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Amnesia Devs Put New Game Into Beta & More

TheErebus.

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TheErebus.

TheErebus.

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http://www.pcgamer.com/soma-enters-beta-with-new-screenshot/

The developers of Amnesia have a new "survival horror" game that's entered closed beta called "Soma".

Let's just hope it's not as much of a failure as amnesia was as a survival horror game.

 

In other news, a digital deluxe version of KF2 has been released: 

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/killing-floor-2-system-requirements-revealed/1100-6426654/

 

You can get these with the 40$ purchase:

 

  • DJ Scully character, with unique voice pack and set of face/body skins
  • “Scullyphones” headphones for DJ Scully, Mr Foster, Hayato Tanaka and Donovan Neal
  • 3D Glasses for Ana Larive and Hayato Tanaka
  • Bowler Hat for Mr. Foster and Reverend Alberts
  • Killing Floor 2 Soundtrack
  • Killing Floor 2 Digital Artbook
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climatiseur

climatiseur

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I actually enjoyed Penumbra and Amnesia so much.

 

 Although the in-game interactions of A Machine for Pigs was not as good as the 2 precedents,  the environment, atmosphere, tiny details and the history background made the experience so immerse. They story was great too. So I'm looking forward to Soma , and the possibly prime version.

 

I haven't played the Killing Floor series though, was it similar to Amnesia?

Edited by climatiseur
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Katakuna

Katakuna

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Unless you're reffering to A Machine For Pigs.

That thing was a disgrace.

 

Damn straight, though that could most likely be attributed to the fact that Frictional Games only published that game; some dev studio called "Chinese Room" developed it.  Dark Descent was much better, in my opinion.

 

As for KF2, I only played as the Grim Reaper in KF, so DJ Scully isn't enough motivation for me to spend an extra $10.

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TheErebus.

TheErebus.

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Amnesia a failure?

I have no clue what you're talking about.

Unless you're reffering to A Machine For Pigs.

That thing was a disgrace.

You what? I though amnesia, pneumbra and AMFP was great.

Amnesia:

Ah Amnesia…how much I don’t care for you. To me this game is very over-rated.

 

The atmosphere for the game is quite creepy…in the beginning. I remember going down into one of the first puzzles, and then immediately seeing a shadow of something that wasn’t human and I was freaked out. I didn’t know what it was and it scared me to no end.

 

And then I saw the damned thing…and I got freaked out.

 

Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, the first time I saw it I got scared. That thing was not what I expected to see. But the keyword here is “the first time” because afterwards, I saw the same enemy again. And again. And again and AGAIN. There was no variation to the enemies, and as a result you no longer feel afraid of the same thing that pops up in your face constantly. So whenever I saw these things, I didn’t think of them as something that I don’t want to even get close to, I just saw them as the same boring enemy from every single CoD game.

 

Now you can make the suggestion that because you are supposed to avoid the enemy and not be seen by it, by this logic, you’d be more afraid of them regardless of their appearance. There is some truth in this; however, behaviour-wise the enemies in the game are as plain a wheat-bread. It’s them just looking for you, if they see you, they come after you until they lose you. It’s basic, and gets the job done, but fails to make the player feel especially anxious when they are around.

 

My next point is: the lack of survival in this so-called “Survival Horror”. In the game, your only method of survival is by avoiding the enemy and running away to hide if you get spotted. There is no form of combat. Which at first sounds great right? Combat derives from the fear factor because it’ll all be blam blam kabowy Call of Battlefield. Well that’s only from an un-educated point of view.

 

The fact is, combat can work in horror games and if used effectively, can improve the game and make it much more enjoyable than if it had no combat. The whole point of Survival Horror is to survive, and while hiding away from your prey is a form of survival, it doesn’t translate that well into horror related media. With hiding all the time, all you do is simply avoid your fears. This is not effective in trying to evoke fear. When all you can do is avoid the fear and the enemy, all that’ll happen is that they won’t need to experience the fear and terror of having to fend for themselves.

 

This is especially true in Amnesia, you’re in a castle. A castle. And I’ve had people tell me that even if you could fight back, the environment wouldn’t let you. Well I say BS to that, because I’ve come up with ways to add more survival and tension.

 

You’ve been spotted by the Gatherer in Amnesia.

You decide to run but you see a statue with a sword.

You decide to take the sword, you notice it’s incredibly weak and it’ll break when used once.

The enemy is coming after you still, so you decide to use the sword.

You slash at is head, injuring it, the sword breaks.

The enemy is stunned for about 5 seconds.

Leaving you time to hide or escape.

 

That is how you can add survival and combat while still evoking fear. You cannot kill the enemy, but you can stun them in rare moments when you are given an item. You can take the item with you and use it at your own choice when needed, hell, you can even use chairs to wham them over the head and stun them for 10 seconds. This is how a human would try to act; they would run but still try to fend for themselves. That is survival.

 

The story is good. It doesn’t try to scare you but it certainly does horrify and intrigue you, so I think the game has done well on this.

 

In direct contrast, a game like Alien: Isolation does what Amnesia has done and makes it 100 times better. There’s actual survival involved and even combat AND YES THE GAME IS STILL SCARY.

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StinkyPygmy

StinkyPygmy

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Amnesia:

Ah Amnesia…how much I don’t care for you. To me this game is very over-rated.

 

The atmosphere for the game is quite creepy…in the beginning. I remember going down into one of the first puzzles, and then immediately seeing a shadow of something that wasn’t human and I was freaked out. I didn’t know what it was and it scared me to no end.

 

And then I saw the damned thing…and I got freaked out.

 

Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, the first time I saw it I got scared. That thing was not what I expected to see. But the keyword here is “the first time” because afterwards, I saw the same enemy again. And again. And again and AGAIN. There was no variation to the enemies, and as a result you no longer feel afraid of the same thing that pops up in your face constantly. So whenever I saw these things, I didn’t think of them as something that I don’t want to even get close to, I just saw them as the same boring enemy from every single CoD game.

 

Now you can make the suggestion that because you are supposed to avoid the enemy and not be seen by it, by this logic, you’d be more afraid of them regardless of their appearance. There is some truth in this; however, behaviour-wise the enemies in the game are as plain a wheat-bread. It’s them just looking for you, if they see you, they come after you until they lose you. It’s basic, and gets the job done, but fails to make the player feel especially anxious when they are around.

 

My next point is: the lack of survival in this so-called “Survival Horror”. In the game, your only method of survival is by avoiding the enemy and running away to hide if you get spotted. There is no form of combat. Which at first sounds great right? Combat derives from the fear factor because it’ll all be blam blam kabowy Call of Battlefield. Well that’s only from an un-educated point of view.

 

The fact is, combat can work in horror games and if used effectively, can improve the game and make it much more enjoyable than if it had no combat. The whole point of Survival Horror is to survive, and while hiding away from your prey is a form of survival, it doesn’t translate that well into horror related media. With hiding all the time, all you do is simply avoid your fears. This is not effective in trying to evoke fear. When all you can do is avoid the fear and the enemy, all that’ll happen is that they won’t need to experience the fear and terror of having to fend for themselves.

 

This is especially true in Amnesia, you’re in a castle. A castle. And I’ve had people tell me that even if you could fight back, the environment wouldn’t let you. Well I say BS to that, because I’ve come up with ways to add more survival and tension.

 

You’ve been spotted by the Gatherer in Amnesia.

You decide to run but you see a statue with a sword.

You decide to take the sword, you notice it’s incredibly weak and it’ll break when used once.

The enemy is coming after you still, so you decide to use the sword.

You slash at is head, injuring it, the sword breaks.

The enemy is stunned for about 5 seconds.

Leaving you time to hide or escape.

 

That is how you can add survival and combat while still evoking fear. You cannot kill the enemy, but you can stun them in rare moments when you are given an item. You can take the item with you and use it at your own choice when needed, hell, you can even use chairs to wham them over the head and stun them for 10 seconds. This is how a human would try to act; they would run but still try to fend for themselves. That is survival.

 

The story is good. It doesn’t try to scare you but it certainly does horrify and intrigue you, so I think the game has done well on this.

 

In direct contrast, a game like Alien: Isolation does what Amnesia has done and makes it 100 times better. There’s actual survival involved and even combat AND YES THE GAME IS STILL SCARY.

Mostly valid points.

I agree for the most part.

 

But despite their flaws I still thought they were great games.

I totally agree that there are better games in the same vein around now, but amnesia etc are fairly old and at the time they were fairly unique in concept.

 

Oh and Isolation is great. Loved every damn moment of it.

Edited by StinkyPygmy
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TheErebus.

TheErebus.

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Mostly valid points.

I agree for the most part.

 

But despite their flaws I still thought they were great games.

I totally agree that there are better games in the same vein around now, but amnesia etc are fairly old and at the time they were fairly unique in concept.

 

Oh and Isolation is great. Loved every damn moment of it.

I think of it like this:

Amnesia set down the basis for the game, Alien: Isolation perfected it

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StinkyPygmy

StinkyPygmy

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I think of it like this:

Amnesia set down the basis for the game, Alien: Isolation perfected it

I can agree to that.

I think thats why Amnesia got so much hype, because it was one of the very first and best games to do the whole no combat survival horror thing.

Survival horror itself is nothing new, but the removal of combat was relatively new. I say relatively because its been done before, but in different ways with less popular games or ones that are rather old.

 

You gotta have a basis somewhere and I'm glad to see games like Isolation stepping things up a notch and perfecting the idea.

Survival horror is one of my favorite genres and horror in general.

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