Amnesia: Rebirth

It's starts slowly, requiring some effort from the player to get invested in the story and a wide cast of characters, but then it grips you and never lets go. I'd say this is more a spiritual successor to Soma than it is to the original amnesia, in that it's somewhat light on actual horror elements but really really heavy on inducing feelings of existential dread and terror. Also I have to mention that there are some really great and imaginatively constructed locations to explore, which was surprising in a game that's presumably about being stuck in a desert. If you enjoyed Soma I wholly recommed this one. Big respect to Frictional Games for taking a risk and crafting such a novel experience.

In My Humble Opinion, Dark Descend still best game in an Amnesia series. But Rebirth I like better than Machine for Pigs. Too much walk simulation here, but picture is pretty quality. I like sun light in a games.

My first impression of Amnesia: Rebirth was, honestly, tedium. The beginning tutorial bit was pretty straight forward and linear. It's purpose was to introduce you to the 3 main things. The story and characters, the setting, and the mechanics. This it did. But beyond that it was not that interesting and if I were to base the entire game on that first hour I would probably be hard pressed to continue. However, once you get to the first main area the level design becomes interesting. The areas are smaller in scope but feel as if they are not. Here is what to expect. Nice tightly designed areas with moments of cinematographic scenes and exposition. Those that have played prior Frictional games will recognize this and be familiar with it. Rebirth is a essentially a linear game with small in between areas of semi non linearity. Meaning there are small micro mazes where you can explore a bit with some minor back tracking and looping design making everything feel connected. AR makes some areas feel connected when they are actually fairly linear levels. Think of seeing an area but you cant go there however after looping around some various branching paths you get to a scripted moment where you find your self coming through a door into a room you saw through a crack in the wall. All the time wondering if you could get there some how. And this is where the magic lies. Creating a convincing world that feels large but is actually not. The story gets more interesting as you go along. The mechanics are very solid with gauges for your light sources and health being diegetic. Though you dont exactly die in this game in the traditional sense. Soma was a masterpiece of atmosphere and story telling but AR has taken some definite leaps with the level design and is a good game. In comparison to the first game A: dark descent, Rebirth has expanded on the formula nicely. Personally I am enjoying AR more. Enemies are the standard Frictional TM of evade or run.

What a disaster. This game features all the idiotic "call of duty cinematic" forced camera angles and non stop story line interruptions without any logical sense to horror or good story or character development that made the original game amazing. Expect constant interruptions with irrelevant attempts to "carry on a narrative" towards a meaningless plot and story line. The graphics themselves attempt to herald an experience while actually portraying an environment that had little effort put into worthwhile exploration. Pure disaster of a game and an embarrassment that should not be worthy of carrying the title Amnesia. I'm glad I only wasted $4 on this abomination of a walking simulator which should actually be described as a "console rail shooter without guns". You want a good game go play Amnesia The Dark Descent.

Firstly, I couldn't get the game to run in Win7. Turns out I needed to download a dll file from elsewhere. Then the game ran perfectly. Frictional could easily have included that as an install option for Win7. I got it running in the end. As to the game ... I love Penumbra, Amnesia TDD, and SOMA. Each expands on the one before in some way. I expected another progression, perhaps unfairly. Rebirth is more like a greatest hits. The familiarity is unsurprising, but sometimes you miss the wow factor. The biggest problems I had with Rebirth were partly the unevenness - one minute I'd be slightly bored by cave levels; then I'd emerge into a sunset desert and forgive everything. One minute I was confused by the story, the next I'd explore a ruined fort and feel like I was in TDD. So the settings are varied, some better than others. The best are great; the more average ones can't be as interesting as rooms in a castle, or an underground bunker, or a deep sea installation. The second problem was exposition. At many points in the game it felt like every few steps I was having the game halted for a memory, or a document, or a voiced interlude, to the point that I was having immersion broken. Because most are voiced, it really slows things down, in a way I don't remember feeling in the other games. I'm not sure what they could do about that, but it is mildly frustrating at times, which isn't a good mood for horror. Still, the best bits satisfied me, and the game included a few scenes and ideas I hadn't encountered before, even if others annoyed slightly (oh, just remembered - you can only carry 10 matches. Why? It feels like an artificial restriction.)