Somewhere between all the YouTube wecams and mindless fans blindly praising Amnesia, is a game that I don't think quite lives up to the hype as the "scariest game of all time," but is still pretty damn good.

As we all know, the game takes place in a deserted castle and you play as Daniel, a man who awakes with amnesia. As you wander around the castle for the next few hours, you'll learn about the history of both the castle and it's caretaker, and Daniel's intentions for being there. The game is excellent at building tension and atmosphere, you will hold your breath many times while walking the halls of the castle.

The gameplay is where some of the problems begin to arise. I just found the game to be a little too forgiving. The tinderbox system is pretty much broken; I had a ridiculous number of them at the end of the game, somewhere in the 20s. The sanity meter is interesting enough, but I never really felt threatened if it got to a high level. If the meter gets too high, Daniel will pass out and awake after a few seconds. This happened once or twice during my playthrough, but nothing seemed to change afterwards. However, the absolute worst aspect is the enemy AI; Once you figure out the secret of their pathfinding and realize that they only stick to certain areas, the game becomes a breeze, and all feelings of horror and fear are lost. The puzzles aren't very tricky, but I did have to look up where to go once (I had to stack boxes because there was a hatch on a cieling... go figure).

So while Amnesia does capture a constant feeling of dread, you can only be as scared from the game as you want to be. It makes no attempt to hide that it is in fact, just a game.

Do I recommend Amnesia: The Dark Descent? Yes, to every horror fan. Old school horror fanatics will be pleased by this treat, and younger fans will scream at their Twitch followers.

Somewhere between all the YouTube wecams and mindless fans blindly praising Amnesia, is a game that I don't think quite lives up to the hype as the "scariest game of all time," but is still pretty damn good. As we all know, the game takes place in a deserted castle and you play as Daniel, a man who awakes with amnesia. As you wander around the castle for the next few hours, you'll learn about the history of both the castle and it's caretaker, and Daniel's intentions for being there. The game is excellent at building tension and atmosphere, you will hold your breath many times while walking the halls of the castle. The gameplay is where some of the problems begin to arise. I just found the game to be a little too forgiving. The tinderbox system is pretty much broken; I had a ridiculous number of them at the end of the game, somewhere in the 20s. The sanity meter is interesting enough, but I never really felt threatened if it got to a high level. If the meter gets too high, Daniel will pass out and awake after a few seconds. This happened once or twice during my playthrough, but nothing seemed to change afterwards. However, the absolute worst aspect is the enemy AI; Once you figure out the secret of their pathfinding and realize that they only stick to certain areas, the game becomes a breeze, and all feelings of horror and fear are lost. The puzzles aren't very tricky, but I did have to look up where to go once (I had to stack boxes because there was a hatch on a cieling... go figure). So while Amnesia does capture a constant feeling of dread, you can only be as scared from the game as you want to be. It makes no attempt to hide that it is in fact, just a game. Do I recommend Amnesia: The Dark Descent? Yes, to every horror fan. Old school horror fanatics will be pleased by this treat, and younger fans will scream at their Twitch followers.