Reviews - Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

Perfect storyline, perfect atmosphere of the Victorian era and brilliant music. The Chinese Room did their best in that. But despite the wonderful scenes gameplay itself is rather flat. The monsters are predictable and after the first encounter are not scary at all. Even the chase and death, thrilling in the first Amnesia, became routine. There is even a strange glitch, perhaps only on linux, when monster attacks you collisions are not working and you could stuck into a wall or some machinery.
I enjoyed the game. It is a beautiful mix of perfectly made scenes, music and narration.
Pity developers decided to cut off some material due to moral constraints. I wonder will the game be even better if they left everything as planned.

I reviewed the game here: Nwapmakesjackasilentprotagonist.blogspot.co.uk

20% of adventure game with easy puzzles to solve.
40% of action game - running and hiding
40% of walking cause areas are vaste.
I am little bit disapointed. There is a few brillant moments (like London invaded by pig-men) but most of game is just boooring.
It's not about enemies or similar but because of lack of interesting puzzles. One of my friends called this game "simulator of walking". And yes, she was right. Sad.
Anyway iy's good game bacause of story and voice-acting. Also mood is sometimes awesome.

Astonishing, wonderfull and absolutely perfect
The best story ever told.

not as good as the first amnesia.

It borrows elements from Amnesia and Dear Esther but manages not to attain a fraction of the brilliance of either. It doesn't have the gameplay that made Amnesia great. I'm not talking about the lack of a sanity meter (which felt contrived anyway) or the infinite oil lamp, but rather no interactivity/exploring or running/hiding. Inventory is gone and naturally there wasn’t a single difficult puzzle – barely anything that could be called a puzzle at all. Putting gears into the engine when they are right next to the engine, for example. Or flicking switches at random to make things explode. This seemed like a wasted opportunity, especially as this engine does puzzles so well.

And it felt as if a chapter was missing – surely there should have been more made of a level in the actual slaughterhouse where pigs are being killed/gore everywhere/carcasses on hooks etc? I was dreading this for the whole game and it never really happened. Then the pig rampage also seemed anticlimactic.

+Story. The central theme/philosophy however was a bit heavy handed.
+Music
+It seems to understand what made Silent Hill 2 great. The character study of a damaged mind, whom you can relate to, care about. Empathize as things progressively become more hopeless. Its atmosphere is no where near as oppressive as Silents hill's though..

-Very few scares, or times where you face a monster, you don't feel motivated to continue on. Your life has to be under-threat for you to care. I thought this was supposed to be horror.
-Easy. No difficult puzzles. Very few chase scenes. You can count them on one hand.
-Lack of interactivity, for some reason the vast majority of objects are not interactable. I'm not just talking about the child proofed draws/cupboards but just normal objects that look like they can be picked up, can't be.

-That horrible giant room with lots of dead pigs, guts sprawled everywhere slaughterhouse... never came.
-Shorter than expected... 5-6 hours for a slow playthrough.

It was a good game, no doubt. But not exacly what I had expectet. In the Dark Descent you are scared from the beginning and to the end, in A Machine For Pigs you are scared in the beginning, but after a while it isn't that scary anymore.
The monster wasn't scary, it was more like an animal than a monster in my opinion.
The Monster in the Dark Descent is really a MONSTER which you run and hide from as soon as you notice it, in A Machine for pigs you can sneak your way around the monster and proceed.
You have more control in this game than in the dark descent, I guess in the end that's why it isnt that scary.

I give it an 8/10, but it's a thin 8.

the game is awesome, the history can immerse you in the ambient of the game, the final of the game is epic!

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it delivers in terms of storytelling and atmosphere, with impressive use of symbolism and creative storytelling, as well as amazing audio effects and distinctive visual design to boost atmosphere. On the other hand, it isn't very scary or tense at all. Enemy presence has little impact, the player is rarely in any actual danger, and most enemy encounters are utterly unremarkable. It feels like enemies were only included because of an obligation, not because they wanted to deliver a horror game.

Gameplay was dumbed down considerably, with many mechanics being removed and nothing being put back into the game. There's much less object interaction, the game is several hours shorter than the predecessor, and it's a bit more linear.

Given the amount of delays this game had, I can see some people expecting more out of it and being disappointed. But, like I said, it's a mixed bag with both good and bad. The good does outweigh the bad, atmosphere and storytelling are what the game went for, and that's where it delivers. But it is a letdown as a horror game, and this cannot go unnoticed... or unpunished.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is yet another minimalistic, story experience on the resume of thechineseroom. They seem intent on making only these types of games, like Dear Esther. It's not a tense or scary horror game, and it's a letdown to the Amnesia franchise. It isn't truly an Amnesia game, it simply wears the badge. It could have been an excellent horror game, if thechineseroom wrote the story and basic script like they did, while Frictional Games did the actual gameplay.

See my full review here: Gnd-tech.com

Well... What can I say about Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs?
Here is my review (sorry for my English, i´m not in the mood to check for grammar mistakes and everything).

- The background story is definitely better than the first one. The Chinese Room is an expert in making immersive stories, and you can see that by playing Dear Esther, which is an awesome experience.

- All the characters has a very strong position in the game. The children, the main enemy and even Mandus are very well planned and choosed for an Amnesia sequel.

- The graphics (I do not care any little for graphics, but it still being a good point for a game) suffered a huge update! It´s simply beautiful.

- The Chinese Room is learning from it´s mistakes. AAMFP is the second game from this company, and this is an advive for the players that haven´t played A Machine for Pigs yet: do not hear the people that are saying that this game ruined the Amnesia universe, because it´s not. A sequel not been better than the original game doesn´t mean nothing. Frictional Game has a lot of experience with horror games. I thought that this was a great idea, because The Chinese Room had their chance to explain what horror means for them. They have a different perspective of horror and they showed up this.

Different mechanics are necessary for a company to have the full control for a game that do not belong to them. It was necessary and it ended very well. CONSIDERING only this game and the company which have made it, I would give it a 10, but comparing it with TDD, I give it 9. The Chinese Room has surprised me with this awesome game, showing that, in time, they can be as good as Frictional Games.

- No Custom Story support. OF COURSE! Now both games will be alive. If aamfp had cs support, everyone would stop buying tdd. With a cs level editor upgrade, they will need to buy both games to keep playing it, making the game even more alive. A wonderful idea.

BAD POINTS

- few encounters
- easy puzzles
- not very scary.