Being a fan of horror literature, I'm rarely satisfied with horror video-games. They either go in the direction of gore and jump scares, drop you in an empty creaky old house, or rip-off ideas done much better elsewhere.
And Machine for Pigs doing all three, I wasn't exactly excited playing it.
I don't know how you can place someone in an empty house and expect them to get scared. I only got bored.
It doesn't help that most of this game is on rails, and your interaction with it is very limited and set in stone. You can only do what the developers want you to do, when they want you to do it.
Everything seems to be locked down, and the things that aren't, aren't necessarily interactable.
The biggest interaction you'll get is with the doors in this game, which you need to physically open - you can't just click on them, you need to drag the mouse while clicking to move them. Making something as simple as opening doors an unnecessary chore.
You can also move chairs around, but that's about it.
The game does have a plot, but I couldn't care less about it. And the game constantly holding your hand, telling you where to go in as blatant a way as possible, I never felt I needed to consult the plot to advance.
Especially since Machine for Pigs doesn't have puzzles. Rather you go around searching for hotspots.
And once you discover the "run" button, you can simply sprint from room to room searching for hotspots to press in order to move forward.
As for the visuals, they're severely lacking. I'm reminded of PS1 games as far as quality, and The Sims as far as design goes. Meaning you'll constantly see the same items over and over again. The same writing desks containing the same pointless items, the same levers you need to press, the same lamps you need to turn on, etc. I felt like I was in a 3D horror-themed Sims house, rather than a house built to fit a story.
It doesn't help that the attempts at horror only hinder the gameplay - earthquakes, fog, dizziness & flashbacks.
