Friday, June 10, 2011

MY (not so) TRIUMPHANT RETURN, WITH A WHOLE NEW REVIEW

Alrighty, time to get myself back into the groove of writing these, I guess I don't beat enough games as of late (Starting, but not finishing, whoops) but today I have completed a game finally! (Insert studio audience applause here) Thank you, thank you, you are too kind. Anyways I guess it's time for me to get on with my Review!


*SPOILER ALERT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*

My god, I adore this game. I had started to play it solely out of the purpose to scare myself, then I became immersed into the story, but I shall get into that later.

Aesthetics

The whole castle itself is beautiful, and it perfectly sets up the mood required to scare someone silly when the situation calls for it. I found exploring Brennenburg Castle to be amazing at times, and the way the castle decayed just added to it. There was one point where I had passed a couple chairs in a hallway and decided to throw one to amuse myself, it was here that I noticed the shadows and how nice they looked, despite my graphics settings, and I ended up getting the chair stuck in a chandelier.

Is it bad that I'm proud of this?

The only problem with the game is how the people looked, as imaged below.

Okay, I can't use a picture, I'm very sure no one would appreciate seeing dead man penis.

But the monsters themselves are genuinely scary, although after awhile you become numb to their look, but their presence isn't any less scary.

Ain't he just the cutest?


My graphics were all set to medium/low so I can only assume when on high the game looks better than it already did when I played.

Verdict: 9/11

Gameplay

I loved how this game controlled, unlike what I expected you do NOT open doors HL2 style (Look at door, press E, it's open), you have to hold down the mouse button and make a mouse movement like you are opening/closing a real door, making the infamous "water part" as scary as people say it is, running from a somewhat invisible monster while panicking, trying to run away while opening/closing doors and throwing debris to the side to give yourself a clear-ish path to the exit. Another thing I liked were the puzzles, more so when you are stuck on one for a while and you would have one of those (As TV Tropes would call it) Fridge Brilliance moments. One puzzle that would be a good example is when you're in a watery area (Not the water part, mind you) and there's a bridge that's stuck in the "up" position and after wandering around looking for a lever it finally dawns on me, break the chain by throwing a rock! I had a lot of moments like these when going through it all.

Verdict: 10/11

Story

The story of Amnesia follows the story of a man named Daniel, who had recently written a note for himself to find after drinking an Amnesia Potion. This letter states as follows:

19th of August, 1839.
I wish I could ask you how much you remember. I don't know if there will be anything left after I consume this drink. Don't be afraid Daniel. I can't tell you why, but know this..I choose to forget. Try to find comfort and strength in that fact. There is a purpose, you are my final effort to put things right. God willing, the name Alexander of Brennenburg still invokes bitter anger in you. If not, this will sound horrible. Go to the Inner Sanctum, find Alexander and kill him. His body is old and weak, and yours, young and strong. He will be no match for you. One last thing. A Shadow is following you. It's a living nightmare, breaking down reality. I have tried everything, and there is no way to fight back. You need to escape it as long as you can. 'Redeem us both Daniel. Descend into the darkness where Alexander waits and murder him.
Your former self,
Daniel.

Pretty dark, eh? I remember reading it for the first time and thinking "Whoa... What the hell did Alexander do?!" I soon learned that Alexander was a pretty sick person, further proven in a flashback when he forces Daniel to cut open a human being "Paint the lines, cut the flesh" he chants as you slowly kill this man accused of crimes he did not commit to make Daniel less hesitant to kill the poor soul. (I cringed at this part, seeing as its one of the few flashbacks where you SEE it not just HEAR it). The story of this game is really immersive and I find myself deeply fascinated by it, more so now that I have learned that Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and The Order of the Black Eagle are both real. (Makes you wonder, don't it?)

EDIT: Someone has informed me that it was Daniel chanting the "Paint the lines, cut the flesh" bit, not Alexander, still creepy as hell.

Verdict: 10/11

Music

I loved the music in this game, mainly the "music" that plays when a gatherer has spotted you (Nightmare inducing, it is). And it always seemed to be perfect with no out of place music moments.

Verdict: 10/11

Overall

I fell in love with this game, it's been awhile since I played a game religiously just to see it to the end. Everything was executed to near perfection, (Did we really need to see the dead man penis?) and it just made the game great, I'm looking forward to playing it a second time around (as well as the Justine story).

Overall Verdict: 9.75/11

*Insert hint of upcoming Justine review here*

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Just hanging out, and More First Impressions

Many things have occurred since the visitation of my good friend here, hanging out with groups of people, being silly, playing on playgrounds (Even though we're all like 16-19), and me cutting my thumb open. On Thursday a number of people decided to drop by, changing our numbers from 2 to 6 people, and during this time we hung out in a clearing beside my house where houses are to be built in about 6 years ago, thats not an error, they were to be finished 6 years ago. Anyways in this time one of them who has an astoundingly short attention span decided to go venturing off into the forest, and another followed. Meanwhile the remaining 4 decided just to let them wander, thinking nothing of it really, until we started to worry, "What if they got lost?" we thought, and with that, we followed into the path we thought they had taken. After searching for about 15-20 minutes the path came to an end, in my neighborhood, we looped back to the original hangout point where they soon appeared. Soon after me and Dylan decided to attack wood for no good reason when I had spotted something shiny, on closer inspection I noticed it was a bottle and proceeded to grab it, a very, very poor decision, upon noticing it was a large shard of glass I let go, this is when I cut my thumb open. Upon noticing the blood I dropped the glass, fainted, came to, ran home and cleaned the wound the best I could. And that was the biggest excitement thus far, anyways onto the gaming section of this post.

FIRST IMPRESSION:
Pokemon White
Sorry about the box art, its the best I could do for a logo.

Ahh Pokemon, how I have loved thee since the days of Pokemon Red and Blue. I had traded in a couple of games to get this one, and it was worth it. Before getting this I had been playing Soul Silver (Where I got Celebi and a (Shiny) Suicune (This will be important later)) and I beat the hell out of it in about a month or two. Anyways, when I got white my first mission was to transfer both Celebi and Suicune to my new game to unlock a couple of Pseudo-Legendaries (Only legendary cause they can only be obtained with this event/offer) named Zorua and Zoroark.
Pretty awesome giveaway, if you ask me.
By the time I got Zorua something hit me, I still hadn't obtained Victini. Looking at the insert inside the case on how to do it I notice that theres a little note saying:
"If you make Victini faint during the battle or if you flee from the battle, Victini will no longer be in the room with you. In that case, if you go out of the room and re-enter, Victini will come back again. Victini will continue to show up until you catch it."
Noticing this I get an idea, beat the living tar out of Victini with Zorua until it evolved into Zoroark, and did that I did. about an hour or so later my once level 10 Zorua was a level 30 Zoroark, and having mercy on the poor creature I finally captured it. Anyways this game is everything I had hoped it would be, and in my opinion better than the Diamond/Pearl/Platinum games.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Insert Post Name Here, And a Quick First Game Impression.

Just felt like writing for the sake of it, just cause thats how I roll. Anyways, tomorrow my girlfriend will be leaving for the tropical paradise that is Hawai'i. And as she leaves for Hawai'i, an old friend of mine will be coming to town to stay for awhile, we shall probably have the same old visit of randomness, silliness, and just plain weirdness. We have always come up with the strangest things together, like the gopher that spontaneously bursts out of walls/floors screaming then leaving as if nothing ever happened every time an awkward silence occurs, or other nonsense like the Mr. Moo's Easy Squeeze Cheese that we had found in a store in years past. We even have a long list of jokes that we had made whilst hanging out, playing games, and other situations. And soon many more strange things will be created from the demented minds that we both have.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS TIME
Had no idea dreams were a fragile thing... Or that they were even a physical object.
So far, this game has been pretty interesting. You start off as a young boy named Seto, who had gone his whole life only knowing an old man that had raised him for what I assume to be his whole life. Just before the events of the game starts the old man passes away and Seto buries him in a shallow grave and decides to live alone, until one night where he goes into the old mans office and finds a letter from the old man himself (Kind of odd that he NEVER told Seto his name, not even in this last note) saying that he should go towards the Red Tower (Or if you're smart enough, you realize its the Tokyo Tower.) to find other survivors of an "apocalypse" that is NEVER explained to you, not even by the ghost of the little girl you find near a subway station. One thing I found rather odd are the weapons, not just what they are, but where you find them. Once I was looking through a bathroom, hoping to find something like a healing item or whatnot, what do I find? A wooden sword. In the toilet. Not in a store in the subway station, no, that would be too mainstream for them. Anyways, Where I am right now I'm looking for a silver-haired girl who SOMEHOW managed to get through a series of locked doors without the keys (Ahh video games, how you love so not to make sense), and I also noticed her lack of clothes.
Thats right, she just has 2 sheets of cloth tied to each other as a form of clothing.
She has to be one of the strangest video game characters I've ever seen, she sings, is spotted, runs away, leaving various (poor) drawings all over the place as she goes. Kinda weird there, but whatever. Another oddball I've come across is the Merchant.
Scariest thing in the game so far, he is.
This guy is the best merchant to ever exist in a game when it comes to convenience, always appearing at save points, only when you actually need him though, I've never sent him on his way without buying/selling anything so far. I may fully review this later on, but to those who want to try it, I highly recommend it.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

New Blog! Plus Game Review!

Hello to all out there in the multimedia wasteland known to us as "The Internet". I have as of recently decided to bring it upon myself to Blog just for the sake of giving myself things to do, like talk about video games and other useless garbage, as I would normally do in person if I were to speak to you. Anyways, I thought I'd start off my new blog with a game review of a game I recently just finished (Even 100%'d).