Amnesia: an overused storytelling technique?

[Nothinglikesleep]

Amnesia has been used often in recent years and in the past. Silent Hill 2 and 5, and Zero were about uncovering someone's past. Usually they start out with the developers wanting the player to sympathize with the protagonist and feel for him/her and then the ending reveals some kinds of horrors they committed or witnessed and the amnesia was really caused by guilt (also dozens of movies including the Machinist, Session 9 follow the same formula). But the caliber of the story will dictate whether its fight club good, or 23 (Jim Carey) horrible.

I think its an overused technique, but its one of my favorites