![]() I can pick things up except for when I can’t. Why doesn’t that extend to, like, lamps and stuff? Only because the clumsiness is required for the game’s version of reality. Puzzle solved! Serotonin released! Only it reminded me that… Hey! I can pick up almost any object in these games. Without any prompting, I grabbed a nearby plank and, lo and behold, was able to lay it on the elevator as a makeshift platform. Thankfully, the Amnesia games let you pick up nearly any object and toss it around. The only problem? The floor had fallen out of the lift. I had to manually raise an elevator via pulley. One of my favorite puzzles in Amnesia: Rebirth was one such time. It’s only exacerbated by little moments of brilliance where out-of-the-box thinking is exactly what horror games demand. More often, it makes me think the game isn’t as clever as I want - unable to react appropriately to my obvious tactics. In the best cases this kind of interaction makes me feel like I’ve outsmarted the system. I drop my taper right before a nasty hole in the wall, do the little cutscenes of stepping through it… then reach right back through the gap and pick it up again. This leads to clunky, unintentional physics puzzles. Visage does let me hold an item in each hand, which is nice, but for some reason you can’t do certain things while carrying a candle, specifically. Visage and Phasmophobia are two other first-person clumsy simulators with relatively identical restrictions. ![]() It’s as if my hands are blunted with big, slippery sausages: hot dog fingers too smooth to manipulate my inventory. She can only hold one easily depleted item at a time - and only interact with the world in ways the game wants her to interact. It’s harder to understand why Tasi can’t simply pick up the torches, lights, and oil lamps she finds throughout her journey as well. Such a restrictive number of fire-starters represents, to me, how clumsy first-person horror games in the vein of Amnesia must be to maintain their atmosphere. It’s, you know, metaphorical for managing resources in a stressful situation.īut it’s also the perfect allegory for my purposes. Nor do the gallons of oil I pump into her lantern really only last five seconds before burning out. I know she’s not literally only able to hold less than a dozen matches at a time. I know games must make abstract certain concepts for the sake of flow and balance. I’m not trying to be pedantic here, though. That’s the upper limit on that particular light source in Amnesia: Rebirth. Maybe her pants are too full of charcoal and erasers to fit more than 10 freaking matches at a time. Before the events of the game, she’s sent to help design a mine, and continues using her artistic implements to sketch objectives in a notebook throughout. Which makes sense for a traveling draftswoman of the 1930s. I can tell from her character model that she has pockets - sizable ones. She wears button-up trousers with a light blouse and flat shoes. Tasi is sensibly dressed for a desert excursion. And it’s just the latest in a string of recent horror games that make me think, for the love of god, just let me use my pockets! ![]() Its inventory management makes no damn sense. Fear of a Yellow Planet: Why We Need to Actually Understand CyberpunkĪmnesia: Rebirth sticks with tradition in other ways, too.Older YouTubers Are Playing Games - And They’re Not Just a Novelty.Meta-metafiction Horror Games: Under Your Skin and Inside Your System.But neither new wrinkle has a huge impact on the game. The latter seems like a direct response to the frustrating encounters in SOMA. The story is exactly what it purports to be from beginning to end - despite SOMA, the previous Frictional horror game, setting my expectations for something more subversive. This isn’t too different from the amnesiac dungeon dive in The Dark Descent. Whereas staying in the dark or looking at monsters too long will “damage” Tasi by raising her fear level. You’re chased by some truly disgusting little freak and its friends. You’re a lone survivor - a French woman called Tasi - with amnesia in the desert. I enjoyed Rebirth a lot more by comparison.īut I was disappointed by just how direct a sequel Frictional Games’ return to its name-making series turned out to be. And I just… got bored of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, back in 2013, which despite its name is more like the black sheep of the family - developed by a different studio and not as well regarded as the other titles. I had a much lower tolerance for scares back in 2010 (when the seminal Amnesia: The Dark Descent completely changed the horror game landscape). I beat Amnesia: Rebirth over the weekend, making it the first game in the spooky first-person series I’ve actually played to completion.
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