Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

What can I say about Amnesia DD. It really leaves the competition for dead. Silent Hill, Dead Space, Resi. Nuttin on this masterpiece of psychological horror. I'll admit it, I have taken way too long to complete this because of the apprehension felt playing. Every single corridor & room have threat. If it's well lit the foul monster will see me, if I hide in the dark I'll go nuts & hallucinate until death.

No massive guns or swords to use in this game. You run & you hide. Enemy encounters are rare & that is another strength of the game. Similar to Penumbra Black Plague in that respect. But when you do meet these said enemies it's bowel emptying time. The noise they make. Run Forrest, run!! I swear I shouted this a few times.

Graphically this game is magnificent. Rack that ambient occlusion as high as your video card can handle & boy does this game look good. Maybe the textures aren't as rich as recent games but the lighting & shadow impress greatly. Any decent gfx card from last few years should max this easily. I'm only packing a GTX 460 & easily maxed on 1080. The audio is even more astonishing. I have never heard sound effects like these. A surround sound systems dream. It's overwhelming. You could cut that s**t with a knife.

The story is also utterly creepy as Daniel retraces his steps through madness & toward the end things get very damn nasty. Flashback scenes & diary snippets tell the tale as Daniel progresses. All expertly done. All very sinister. No spoilers here though.

The few downsides there are, are minor ones really. Some puzzles can be tricky to solve especially when under pressure & when backtracking is involved. The game is short. Took me ages but I could tell that if you don't scare easily, done in 5 or 6 hours. I don't think I could have taken much more anyway. No game or movie has put the s***s up me like this one. I believe a sequel is near. Don't quote me on that but I'm sure I saw something about it. Can't wait to scare the crap out of myself again.