PotatoGuy on 10/5/2011 at 08:47
Atmosphere on the later levels will change to something more scary, but in general gameplay stays more or less the same (i.e. Going to several rooms to get a solution for going past one specific room). I'd say you should play until after the water monsters, if you aren't there already. If you really don't like it until then, you should stop playing. I'm curious for your rant actually, I had exspected you to really like this game.
Koki on 10/5/2011 at 08:59
Steam timer is pretty accurate, +/- 10 hours
Digital Nightfall on 10/5/2011 at 09:01
I am past the water monster, which I found to be particularly silly once I figured out the actual mechanics of it.
Sneaksie on 10/5/2011 at 09:32
I've played all the Penumbra games and Amnesia. In general they are decent, but let me rant a bit.
The core gameplay is the SAME for 4 games already. Exactly the same. You creep around, explore, evade unkillable or hardly killable monsters and that is supposed to scare you. Part of the gameplay is the interaction with the game world - you move the mouse to open drawers, doors and other stuff. Cool, but it was cool several years ago in Penumbra: Overture. Nothing has changed in core game mechaincs. These indie developers even use the same several years old icons if i'm not mistaken.
You may argue that indie developers need our money to survive to make more good games, etc. Yes, but Amnesia sold very good and i think this sends kinda wrong message to it's authors - make more levels with the same mechanics again and again and indie supporters will buy it and rejoice. This indie hype is getting old, a game should not be called 'creative' or 'innovative' just because its developers don't work for EA, Ubisoft or Activision.
That being said, Amnesia is a decent adventure. There is an interestingly made encounter with 'splashing monsters'. I think it would be much better if it had no or almost no monsters - just go around, uncover the story and solve physics and logic puzzles. Scaring the player with unkillable monsters is extremely cheap. It's like creating a Thief mission with dozens of Haunts and giving Garrett noisemakers only. Do you think this is fun? I like ghosting, but what i don't like is enforcement of ghosting 100% of the time.
So, if you didn't play these games before, try the Amnesia, you may like it. I've completed it as well, but getting the same fourth time is not very exciting. It's hard to be scared by a gameplay or AI behaviour you know very well. There are many games that try to scare you, but in most cases these attempts are just pathetic, like a 4-year child trying to scare an adult by running and crying 'BOOOO!', and Amnesia is not an exception.
If you seek a real horror game, absolutely play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, get it right now:cool:. It's the best horror/survival game i've played, especially the chapter on cutter 'Urania'. All other games don't even come close IMHO, this one really scared me sometimes.
Renault on 10/5/2011 at 18:04
Quote Posted by Sneaksie
I like ghosting, but what i don't like is enforcement of ghosting 100% of the time.
Penumbra's version of ghosting though was rather easy compared to doing it in a Thief game. The AI were very spread out and on very predictable, simple patrols. There has to be resistance by some kind of "enemy" or the game would just be too easy and dull.
That said, the AI in penumbra were hardly unkillable; a couple of well-timed hits with a pickaxe (or really any heavy blunt object) usually does the trick. You can also just run for you life to the next door.
Sneaksie on 11/5/2011 at 09:43
I know, but in Amnesia they made AI unkillable and gave player unlimite resurrections instead, which i think is a very doubtful design decision.
Digital Nightfall on 12/5/2011 at 07:40
I did give the game another spin last night. While it's still not bad enough for me to uninstall it, the section I am playing is rather dull and tedious. I'm trying to reassemble the machine to reactivate the elevator. I have a jar of explosives and no idea what to do with it, a cave-in with no way to use the explosives on it, and an assembled machine that still claims to be unassembled.
Here's a few Game Design 101 principals.
- Don't show the player the solution to the problem before you show them the problem. Amnesia breaks this rule constantly.
- If you give a concrete text objective at all, it should be clear and coincide with the player/character's motivation. Amnesia often gives cryptic and meaningless objectives.
- Gating puzzles should bar the player from accessing something they know about want to get to, not simply exist for the sake of being a gating puzzle. In Amnesia, every puzzle is a gating puzzle, and you often have no idea what they're gating.
- If you do a hub, it should be nonlinear. Make it a series of areas you can complete any order. Don't just make it an area you have to constantly backtrack to in order to complete a series of surrounding areas in a specific order, but keep that order hidden so you're constantly returning to areas where you have nothing to do because you can't remember or don't know if there's anything to do in them. This is especially important in a game where you're trying to sell an atmosphere... which leads to...
- If you're trying to sell your game on mood and atmosphere, the longer the player stays in an area (or if they're forced to revisit this area many times) the more likely it is that the mood or atmosphere will wear off and the player will remember they're playing a video game. See the above rant for how Amnesia does this wrong.
And one last little rant...
I was in the guest room. Suddenly the game informs me that there was a monster behind me and I needed to hide. So I got into the wardrobe which was conveniently open directly in front of me and closed the door. I waited until the sound effects ended and that was it. That was all. Is this the kind of BS that people are making those OMG I AM SO SKARED videos about? As I reflected on how tremendously not at all scary that was, I remembered Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Now that was a scary game.
Muzman on 12/5/2011 at 09:08
Doing the same game-type in four separate releases might not get you plaudits from the hard-core, but it might get you an audience.
Sneaksie on 12/5/2011 at 14:27
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
And one last little rant...
Yes, after finishing the game i was a bit puzzled about all these WOW IT'S SO SCARY comments as well. Shalebridge Cradle is light years ahead of this - and T:DS was never advertised as a horror game.
Quote:
I remembered Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Now that
was a scary game.
:thumb:
PotatoGuy on 12/5/2011 at 20:55
Funny, Digi, I agree with everything you say there, but didn't mind any of those when I was playing the game. It'll still probably one of the most intense games I've played so far (but in all fairness, the list is not that big).
