Monsters AI is like 5 years ago

[Mjarr]

I am not sure if the issue is more about Amnesia being a niche horror game in a way, that instead of shooting ugly things and absolutely lacking in atmosphere and certain mindfuckness it actually has something involved to the point it can scare even a person who already gave hope on any horror game to begin with, or that it is single player only and offers somewhat poor "bang for buck", which is already a poor way to measure game's worth because typical player who uses such method is more likely to just skip single player and go for multiplayer. If it's the former, I am not really surprised while if it's the latter I could point out so many flaws in that method of measuring game's worth.

I did find few glitches with the AI but I think it was more caused by the fact I was doing way too good job at hiding in somewhat odd or improvised places rather than intensionally glitching them to do some silly things. Even those I am less anal than I would usually be, since small dev teams rarely have such big budgets as some major cashcows people often worship, which in contrast have relatively more issues with basic quality than some indie-games despite having more resources. I've seen far more interesting glitches and bugs in HL2, L4D and few other more 'modern' games (even with piss-poor AI, looking at you HL2) than I've seen in Amnesia and considering the relative diffrence in resources, that's really interesting. Now of course with Amnesia I'm willing to say the problem is more related that it's somewhat too obvious and easy how to hide from the enemies most of the time, and those cases when it isn't simply walking around is a good way to buy time since the enemies most of the time will only run if you run, unless it's somewhat scripted sequence.

i know Death Space is a horror/scienfiction survival shooter but this game got me scared till the end cause monsters can jump from every corner, ventilation shafts or behind a door and these monsters you realy don't want to meet cause some of them realy get you hard times...

On the other hand I found Dead Space extremely boring and really poor effort, as it was decent shooter but absolutely no redeeming factors with the whole horror thing. I only played it for six hours (after buying it on sale) before dropping the ball, as there was only one part where I got remotedly startled and that was because I yawned at the same time when some random ambient sound sounded somewhat fishy on the background. If you get in monster's line of sight in Amnesia and let them start munching you you're kebab in few seconds, and if you just run mindlessly they will run after you - and run faster and you don't have magical super awshum weapons to save you, so depends what you consider a hard time.

Anyway, if you dislike Amnesia that's not my problem, but since the common complaint I've heard are basically the same you've said, unfortunately it's a sad fact there are diffrent ways to make horror in a video game. Dead Space (and most other typical survival horrors dubbed these days) is more about ugly things jumping in front of your face so you can blast them to death, Amnesia (and Penumbra) is more about that you know there are some ugly bastards wanting to munch your arse but you have no idea where or when, it's passive-aggressive. Dead Space makes ok shooter, but horror? I've got more scared by playing the original Operation Flashpoint when RPG passed the truck I was driving by two inches from the window.

[Megadrixfire]

Game's AI is perfect in my opinion comparing it to other games i've played.

HL2 ravenhold didnt scared me in no way in ANY part, Sillent hill games where somehow scary in some parts, but they give you a pistol wich you can kill the enemies or just run away from them, another thing wich i hated about it was that you had to go searching for each puzzle thing all over the game and if you miss it you have to go all way back to search it.

Amnesia was scary in the parts when the enemies appear ( since if they kill you, they respawn on another spot) and other's like the noises when you are walking and grabbing items and the noises that the enemies makes...

[La Merwaffle]

It was 20 dollars (or Euros for you) and it was an indie game. Don't buy one expecting big company advancements. They work with what they can afford and they've done a damn good job of it. And it's not like they're just like 'oh... a bug we missed? That sucks'. No. They're making patches for the problems.

While I love L4D2, it is ALWAYS the same. Every level the same thing just with different environments. They had LOTS of money going into that, too. While gameplay might have been the same in Amnesia, at least they made you think and do different things each level. Even having you interact with the enemies differently at some points. That's more than L4D2 gave me. :/

[Yuhaney]

Big companies such as EA just make games for one thing, make more money.
They don't care if it works or not as long as it sells...
Just look at the newer Need for Speed titles for example, and you might notice that half of the users, me included, get lots of performance problems and no answers from the developers to fix any of them.
They just add more content into the game, but no hotfixes or patches that could fix their bad coding...

Frictional Games on the other hand, works their ass off to fulfill any little problems some random user might come across. Thomas even buys the graphics card(s) that get most error reports to fix the problem.

[harlequ1n]

I don't understand all these problems with the AI as every single time a monster saw me from a fairly long distance (if I was using the oil lamp that is) it will chase me relentlessly until either I got killed or hid inside another room, wardrobe, etc. I learned to use the lamp as little as possible and just ignite the odd torch on the wall from time to time. Hell the Prison level was the scariest thing ever.

[Megadrixfire]

Becuase Small companies, if they get things bad(not fixing glitches and stuff), they will loose lots of people that buy they're games and probably stop making them.
I'm sure thats why Frictional Games works a TON on they're games, while EA, if you dont like they're games, they will have millions of people who will buy them anyway, So they dont really care :S.

btw: i reached the prision, too scared to go on

[Stixsmaster]

I am wating for a frend to get back home from class...then we are going to get to the same point in the game and then with steam ingame use chat and hook mics up and that way we can experience basically the same thing at the same time together...meaning we can help eachother if needed and know what we are talking about...and we can listen to eachother freak out if at all...

---Stixsmaster

[Black Rabbit]

about your games frictional people I enjoyed the fact that enemies could run like hell considering the fact that in penumbra I could quite outrun them spoiling the scares. but in amnesia I had that screeching sound and I also knew the enemy was gaining ground so I could easily go numb now if only they could jump it would be awesome or doing something like hearing footsteps or even enabling them to climb up ladders (mind you I am talking about future games) and enemies that can do stuff like the enemies in forbidden siren are scary...knowing you can't escape

[Zhobery]

You know, the scariest part of a game aren't the enemies, it's the waiting for enemies part.

They could have set one single enemy at the beginning of the game, and another one at the end, and I would have pissed my pants the same way, because I would have waited for enemies to appear at every moment.

That's what really scares you in games, and that's why games like Resident Evil (4 or 5) and Left4Dead, where zombies just spam from everywhere, aren't scary.

[311alien]

I don't understand all these problems with the AI as every single time a monster saw me from a fairly long distance (if I was using the oil lamp that is) it will chase me relentlessly until either I got killed or hid inside another room, wardrobe, etc. I learned to use the lamp as little as possible and just ignite the odd torch on the wall from time to time. Hell the Prison level was the scariest thing ever.

"Hell the Prison level was the scariest thing ever" - Hell, I'm with you on that...I've never felt utter darkness in a game until the prison level. You NEED the lamp and the candles/torches. I couldnt believe how dark it was and how it made me so nervous/anxious. What a great job FG did. This Smokem guys obviously missed the point of this game.