If you choose to hide every time the Stalker is around, you'll be burning a precious resource, as it can sometimes take a minute or two for it to stop patrolling and go back into the tunnels. What this means is every trip out into the far corners of the bunker comes with a sense of urgency and purpose, embodied by a pocket watch you can sync up to the amount of remaining fuel to know how much time you have before lights out. Worse, your only reusable source of light is that stupid flashlight that makes a bunch of noise and alerts it to your position. The Stalker is free to roam the halls in the darkness, whereas it would normally stay in its tunnels until it detects you. You can explore without the lights on, but it's… well, it's very bad. See, the whole bunker is powered by a central generator that guzzles down fuel like a thirsty elephant, and there are only so many refills available on the whole map. Luckily, it has another, clever way of making you sweat even if you're an expert at hiding. Figuring that out deflates a good bit of the tension The Bunker worked so hard to build. On the default difficulty, in almost all cases, I could simply crouch under a table and it would never find me even if I was practically breathing on its ankles. The Stalker, sadly, doesn't seem nearly as savvy. The alien in Isolation would slowly learn more about you the more times you encountered it, especially if you had a go-to strategy like hiding in lockers. Where this beastie failed to impress me, though, was its AI. After all, what's worse? A monster you can't fight at all, or one you've seen can take a bullet to the face and merely get a bit annoyed? Munitions are situationally useful, but ultimately end up making the foe even scarier. But the joke was really on me as these can, at best, make the Stalker leave you alone for a few minutes. Shoot to ThrillĪmnesia made a name for itself as a horror game with no weapons, so it seemed odd to me at first that The Bunker hands you a pistol and even sometimes grenades. ![]() And you'll know when you've gotten its attention by scraping and growling that use effective sound design to further fuel your paranoia. The fact that its behavior is somewhat unpredictable dials up the dread and adds some much-needed dynamism. It's attracted to noise, which can be anything from running, to firing off a weapon, to using your hand-cranked flashlight. The bunker is infested by rats, which will attack you, and it can even track the dripping blood trail that creates.Whereas most enemies in other Amnesia games are scripted to patrol a specific area in a specific way, The Bunker takes a refreshing page out of Alien: Isolation’s book and features a single, ever-present threat called the Stalker that lives behind the walls and above the ceiling of your concrete prison. This one will not only spot you if you’re using a light, but it can hear you running or merely charging up your torch. ![]() ![]() The monster may be unoriginal in form, with surprisingly little plot to explain what’s going on, but it takes the concepts explored in Alien Isolation, of an unstoppable monster attracted by noise, to their logical conclusion. Also, the location of items and the numbers of codes are randomised in each playthrough, so you can’t just go to YouTube and ask someone else how to do it. What makes The Bunker unique is that it’s essentially a sandbox and while it will log certain missions, such as finding a new valve wheel, it’s up to you to plan your forays into the darker areas of the bunker and what you’ll do to combat the monster as you go. Doors are locked by key codes, door cranks have to be retrieved, and in an especially unexpected nod to Resident Evil there are not only old school safe rooms but a magic storage box to help with your excess inventory. In truth, the monster itself and the whole being-afraid-of-the-light shtick is pretty old hat for horror games and movies. ![]() Amnesia: The Bunker – that gun isn’t going to help you (Picture: Frictional Games)
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