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Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs |OT| - This Little Piggy Cried AAHHH All the Way to Hell
- Thread starter CheesecakeRecipe
- Start date
It's become increasingly clear that you've simply two sides here: Amnesia players expecting (or at least wanting) another Amnesia game, and The Chinese Room Dear Esther fans who want, basically, another Dear Esther.
My core problem is, I bought Amnesia: aMfP, not Dear Esther 2. I actually like aMfP as an Amnesia-light experience (something that understands the spirit of the thing, but doesn't have the heart of it). So, it's about expectation, and I think people who bought this expecting a sequel to Amnesia had the right to make a few assumptions.
I mean, imagine if RAGE had been called, Fallout : RAGE. That doesn't change a thing about the game, but man, does it ever change expectation.
jacksepticeye
Member
It's all to do with it being the Amnesia sequel. People wanted a scarier Amnesia game and didn't get it.
When I realised it wasn't what I was expecting I just started judging on it's own merits and it's actually a pretty solid experience. Just a pretty bad Amnesia game and it's a little too light on the whole interactive gamey side of things.
I am okay with less gamey stuff since Outlast just hit the "too much gamey" border for me. "find those TWO things again while this bad AI thing is looking for you" ugh ... such a great game but that is the worst.
I disagree. While I have no doubt that the Amnesia brand has coloured many peoples expectations, the failure to deliver stands on it's own. If the game was exactly as it is now, only developed by a different unknown studio, and not carrying the Amnesia brand you'd find that most people wouldn't pay it any attention, and those that did would be telling the rest to avoid it. You tell people that The Chinese Room worked on it, suddenly the shortcomings, lack of gameplay etc., are reconsidered or overlooked because that's "just what they do".
To make a follow up to Amnesia would have been relatively easy, the teaser trailer proved that. They had all the tools right there to build a decent game and to craft a convincing story around it, but no, expectations or not, they chose to remove gameplay elements themselves. Whether or not people got a scarier tale is subjective, but everyone, objectively, got less of a game from it. Due to this, anyone who found the story to be boring / sub par / cliche / whatever ended up with a 3+ hour linear corridor, lined with locked doors, to remind them of how good the game might have been.
SlasherJPC
Banned
I'd say the same things could be said about Amnesia TDD. Even with the insanity effects, inventory management, etc. If you didn't find the original setting, compelling, you might have found a very boring experience, with a few added additonal things to manage. Both games overall, have a very focused, puzzles approach and while AMFG is def a bit more simpistic in that regard, it's still a unique take on the franchise, that isn't an exact copy, and I enjoy that fact.
TDD, like the Penumbra games before it, were not "horror" games, but first person adventure games that just happened to be horror themed. The way you interacted with the world was both immersive and clumsy, and that combination made the horror stand out. Even if you were to consider the story in TDD and Penumbra to be equally subpar, there is the root adventure gameplay to hold it up. If you didn't like either then you didn't like the game, simple as that.
I agree it's a brave move to not make a carbon copy of TDD but in doing so they've removed the mechanical genre underpinning it all, and instead have tried to make "horror" the genre. To call any of the interaction in MFP a puzzle would be laughable. Even if the puzzles in TDD were equally simple to solve, their main purpose isn't the cerebral thinking to solve them, it's to force you out of your comfort zone. You know the only way to progress this story is to wander out into the darkness to find some *something*, you don't know where it is, but it's out there, where all the things that want to kill you are. Other puzzles were used for pacing, getting you to psychologically lower your guard for a brief interlude before returning you to the darkness. Overall the gameplay in TDD is what *made* the horror work. So, again, even if you didn't like the story, the horror was there regardless.
In a MFP they want the horror to rise from the story, and therefore the environment also. It just doesn't work that way unless they crafted the most horrific tale ever told, which, subjectively, they did not. I'd even have forgiven them for a sub par story but the means in which they told it to us is just so awful that it can't be taken seriously. Things like
creepy dead kids, twins no less. Creepy church with hidden basement / catacomb. A sewer level (again, I'd have forgiven it for being thematically valid until they made invisible pig men a legitimate thing). It is amateurish from both a game perspective and a story perspective, regardless of how developed and intricate the backstory to it all may be.
jacksepticeye
Member
You can make any game sound bad if you are over negative about it.
People keep referring back to TDD like it was some shining beacon of a perfect game, it wasn't. In fact it was pretty amateurish in its own ways too. Go into the room, pick up important item, hide in conveniently place wardrobe until monster literally evaporates and then do the end of the puzzle. It was extremely predictable and only genuinely scary for the first few hours. After that it was rinse and repeate the routine
Lantern oil and tinderboxes were cool until you realise you can wander in the dark infinitely and stock pile all of the oil and tinderboxes around for when you really needed them. Same for insanity, fine until you realise darkness actually does fuck all to you besides make you hearannoying sounds and the screen go all blurry. It had some neat ideas in place but they all became largely very tedious in the long run
you say AMFP used some horror cliches yet TDD was the exact same. It also lifted almost everything from H.P lovecraft,almost to a T, at least AMFP has it's own identity while taking some ideas from him. As I said before too you seem to over simplify the story when in fact it's really really deep and has a lot of little nuances and a tonne of really poignant symbolism. It makes TDD look like an after school special
But these constant comparisons need to stop. People need to sit down and judge the game on its own and not what it did or didn't do different to the original
I don't know -- Dear Esther got a pass on being a non-game, and lots of people called it great art, or whatever.
Anyway, it's just a transitive argument here, where basically the people that really like this game are almost certainly fans of Dear Esther, and people that are disappointed in the game are almost certainly fans of Amnesia. One of these groups has a a more legitimate claim, in my opinion -- in that, the game has the Amnesia name, and that colors opinions.
Had the game simply been called "A Machine For Pigs", I don't think that would really change who enjoys it and who doesn't; it's just that now we have a title to apply to those groups.
As an Amnesia game, aMfP is simply a failure. Those expectations are not meant. They expended quite a bit of engineering effort to get rid of features; I can't tell if that's lazy or not, but the point stands that what came out on the other end is 90% Dear Esther, 10% Amnesia. Amnesia fans complain that that ratio should be reversed, for the sake of the game, or at least, the sake of the name.
IMO, The Chinese Room just wasn't a good fit for the franchise. I appreciate that it doesn't look like they phoned it in, but their strengths are more or less irrelevant to what made Amnesia a good title.
Bullshit. It has Amnesia in the title. It should be compared to the original. If they wanted to differentiate themselves from the first game, they should have called it something different. They should have actually done new interesting things as well. Instead we got a watered down version of TDD.
You know what? On its own it's terrible. It's not scary, the enemy encounters were minimal and boring, and the puzzles were just god awful. On its own, when talking about gameplay, this little piggy has none.
Yes, I just did that. Please kill me.
On another note, I really liked Dear Esther for what it was. I played the HL2 mod when it was released, and purchased the remake on Steam the second it was released. I think Dear Esther is wonderful and beautiful. I thought it was stunning visually. The story was interesting enough and fun to try to piece it together. This talk of having 2 groups of people is not completely true.
On yet another note, The Chinese Room actually attempted to make another horror game before. It's a HL2 mod called Korsakovia. I don't remember much from playing it, but I know I was disappointed after playing the original Dear Esther. History repeats I guess.
I think comparing the two is fine in a general sense, I just disagree with the people that seem to think everything that's different from the first game is automatically worse.
But then I also never had much sympathy for people claiming stuff like Dear Esther, The Walking Dead, Brothers, Journey etc are "non-games".
Okay cool, sucks that it's like that but glad it's not just me. Was driving me crazy
jacksepticeye
Member
This is a better way of putting it
AuthenticM
Member
I did not notice anything wrong with the framerate, but I've never seen so much screen tearing in my life.
CheesecakeRecipe
Stormy Grey
I had some stuttering in the opening estate but smooth as butter the rest of the way. Vsync was absolutely goddamn broken though, I think someone here posted a fix to force it on both AMD and Nvidia chipsets.
Did I reach a bug?
Room where you have to use those bank like air tube shoots to make a mixture. Got the mixture and figure I have to break it on the lock. Did so but I think I was off a bit and nothing happened and now I cannot make another mixtures. Last auto save was awhile back.
CheesecakeRecipe
Stormy Grey
Amnesia TDD is one of my favorite horror games and I have never played Dear Ester but I have to say I really enjoyed Amnesia AMP. I am really glad that this was not just a remake of Amnesia TDD but with "more scary things". The Chinese Room did something different and new and put there own style into it. So I have to give them props for that.
Turin Turambar
Member
That was a disappointment.
As previously stated, there is no fear mechanics, or resource mechanics (oil for the lamp, or health). But it's not only that, in fact there isn't inventory, the adventure feeling is decreased, the puzzles are almost gone.
There is less physical interaction, I think in the first game there were more reasons to open stuff (searching for items) , move or throw stuff (some puzzles), close doors if a monster was following you, etc. So you have a lesser physical connection with the world, that makes the horror less immersive. With the fear mechanic gone that made you avoid seeing the enemy directly, the illusion of horror is broken and you notice how the monster encounters are just normal stealth parts like in other video games except with a uglier enemy. Just wait until he turns the corner and crouch-walk this other way. It seemed a few times an annoying mechanic, but playing a machine for pigs now I appreciate it more.
It also feels more linear once you pass the first area, lots of times every door is closed and there is only a corridor where you can advance, with a single rooom where there is a single object you have to interact to go forward into the game. The advancement in fact feels kind of amateur: some times there is a closed door or whatever that impedes you advance to the following area, and it's only when you complete your current goal only when the door opens, even if doesn't really makes sense, logic wise (why tweaking the pressure of a valve opens a metal door? The connection is faint at best. Why this place that didn't allow me to advance before now I can just because I had a scripted ghost encounter in that other place?). This kind of problem remind the player that this is just a video game and you can't advance to the next level until the game designer says so, and that's pretty bad in a horror game.
So, what about the narrative? I read a few times that it was better than in Amnesia Dark Descent, that it's the good point here.
Well, I disagree.
The good part was imo at first, when you don't know anything, but little bits of info here and there about the intentions of the main character, the allusions of the machines, the pigs and your children tease you and make you imagine something terrific, horrendous all in your own mind. Later, the magic is gone as the real story shows up
total spoilers:
As previously stated, there is no fear mechanics, or resource mechanics (oil for the lamp, or health). But it's not only that, in fact there isn't inventory, the adventure feeling is decreased, the puzzles are almost gone.
There is less physical interaction, I think in the first game there were more reasons to open stuff (searching for items) , move or throw stuff (some puzzles), close doors if a monster was following you, etc. So you have a lesser physical connection with the world, that makes the horror less immersive. With the fear mechanic gone that made you avoid seeing the enemy directly, the illusion of horror is broken and you notice how the monster encounters are just normal stealth parts like in other video games except with a uglier enemy. Just wait until he turns the corner and crouch-walk this other way. It seemed a few times an annoying mechanic, but playing a machine for pigs now I appreciate it more.
It also feels more linear once you pass the first area, lots of times every door is closed and there is only a corridor where you can advance, with a single rooom where there is a single object you have to interact to go forward into the game. The advancement in fact feels kind of amateur: some times there is a closed door or whatever that impedes you advance to the following area, and it's only when you complete your current goal only when the door opens, even if doesn't really makes sense, logic wise (why tweaking the pressure of a valve opens a metal door? The connection is faint at best. Why this place that didn't allow me to advance before now I can just because I had a scripted ghost encounter in that other place?). This kind of problem remind the player that this is just a video game and you can't advance to the next level until the game designer says so, and that's pretty bad in a horror game.
So, what about the narrative? I read a few times that it was better than in Amnesia Dark Descent, that it's the good point here.
Well, I disagree.
The good part was imo at first, when you don't know anything, but little bits of info here and there about the intentions of the main character, the allusions of the machines, the pigs and your children tease you and make you imagine something terrific, horrendous all in your own mind. Later, the magic is gone as the real story shows up
total spoilers:
It's clear form the start your character is crazy, it was you who built the machine with bad intentions, you see the twist coming from a mile, it's clear the voice you hear helping you it's from your own broken mind, it's clear it wasn't really helping you but doing bad stuff, and it's clear the mysterious saboteur doesn't exist, it's just what you broke everything before the amnesia event. Nothing is surprising and the amnesia gimmick is tiring at this point.
In the end, the real story is "you are a megalomaniac crazy guy that lost hope in humanity and chose to "save it"... by destroying it! bwah-hah-hah! (do I have an evil moustache also?) For that, you build a nuclear reactor to blow up London. Also, a automatized meat factory that also was fed persons because "horror!" and you made a mutated human-pigs race as cheap labor because why not (I actually thought at first they were the key in the story, but later they are kind of forgotten and the focus goes to the final solution). Later you see what an horrible guy you are, turn good again, sabotages the machine, tries to suicide, fail and wake up with amnesia, then you are a still a "good" guy but with schizophrenic and multiple personality disorder, with the "evil" personality guiding you (kind of... Fight club?), and having a final "talking with yourself" showdown near the end.
Now read this paragraph again and say it isn't all stupid. Hah, you can't!
The only good twist is that the origin of your psychosis was you having a vision of the future and knowing your children would die in WW1 and all the death and pain that the twentieth century would bring, that's the the trigger of everything. Oh, and the whole nuclear reactor was a good surprise. In the other hand, I didn't find any note or audio recording explaining the whole "vision from the future". I suppose it was in the aztecan travel and that would explain the whole nuclear reactor thingie. Did I miss it or what??
In the end, the real story is "you are a megalomaniac crazy guy that lost hope in humanity and chose to "save it"... by destroying it! bwah-hah-hah! (do I have an evil moustache also?) For that, you build a nuclear reactor to blow up London. Also, a automatized meat factory that also was fed persons because "horror!" and you made a mutated human-pigs race as cheap labor because why not (I actually thought at first they were the key in the story, but later they are kind of forgotten and the focus goes to the final solution). Later you see what an horrible guy you are, turn good again, sabotages the machine, tries to suicide, fail and wake up with amnesia, then you are a still a "good" guy but with schizophrenic and multiple personality disorder, with the "evil" personality guiding you (kind of... Fight club?), and having a final "talking with yourself" showdown near the end.
Now read this paragraph again and say it isn't all stupid. Hah, you can't!
The only good twist is that the origin of your psychosis was you having a vision of the future and knowing your children would die in WW1 and all the death and pain that the twentieth century would bring, that's the the trigger of everything. Oh, and the whole nuclear reactor was a good surprise. In the other hand, I didn't find any note or audio recording explaining the whole "vision from the future". I suppose it was in the aztecan travel and that would explain the whole nuclear reactor thingie. Did I miss it or what??
dark_inferno
Member
You only got like 20% out of the story because you didnt care about it.
1. The nuclear core is for powering the damn machine. Not nuking the world or london.
2. He got crazy after being in the temple an touching the orb. Getting all the knowledge building the machine.
3. Play again and read every note probably and care about the dates. And hear what they say and remember it.
2. He got crazy after being in the temple an touching the orb. Getting all the knowledge building the machine.
3. Play again and read every note probably and care about the dates. And hear what they say and remember it.
Turin Turambar
Member
Of course the nuclear core powers the machine,but he plans to nuke the city with it, it was clearly implied. Maybe is it you who have to play it again?
VistraNorrez
Member
As a person who loved Amnesia and Dear Esther about the same, would I expect to like this game?
jacksepticeye
Member
From what I gathered
he made the pig men to go up and take the people down to the machine and when he killed enough of the the methane in their bodies started to fuel the machine and it became self sufficient after that point. I never got a feeling about the machine being used as a nuke
there are diary entries talking about how the egg talked to him and showed him glimpses of the future, the egg then sort of became the evil personality inside his mind. He said he heard it talking to him like a rat gnawing at his brain and he took laudanum to try quell it but it didn't help. The voice became the machine. It was also what made him kill his children in an Aztec ritual by cuting out their hearts and that's why ou see the Aztec pig mask everywhere as sort of a reminder of the atrocity you had committed.
Also the only reason I think you saw the twist coming is because you knew there was one and over analysed everything, that's certainly why I figured out what it was early on but there's still a bunch of stuff not explained
the guy in the Iron Lung at the end, who is that? What really happened to the professor? Are you actually playing all the events or just reliving memories of them because the environment shifts constantly and all the clocks in the game are stuck at 12AM all the time when midnight didn't actually occur until the very end of the game. Is it a dreamy sort of state and that's why the blue filter is over everything and lessens the closer to the end you get? There is a huge amount of detail in it if you really look at it properly
I wouldnt call aamfp a "focused" puzzle approach. Remember you never finished tdd and only got to the water part.
The puzzles in aamfp dont even require thinking.
AuthenticM
Member
Nobody was going to nuke anyone. The machine was meant to turn as many people into pigs as possible. That's it.
Agreed. The TDD mobs ALWAYS frightened me. Pigs are a joke.
I'd say yes. I like both TDD and Dear Esther and so far I'm enjoying AMFP fine. Going by indications in the game I'd say I'm about 80% through it with one last session tonight no doubt wrapping it up.
The game is definitely a fusion of both the previous titles although it does lean more to Dear Esther than TDD. The main element which I think is causing the disappointment is AMFP reduces the gameplay elements from TDD in favour of Dear Esther intensity of setting and focus on theme/narrative with minimal gameplay.
I'm fine with it and in some ways prefer it as thematic content of AMFP is for me far more horrifying and interesting than TDD.
So yeah - if you liked both TDD and Dear Esther I'm sure you'll be fine with AMFP - just go into it treating it as its own game.
I agree with this.
The grunts etc in TDD were much better.
I really didnt feel threratend by the monsters in AAMFP.
AAMFP is a great game, especially its ending moments. It was in my number 1 spot out of the 2 games. But after a long think, and another play of TDD, TDD is a much better game in allmost every way.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
You are welcome to take part in discussions about this game or any other game here on GAF, but given that you worked on the game I think it would probably be for the best if you were either more forthcoming when arguing about it or opted just not to engage with posters who are bothering you. This doesn't mean you don't have the right to have your own opinion, but it does mean that in order to prevent conflicts of interest it's important to contextualize and disclose that opinion and also to second-guess yourself when you are in a defensive zone. Thanks for understanding.
Edit: To other posters in the thread; this is not a license to derail the thread was gossip nonsense.
jacksepticeye
Member
Story wise and audio wise TDD was worse.
Gameplay and horror wise TDD was better
I think AMFP conjured up a stronger more poignant atmosphere but didn't capitalise on it enough. It has the potential to be far greater than TDD if given more time and a bigger team
dark_inferno
Member
After getting into the story i was more frightened by the thought of the pigs.
Pigs eating pigs who are going to get eaten by pigs.
Thats why I said allmost
I totally agree, the story was much better in AAMFP.
But as an overal package, TDD was better, imo
No where was that ever implied...
The dreaded "water horror" in TDD was one of the most terrifying things I've experienced in a game. There was
something similar in this game, but it was just a boring chase sequence with the Kaernk monster from the first game. I started hearing footsteps of the invisible water monster and I was thinking to myself, "OH GOD PLEASE NOT AGAIN", thinking I was going to have to tread waters to solve a puzzle while that thing was in there with me, but I was abruptly disappointed.
Don't get me started on the character models. Back when the Teaser was shown, I imagined something horrifying and even worse than the enemies of Amnesia. That pig screeching sent my imagination in 100 different directions thinking of what sort of grotesque pig creature some sick (jk creative) game developer could have come up with. I mean look at this. This is the culmination of NOPE itself.
Instead we get this (SPOILER IMAGE)
http://abload.de/img/1000px-wretch_manpigc3s2v.jpg
TDD enemies felt more dangerous and being chased by one was genuinely scary. The tense music that played when you were spotted and chased. Jesus fuck it even hearing it now makes me feel uneasy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0m-gQYfxkk
R10Neymarfan
Member
I watched some video walkthrough. Can anyone tell that the enemy sequences are scripted? I swear you only see the pig when the developers want you too. Everything else is just noise.
Yes, enemy encounters are heavily scripted.
Distasteful. Won't change my mind about the game though. Loved it and I wouldn't say no to another. Though TCR and Frictional need to get their current projects out of the way so they can both deliver 100%. Both Amnesia titles have their own strengths and weaknesses and with both devs working full time I'm certain it would result in something groundbreaking.
And while Dark Descent scared me more, AAMFP managed to give me nightmares.
And while Dark Descent scared me more, AAMFP managed to give me nightmares.
What's Frictional been working on? Any news?
Space horror game apparently.
it's not a realism thing, it's an engagement thing.
the beauty of frictional's games is that the mechanics really draw you in to the narrative. the player's mind is occupied on multiple levels as you aren't just presented with a narrative, you're forced to claw your way through it.
i really enjoyed AMFP and aside from a few bumpy tropes, the grander setting and themes were haunting in all the right ways. i just wish i didn't feel like such a passenger.
Are there any chasing sequences or parts where you have to hide from monsters in the game? Or is it story focused like Dear Esther (or Gone Home)?
I couldn't finish TDD because it was to tense for me because of the enemies in the game, but I liked the atmosphere and the story. Is "A Machine for Pigs" the right game for me?
I couldn't finish TDD because it was to tense for me because of the enemies in the game, but I liked the atmosphere and the story. Is "A Machine for Pigs" the right game for me?
jacksepticeye
Member
Aren't all horror game enemy encounters scripted? TDD was as well
I don't think people have a problem with scripted horror -- it works pretty well in a lot of places. Amnesia : TDD and aMfP both have "encounters" which are both scripted, but the ratio of unscripted encounters is much lower in aMfP (I don't want to make up a number, but it's significantly less if memory serves).
That's okay, really, since aMfP is significantly shorter than TDD. My primary problem with aMfP's encounters, though, is that -- and some reviewer said something similar -- you're almost always aware of 1) where the enemy is, and 2) how to avoid/get around them.
In TDD, if you got too close to an enemy, the insanity effects would kick in and it made it difficult sometimes to escape, so the player was always encouraged to pre-emptively hide/run in the opposite direction. This has a nice side effect of reducing actual encounters, thus keeping the enemies significantly more frightening. In aMfP, though, insanity doesn't appear, so you are just as mobile and able if the enemy is right next to you. This means you often get a nice, good look at the enemies (they aren't scary-looking, which reduces the intensity of the flight), and they are also able to hit you multiple times before you succumb. In fact, I never died in the game (for contrast, even though you're fairly tough in Outlast, I died at least twice in my ~4 hours with the game).
So, the encounters are kind of the last thing that's there, gameplay-wise, that thechineseroom didn't fuss with too much, and yet because of all the other gameplay changes, they simply don't work as well, and the seams show all the more when you're engaged with the enemies. Add to that that at no point in the game are you ever required to hide, or fortify yourself from them, and it all becomes an unhindered "run straight past them" kind of experience. So even the moments that should be terrifying, the player is trained (and enabled) to circumvent those moments.
So, depending on who you are, I guess, that's a major problem if you're looking for the horror to come from the entities in the game, rather than just the plot.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Yeah, the main problem with AMFP, in my opinion, seemed to be issues that stemmed from lack of developer resources. The game felt kind of low budget.
Though I did love it. The end had me in tears, which was surprising.