And at last, I've begun my trek with
A Machine for Pigs.
Coming straight from Amnesia: The Dark Descent, you are definitely more keenly aware of how different this game is from that one. This is definitely TheChineseRoom's game. I am not sure if it is that the game engine isn't optimized or an actual gameplay choice, but your character seems to walk/run slower than Daniel. And of course, the inventory has been dropped entirely, as well as the Sanity Effects. Only the screen turns red when you take damage and that is about it.
One of the most criticized aspects of the game was the lack of interactivity in comparison to TDD, and frustratingly it becomes blatant when you are going from room to room and encounter many doors covered with mechanical locks (and even furniture as well). That's not to say there's none, there are definitely still desk drawers to open, switches to throw and valves to turn, plus one could argue that TDD's environments felt more interactive because they were more sparsely populated with details than AMFP's. But when you come across so many locked paths, you cannot help but be disappointed.
But it is abundantly clear that the Chinese Room's strengths are abundant. First off the game looks beautiful, if not stunning. It's got so much more details in it than TDD. And next is the writing. You are going to be doing a lot of reading, sadly they couldn't get the VA to do the journal entries or musings, which could have helped. That said, the writing is indeed very good, and if you're a fan of the industrial age, the setting is just sublime. Oh, and the sound design and music cannot be praised enough, the industrial sounds, creepy screeches, and the haunting melodies of Jessica Curry work so well together. One of my most favorite things TCH did creatively is the "Map" of the Mandus Processing Plant. It's a a subtly creepy and stylized "You are Here" guide to the Plant, and is featured in the loading screens accompanied by an interesting, though unrelated, quote.
In this game you are playing wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus. Unlike Daniel from the original game, Mr. Mandus' Amnesia only seems to be short term, and also unlike Daniel, whose dastardly deeds were kept until the very end, you quickly get a picture painted of a man who is definitely not right in the head. Journal entries and musings abound of a man, who fancied himself as more than a simple Butcher, that was pushed to bankruptcy by his fixation on machinery and trying to automate the meat packing process. In his desperation he took his sons on a sojourn to Mexico to seek out relics to bolster his wealth. Instead he contracted fever amongst the ancient temples, and found an ancient relic. Undergoing an unholy spiritual awakening, Mandus returned with a grand vision of a machine so perfectly autonomous that would deliver the world to salvation.
Very quickly you get a picture of someone who has come to view almost everyone with disdain (imagine Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood), the wealthy as fat pigs and charlatans, and the poor dirty and worthless, and all being shackled by the soulless entities of religion and government who make "pigs of us all". And as the journal entries pile up, you can only be disgusted at the mans propensity for mass murder and butchery. That said, it never quite reaches the uncomfortable levels of the Daniel's Torture methods from TDD.
As you begin your journey in the dim halls of Mandus' mansion, you quickly are thrusted upon the purpose of finding your lost children. Trekking through the opulent house, you are quickly given your trusty Lantern (no oil needed) and are plagued by visions of your children beckoning you forward into the depths. Even in the house you can see signs of a vast network of machinery in place, though the loud rumblings emanating from below are as good a sign of that.
After journeying through a few warehouses you begin to sight some very nasty looking creatures, who squeal awfully like pigs. Though few at first are actually dangerous, you eventually meet one up close underneath the connected Church where it seems Mr. Mandus' cruelty knew no bounds and slaughtered all the parishioners, having been lured to his trap by his seemingly generosity of feeding the homeless. Along the way, you are repeatedly contacted over an antiquated phone system by a mysterious man who warns that the children are trapped at the heart of the machine and only by restarting it can they be freed.
As Mandus begins his journey through the Factory and repairing the damage caused by the saboteur, who had shut the machine down in the first place, you get more and more glimpses of the Horrors that exist both in the Plant and in Mandus' mind. His twisted sense of believing in salvation combined with his fascination with old cultures has sown a dark soul within him that believes human sacrifice is necessary for the world to be saved, on a scale far beyond what the old ancients could have achieved.
In the only connection to the original game, we learn that Mandus is distantly related to Alexander, having received both his notes on the Orbs and Vitae in addition to the body of one of the Gatherers from the ruins of Brennenberg. Using those twisted methods, he put his own take on the process and began experimenting with Vitae and adding new components to create "Compound X', a substance that he forces some to drink, beginning the excruciating process of their bodies mutilating themselves from the inside out, and then adding/sewing/attaching tissues and other body parts from pigs. It's possible he carried out these horrific atrocities on children from the orphanages in addition to others, though it was clear he had no qualms about experimenting on whomever. As you reach the lair of the creatures, and watch several of them act broken and haunted, you realize you are the real monster, and that starting up the machine has only revealed the truth of the Horrors of the sacrifices Mandus has wrought, starting with his own progeny.
So having gone through 2/3 of the game, it's actually amazing how much info is packed into it. I actually enjoy the quick pacing and feel it works well for such narrative intensive games. As I've read through the Everyones Gone to the Rapture thread, I think some of that quick pacing could have been useful there. Will no doubt finish this one quickly.
Still cannot stress how pretty the game looks. It's too bad the performance isn't to the level of the original game's and run as smooth. I also had to tweak the pictures in photoshop a little since they were very dark and also there's a bothersome blue filter in the game.
Awakening in the house of Horrors...and the attic
The Mandus Mansion truly is opulent
Quickly finding things that are wrong...
The Machinery is omnipresent
Even hallowed ground is not so hallow...
Outside the Plant, the smokestacks reach to the sky...
Descending from the massive Pistons to the flooded sewers to the heart...
In the Nest, with the creepy Opera blaring on the speakers, you can only pity them...
The Machine Reborn....the children....saved...
