| Amber: Journeys Beyond | Hue Forest Entertainment / Graphic Simulations | 1996 | |
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This tight and self-contained ghost story begins when you visit a fellow scientist named Roxy. An avid paranormal researcher, Roxy has chosen her new home because she believes it is haunted. Using a host of unreliable detection devices, she plans to use this house as a laboratory. Her goal: proving the existence of psychic phenomena. Driving out to the house in a thunderstorm, you are run off the road by a shimmering apparition and are sent crashing into a lake. In short order, you discover other things have gone wrong - Roxy is in the garage, apparently dead. It's up to you to save yourself and the overzealous scientist from the forces lurking in the house. Patience and close attention to detail are musts for playing. Critical items are sometimes hard to spot, and one or two of the scenes take place in very dark locales. When you can see, the graphics are crisp and drawn with a faint gothic sensibility, surrounding the player in a milieu of creepy sounds and ghost-catching gadgets. Each story is told through a different graphic style that instantly conveys the mood related to its particular ghost, from the faded photographs that make up the memory of a woman who died during World War II to the strangely distorted perceptions of a gardener obsessed by UFOs, or the watery images that form a child's sad reminiscences of a distant, snowy winter. The game is especially suited to beginning or younger gamers, as the problem-solving challenges are on the simple side. Even so, it's spooky and engaging, a worthy electronic heir to campfire stories everywhere. Although it was the only game the developer made, it set the early standard for the many indie horror developers today. | ||
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