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Amnesia: The Bunker review: a grim yet refreshing horror bottle episodeThere’s life in the old torture-monster yet
There’s life in the old torture-monster yet
Image credit:Frictional Games
Image credit:Frictional Games
Amnesia: The Bunker | 10 min of GameplayWatch on YouTube
Amnesia: The Bunker | 10 min of Gameplay
Unlike before you have a few more tools at your disposal than running and hiding. You start with a pistol, later scrounging up a shotgun - though bullets are few. You can find flares and grenades, med packs, and a critical resource is petrol, which you use to power a generator in a central area that becomes your mission hub. The Bunker is sort of a very focused Metroidvania in that you do not progress linearly to new areas, but instead gradually open up deeper and deeper areas of the bunker. Your objective isalwaysto find dynamite and a plunger to blast your way out of there, and youalwayscome back to your safe room to fill up the generator, save, and play inventory Tetris.
Livin' easyThere’s a slightly more forgiving story mode that starts you with a larger inventory, and lets you make more noise before the creature comes to attack. You’ll still have to stay on your toes though. Getting injured, for example, means you leave a blood trail.Image credit:Frictional Games
It creates a great interplay between safety and danger, because even as you master parts of the bunker, if you don’t keep an eye on your watch the lights could suddenly go out. The appearances of the monster aren’t scripted, either, so whether you decide to spend a painstaking amount of time quietly creeping around or a balls-to-the-wall explosion run will make a difference. The sound design works really well in concert with this, as you’re never quite sure if what you heard was the bunker bunkering, a distant war explosion, or something coming to peel the skin off your face.
Image credit:Frictional Games
As a returning Frictional fan it shook up a slightly ponderous series to make something exciting and new. This is Frictional back on imaginative, exciting form, and I’d be happy seeing them do other slightly more contained projects like this. I’d also, of course, love to see something new - but it feels like Amnesia is a pocket dimension they can visit again. If it’s an idea as well-rounded as The Bunker, I’m happy to go with them.
