Amnesia: The Bunker
#12
PC - Steam
Beaten June 10th, 2023
You know a game is REALLY fucked up when you have to seriously ask yourself: is being trapped in a near-lightless bunker with a hellbeast warped from powers beyond the stars really that much worse than being in World War I? Because, really, it's not as far off as you think...
The Bunker is the newest game in the Amnesia series with a new twist on its formula - rather than making your way through some linear levels solving puzzles and avoiding some roaming monsters, this time you're in a more sandbox~y map trying to grab a few necessary items (in whatever order seems best) to try and get to a clear end-goal set up from the beginning. It's a very cool twist on their formula and I had a lot of fun with it, also appreciated that length - 6~ hours, got in, got spooked, got out while the gettin' was good.
The Good
-New format for the series - more open ended and freeing to the player.
The story and premise: we're in WWI front trenches and a terrible beast is hunting our platoon.. and we've been sealed in! This leads to a natural question that the ending deals with: is being trapped in a bunker with a warped hellbeast SIGNIFICANTLY worse than being a soldier in WWI? Because... like the answer should be obvious, but.....
-Items are plentiful and work together in interesting ways. Make fuel in bottles, make some molotov cocktails, make bandages, make all kinds of neat items and combine them to figure out a way around the beast. Pretty much everything you find is useful in some way (except gas grenades those suck)
-THE GENERATOR! A key fulcrum of the game is LIGHT - the beast doesn't like it and will generally stay away unless you set off a bomb or something. However the generator guzzles fuel down - a huge chunk of your expeditions will be grabbing what cans of fuel you can afford to spend inventory spots on to bring back and keep the lights on. You can (and I did, def too much) wander around in the dark if you've got a keen sense of 3d memory you can do pretty well on short excursions for items you've seen before and make it back without incurring too much interest. It's always a risk reward - do you spend your fuel in the hopes to make more fuel and get story items, or go through the dark and save up for a bigger adventure later?
The Bad
-The map is really great BUT it's honestly too small. It is pretty easy to remember the layout of each section and just go through it in the darkness with little risk of getting lost or injured.
-Final encounter is a bit wonky - I get what they're going for of course with a climactic fight BUT ya know, push boxes together so you can hop over a wall? Eh
The Meh
-The engine is looking and feeling preeeeety dated. There are LOAD 'stutters' between each area? In 2023? Wat? And these are not big areas! At all!!
-Beast AI is a bit disappointing considering Alien Isolation (game number 11 this year!) was almost TEN YEARS ago. It doesn't hunt at all really, doesn't learn from you, doesn't have special environmental interactions...
The Hmm
-I do kinda wish there was a guide for some of the crafting items? Like I found out from forums that there are TORCHES? HOW GAME HOW
So yeah, Amnesia the Bunker is pretty rad bite sized horror game and I'm here for it man. We just need a balance for Alien Isolation & The Bunker and we're cookin with GAS.
Final Grade: A-
#12
PC - Steam
Beaten June 10th, 2023
You know a game is REALLY fucked up when you have to seriously ask yourself: is being trapped in a near-lightless bunker with a hellbeast warped from powers beyond the stars really that much worse than being in World War I? Because, really, it's not as far off as you think...
The Bunker is the newest game in the Amnesia series with a new twist on its formula - rather than making your way through some linear levels solving puzzles and avoiding some roaming monsters, this time you're in a more sandbox~y map trying to grab a few necessary items (in whatever order seems best) to try and get to a clear end-goal set up from the beginning. It's a very cool twist on their formula and I had a lot of fun with it, also appreciated that length - 6~ hours, got in, got spooked, got out while the gettin' was good.
The Good
-New format for the series - more open ended and freeing to the player.
The story and premise: we're in WWI front trenches and a terrible beast is hunting our platoon.. and we've been sealed in! This leads to a natural question that the ending deals with: is being trapped in a bunker with a warped hellbeast SIGNIFICANTLY worse than being a soldier in WWI? Because... like the answer should be obvious, but.....
-Items are plentiful and work together in interesting ways. Make fuel in bottles, make some molotov cocktails, make bandages, make all kinds of neat items and combine them to figure out a way around the beast. Pretty much everything you find is useful in some way (except gas grenades those suck)
-THE GENERATOR! A key fulcrum of the game is LIGHT - the beast doesn't like it and will generally stay away unless you set off a bomb or something. However the generator guzzles fuel down - a huge chunk of your expeditions will be grabbing what cans of fuel you can afford to spend inventory spots on to bring back and keep the lights on. You can (and I did, def too much) wander around in the dark if you've got a keen sense of 3d memory you can do pretty well on short excursions for items you've seen before and make it back without incurring too much interest. It's always a risk reward - do you spend your fuel in the hopes to make more fuel and get story items, or go through the dark and save up for a bigger adventure later?
The Bad
-The map is really great BUT it's honestly too small. It is pretty easy to remember the layout of each section and just go through it in the darkness with little risk of getting lost or injured.
-Final encounter is a bit wonky - I get what they're going for of course with a climactic fight BUT ya know, push boxes together so you can hop over a wall? Eh
The Meh
-The engine is looking and feeling preeeeety dated. There are LOAD 'stutters' between each area? In 2023? Wat? And these are not big areas! At all!!
-Beast AI is a bit disappointing considering Alien Isolation (game number 11 this year!) was almost TEN YEARS ago. It doesn't hunt at all really, doesn't learn from you, doesn't have special environmental interactions...
The Hmm
-I do kinda wish there was a guide for some of the crafting items? Like I found out from forums that there are TORCHES? HOW GAME HOW
So yeah, Amnesia the Bunker is pretty rad bite sized horror game and I'm here for it man. We just need a balance for Alien Isolation & The Bunker and we're cookin with GAS.
Final Grade: A-