Amnesia: The Bunker

$hitting pants simulator

In my opinion, the best Amnesia game so far, the Stalker's AI is so well done it creeps me out, even after dozens of runs of getting used to being chased by it.

Fear in horror games is subjective, of course, but here it feels like they tried to evoke it using overly obvious and predictable triggers. There is only one monster in the bunker, and it appears for very specific reasons. Sometimes, naturally, it pops out via scripted events—catching you before you can hide or trapping you in a dead end—but the real fear there is having to reload a save and make the long trek back. I’ll admit, though: it can be genuinely unnerving right up until that first failure, before you finally come face-to-face with your pursuer.Because its design is a failure. Yes, Frictional’s games never really aimed to scare (in *SOMA*, for instance, they would have been better off including more puzzles instead of monsters—something the developers themselves acknowledged by adding an option to disable them); their creatures always lurk in the shadows, and it’s best not to look at them too closely. But this is a different case: the game is designed around confrontation, yet that confrontation isn't scary. There is nothing compelling about the dull, repetitive stealth gameplay... Overall, the game isn't bad, though it's clearly not for everyone—it's more for fans of the series. It didn't really click with me, but a lot of work went into it and the design is actually pretty good, so I'll leave a positive review...