Review by PuerNomine - Oblivion: The Gates of Hell mod for Amnesia: The Dark Descent

I loved how minimalistic this mod was. It really pushes the artistic elements of Amnesia, making for an incredibly engrossing experience. I think a lot of other reviewers are missing the point of the original game, which was not to play to win but to put yourself into an environment, and this mod captures that almost perfectly. The atmosphere was stunning - the beginning establishes that you were in the freezing cold, an element I never lost over the long course of the game. The empty rooms, vacant buildings, and icy landscapes were all incredibly creepy, and searching for items in these gigantic environments was actually quite fun. Kind of like an old "I Spy Spooky Mansion" computer game I used to play, but with monsters who will kill you. I've seen other complaints, but I thought the pacing here was masterful. The dog was awesome, as was the final environment. Basically a super-long buildup for a great ending. Personally, I thought it was really cheap having the narrator collapse towards the end without any real explanation and the game transferring from sneaking around in dark corners to a generic escape and then the usual "I've been expecting you" nonsense. The biggest problem, by far, though, was that I had to start over near the very end. I never got the hammer (and didn't even know there was one) and then got stuck in the cell where the hammer was needed to escape. I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but this game needs to be updated to either add a second way to escape the cell or make getting the hammer mandatory to move on at an earlier stage.