The game Amy has been kicking around for a while now. Every so often, you'd hear rumblings on The PlayStation Blog about the downloadable survival horror title Vector Cell had in the works. It seemed cool enough in premise, and indeed, Amy no doubt looks good on paper. But the end result -- a supremely muddled mess of controller-throwing frustration and piss-poor game design choices -- makes Amy not only one of the worst downloadable games I've ever played, but easily the worst game I've played in recent memory, period.

Amy puts you in the role of Lana, a woman responsible for the well-being of a little girl named Amy. As the game starts out, Lana and Amy are travelling aboard a train when an explosion sends the train rolling, turning Lana's and Amy's lives upside down. From there on out, Amy's special gifts unfold before your very eyes.

The game's plot could have very well been Amy's only saving grace, but the highly nebulous nature of the story doesn't really tell you much of anything at all. Several chapters in, you'll still be puzzled as to what exactly is going on around you, and because the gameplay itself is the single worst part of Amy, you won't exactly find yourself enamored enough to keep on keeping on to find more clarity with the plot.

The give-and-take between Lana and Amy should be at the center of the experience, but since the game literally does nothing even remotely well whatsoever, you'll be exceptionally hard-pressed to appreciate the novelty of the idea at the game's core. Lana can't survive for very long on her own without being poisoned and killed; Amy appears to be immune from the effects of the explosion and can even heal Lana if she's nearby or holding her hand. Unfortunately, this great idea rapidly becomes monotonous and cumbersome, and even the lone bright spot in Amy quickly becomes yet another thing to resent.

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To call Amy's gameplay unintuitive and unresponsive puts things too lightly. To call Amy's gameplay complete and utter garbage is far more accurate. The game tells you to do a bunch of different things, but the controls only work sometimes. Want to pick up that item on the ground? You better be positioned in a pixel-perfect fashion. Want to hit that enemy? You better cross your fingers and hope the game's collision detection works. Want to dodge an enemy attack? Might as well roll the dice. The most important thing about any game ever made is how it plays, and in this regard, Amy is an outright abomination.

The puzzle-centric nature of the game also calls into question inherent design decisions at the heart of Amy. How many times can a gamer possibly be expected to do the same few things over and over again? Why am I sending Amy through a crawl space into an office to collect a key card when Lana could have easily fit through the hole herself? Why is the mute little girl I'm with hacking computers at my behest while I sit idly by? These are just some of the questions you'll ask yourself during each and every chapter in Amy's excruciating journey.

Apart from the abysmal gameplay littering every inch of Amy exists an equally infuriating checkpoint system that is so terrible that you may actually take it as one big joke from the developers. But it's no joke. Amy's checkpoint system wouldn't necessarily be so unforgiving if the game was even remotely playable, but since so much of the game requires insane amounts of trial and error -- and a myriad of unfair deaths due to terrible controls both in and out of combat -- this might be the most frustrating aspect of the entire experience.

I will be absolutely amazed if more than a small fraction of gamers who actually spent their hard-earned money on this travesty gets through more than a couple of chapters, because after replaying the same 20-minute segment of a chapter a dozen times as you try to figure out what you're actually doing wrong, you're more likely to chuck your console through the nearest window than have the patience to see it through for attempt number 13.

At the end of the day, the good idea at the center of Amy never sees the light of day because everything surrounding that idea is terrible. The game's mediocre look is about the best thing the game has going for it. But then again, once you sit through the lengthy load times following getting stuck in the environment and dying, even that bright spot will quickly diminish.

I 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. I refuse to spend another second with this game. I suggest you don't get started at all, and run in the opposite direction instead.

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