Review EN/PTBR

Much simpler than the first game and I think it had a cool premise but in the end I don't feel it was as well very executed as expected, it's not a bad game but it ends up being judged more rigorously from the fact is a Amnesia title.

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Muito mais simples que o primeiro jogo mas que eu senti que tinha uma pequena premissa daora mas que no final não sinto sendo tão bem executada quando o esperado, não é um jogo ruim mas acaba sendo julgado mais rigorosamente a partir do momento que possuí o nome Amnesia em seu título.

The whole game is very poetic and fascinating in its ideology, worthwhile playing it just for the sake of the satisfying elegance and eloquence of the notes and dialogues, suffering from a gameplay view sadly. It has one of the darkest stories in the gaming world, and the soundtrack and voice acting are on point. While The Dark Descent's gameplay and use of environment was better, this game counters those strong elements with ıts unique story and ambiance, sadly it can be easily viewed as just a walking sim. It deserved more, but I'm happy to have played it.

I’ve found, oftentimes, when a work exists relative to another work — be it a sequel, adaptation, etc. — that the general audience has a tendency to judge it purely by its relation to the original. “Loyalty” becomes the touchstone for which the work is defined, and should it feel significantly different from the original, or change things in adaptation, it’ll be decried as a bad work compared to the original, regardless of its actual quality separated from that context. Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, from what I understand, was no stranger to this type of reception. On its original release, in 2013, it was criticized for feeling much more stripped back compared to what it was following up on. Core mechanics that defined Amnesia: The Dark Descent, such as managing your inventory, fueling your light source, and making sure you don’t lose your sanity were not present within Machine For Pigs, in an attempt to gear the game as more of a narrative experience, as was the modus operandi of primary developer The Chinese Room. It was a tall order — especially given just how popular and influential The Dark Descent was for indie horror — and sadly reception proved to be rather mixed because of that. What the general audience wanted was something reminiscent of the original work, and when the process of creating a follow-up resulted in something far different, it was rejected: not on its own merits, but because of outside expectations that this work didn’t entirely cater to.

So it’s a little funny on my end that of all the Amnesia titles, this is the one random chance chose for me to play first. Having not played, or even watched much of anything else to do with the series, I’m coming into this divorced from a lot of the context or outside expectations that surrounded the game on its release. I wouldn’t necessarily feel this game to be stripped back in terms of mechanics, since I never had an understanding of those mechanics in the first place. I wouldn’t think about this game in comparison to the original Amnesia… mostly because I prefer to view things on their own merits, but because I came into the experience absent any previous experience. It’s far from the first game in the series (especially if you consider Amnesia as a spiritual sequel to Penumbra), but, personally, this one would be my first foray into it, and, likely, the blueprint for what I'd expect to see should I delve further into this series.

You play as Osmund Mandus, a wealthy industrialist, who wakes up from a coma of several months right on the last day of the 19th century (or, well, actually a year from the last day of the 19th century, but shhhhhh) to find that his two children are nowhere to be found. His search takes him through his manor, through the streets and sewers of Victorian London, listening to the directions of a mysterious man on the telephone who tells him he knows where his sons are. He’s eventually led into one of his factories, and through this factory, towards a machine of unknown aim and infinite proportions. As he gets closer, however, Osmund finds that the workers of the machine are anything but human, and that he might know more about the machine than he seems to think...

I think this game’s strongest point was its narrative. I think the writing did a good job of getting me to know and like the characters, and I was particularly into the varied, wild directions the plot happened to go. Beyond how effective it is at building up a mystery — and drip-feeding the player information as it slowly unfurls — I think what I really loved is that this is a story that operates on multiple textual levels. While you’re fully capable of taking the game at face value without really feeling like you’re missing out on anything, this is something that begs to be read a little deeper. Particularly, one can question how literal the events going on even are, with a knowledge of Victorian England potentially providing an indication that the events that are depicted… perhaps could be interpreted as a metaphor for something much less fantastical. I made a point to look up plot details after the game specifically because I wanted to know more, which to me I’d say is a compliment as to how much this game made me want to think about it.

As a horror game, I’d also say it’s solidly effective. The nighttime environments feel suitably dark without it being absolutely impossible to see anything (which, believe me, so many games can’t seem to get right). There’s a subtle sense — through how the sounds you keep hearing are the only things that break through the silence, how empty the streets of London are — that something is wrong from the start, driving the core mystery and providing an aura of unease as you delve deeper through the game. I’m also into the way things… escalate as the game goes on: from down to earth as you explore your mansion, then veering into the fantastical as the monsters begin to show up, then more and more off the rails the further you delve into the heart of the machine. The sections with monsters are simple, but effective stealth sections, with their presence feeling imposing enough to make the player not want to mess up. When you’re caught, or when the game dispenses with the idea of stealth, enemies are loud as they rush you down, inspiring a blind panic as you try to figure out how you’re meant to get away. It’s the little things that contribute to a horror game’s atmosphere — and mean just as much as any big setpiece or scare — and in regards to the micro level, I think this game does pretty well on that front.

Where it falters, I feel, is mostly in direct gameplay. Less the ‘walking simulator’ aspect, more when the game throws puzzles at you. They’re mostly fine, but what it really suffers from is a lack of… indication of how your actions affect the world around you. Oftentimes, I’d solve a puzzle, the game would acknowledge that I solved a puzzle… and then I’d have no clue what to do next, either the puzzle requiring an extra step that wasn’t quite clear (at one point I thought the game had glitched and softlocked me), or because the game has issues with signposting where exactly the player needs to go. There were so many points where the game was like “walk down the path we’ve set for you” but the path was in a large enough area that I got lost, or the way forward was absolutely coated in darkness that I couldn’t see it. I kept looking at guides, not for any of the puzzles, but for a lot of what was in-between, when it… really did not feel like that was what the game had intended, nor something that particularly felt like a ‘me’ problem.

Other than that — and divorced from whatever context that might have given me different expectations, or any sort of in-built comparison — I felt that this was a fairly solid narrative game. While a lot of the gameplay, and most of the segments where I was walking from place to place, felt like they could’ve been made more clear, I felt the horror to be rather effective, and the story to be something super worth delving into and interpreting. As my personal first experience with this series, I felt like this was a fairly decent introduction. Can't wait to be shocked that the next game in the series has actual mechanics. 6/10.

This game is the pig. We are all the pig.

There are some pretty epic setpieces in the latter half of the game and one epic monster encounter, but otherwise this game is kinda boring and poorly thought out. 99% of the story is in the notes, but they are all paragraphed poorly with a small typeset in the shittiest font possible which resulted in me usually not reading the notes.

The guy literally calls it a "machine for pigs" though, so props for that.

Is this Amnesia: The Dark Descent 2? No.

Is this a (mostly) walking sim that has kind of a bad start but a good ending? Yes.

Are the monster models extremely goofy looking? Also yes.

This game has one of the most captivating and engaging stories, making it one of my favorite horror stories. However, the keyword is stories because the gameplay does not do this game justice. The first two-thirds of the game is a trash heap because of all the mundane and oversimplified puzzles that require no thinking. Most people would do better to play this game before playing Amnesia the Dark Descent because of the change in gameplay. Nearly everything Amnesia the Machine for Pigs does is better than its predecessor however its gameplay is the one thing that just keeps this game from truly being a masterpiece.

As this game was wrapping up, I found myself to become quite invested in the story and themes surrounding it. The only other Chinese Room game I've played prior to this one was Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and much like that game A Machine for Pigs has a great story to tell packaged into a real bore of a game. In some ways this is better than The Dark Descent, but Frictional Games set out to make a thrilling horror game while The Chinese Room settled for a real slow burner about the bourgeoisie, the darkness within mankind, and how much a player can tolerate wandering around empty buildings opening doors and drawers to absolutely no benefit because there's nothing beyond notes to collect and no puzzles to solve beyond "put object A into slot B". Still much better than Bloober Team's Layers of Fear though.

Also calling the black sludge Compound X just made me think I was playing a much more deranged Professor Utonium, setting out to create the perfect little (pig) girls.

𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐨𝐧
#𝟏𝟎 𝐀𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚: 𝐀 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐢𝐠𝐬

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a bad sequel. Compared to Dark Descent it has no item management, no inventory, less stuff you can interact with in the environment, a significantly shorter run time, and much MUCH simpler puzzles. It took most of the aspects I liked from Dark Descent and threw them all away to make a horror game trapped inside of a walking simulator. Now here’s the real interesting question, why do I like this more then Dark Descent?

Realistically I should be annoyed or even angry that my favorite aspects of DD are missing and have been replaced with the “horror” and narrative of the game primarily. But here’s the thing, DD had an amazingly beautiful and spooky mood and architecture; but besides a few areas near the beginning and last hour of the game I can’t remember the details of each area, and I’m gonna be real here chief I don’t think any of the monster look scary in DD. Now put that into context for AMFP, not only do I love the setting more than DD (turn of the century Victorian London is one of my favorite places in historic storytelling) but I love the architecture and scope of the titular machine.

In DD Brennenburg castle was a joy to get lost in but a huge complacent I still have with it is that after a while the dark cobblestone halls or the bloody dungeons all start looking kinda samey. I’m not saying they look bad on an artistic level but just after more then 7 or so hours of exploring this castle all the areas start bleeding together in my head, and I just finished the game a few weeks ago. In comparison I find the incomprehensive large machine I explore left me with a much more long lasting sense of dread and horror. The sound of the hissing and groning of this machine as I plunged ever deeper into the darkness never failed to unnerve me and make me feel small and insignificant. This machine is so large and wide reaching I left almost like a small insect crawling deeper and deeper into a lovecraftian nightmare. I’m not normally scared of things like gore or monsters or even psychological horror to an extent; no what I’m more afraid of is something I don’t know if you’d call relatable or pathetic but it’s darkness, I know that sounds stupid like yeah no shit everyone is afraid of darkness it's a basic human fear; but I don’t know how to explain it but the darkness is just something that creeps me out. It’s that pitch black nothingness that really gets to me, that sense of anything could be out there, that feeling of hopelessness closing in around you suffocating the last bastion of life before nothing is left, the quiet emptiness; that’s what scares me, DD didn’t really give me that vibe shockley but AMFP absolutely did.
The machine itself is loud, large, and claustrophobic, as you enter the church where your descent begins the quiet night of the london night and the moonline that beamed down upon you disappears, replace with the sounds of firing pistons, grinding gears,, squealing sounds from inhuman monsters, and the hissing of steam from the pips. The longer you descend into a monstrosity of copper and steel the darker it gets, with the only light coming from your lantern reflecting on the hot metal of the machine as everything else is drowned out by the machine, it a literal descent into the man made hell of our protagonist much more so than daniel’s decent in DD.

Maybe I’m on some strong ass copium but idk I just really liked this game man. Sure it’s not a great sequel to DD but honestly I’d love it if this series went the way of what John Carpenter tried to do with the Halloween series after Halloween 2. Instead of each game being a sequel to one another following the same world, lore and monsters, I’d love to see something more like what AMFPs tried to do. Reincorporating some of the same ideas and cour themes from DD but spinning off and making your own thing completely with a new setting, monsters, and story, something like Creepshow or Twilight Zone but for video games. I’m pretty sure an idea like that would never work for video games since gamers are entitled little shits but I think if executed the right way an idea like that has potentially boundless potential, yeah I know there are 2 other sequels in this series that I’m pretty sure fellow in the same world and lore of DD; what with all the lovecraftian orbs and interdimensional ghost bullshit. But I’m serious, an idea like that could potentially be a gold mine of creative ideas to flourish not just for Amnesia.