Have had this on the backburner for many years and finally got around to it. The game excels in its atmosphere, with every location feeling decrepit and grimy. That is just accentuated by the enemies and combat being brutal to the point the game has an almost snuff film vibe to it. The combat being mainly melee focus makes each encounter much more tense as you cant just run and try to kill an enemy from a distance, you gotta get up close and personal. The game does have guns but they are pretty spare, and when you get them you are only able to kill just a few enemies before you gotta switch back to melee. The story is serviceable, the characters are interesting and their oddities add to the overall weird psychological atmosphere. I personally really enjoy the direction it takes throughout the game, though there are parts of the story that are a bit confusing and underexplained, but I expect the second game will clear some of that up. I highly reccomend giving this game a shot for its unique mix of melee combat and atmosphere which creates some genuinely tense and scary moments

I was very happy to see that the old AC formula was going to be coming back, but also quite skeptical as it is Ubisoft after all. I was very surprised by this though. I loved the setting and 9th century Baghdad was recreated very well. I haven't played Valhalla so I didn't even know Basim was in that, but through this game alone I really liked his character and I am quite interested in Valhalla now even if just for his story. Parkour felt great here, as well as the stealth with more mechanics added and a nice set of tools at your disposal. Overall a very worthwhile time especially with being priced lower which was a good decision by Ubi

I'm a huge fan of The Surge series, so I was very much looking forwards to Deck13's new game. Its quite a departure from the style of the surge games, while keeping the mechanic of targeting body parts which is used in slightly different way. The game started off slow for me but the more I played the more it grew on me. The combat is really fun even if a little janky. The world design is incredible (a thing ive always though deck13 does incredibly well). The story is interesting and I personally got pretty engaged but it took a bit, I can definitely see why some people might not end up liking it. The movement (especially the sandsliding) is super satisfying, and sliding around each of the areas is something not many other games can equal. The enemies are also well designed and placed, you feel a good growth going from a certain enemy being a slog, to knowing all their moves and how to take them down quick. Also the armor design is pretty awesome. The game is definitely janky, and is shorter experience than the surge games, but is priced appropriately which is nice to see. I honestly do reccomend giving this game a try if the trailers and gameplay snippets seem interesting to you, but don't expect something like the surge its far different than that. I really hope to see Deck13 revisit this setting but I will always be interested in something they put out. 7/10 has many areas to improve in but is still a very enjoyable game focused on its energetic gameplay

I came into this honestly expecting something pretty terrible, but this game greatly surprised me. Yes it does remove a lot of the staples of amnesia, only really fitting into the series with small bits of The Dark Descents identity thrown in and some slight inclusion of story from the broader universe. The game is also highly linear, with few sections where you have some freedom to run and hide from the monsters. Without any inventory, resource management, or sanity system the gameplay consists mostly of walking, solving pretty basic puzzles, and hiding / running from monsters. Missing the deeper aspects of TDDs gameplay does hurt the game a bit, but it still is enjoyable to play, and personally hiding from the monsters felt more scary as they don't disappear right after you hide every time, which makes them a bit more of a present threat. Though the real joy for me came from the absolutely amazing atmosphere, and the surprisingly rich story told. The voice acting is actually quite great, and is definitely superior to TDD in that regard. The atmosphere creates some incredible environments, and delving deeper and deeper into this sprawling machine as more dark details unfold is a very interesting experience. As a whole the game is less frightening than TDD, and the monsters less threatening overall. But I feel there are still some great scares here, and some sections where tension is really well built. A Machine for Pigs may not surpass TDD, but it does a lot on its own that makes it a worthy experience nonetheless, especially if you want an interesting story that has some good commentary and some Lovecraftian elements