It's hard to type - I'm still loaded with adrenaline from escaping the Storage.
Amnesia had two modes - walking around terrified, and running for dear life. Most of the time, you're walking around terrified.
It's the sound that gets you - it's the sounds of a living castle locked in a nightmare. You hold onto your lantern just to keep yourself from descending into madness - literally, in the case of your character.
As I mentioned, I just escaped from the Storage room, carrying the two rods. I reckon it was the explosion that set the two zombie- actually, no. Those... things aren't zombies. Zombies are slow moving, groaning mindless undead that you can easily dispatch. I don't even want to think about whatever the hell those things are, but they are certainly not zombies.
So, I decided to sit down and write about one of the only times (so far) the second mode Amnesia shines through. I'll describe my thoughts as they happened in that 45 second long sprint for survival. [Anything in quotation marks are things I've said, anything in asterisks are sounds from the game, and anything in square brackets are comments.]
Ok, got the two rods-*GOOOOOOORRRRRRAAAAGH*
Oh great. Monster time. You know what? Let's check the walkthrough.
[blah blah blah]
Ok then - keep stealthy, monster unpredictable. Fine.
[I sing to myself to calm myself down during this game. Sometimes it makes things worse. What? Don't look at me like that.
This is almost what was sung, I might have messed a word or two up.]
"Dooown the hall-way I go,
trying to forget about the noise,
oh god, there he is, thank god he hasn't seen me,
now I sneak, sneak, sneak down the staaaaair-case."
Great, he's dissapeared into the darkness. Now I can-*sound of my boot stepping on something loud*
Awwwwww.
*zombie grunts and turns around* Oh no.
*SSSSSSSSSSSISSSSSSSSSSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSSSSSS* [Imagine the sound of sharp, rusty nails down a chalkboard. Now amplify that sound and it's roughly what you hear. You fear this sound. It's the 'you're probably going to die' sound].
SHIT it saw me! Aaaaaaah runrunrunrunrunRUN!
DAMN IT! It's behind me! I can hear it! NO! Can't look behind me, can't look behind me...
Around this corner, yes! Main roo-OH FUCK THERE'S ANOTHER ONE! "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" RUUUUUUUUUUUN
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSISSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSHISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*
THE DOOR! CLICK THE DOOOOR!
[click door, transitions into the 'back hall' area. Saftey - no monsters here.].
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIHSSSSSSSSsssssssssisssssssshisss...*
At that point, I'm shaking too much to even hold down the W key. I hit escape and lean forward, my elbows planted on the table and I thought I heard a quite "yessssss" sound coming from between my teeth.
I lean back up in the chair and hold out my arm - it's damn near vibrating. So, I stand up, walk around a little bit, then decide to sit down and write about it.
I'm not yet ready to give a review for Amnesia: The Dark Descent; I want to finish it first. But if you like the sort of games that really screw with your head and terrify you as a psychological level way before they terrify you with anything on the screen, Frictional Games is your developer, and Amnesia is your game.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers (Part 2)
You know how they could have improved it?
They could have made it a whole lot better if they just made a Doom mod.
I'm serious. All they'd need is a working copy of Doom II (which you can get on Steam), an art guy, a story guy, a level guy (with the Doom II level editor), and you're away laughing.
The AI would be there and the weapons are already done, so I imagine very little programming would be necessary. The environment is the big thing that needs to change, which can be easily accomplished with the level editor (that thing is ridiculously easy to use) and gratuitously replace the textures for everything.
They could have made it quite interesting, but they went the way they went, and I hate them for it.
They could have made it a whole lot better if they just made a Doom mod.
I'm serious. All they'd need is a working copy of Doom II (which you can get on Steam), an art guy, a story guy, a level guy (with the Doom II level editor), and you're away laughing.
The AI would be there and the weapons are already done, so I imagine very little programming would be necessary. The environment is the big thing that needs to change, which can be easily accomplished with the level editor (that thing is ridiculously easy to use) and gratuitously replace the textures for everything.
They could have made it quite interesting, but they went the way they went, and I hate them for it.
[Game Review] Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers
I hate you, Chet. Whoever the hell you are, I loathe you.
I will find you, Chet. One day.
Sleep with your eyes open.
*ahem*
Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers is not fun. It's the most mind-numbingly boring "game" (and I use that word loosely) I've ever played.
It's an insult, that's what it is. No thought went into this... this thing (I'm sure as hell not calling it a game).
The story is you are a dog/goat/muscle-y armed thing with equipped with a pistol and a minigun. Your goal is...
Is...
Well, it never really tells you. The actual goal of the game is to reach 666 kills. After that, you win. I'll get to that later.
You're on a street. Most of your enemies come from behind you, off screen, where they run in front of you into your field of killing. Other enemies include a two man team of pig cops (oh ho, very clever) and, at some point, a swat team of dogs armed with Riot Shields.
Those guys are your only real problem (there's about 8 of them, and if they get you in melee range you're screwed).
I never saw them again. I killed all of them with the minigun (using the pistol is a good way to lose the g-, sorry, time-sink very quickly), and then went back to shooting excrementally stupid dog civilians and equally stupid pig cops.
The pistol has about 8 bullets, doesn't do much damage and it takes about a second or two to reload. The minigun has a ton of bullets, way more damage and an instant reload, and not to mention you have infinite ammo, so the game has already been broken before you even start.
So, you walk down the street, mowing down these dogs and pigs. Then, I said "Screw it! I'm just going to walk and hold down the mouse button".
I ran into some cops who I managed not to kill. They very slowly pulled out their guns and shot at me.
Damn! I lost some health. Maybe I'll be somehow penalized later on.
But I looked back up to the top left side of the screen and found that my health had regenerated.
This... thing is unbeleivable. There's very easy, there's games made for your mum, than there's Satan's Retrievers. So long as you don't let the cops finish pulling their guns out painstakingly slowly, you'll be fine.
The only "boss fight" is at the very beginning of the game, where you get hit by a swarm of SWAT dogs and a few backup pig cops. And even then all you need is the minigun to mow them all down, then it's onto the rest of SR - hold D, stop, hold left mouse button, repeat.
So after you've wasted your time... "playing" this, you finally get six hundred and sixty six kills.
Then the game says (and this is the biggest insult of all) "That was just a trial version! To play the full game, please give us $50 in American currency."
My thoughts, in chronological order. (Note: I didn't immediately register the "buy full game plz" thing in front of me.)
- That's it? No boss fight? Nothing?
- That was a huge waste of my time.
- Hang on, new thing.
- ...How much?
It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't even mentioned the full game, but they did. They had to say this was "only a taste" of what the full game is.
I barely remember, but I think the gameplay is largly the same. The screenshot looked identical to whatever just sucked away time I could have spent doing something, anything, else.
That pissed me the hell off. How dare these guys charge $49.95 American when Penumbra: Overture (an actual game) is almost half that?* (*Over Steam, that is.)
They have the audacity to even call their... thing a "game", and whats worse they're going to make people pay for it.
In my honest opinion, somebody needs to make space for this game in a New Mexico landfill, right next to E.T.
Where it belongs.
(Go here for Part 2 [How they could have made it better])
I will find you, Chet. One day.
Sleep with your eyes open.
*ahem*
Game Dogs: Satan's Retrievers is not fun. It's the most mind-numbingly boring "game" (and I use that word loosely) I've ever played.
It's an insult, that's what it is. No thought went into this... this thing (I'm sure as hell not calling it a game).
The story is you are a dog/goat/muscle-y armed thing with equipped with a pistol and a minigun. Your goal is...
Is...
Well, it never really tells you. The actual goal of the game is to reach 666 kills. After that, you win. I'll get to that later.
You're on a street. Most of your enemies come from behind you, off screen, where they run in front of you into your field of killing. Other enemies include a two man team of pig cops (oh ho, very clever) and, at some point, a swat team of dogs armed with Riot Shields.
Those guys are your only real problem (there's about 8 of them, and if they get you in melee range you're screwed).
I never saw them again. I killed all of them with the minigun (using the pistol is a good way to lose the g-, sorry, time-sink very quickly), and then went back to shooting excrementally stupid dog civilians and equally stupid pig cops.
The pistol has about 8 bullets, doesn't do much damage and it takes about a second or two to reload. The minigun has a ton of bullets, way more damage and an instant reload, and not to mention you have infinite ammo, so the game has already been broken before you even start.
So, you walk down the street, mowing down these dogs and pigs. Then, I said "Screw it! I'm just going to walk and hold down the mouse button".
I ran into some cops who I managed not to kill. They very slowly pulled out their guns and shot at me.
Damn! I lost some health. Maybe I'll be somehow penalized later on.
But I looked back up to the top left side of the screen and found that my health had regenerated.
This... thing is unbeleivable. There's very easy, there's games made for your mum, than there's Satan's Retrievers. So long as you don't let the cops finish pulling their guns out painstakingly slowly, you'll be fine.
The only "boss fight" is at the very beginning of the game, where you get hit by a swarm of SWAT dogs and a few backup pig cops. And even then all you need is the minigun to mow them all down, then it's onto the rest of SR - hold D, stop, hold left mouse button, repeat.
So after you've wasted your time... "playing" this, you finally get six hundred and sixty six kills.
Then the game says (and this is the biggest insult of all) "That was just a trial version! To play the full game, please give us $50 in American currency."
My thoughts, in chronological order. (Note: I didn't immediately register the "buy full game plz" thing in front of me.)
- That's it? No boss fight? Nothing?
- That was a huge waste of my time.
- Hang on, new thing.
- ...How much?
It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't even mentioned the full game, but they did. They had to say this was "only a taste" of what the full game is.
I barely remember, but I think the gameplay is largly the same. The screenshot looked identical to whatever just sucked away time I could have spent doing something, anything, else.
That pissed me the hell off. How dare these guys charge $49.95 American when Penumbra: Overture (an actual game) is almost half that?* (*Over Steam, that is.)
They have the audacity to even call their... thing a "game", and whats worse they're going to make people pay for it.
In my honest opinion, somebody needs to make space for this game in a New Mexico landfill, right next to E.T.
Where it belongs.
(Go here for Part 2 [How they could have made it better])
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