Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs |OT| - This Little Piggy Cried AAHHH All the Way to Hell

As a "sequel" to Amnesia this one fail at every turn for me, I don't find it tense or scary in the least, whereas I consider Amnesia 1 to be amongst the scariest games I've ever played. I don't care much for stories in games and this has a heavy focus on one. There are no real puzzles so far, you just come across switches that you just go ahead and throw because, well, it's a switch. The puzzles complete themselves.

I'm very disappointed by it an hour and a half in. Even when looking at it from a different perspective (it being its own thing by a different developer) I'm finding little to recommend. It's not bad, but coming off a classic this is very tepid stuff. But apparently the game gets better the further you get, so I'll hold off my final judgment until then.

I hope Frictional gave this to the Chinese Room because they're working on their own next thing, the Penumbra series and Amnesia 1 were much more my style of game.
 
eXistor said:
As a "sequel" to Amnesia this one fail at every turn for me, I don't find it tense or scary in the least, whereas I consider Amnesia 1 to be amongst the scariest games I've ever played. I don't care much for stories in games and this has a heavy focus on one. There are no real puzzles so far, you just come across switches that you just go ahead and throw because, well, it's a switch. The puzzles complete themselves.

I'm very disappointed by it an hour and a half in. Even when looking at it from a different perspective (it being its own thing by a different developer) I'm finding little to recommend. It's not bad, but coming off a classic this is very tepid stuff. But apparently the game gets better the further you get, so I'll hold off my final judgment until then.

I hope Frictional gave this to the Chinese Room because they're working on their own next thing, the Penumbra series and Amnesia 1 were much more my style of game.
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Honestly if you feel Amnesia was one of the best horror experiences around it's gonna be very hard to see this in any other way than comparative. It's hard not to constantly think about it as a sequel.

Plus coming from the original to this was always gonna take some of the tension and scare out of it as well as all the horror games and mods that have come since Amnesia. This game just doesn't have that bite that it could have if it were released at a different time

Also I hope everyone is playing this the proper way ie. lights off, at night with headphones cranked way up. It's hard not to get a little freaked out by some parts in that environment
 
What has Frictional been making since Amnesia that they couldn't be the developer on this one?

As a fan of the Penumbra games and Amensia, wasn't really too excited for this one since they weren't the developers.
 
SOLDIER said:
Has anyone else experienced a half-second pause/stutter when a spooky effect/audio loads up? I've had this problem since receiving a code before launch, and now that the game is out I wanted to ask around if this was a common error with a possible solution.

It sounds like a minor thing, but it essentially gives away that a scary thing is going to happen before it happens, which is a pretty big deal for a game like this. I tried tinkering with some of the advanced settings but it didn't seem to do anything. Any ideas?
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This same thing happened to me with Penumbra and the original amnesia, it is actually pretty common. I don't know why it does that across multiple hardware configurations. I assume it is problem with the engine these games use?

I am getting 60FPS and completely smooth gameplay with this game but the hitching is constant.
 
Bebpo said:
What has Frictional been making since Amnesia that they couldn't be the developer on this one?

As a fan of the Penumbra games and Amensia, wasn't really too excited for this one since they weren't the developers.
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It's a horror game, but maybe a bit less scary than previous games, might be a bit more scifi-oriented and it'll likely have spiders.
Click to expand...
 
Rez said:
I played about half an hour of the first Penumbra game before writing it off as Amnesia 0.1. Is there anything there worth going back and exploring?
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I'd slog through it just to get to Black Plague, which is my favorite game of theirs.
 
This was a very interesting title. Instead of making a puzzle based horror game, that tries to one-up the previous installment.

The Chinese Room decided to do something different: to tell a very different kind of horror story through the setting and the enviroment.


It's much more metaphorical than the previous games and you can best see them in the enviroments.

I would've liked to see more enemy encounters, but this was a lot of fun for a few hours and it got me thinking.
 
jacksepticeye said:
I agree. Too many people are hung up on "does it do this this and this?" or "how does it compare?". Just play the damn thing and enjoy it for what it is instead of trying to put it into a genre or category.
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Just remember it is $20 (now) at an extremely busy time of year where other horror games are coming out.

In that context it is perfectly reasonable to talk about how the game compares as a point of reference.

After sleeping on it, I have decided I like Pigs a lot more as a "game/story" than DD. on the other hand DD is a vastly superior horror experience.

So it depends what you are after. Either way I didn't think it was worth the price (in relative terms).
 
OK, so I'm around 2.5 hours in I assume, although it could be late-game, not sure -
on the streets of London while the pig men are killing everyone
- and this is some seriously demented shit. I was enjoying it quite a bit at start but wasn't particularly scared, the
sewers
area was a little more intense because of the
winding corridors
but nothing too bad. Then there was the jump scare with
the pig mask as you're climbing a ladder
, and then, what I assume to be the midpoint of the game (
turning on the machine
) the game completely lets loose. This is Silent Hill levels of imagery imo,
the kids ripping out their hearts and the pig masks falling through the ceiling
being some of my favourites. Story is falling together Dear Esther-style, but the atmosphere is the absolute highlight, despite being very different to the first game. Can't wait to finish it.
 
toddhunter said:
After sleeping on it, I have decided I like Pigs a lot more as a "game/story" than DD. on the other hand DD is a vastly superior horror experience.

.
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I think I'd agree with this, Though I haven't finished AMFP yet but I'm about halfway I'd say, the story is definitely better and the sound is also miles better

I'd like a mix of gameplay between both games though. Not as simple as AMFP but not as bigged down as TDD
 
I think the imagery and ideas in this game alone are pretty damn disturbing, moreso then most horror games these days. Unless the game totally takes a turn for the worse the second half, this is striking me as a very memorable horror experience,even if the gameplay is more streamlined. I won't forget the sounds and images I've seen. The original Silent Hill is another staple for me in that regard. It was so weird, disturbing, and the story cryptic, but I loved it. I'm having similar thoughts with Amnesia AMFP.
 
I finished the game an hour or so ago, with my total play time at ~3 hours (so, on the short end, as I expected).

What a hard game to classify with respect to the original. In some ways it's vastly superior (the art direction is clearly a strong step forward, thanks to thechineseroom really grokking the concept of mise-en-scene and having strong artists on their team). The story is much stronger than the TDD and feels more coherent (even if, I admit, sometimes I found myself second-guessing what was going on at times even when the game thought it had made it abundantly clear, I guess). I was never really scared while playing, but often disturbed and found myself saying "what the fuck?" more than a couple times. This game gets under your skin and plays around a bit in it. It's more psychological, and often more interesting than TDD. There's more inertia here to "move forward" -- not because it's scary, but because you do want to find out what happens next if only to reaffirm your own ideas or contradict them.

In other ways, aMfP is a mockery of what TDD was and is; it requires less thought, less patience, less skill, less management and less time to complete. The keyword here is less. It has less monsters, less encounters, less scares, less danger, less puzzles, less intrigue, and less places to see. It seems that all the effort that went in to the design part of TDD was culled to make way for more narrative. More ways to tell the story, more things to read, more scripted sequences, more exposure, more varied areas, and more characters.

So, the game itself stands out as kind of pushing against TDD and its devices in order to do something else, but that thing it does should really have been there in tandem with TDD's gameplay. thechineseroom, whether they meant to or not, have succeeded in removing the terror of the experience of playing the game, and replaced it instead with "fixed" experiences that either gel or they don't. There are excuses for why the gameplay has changed (the level design doesn't really support the kind of exploration that made TDD a risk/reward kind of experience for branching out a bit), but none of these are really good excuses, and even though I love the atmosphere and story of aMfP, it doesn't ever feel like it earned sacrificing those pieces of the overall experience.

I'm moderately impressed with thechineseroom here, in that they managed to not gut the soul of Amnesia even if they gut everything else. The game plays to their strengths as creators, but I would argue their strengths are simply not as good as the strengths of the original game. The heart of the experience, however, the intensity of it, is missing, and even aMfP's best moments fall short of the heights of the TDD. There are good intentions here, but Amensia was not a good fit thechineseroom. So take it as a nigh-recommendation, then, that with all that's gone wrong with the game, it's still not that bad. There's just not very much meat on this pig. Score:
3/5
 
Okay, what the fuck. I just tried to start the game but nothing happens when I click it on Steam. I try to run the game's exe in it's folder and I get an "MVSC-yadda-yadda.dll is missing..." message even though I've installed the C++ Redist on my PC. What gives?!
 
A Machine for Pigs reminding people of Silent Hill? I don't know if there could be a more pleasing comparison in my book. I'm so hyped to dive into this when the sun sets. Currently listening to some of Jessica Curry's soundtrack, and man, it sounds fucked.

EDIT: So it's not the filthy Silent Hill 3 type of vibe, but the non-otherworld kind? Fine by me. I'm just intrigued so much by the title of the game. I doubt a machine for pigs is a literal machine for pigs, but I'm anxious to find out what it means. Sounds dreadful.
 
Soyongdori said:
Apparently because old rusted metal rooms = Silent Hill.
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It's hard to talk about without delving into spoilers, but I meant more recurring motifs in imagery, subtle repetition that's unnerving as opposed to outright scary. Stuff like
the pig heads, the painting of the crazy woman, the rocking cribs
. This is the same vibe as I get from Silent Hill, especially when compared to the more open gory viscera in other horror games
 
Neiteio said:
So is Outlast more Amnesia-y than AMfP?

I bought AMfP and plan to get Outlast. Just wondering what to expect.
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Haven't played AMFP yet but Outlast is pretty good if you're into horror games. It's not really like A:DD though. More jump scares, about as equally tense, less disturbing/creepy I'd say. Fun playthrough either way.
 
I got some Bioshock / Silent Hill vibes.

It was less scary thats true. But it wasnt 2 hours short (as some say in the Steam Community Hub). It says 2 hours in Steam for me but it was 334 minutes (looked it up while the credits were running).
And it isnt "not worth buying".
There were even a few moments that felt like they were added so that a people would be quiet about the game length and guess what... they sucked.
The "gameplay" itself was better than Amnesia. You are not constantly running out of oil and candles... they were useless before and now you cant interact with them. It had some puzzles. Even more than Amnesia had. The sanity stuff was cool but no sanity stuff fits in the story here. So no complain about that.
Atmosphere is top notch. Best use of music,visuals,art style in a horror game so far.
And dont get me started about the Story. It was brilliant.

For me it was better than Amnesia 1 and Outlast. Outlast got boring after seeing the first enemy upclose. And the story sucked ass. Amnesia 1 was good but only because of the damn good atmosphere.

Neiteio said:
So is Outlast more Amnesia-y than AMfP?

I bought AMfP and plan to get Outlast. Just wondering what to expect.
Click to expand...

Hell no. AMfP is more Amnesia than Outlast. Outlast is a cheap jumpscare game with so many gameplay issues. You will be scared for the first half hour. And that was it about the horror factor. AMfP has Amnesia vibes, but it is less scary and more epic.

Forgot to mention it : Game contains rape.
 
First of all Amnesia is one of my favourite game ever, I simply love it. With that in mind, I think it's a shame The Chineese Room removed so many basic mechanics from The Dark Descent, some of them, for me, are central to what Amnesia should be, like the sanity system.

Even though I think it's not as good as The Dark Descent, I'm enjoying this one. I feel like they overextended the build up, only after 1h30 I found the first enemy, and only there I felt unconfortable. Before that it wasn't scary at all.

Props to the magnificent art direction and sound design.
 
dark_inferno said:
I got some Bioshock / Silent Hill vibes.

It was less scary thats true. But it wasnt 2 hours short (as some say in the Steam Community Hub). It says 2 hours in Steam for me but it was 334 minutes (looked it up while the credits were running).
And it isnt "not worth buying".
There were even a few moments that felt like they were added so that a people would be quiet about the game length and guess what... they sucked.
The "gameplay" itself was better than Amnesia. You are not constantly running out of oil and candles... they were useless before and now you cant interact with them. It had some puzzles. Even more than Amnesia had. The sanity stuff was cool but no sanity stuff fits in the story here. So no complain about that.
Atmosphere is top notch. Best use of music,visuals,art style in a horror game so far.
And dont get me started about the Story. It was brilliant.

For me it was better than Amnesia 1 and Outlast. Outlast got boring after seeing the first enemy upclose. And the story sucked ass. Amnesia 1 was good but only because of the damn good atmosphere.



Hell no. AMfP is more Amnesia than Outlast. Outlast is a cheap jumpscare game with so many gameplay issues. You will be scared for the first half hour. And that was it about the horror factor. AMfP has Amnesia vibes, but it is less scary and more epic.

Forgot to mention it : Game contains rape.
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which one outlast or this?
 
Hm. I'm not sure what to think. I liked the scope of the game, length was pretty much perfect. Maybe I needed to use headphones? I kind of found it hard to immerse myself. I was too busy being annoyed at the blue tone the game had, at times. Shame I found out you can edit it out AFTER I beat it.
 
Bluemercury said:
which one outlast or this?
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Amnesia A Machine for Pigs

~Kinggi~ said:
Lmao, wrong on so many levels.
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Another game where "searching for items so you can see in the dark so you can do your simplified stealth mechanics" is everything the game has to offer. And please dont tell me the gameplay was "good" because you had to search for batteries and how the stealth mechanics were soo good that you wanted to play the game a 2 time.
 
Easy_D said:
Hm. I'm not sure what to think. I liked the scope of the game, length was pretty much perfect. Maybe I needed to use headphones? I kind of found it hard to immerse myself. I was too busy being annoyed at the blue tone the game had, at times. Shame I found out you can edit it out AFTER I beat it.
Click to expand...

You didn't use headphones? o_0 playing horror games without headphones is such a disservice to them, especially a game like this with so many audio cues,creaks and groans going on

I wonder how many people play without headphones or good surround for a game like this actually. A huge part of the scare factor or atmosphere/immersion comes directly from the audio. That goes for almost all horror games actually.

To me a game like this should ONLY be play at night with no lights and with headphones cranked up high. Unless it's impossible to do so
 
I think decrepit environments, rusting metal, shuttered windows, deserted everyday environments, and confined spaces, etc. are a big component of a psychological horror game like the Silent Hill series. I think Silent Hill 3 did it the best. From the shuttered mall to the subway station to the abandoned houses to the climax at that amusement part, the environment simply crushed the hope out of you at the end.

Demons Souls did it too and so did Portal. Both were terrifying in their own way if you let yourself become involved in what the character was going through.

Hope AAMFP is the same way!
 
This game seems really good.

Got to
below the pistons
. Really interested in finding out more about what the deal is with this crazy shit. Also seems really thematically rich.

EDIT: Like the best horror, I hope I learn more about the machine but not everything, if you feel me.
 
My game tends to crash during loading screens. Last time it happened it corrupted the auto save so now i have to walk through these corridors again knowing nothing will happen.
 
2.2 hours in. The story is interesting and the audio design is superb, but the whole game feels a bit bare-bones without the sanity system and inventory management. I hope it gets better.
 
I'm about to begin this game, and i'll play it the way it's meant to be played
if you're a little baby
Lights on, No headphones on and brightness all the way up.

I couldn't play outlast for more than 15 minutes, horror games are the worst.
 
Only played an hour last night before sleep. I love it so far - atmosphere is fantastic and creepy, that man is doing sick things. I tend to look into every corner and drawer, maybe I play those games differently than some of you but I can see that it is not very dense if you just walk/run through it.
 
derFeef said:
Only played an hour last night before sleep. I love it so far - atmosphere is fantastic and creepy, that man is doing sick things. I tend to look into every corner and drawer, maybe I play those games differently than some of you but I can see that it is not very dense if you just walk/run through it.
Click to expand...

It only gets better my friend! I'm loving it!
 
Just finished it. Took me about four hours.

Wow.

I loved it. I felt the last hour or so wasn't all that scary, but the imagery and atmosphere was so disturbing and captivating that I couldn't stop playing. Narrative was fantastic. Unfortunately, AMFP wasn't nearly as scary as the original, although I don't think it's because of the sanity or light systems.

Would love to read some analysis of the story.
 
Man this game began tense till I met the monsters and realized I didn't need to hide, there was no more sanity mechanic so I ended up just running past everything occasionally jumping to the sound of the machine starting up. I like the idea of (semi-theme spoiler)
the constant decent into the depths of his madness then ascension as he attempts to destroy the monster he created
. That begin said, it's a better story than horror game since, as I mentioned before, lots of tension mechanics have been removed killing the feeling of player urgency pushing me further in to places I don't want to go.
 
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