Amy (video game)

Gameplay

The player controls Lana, the woman escorting Amy and protecting her as the two attempt to escape their disease-ridden town. They encounter monsters and the military, among other foes, in their attempt to escape. The player is forced to protect Amy from the zombies, often making her hide, to avoid detection. However, Lana starts succumbing to the plague without medicine, and thus must remain close to Amy, to return for healing. There are syringes infrequently, which allow Lana to heal without returning to Amy. However, when Lana is somewhat infected, she can safely walk past zombies, which necessitates a balance between healing and zombification. At certain times, Lana must rely on Amy for other abilities: Amy can use shockwaves, to push enemies and objects, causing distractions, as well as a sound bubble, muffling glass either being smashed or stepped on, defending Lana. Amy also hacks computers and climbs through vents when Lana needs her to.

Plot

The player must escort Amy, a strange autistic 8-year-old as they try to get her out of a city overrun with wild creatures and enemies. Lana (Sabine Crossen) and Amy are traveling to a doctor in Silver City via train, when an explosion derails the train, and their plans. They discover that the people have been turned to monsters via a strange infection, and must escape the monsters, as they continue their journey to the city. They must also fend off the Phoenix Foundation, an organisation who intends to control Amy and exploit her strange powers.

Development

On 3 April 2012, VectorCell announced a patch for Amy on the game's official Facebook page. The patch was released on 6 April. Major changes include the saving of the player's progress during chapters, the addition of more checkpoints, skipping of sequences in-game and several corrections to the subtitles.

Reception

Amy was universally panned by critics. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 27.24% and 33/100 and the Xbox 360 version 25.81% and 25/100. IGN gave the game a 2/10, with reviewer Colin Moriarty stating at the end of his review that he "spent at least a dozen hours with [Amy], got as far as the end portion of the fifth chapter, and gave up out of sheer anger and frustration." Game Informer's Jeff Cork gave the game just one point higher (a 3/10), and stated that "as a downloadable title, I wasn't expecting [Amy] to measure up against the triple-A juggernauts of the survival horror genre. However, I was expecting a game that was at least playable and contained some kind of entertainment. Make no mistake: Whether [Amy] is delivered to you via download, retail SKU, direct brain wave, or retinal implant, it is terrible and should be avoided." Jim Sterling of Destructoid went as far in his review as to describe Amy as "one of the worst games ever made", giving it a 1.5/10. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of the Escapist Magazine criticized the game's awkward camera views, poor optimization to Xbox, and also found himself unable to finish due to sudden game changing mechanics that forced him to be stealthy, and later stated that it was the worst game of 2012. The most positive review was given by Thomas Pichler from GamingXP. He praised the main protagonist, but criticized the periodical lack of explanation of what to do next.

It was included among the worst games of all time by GamesRadar in 2014.