Amnesia: Rebirth & Riverbond, Free On Epic

Monday, we learned that soon you’ll be able to shake-weight your controller for the third time, and Lumberhill seems to be a mess of ideas now on the Switch. Tuesday, grandad Contra has an anniversary edition, and Skater XL continues to do weird things my old brain doesn’t understand. Wednesday, some interesting and not so interesting games came to Game Pass, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 got a release date, and sadly there is a Minecraft movie with Ronon Dex. Thursday, WoW: Classic is getting another expansion, and the dullest Star Wars game is now available on the Switch.

Moving on to this week’s free games on the Epic Games Store, the concept of Amnesia was interesting the first time out. Now, more than a decade later, we’ve seen this same corridor over and over. The gameplay of physics objects like doors being moved by the mouse and the puzzles being interrupted by being goosed up the rectum by creepy Steve in room 204 no longer instills that same sense of fear as someone shouting “boo!” does, apparently. My point is that Amnesia was a jumping-off point, one where you could evolve as Resident Evil VII did instead of wallowing in a sewage treatment plant.

Amnesia: Rebirth is hardly a rebirth of the series, given there were only two games before it, one (the original) being made by Friction Games. Neither is it another jumping-off point for the genre nor being the same tripe that is slopped out because making a door open to a different room is easier to program than, say, something actually instilling fear or concern. Amnesia: Rebirth might have a few shining speckles on the turd that is the idea of doing another one, but it is so full of nonsense that could be cut and you wouldn’t notice the difference.

Shifting to what I can’t be bothered with at all, we have an isometric voxel-art co-op adventure game with about as much to it as a blank piece of paper. I’ve taken this stance for a long time, and I don’t believe it is going to change anytime soon. Sure, your co-op game might be fun with people, but I hate people and it is only fun because you like spending time with the person, not the game. Look at Borderlands, it is dull in every regard and about as funny as any attempts at mass media parody for the last 10-years, yet it is lapped up because of its co-op elements. Riverbond is attempting the same thing with a greater niche of players that simply exist in a bubble outside of this reach.

All this week, you can pick up both Amnesia: Rebirth and Riverbond on the Epic Games Store for free until the 5th of May, when I’ll be on a break, I hope. Nonetheless, next week I’ll have to talk about something labeled “comedy” that is about as funny as trying to describe sitting here in my pants eating cheesecake thinking of crude or humorous metaphors. Next week, expect me to moan about getting older and these kids with their Just Die Already and Paradigm. Hurrah for me!