Justine

Ashley got so bored this evening, that she agreed to play a horror game so I could make another post for this blog.  Whenever I even mention Amnesia, she gives me this grimace and dirty look as if my butt just farted out an insult about her mom.

So to be fair, I did not force her to replay Amnesia: the Dark Descent.  Instead I forced her to play Amnesia: Justine!

You're an asshole, Steve.

Justine is the 2011 expansion for Amnesia that has a whole new story line and setting but features the same basic underwear-soiling gameplay.

The game began with the same prompts about lowering light and putting on headphones to create the perfect ambiance.  Ashley wasn't having any of that.

Fuck the darkness!

After the prompt the camera zooms into what looks like a shadowy, round hole to which Ashley exclaimed: "I feel like I'm walking into a sphincter." This was followed by the title screen and another camera zoom into a dark hole.

"And now I'm walking into a vagina.  What's with this game and all the weird orifice holes?!"

After entering the weird "orifice hole", the player regains consciousness in a dungeon cell next to a phonograph.  Something shambles past the jail cell doors and Ashley is already off to a shaky start. "There's somebody out there!  It needs a sandwich.  Am I supposed to go out there?  I'm perfectly fine staying here. Getting fed and eating sandwiches."

No crust please

With Surgeon Simulator-like dexterity Ashley attempted to turn the crank on the phonograph.  After a few tries she was able to get the record to play.  An exuberant voice welcomes the player to this "cabinet of perturbation" with the enthusiasm of a Roman emperor.  So now Ashley is the be the subject of a cruel experiment for the entertainment of a sadistic observer.  She's also forced to play Amnesia.  Har har har.    

Ashley didn't really pay close attention to the message on the record.  She was far more concerned with what was outside of her cell.  "Is something going to jump out at me? I need to know these things before I go to the bathroom!"   Risking the cleanliness of her computer chair, Ashley pressed on expertly "strafing" through the dingy corridors until she reached a large cell block.

A small bottle on a nearby table was the first thing to grab her attention.  "Is that a protein shake?" Her cursor highlighted the bottle revealing it to be laudanum.  "Laudanum?  Is that like Ensure?"

Yes, Ashley, it's Ensure.  Now with 20% more opiates!

Amnesia always knows when it is being mocked by a player and it retorts with ambient sounds that can make a grown woman whimper like a four-year-old.    Determined to get further than she did in Dark Descent, Ashley started playing music from her phone hoping to somehow transform the whole scenario into a Joss Whedon musical.

How do you find a girl like Justine?
With Amnesia she won't remember a thing!  

Alas the swing music failed to cue a jaunty tune about psychological experimentation.  It did, however, keep Ashley from hearing the monster that burst through the opposite side of the room.  By the time she turned around it was too late.  Ashley's survival instincts hadn't failed yet and she did what all panicked players do in this game: throw a barrel.

If it can kill a fat, Italian plumber, it can kill anything.

In Amnesia when monsters get hit with a thrown object they do two things: first, they momentarily stumble back in utter disbelief that the player hasn't started running yet; second, they charge forward like a rabid Sumo wrestler with diaper rash.

Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

"I QUIT! I QUIT!  I QUIT!" Ashley chanted as she ran face-first into the corner of the cell block.  Her shaking hands managed to locate the escape button to pause the game.  "I'm done!  I'm done!  You're an asshole!" <cries>

I asked Ashley if she managed to get a good look at the monster before she quit.  "It looked like, okay so you know in Angel that demon that drank from his little friend in bondage gear?   The peepee demon! You know he said 'it smells like pee pee!'" 

Close enough.