Amnesia: The Bunker

First time actually reviewing a game instead of just leaving a comment.

Amnesia: The Bunker is quite frankly a breath of fresh air to the horror genre. Not that the main gameplay elements haven't been done before, but that all of the set pieces and mechanics are implemented flawlessly in what seems to me like a perfectly compact and effective package.

What I was the most surprised about was the inclusion of immersive sim ingredients into the mix. I had a similar and very pleasant experience with Alien: Isolation, and I only wish more horror game developers would implement this philosophy which emphasizes player choice and exploration into their games. At this point, I'm desensitized to horror media, but this game managed to deliver some truly nerve-racking moments, especially thanks to one of the core mechanics: the fuel system. Other games such as Outlast have already implemented finite sources of light for which you need to scavenge the environment, but in Amnesia: The Bunker you will need to backtrack to the hub, which also serves a safe-room, and refill the generator with the very few fuel canisters you will find throughout the map. The very limited time available to explore the area is essential to get useful items and solve a few puzzles: even though the player is provided with a dynamo flashlight as a last resource, it is too noisy to use, so the creature crawling amongst the walls of the bunker will hear you use it. There's a lot of trial and error, and it's fairly easy to get lost at first, since the map is only available to view in the safe-room, but it's really satisfying once you get familiar with the layout.

The sound design is top-notch, owing a lot to Dead Space. In a very pavlovian way, hearing the howling of the monster will instantly trigger a conditioned reaction to run back to a safe area. Similarly, the art direction is absolutely filthy and claustrophobic, preserving a sense of exploration whilst encouraging players to think twice before entering a new area. Oh, and there's no autosave... so you better go back often to the main hub. Maybe they should include a hardcore mode that has limited save items which you can look for, like the ink ribbons in Resident Evil. The writing is hit or miss: I wasn't sure how to feel about the lovecraftian environments at the end, but it's not too important.

Overall, an incredibly well crafted experience. Looking for more imm-simmy horror games like this, especially as concise as this one.

I am really upset that did not end up clicking with this game since I really really wanted too. I want to get out of the way that most of my complaints with this game stem from its poor performance. The simple act of booting up the game took upwards of three minutes and loading times in general were a pain to sit through especially when going to new areas.

To actually talk about the game outside of the performance issues, I think the concept of the game is brilliant. Exploring and underground WW1 bunker while an unkillable beast hunts you down is a premise I find incredibly compelling especially since there are not that many WW1 horror games. The aesthetic of the game is fantastic with gameplay of exploring a pitch dark bunker being unnerving and pretty unique. I even love the idea that you have a limited resource in the form of fuel which can be used to light up the bunker and without it you are operating in pure darkness.
Now for some problems I have with how the game is structured. One of the first lines I saw when booting up the game was something along the lines of "If you can think it you can probably do it". With this line in my head, I was disappointed with limited number of ways you can interact with the systems in this game. I never really felt clever engaging with the crafting or traps to help slow down the monster as it all seemed pretty basic. Given the short length of the game, I felt the developers could have built on the idea that you are using absolutely everything at your disposal in order to slow this monster down. I really wanted more creative ways to deal with the monster as for the most part, if I didn't have a good item on hand I was left hiding under a table until the monster left which is what I hate doing the most in stealth games.

What ultimately got me to stop playing was a nasty bug that made the game not save my progress which resulted in me losing 40 minutes of progress. Ill admit, the xbox I played this game on is pretty old but to lose that much progress killed my enthusiasm for the game. It didn't help that when I tried to replay the parts I missed the game crashed and I lost progress again.

I am still giving the game a 6 despite my problems with it because I think this is still a good game just not one that fully utilizes how intriguing its concept really is. I really want to give it another go at some point, preferably on a system that can support it more and won't lead me to losing progress. I would also still recommend it for the premise alone.

Okay, but considering the promise the game itself explains to you, it is very underwhelming. The Bunker promises a mix of an immersive sim with survival horror, with emergent, open-ended solutions to many of the game's puzzles, but despite some loose framing of your ultimate goal of escaping the bunker and the improvisational nature of your interactions with the Beast and a few other enemies, the actual puzzle solving and world progression seem very rote and predictable. It does some of the System Shock-esque lack of signposting and relying on journal entries to figure out what to do next, but because of a very small hub world, it's pretty easy to work out the order of events, and the major puzzles seem fixed in place while only minor obstacles allow for any creativity, and even then not a lot. Wooden door in your way? If there's no alternate route, you'll have to blow it open, with a grenade, an explosive barrel, or pure luck of getting the Beast to break it for you. I could be wrong, but it feels far too inflexible to really allow for the kind of out of the box thinking that makes immersive sims so rewarding.

And because the map is so limited in scope, the overall runtime of the game can be under three hours if you're not terrible at the game, making The Bunker the first game in years I have complained about being too short. At the very least, it shows all of its cards too early and has very few surprises, or moments of organic brilliance. Because this is a Frictional developed Amnesia, though, it still has a couple of cool scripted events; the area in the tunnels was spookier than anything in the bunker itself, sadly. But it's also the gamiest of the Amnesias and ends with a pretty typical and tepid "puzzle boss".

Outside of its cool as hell concept, some brilliant audio direction and a few legitimately scary moments, both scripted and non-, The Bunker is enjoyable but forgettable and fails to live up to its own hype.