One of the most disappointing games I've played this year.

User Rating: 4 | Anna PC
I purchased Anna hoping for an interesting break from Team Fortress 2 (which I had been playing to death). I liked the look of the videos and how the creators described it as trying to make the music the centerpiece of the game instead of simply the background. Got me thinking this was an "art-type" survival horror game. Boy was I wrong.

For starters the music isn't all that good. Yes it's interesting for a while but my god how long can you listen to the same damn score? The music never changes! I expected something closer to Dear Esther where the music changed based on your location and everything came together to give you an amazing sensation (in this case I expected fear). What I got was a long, repetitive, and eventually annoying soundtrack. It wasn't subtle or engaging it just started grinding on my nerves.

Aside from the music the puzzle system is incredibly convoluted. I'm not saying that because I had a hard time and rage quit the game every five and a half seconds, I actually beat the game in a single 10 hour sitting. The only reason I figured out some of this stuff is because I'm either insane or I got really lucky. There are several puzzles that are just trial and error, there is no way to figure it out before you do it. That probably constituted at least an hour of game play right there, and an hour of trying to avoid smashing my speakers against the wall.

Finally I have to call these guys out on their poorly designed paranormal phenomena. In smaller words, the stuff that's supposed to be scary...isn't. Whenever something scary happens you're initially shocked a bit, but you get over it almost immediately. There's no build up, no "what's going to happen now" feeling, it's just fifteen seconds of a phenomena and then *poof* gone. When you look back on it you get this empty feeling like there should have been "something" more. Some sort of build up to the event, something that makes you feel suspense before that shock. Instead you get the initial shock and then nothing. It's almost better just not having it at all.