Wednesday 3 March 2021

Time for a Scare: Blair Witch Amnesia Machine

When feeling safe is boring.

Blair Witch (PC Game)

PTSD is magic?

Volunteering to help look for a missing person in a spooky forest goes all sorts of wrong when witches and walking simulators collide. As someone who hasn't watched the movie, I wasn't expecting much from this game but I was actually pleasantly surprised at the start. Good graphics, decent voice acting, and a cool mechanic / ally in your dog, Bullet.


Who's a good boy!?

The puzzles and monsters in the whole forest section are very well done. My main problem is in the final bit, all that interesting stuff goes away and the game just into a stupid Layers of Fear type thing, where you walk into a room or look out a window and everything behind you has changed. Spooky the first time you do it, but that last bit just drags on and on and on - almost as long as the forest itself with no activities other than... walk and don't look. Such a pity that the quality takes such a severe drop at the supposed climax, meaning I can't really recommend this for anyone. One and a half dog biscuits out of five.

Insight: Your light can kill enemies. If you want to go for hard mode, just use the night mode on the handy cam and sneak past them instead.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

Are those... orcs?

Waking up with memory loss is the theme of this series, and once again you will be forced to solve puzzles while evading some frightening creatures. This time is a tiny bit less stressful as your lantern has infinite fuel and you can actually look at the monsters without getting dizzy which is handy since all the majority of them show up in front of you. It also removes the silliness of standing facing a corner/walls to "hide".


Well that's a game over. 

The puzzles are for the most part also straight forward, what with less things to interact with on the maps but one big negative for me, and it might just be due to my graphics card, was the draw distance being abysmal - especially in dark areas. I suppose this could be so you can't "gamma cheat" to see in the dark, but even with the light on it didn't change. Still a fun, suspenseful game and one I recommend, and give it out of three pigs out of five. While on par for me with it's predecessor, I still feel the Justine DLC in the original is superior.

Insight: Use the light on that padlock or you'll be stuck for a long time like I was!

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