Amy Review

What this generation lacks is a true survival-horror genre that depicts the classic Resident Evil and Silent Hill games way back in the PS One era. Attempting to relieve what was lost in time, Lexis Numerique and Vector Cellreleases Amy, a survival-horror game that has promised to revive a genre that everyone has been missing for many years. Instead of a full retail release, Amy is a downloadable title only that fits right inside anyone’s budget.

Retailing for only $9.99 or 800 Microsoft points on the PS3, Xbox 360 and soon to bee on the PC, is this small price of admission worth it? Does the game truly bring back the survival-genre that everyone has been longing to play? Let’s take a look on the HOTs and NOTs in our review of Amy.

HOT

Interesting Characters and Well Paced Story
Amy follows the story of Lana and Amy in a world where both of them must survive from a mysterious some-kind of plague that turns anyone into a mutated monster that looks more like a zombie than anything else. With the mysterious power of Amy that repels the plague from infecting someone, Lana must always side with her as they both solve the mystery that engulfs the world and the characters around it. Through the numerous chapters in Amy, players will get hooked on the story of Amy as the two main protagonists shows their dependency to one another and the reason behind it will be revealed during the latter parts of the game.

Scary Atmosphere Lives Up to the Expectation
In order for a survival-horror game to work, it must have an atmosphere where players will feel fear when playing the game. Amy delivers the scary atmosphere successfully with sounds that will give players goose bumps. I commend Vector Cell in successfully implementing a soundtrack that is full of fear where players can be expected to cower. Cheap scares are to be expected but players will then realize that the cheap scares will freak you out.

NOT

Poor Game Design & Presentation
Back when Amy was teased over at the PlayStation Blog, it was one of those games that really got me excited. The concept art and the in-game screenshots looked phenomenal and very promising. After playing through the game, I am disappointed to see that the presentation and its game design aren’t what I expected.

The very moment the opening scene of Amy starts rolling out, the disaster in its presentation strikes. The very first notable problem found in the game is how the character shakes when they do their actions. It feels like there’s some kind of delay going on and with the screen tearing strikes at the same time. It made me want to quit the game due to the frustration that came to me after anticipating for this game for so long. Not only that, players can expect to be disappointed on how bad the lip syncing and voice overs are. The balance of the sounds doesn’t mix well and there will be time players will get annoyed about it.

In terms of the character designs, there are times the game looks fine but most of the time, the jaggy textures and environments will kick in more. Looking back again on the concept art, the faces of the characters just looks phenomenal and lovable but once you see them in action, expect to be dissatisfied big time.

Annoying Glitches Can be Game-Breaking
One of the things that really breaks the game is the glitches it has. By playing through Amy and having all kinds of these glitches that I encountered, it makes me think that the game was rushed and it most likely didn’t have a QA tester to look out for all the bugs. As I play through the short six chapters of Amy, there’s always a time I have to restart the chapter because an enemy that is supposed to come out, isn’t coming out! Well, what I did to fix it is to restart the chapter and viola! That’s not it! Expect to see a lot of these throughout the game. Trust me, it will make the players want to throw the controller.