The Swine are Rising! In 2010 Frictional Games terrified the world with the cult horror Amnesia: A Dark Descent. Now they bring you a new nightmare. Created by The Chinese Room, the studio behind Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is an intense and terrifying journey into the heart of darkness that lurks within us all. The year is 1899. Wealthy industrialist Oswald Mandus awakes in his bed, wracked with fever and haunted by dreams of a dark and hellish engine. Tortured by visions of a disastrous expedition to Mexico, broken on the failing dreams of an industrial utopia, wracked with guilt and tropical disease, he wakes into a nightmare. The house is silent, the ground beneath him shaking at the will of some infernal machine: all he knows is that his children are in grave peril, and it is up to him to save them. Step back into the horror.
Compared to Amnesia: The Dark Descent I can only give 4 out of 10 points because it is not as scary and I miss the looting for laudanum and oil and the influence of the sanity. Also I miss the fear of running out of oil or walking in the dark.
I have a lot of experience with Amnesia The Dark Decent and was elated to play A Machine for Pigs. To be honest, I'm not really sure why the game is called "Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs" as I saw almost nothing Amnesia related. They used some models and a few textures from the main game but that was it basicly. I did not have an inventory, I did not have to worry about my sanity, health nor oil, I could not use tinderboxes and could barley interact with anything at all.
I tried to immerse myself, but failed pretty badly. It offers low to no challange at all. The puzzles were easy and did not require much intelligence to complete. 80% of the quests did include items I had to find or valves I had to turn, as I didn't have an inventory and the original Amnesia quests was a lost call.
The enemies were way to easy to avoid, as half of them spawned in corridors and could easily be spotted by simply sneak behind a wall or a pillar. Not to mention the lantern that warned me when a monster was nearby by constant flickering.
The pig enemie was glitchy and I was able to go right through the enemie model. While I did, he was unable to hit me.
The water monster was also way too easy to avoid as I rarley had to cross the water. Only time I was in close combat with him was when the game developers forced me down the water against my will.
The levels felt very repetitive and offered a low varation. The storyline was actually decently good, and I'm glad for that. I'm not sure if I could find motivation to continue this game otherwise.
Conclusion:
They did a great work with the plot and the voice acting was super. It just faild to deliver a good Amnesia experience, if you can call this Amnesia. I was not pleased with this. I did except much more from an extension to a really awesome game they created for over two years ago.
6/10 - Decent
A 3 hour long disappointment.
I enjoyed this game quite a lot. I personally think that handing this to thechineseroom was not too much of the greatest idea, rather, Frictional Games should have done all the work, ALL, and they should have said NO DON'T DO THAT! AND THAT! BAD BAD! Removing elements (Yes I'M GONNA BRAG ABOUT IT BALHBVALH, I'LL TELL YOU WHY:) such as the sanity was something TDD was special for, because it created tension, and so did running out of oil, and what the hell am I gonna do with my life after it depletes, or what if I pass out next to that monster and he sees me and comes towards me then I just shut the computer off instantly, go to my bed and weep and cry ALONE AND FEEL MISERA-....*AHEM*.... that kind of tension is truly important, at least to me, and what created The Dark Descent a true horror game, because you wouldn't know what to do in that situation, you'd just panic and feel uneasy.
Thou the staggering amount of effort given in this game, and the interesting story kept me going and going. As suppose to the first one, the sound effects are very well done and much more vibrant, and I could say a little about how the game looks, as I felt it was a slight improvement, but that's it. I felt like I was still apart of the game, and not what some people say "a walking narrator". I am easily scared, VERY easily, so the monsters did their job just fine, and so did the lights flickering as the monsters got near and I panicked and cried and screamed for my life. So in a way the fear also kept me going as well and it scared me just fine. The atmosphere was just brilliant, and BRILLIANTLY brilliant!
In the end, I enjoyed it, and had fun, and cried in fear. Thou comparing this to our predecessor, The Dark Descent, it falls and doesn't deliver the same fear and tension, and could have been MUCH much better.
Wow. This game was plain bad. Maybe I've had my expectations way high up, but I kinda expected this to happen. They've removed a lot of elements from the previous game like the inventory, sanity, health and a flashlight that doesn't run out of fuel. And from what I've seen, they didn't really add any new elements to the game. "Fresh experience"? I think not. The maps are repetitive and boring, you can't interact with all of the items you see anymore. AI is absolutely horrible, 99% of the time you can just run right past the enemy and he won't even hit you. They also give up on looking for you way too fast, and it's not that hard outrunning them either. The whole game felt like a horror book- you'll get scared from time to time, but it's almost 100% storytelling. 4/10's just because I can't wait to get my hands on the level editor.
A huge letdown. Lack of sanity removed a huge element of fear from the game - monsters were just not threatening any more. The game didn't trigger a sense of fight-or-flight (mostly flight in horror games) in the player, it just seemed to say "look at this, this is scary!". Enemies were silly (see dubstep pig), encounters were not dangerous (injuries healed fully in <=5 seconds) and the maps were not dark enough. Storyline was extremely unclear throughout, I didn't know what or why I was doing things half the time. There was too much recycling of Dark Descent assets (plants, chairs, doors, urns, shelves, tools) which went as far as the pig ragdoll in a game that even has "pigs" in the title.
The game was also too short. I completed the whole game with no prior knowledge of anything in about 2 and a half hours. Puzzle solving was an insult to Dark Descent and FREE custom stories made by the community. The most complicated puzzle in the whole game involved picking up two gears and putting them in a box - and the gears were right next to the box.
Not worth my money. It felt like an elaborate custom story with a bad storyline. The only good points I can name are great voice acting and some of the map assets are good, like the moving machinery parts. All in all, this game doesn't deserve the title "Amnesia". Thoroughly disappointed.
i'm too tired to write a full review. all in all i liked it, the story was well written, there were good moments and ideas, but the lack of challenge, collectables, and complex puzzles made me very sad during the playthrough.. i've waited so much more from this release, it took 3 years to complete and still it's just a half-game, 4 hours of gameplay and no custom stories.. i hope there will be DLCs or something because this is not enough for a great sequel.. 8/10 still, i'm a huge fan of the previous game, and i enjoyed this one also even if it has this many negative features :)
I LOVE AMNESIA, BUT I NOW HATE DESURA, GIVE ME MY GAME OR GIVE ME MY REFUND!
What many people aren't realizing, is that although it is called Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, THIS GAME IS NOT THE ORIGINAL AMNESIA. I liked this game for everything that is was and was so so so amazed by the time the game finished. While the monster scares were numbered low compared to the original Amnesia game, the game to me was terrifying in it's own aspect, and that, to me, is perfect. This game has lived up to my expectations of what it was like, and there were a few moments where I was scared out of my wits! What I've noticed, was this game relies HEAVILY on the sounds. I played the entire game with earbuds in and the volume on the computer all the way up. It made the game TERRIFYING! So the people who think this game is worthless, try playing it the way I played it. If you don't have headphones on, the music and sounds don't sound HALF as scary as they do with headphones on. I loved everything in this game. This game seemed more realistic to me than the original game. I don't know about other people, but the sheer idea of machinery scares the crap out of me! I sat there for five minutes in one part of the game just watching the pistons turn and the sheer magnitude of the machinery amazed me and scared me! The vastness of all the maps were amazing. The details and everything was amazing. The music, especially with earbuds in was my favorite of all, I think. The voice acting and story line was fantastic. I liked going around and seeing some items from the original Amnesia but also enjoyed that this game is it's own entity and has its own properties and a uniqueness I have never seen anywhere else. I aboslutely loved this game and loved that Brennenburg was mentioned in a few notes. :) I am speechless about this game. I cannot wait to play this again and again and again. Money well spent and it was most definitely worth the wait. I especially loved how some doors disappeared and things were twisted around, it really added to the effect of the game! 10/10!
"Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs" was a great game! I thought the atmosphere was amazing and the ambience was very intense! The storyline could have been explained a little better- but I suppose that's what keeps fans more interested. Anyways, Great Job!