AMY is a new survival horror title by Lexis Numérique. You take on the role of Lana, a young woman who is responsible for protecting a young gifted girl by the name of Amy. As the story goes, a comet carrying a virus hits Earth, affecting half of the United States.
The virus mutates people into creatures that seem Zombie-like in appearance. It’s your job to protect Amy at all costs. Amy is unlike any other child; she has special gifts that allow her to use her mind to hack computers and security doors. Lana can give Amy commands to help with small tasks, like operating buttons for elevators and collecting items that Lana my not be able to reach.
Lana must protect Amy by hiding her from danger; this also includes fighting. Not only can Amy heal Lana. but she can assist Lana during combat and also help her be stealthy when needed. Some of Amy’s abilities include a bubble; this bubble allows Lana to walk without making a sound. Plus, it can also make her undetectable to enemies.
This power is very useful when trying to destroy something without alerting nearby enemies. You will find many of Amy’s skills useful, and you will use them many times during the course of the game.
AMY is not your average hack-n-slasher. When in combat, you must dodge incoming attacks and then counter-attack when the moment is right. Basically, you must take a tactical approach during combat to survive.
AMY is much bigger than it appears on the surface, especially for a Playstation Network release. There are six chapters in all and they offer many hours of gameplay. There are a multitude of enemies and puzzles in each chapter, but be forewarned — there’s a lot of running back and forth during most of the chapters.
The hacking segments are a unique feature of the game. Every lock encountered in the game is based on DNA. To bypass a lock, you need to collect DNA with a synchronizer. Once you find a door that needs to be hacked, you must run through the level in search of DNA left behind by the owner.
Since each lock is based on DNA, you have to sort through all the blood trails discovered, and any dead bodies that litter the level, to find the right combination of DNA that matches the locked door. Tracking down the right DNA sequence is quite simple; local candidates are scattered throughout the level on your compass. The compass is placed on the lower right-hand side of the GUI (i.e. Graphical User Interface).
There are plenty of scripted events that will occur during gameplay. The scripted events that take place really add to the game’s atmosphere. The main character, Lana, will jump, scream, or react in some way to things that happen within the environment. When light bulbs blow out, or when other objects fall off the walls and make noise, Lana will flip out and even panic. Lana’s reactions really add to the experience. Not only is the game trying to scare you, but the main character acts scared as well. This is not seen very often in games; usually the experience is geared towards the player and not so much the game character.
As you will find out early on, hiding Amy can be both good and bad. Since Amy has the ability to heal Lana, you will sometimes need her either during or after battles. If Amy is hidden, it can make surviving a battle difficult. How you use Amy is up to you, but the game will sometimes make you stop and think about every situation you encounter.
AMY has three difficulty settings to choose from. Regardless of which one you choose, the game’s difficult seems to change very little. Even when the game is set to normal, it plays like it’s on the hardest difficulty setting.
After each chapter, a comic book cut scene with voice overs explains the story. This is impressive considering that Amy is a PSN title.
While AMY is a good game, it does suffer from issues that affect gameplay. For example: when you die, you end up losing the health stim-packs collected during the chapter. This becomes a real problem later on after reaching a checkpoint; you cannot backtrack to previous sections of the level to re-collect what you lost.
Checkpoints do not actually save your progress. Once you quit, all progress from the current chapter is lost. If you do not want to start the chapter from the beginning, you have to complete it before quitting the game.This is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways, it makes the game longer and more difficult, especially if you do not have a lot of time on your hands. Some gamers will find it frustrating, though.
While not perfect, AMY is a one of a kind survival horror game that has its own unique style. Even at $10US, that is very little to pay for a game that delivers on shock value and intriguing gameplay.
James ‘Daripp3r’ Pittaro
Platform: Playstation 3 (Available on PSN)
Developer: Lexis Numérique
Publisher: Lexis Numérique
ESRB: M (Mature)
Price: $9.99
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |  |
| The graphics are clean and sharp; the dark world of AMY will take you to a place where being alone in the dark is the least of your worries. | |
| Sound |  |
| Outstanding scores; the music sets the mood perfectly. | |
| Gameplay | |
| AMY is about puzzles and tactics; the run-and-gun mentality will get you nowhere. You have to think your way through situations. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Amy plays like the survival horror games of yesteryear. | |
