I completed Amy this evening and wrote a short review. It’s short because there’s not much to say about Amy. I’m a pretty talkative guy and beyond the few paragraphs linked to here, I have nothing of value to contribute about this game.
(It’s really bad)
I can’t say I’m surprised, it’s one of those games where everyone says it terrible and it practically becomes objective. It’s a good week for horror anyway, as the Fatal Frame 2 remake comes out in 5 days 😀
Yeah when I first heard about Amy I too was excited and intrigued. Even knowing it was a download-only type of game, I figured it stood a great chance to shine and give a small dev house some street credit. The early trailers and developer blogs showed off the potential it had (and the passion THEY had). I honestly think it is a game where after getting a significant chunk of game complete they simply ran out of money and the publisher pushed for a “working game” to be released, no matter the missing elements and glitches.
It sounds like the game managed to go past the alpha stage and only got a week of beta testing (and then a week of fixing) before it was packaged and launched. Which is a shame.
I am sure the game was a precious and important one for the folk making it and to have it clipped short at the knees is almost like having to birth a child way too early. Sometimes this doesn’t matter, sometimes it is a good thing, but sometimes it stifles off enough growing details to really render the result too undeveloped to EVER stand on it’s own.
I remember seeing this on a list of games to appear at last year’s E3. After checking out the synopsis, I was interested. Judging by the lack of coverage, it seemed like one of those games that was destined to fly under the radar. But like Chris, I can usually find something worthwhile in even the worst games. Heck, I’m even playing through Michigan right now.
But then I checked out the official Amy website, and the trailer. I saw some really generic monsters front and center, and I became worried. Then the reviews came out, and everyone unanimously said that it sucked. Some of my all time favorite games were poorly received, but I’ve found that my tastes generally seem to align with Chris’s. I think I’ll take his word for it and pass on Amy. Though I do hope that in the near future, someone takes the base concept and turns it into something good.
BT “Though I do hope that in the near future, someone takes the base concept and turns it into something good. ”
Or in a strange twist of fate, the publisher takes a risk and releases it out on steam with a SDK that players can learn and use and allow the modding and enthusiast community to tweak, fix, and finish the game like it should have been. It would be a lot of fun to see folks turn this failure into something worth playing(and possibly sell more copies to boot!)
So uhh…. any plans to bring back the forum, Chris?
I haven’t found a viable alternative yet.
It really is a shame that this game was so terrible. I found the concept of the player relying on the helpless escort character incredibly intriguing, especially in a survival horror setting. Great review, Chris.
I thought it was pretty good. Nothing amazing… no worse that RE5 though.
One thing that put me off playing this before was that you had to play it from start to finish as there was no save option. Pretty dumb, if you ask me. Now that it’s been patched and you can now save more regularly at the check points, I may wanna try it again as there’s been nothing else of interest lately. RE6 is still 3 months ago.
Pretty much agree with the review. You write:
“the unused powerup slots and inventory space in the user interface indicate that there might have been more game here once upon a time”
You get a further indication of the original vision if you complete the game and look at the concept and art work shown during the credits – you’ll see places and an arachnid monster nowhere to be seen in the released game.
Being my masochist self, I completed the game in normal and hard mode in the pre-patch version and one particular area (the end of chapter 5) was only completable both times by using a strategy which the developers definitely didn’t have in mind: by leaving Amy behind with her being at the mercy of the monsters while I rushed to the exit!