst went out of business and no Cthulhu game since has been 3D, let alone match DCOTE. And to think they had 2, yes, 2 sequels planned! I sincerely hope Frictional will try to do a true Lovecraft title in the future. Instead of just the threat of death, try for cerebral horror.

[Jinix]

Just okay?

You are missing the point, I think.
It isn't YOU in the castle, it's whimpy sick Daniel - He already knows what's after him cannot be killed. So fear is crippling him from rational thought.

Yes you could take the game and make it into the USUAL type of game that lets you use anything for weapon and then you level up with bigger weapons and the monsters are bigger and you have all kinds of quests etc. and it would be great to play in these surroundings.

But I see this game as more like a movie. You are forced into the actors role where the actor makes you keep saying "don't open that door! You fool!" Knowing full well that's exactly what they will do'.

For me this is like the feeling I had while reading an Edgar Allan Poe story when I was about 8 and
imagining what it must be like to be bricked in behind a wall as the last brick is cemented into place and there is no way out.

[Zanderat]

I think some people missed the point of the game. Not surprising. The Xbox generation wants casualized shooters. I have seen threads complaining that this game isn't more like L4D. LOL!

[Jashin]

Just okay?

You are missing the point, I think.
It isn't YOU in the castle, it's whimpy sick Daniel - He already knows what's after him cannot be killed. So fear is crippling him from rational thought.

Yes you could take the game and make it into the USUAL type of game that lets you use anything for weapon and then you level up with bigger weapons and the monsters are bigger and you have all kinds of quests etc. and it would be great to play in these surroundings.

But I see this game as more like a movie. You are forced into the actors role where the actor makes you keep saying "don't open that door! You fool!" Knowing full well that's exactly what they will do'.

For me this is like the feeling I had while reading an Edgar Allan Poe story when I was about 8 and
imagining what it must be like to be bricked in behind a wall as the last brick is cemented into place and there is no way out.

Yes, just okay. No I'm not missing any point whatsoever. If without any pretext a person can have a botched experience just by "missing a point," then there's serious problems. I played the same game as everyone else.

And the monster elephant man clearly could be killed within the fiction, cus you see a disemboweled one on the ground in one of the levels. I'm not even talking about the "shadow" which was never made clear what it is. This is hardly the only shadow-based game I've played, like I said over the decade the numbers have decreased with the death of torchbearers like Look Glass and Ion Storm. I'd not compare it to literature either, the level of writing wasn't that high, understandably so as FG guys aren't native English speakers.

I think I've been fair. The castle is a nice setting, I like the scenery through the windows the most, even if it's just an illusion. However I'm simply not afraid of any of it. With the amount of shadow-based stealth games I've played that had true "patrol" and "search" algorithms which create truly tense moments, what's left for me was to soak up the atmosphere in Amnesia. I'm not here to knock it, I'm here to put my 2 cents in and say that "You know, FG still needs to work hard to improve their craft." All this praise is well-deserved for having made this game in this day and age of cookie-cutter shooters, but please stay modest cus we've got plenty of precedents.

I think some people missed the point of the game. Not surprising. The Xbox generation wants casualized shooters. I have seen threads complaining that this game isn't more like L4D. LOL!

lol you don't know who you're talking to. I'm just gonna dismiss your "omg360box" generalizations

[Zonker]

You see, that's different opinions or tastes doing their job.

When I played Call of Cthulhu: DCotE, I sure felt some scary moments during the first two or three hours. Then, the game started to annoy and frustrate me. Trial and error stealth sequences, enemies seeing you in spots you didn't expected, infinite hostile spawns on several occasions. Some first person shooter gameplay and scenes which were rather badly executed. Although I wanted to like the game, it was so disappointing after a while (and not even the slightest bit scary anymore) that I never finished it.

Amnesia on the other hand kind of put me in a more or less constant grip of fear. Although I started getting used to the monster encounters a bit at the end of the game, they never ceased to make me run or hide like a scared schoolgirl. And the general atmosphere was so intimidating that I could never play more than an hour at a time and sometimes didn't really want to start the game again. :)

But I just wanted to add my view on those games because of all things (from my perspective) you chose Dark Corners of the Earth as an example for a "good" horror game, when my experience with those two were so much the opposite.

[Jashin]

Fair enough, Dark Corners is the most similar game to Amnesia. I could've said Thief but that wouldn't be true.

Dark Corners is hard, I'll give you that. I had no problem with it except for the hotel escape sequence for a little bit, and I know a lot of non-Thief-playing, "action" people would have mild to major trouble with it.

Amnesia on the other hand is very easy. The monster doesn't active search for you. I think it's a good entry point to this type of games, but once you learn the extent of the npc beahavior like stealth games before this have achieved, to learn and adapt, sometimes even exploit with tools to create emergent scenarios... Well you get the idea.

I wouldn't go so far as do what the other guy did and jump on the desk to taunt the monster with books and stuff, and therefore effectively "breaking" the game. I did play the game the way it's intended to be played. It's just, well, a hefty majority of the "fear" the game tries to elicit is from the same humanoid monster stalking the hallways, and it's not reeaaally that scary. It's an endowment of the tired slasher trope, where the fear is in the unseen, and once it's seen the fear ceases to be.

[Zanderat]

I think some people missed the point of the game. Not surprising. The Xbox generation wants casualized shooters. I have seen threads complaining that this game isn't more like L4D. LOL!

lol you don't know who you're talking to. I'm just gonna dismiss your "omg360box" generalizations

I was agreeig with the post above mine. Not replying to yours.

[Jashin]

Is that right? My fault then.

[Fitzcarraldo]

It's fine if you don't like it, or it didn't work on you. That's not a problem. You're not the sort of person to get really drawn into something like that, and there's nothing wrong with it.

However, it does seem sort of odd when people who had a problem with the game show up and say "Frictional, you need to do x, y, and z to fix your games in the future."

If the vast majority found the game to be excellent, why should Frictional care about the opinion of the very, very few who didn't? It's bad business. Frictional occupies a niche, and they are very good at what they do. There's room for improvement, sure, but that room for improvement should probably mimic the majority opinion. Changing the game to suit the needs of the 10 or 20 people who have complained about it versus the hundreds who haven't would be silly.

Dark Corners of the Earth, for example – I love that game, too, but I sure as hell don't want to see Frictional do that. There are other companies out there that could make a similar game. Frictional's strong suit is games wherein your character is vulnerable and unable to effectively engage in combat. So what if you yourself think that you would kill the monsters in the same situation? Daniel wouldn't – he's frightened to death of them and they fight way better than he does. His reaction is to freak out and be terrified and run away, and you're playing his part, not some imagined badass variant of yourself.

I do see what you're saying, and I would agree with some of it, if I felt that it wouldn't ruin the experience totally for myself and everyone else who was drawn in and immersed in the horror of the game. I never found DCotE scary. I knew I could kill what was bothering me in that game (except for in the lame, scripted chase sequences). Once you can kill something, and it becomes a game mechanic, it's no longer frightening to me.

So, with my opinion carrying as much weight as yours, why should Frictional listen to either of us more than the other? You say make the monsters killable, and I say don't. Frictional already have a niche, and they have a very effective means of filling it. Why should they change? They're good at what they do. Shoehorning it into a more mainstream type of play where the player's vulnerability can always be overcome by killing whatever the threat might be isn't what they're about. There are a million game companies out there that make games like that, some good, some bad. Why is it necessary to ask the one company that consistently wants to do something different to join the herd?

[Jashin]

You contradict yourself in every paragraph. If it's all about business Amnesia wouldn't even have been made. The "majority" for this type of game is in fact "the very few." Vulnerability is not just about not having weapons, it's the (in)ability to limit harm, whether by failing to kill or by failing to hide. Honestly 100% ability to hide/cause the pathing to fail is the same as having a BFG. Elephant man will never stick its head in a room to look around, it just knocks down a door and waaaalks away.

I also never said make monsters "killable" with weapons and stuff. That's other people making it up based on what I actually said, which is that my instinct tells me I'd actually feel safer to take on the elephant man somehow with what's available, staying within the fiction. This is partly cus I'm a lot less scared than what is portrayed to be my behavior. A manbeast with 2 arms, 2 legs, and a head I can deal with, formless monsters like a pile of goo with eyes or a gigantic lump of tumors with eyes, fegitttaboutit. That was the point. I can't roleplay something I'm just not. I find Penumbra to be the better horror game - I can fight or I can hide, choice is mine.

And you lied about DCOTE not scaring you once, if you actually played the game that is. I can see you lied to make a point, lol but it is what it is, DCOTE is a lot more terrifying. At times I actually do feel similar to what is portrayed by the panic effects and the elevated heartbeat. Staring straight at something so hideous and inhuman, something that doesn't even have a definite shape, that's freaky.