Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

The setting—London, 1899—is fascinating, the atmosphere oppressive, and the soundtrack haunting and immersive. The story is told through notes, flashbacks, and cryptic phone calls, and the audio design is easily the strongest part of the game: eerie, immersive, and incredibly well done. Unfortunately, the gameplay feels overly simplified compared to The Dark Descent. There's no inventory, the lantern never runs out of power, health regenerates automatically, and there's no support for custom stories. The interactivity is minimal, the structure is extremely linear, and much of the survival horror tension is lost. Enemy AI is also fairly weak and underwhelming. It takes about 4–5 hours to finish, and while it's not a bad experience, it leaves you feeling like more could have been done—especially in terms of tension and gameplay depth. It’s more of a narrative-driven horror walk than a true survival horror title. Recommended only if it’s on sale and you don’t expect something on the level of the original. An interesting experience, but clearly a step down.

pretty neat. it was a game about a machine for pigs.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs brings a very well written script, excellent graphics, amazing soundtrack, but I believe that this Machine For Pigs is lower than The Dark Descent, first because the game lost a lot of interactivity with the environment, making the puzzles very obvious , so the game ends quickly. The Dark Descent can also be much more terrifying with monsters and situations than Machines For Pigs. I'm a fan of the game Amnesia, and expected more from Machine For Pigs.

I think problem is mostly in expectations: everyone expected the same game as Amnesia: Dark Descent, but it's impossible to make decent sequel of Dark Descent. Its obvious setting is exhausted. You can't make another well-made game about stupid medieval and stupid tortures and monsters jumping at you in the dark. Yes, no action and mostly walking and looking at things, but much deeper than Amnesia: Dark Descent. And much more interactions and plot than Dear Esther. If you want action, play Counter-Strike. If you want halloweeny spooky scary skeletons screaming at you in darkness, play Five Nights At Freddys or whatever.

I'd heard that AMFP was "less of a game" than The Dark Descent; it's true in part. AMFP focusses much more on telling a story, to the extent that it removes many gamey elements such as the need to light candles; oil supplies for your lantern; injuries and healing; and physics-based puzzles. The disturbing story more than makes up for the reduced interactivity. I'm wary of spoilers, but the premise is discovered fairly early on: it's the very end of the C19; you wake in a caged bed worried about your children; you're in a creepy mansion with strange red stains in some areas; and the house is near a sausage factory. Enough there to make you uneasy, but the game's reality is worse. There are strong themes of suffering, treating other beings as resources, cultures of inhumanity, loss, and industrialisation. I recommend playing this in the dark, with headphones, if you enjoy compelling horror. One bonus over TDD is that there are some outdoor scenes here, though they remain almost as claustrophobic as the depths you will descend to. It's certainly a good lesson in how to give as story away slice by slice, and managing the fine balance between pulling the player on whilst making them dread what will happen if they do. The game is surprisingly restrained and never felt gratuitous, yet still at various points I felt my heart racing, or felt sick, disturbed, and worried. I sympathised and I drew parallels to the reality now. I thought about the story afterwards, its elements of parable and commentary. As the horror grows, and visceral queasiness switches to terror which paralyses you in the shadows hoping that you will be left alone, even though that probably means death far from the sunlight, far from hope, in a depth of darkness to which humans have proven themselves capable of sinking; as hell becomes an amoral reality of endless process, once again your stomach turns and the rancid flesh of our existence is hung up to show us what we are. 10/10, would play again.