Amnesia - The Dark Decent

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I finally took some time to get invested in Amnesia - the Dark Decent. My biggest initial start issue was getting into the initial story, as the first 15 min or so are fairly slow imo, to objectify what you are doing. I fired the game up and gave it a solid play this weekend, as I picked it up from a Steam sale awhile ago.

 

After about 30 minutes, I had the vibe of the game system and exploration. You are in a creepy ass mansion and need to investigate what is going on, as the title implies, because you cannot remember. Staying in the darkness for prolonged periods is bad and will result in your view contorting and going insane. You will also start to hear more things as your insanity mounts.

 

As you explore around, you'd find some secrets and unlock passageways. Items you encounter will assist with this, as you will use them in the old-school point-and-click adventure means of interaction. A darkened outline will surround said item, when you double-click it from your inventory (Tab key). Also on exploration, there is no in-game map, short of some diagrams in a few rooms. I had some issues on my initial startup with this, but shortly into the game, you are able to keep general locations in mind pretty well.

 

Combat Wise, you are looking to evade foes. You do not have an attack method, but you can throw things around. When you encounter baddies, feel free to try and take them down with some boxes and see how that works out. :P

 

Environment is awesome and creepy as hell. This is some real survival horror, since you aren't trying to run and gun everything in sight. I'm an old horror game fan and I love this game. I do feel the pacing / interactions are a little too open ended in some parts, but this is probably largely due to how the average current game holds your hand so much.

 

A great play if you love some old horror games. I was at 10 hours on my completion run. I played on Sat and Sunday, and highly recommend you try to play this from start to finish, as possible for your schedule. Also of note, I tend to take my time and explore, so you could likely shave 2 hours off my time, easily.

 

This game also looks excellent with the effects turned up. I played @ 1680x1080 with it mad high on graphic settings and rarely dropped below 55 FPS, while mostly being locked @ 60 FPS.