#a:amfp

[our-hearts-are-connected]

I've been rewatching Markiplier's A Machine for Pigs playthrough and even though Daniel will remain my favorite character in the series, I can't help but feel sad for Oswald and how broken he is

[our-hearts-are-connected]

How else to celebrate New Year's Eve than to play A Machine for Pigs?

[lookskindagreyout]

I kinda hate that I liked Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Like, I know it was a let down for the entire Amnesia game series, that it wasn’t the most original storyline, but… The aesthetic of the damn thing is just so appealing, to me. Rich guy feeds his rich friends poor people, and vice versa, and constructs a massive death machine under London for… What? I’m still not sure, exactly. I’m guessing to raise an ancient god or get back his kids or something equally predictive. There are a lot of loose ends, but I’m the kind of jerk that can live with that. There’s so much that makes it a bad Amnesia game, but I think that if it had just been released as a stand alone story game (which, really, it was like a walking sim with minor puzzles) which the Chinese Room is known to make, it would have gotten a better reception. Remove all of that Amnesia hype that made us so mad with disappointment.

In any case, good aesthetic, got nostalgic after listening to some of the soundtrack, that’s all.

[fuckyeahpcgaming]

I'll just jump right in with this one. 

If you were a fan of Amnesia:The Dark Descent and were avidly watching and waiting for this game to come out hoping it was going to be more of the same, you were most likely disappointed. 

Pros: 

The musical score of the game was impressive overall. 

The scale of the game felt massive at time, as if you were truly in the bowels of this giant infernal machine.

The story itself while holding no real surprises was GOOD and the many notes you found told a spectacularly spooky story. 

Cons:

I'm not fast while playing games. I like to inspect every nook and cranny. I search for easter eggs, angles to catch video for possible gifsets, etc. Keeping all that in mind, it took me just under 3 1/2 hours to complete this game.

The monstrous creations themselves. Out of the entire game there were only 2 times where I was chased or felt actively threatened by them. Everything but those 2 instances could be avoided or easily outrun by leaps and bounds. The game spent much more time making you feel empathy for them(Seeing them playing with children's blocks, rocking back and forth alone in cells, sleeping on top of metal cages, laying chained in corners, etc) than making you feel any kind of fear of them. You even stumble upon them trying to have a nice dinner, complete with candlelight and music. Instead of horrifying you it instills pity for these poor manmade beasts.

Everything that Frictional Games(The original developers behind Amnesia: The Dark Descent) included to make their game immersive and truly scary was carefully excised by handing the reins over to a dev team, The Chinese Room. 

You're armed with an electric lantern that never goes out(Though it will flicker when monsters are nearby) and set loose in an incredibly linear environment. I never had doubts about where I was or which direction I should be going. 

A major gripe would be that the removal of any inventory system and the inability to interact with most objects in your environment effectively removed all puzzles. There were so few things in your environment that you could interact with that being able to pick up and move anything besides a chair instantly told you that you needed to carry it somewhere in your immediately vicinity or turn/switch it. There was no scavenging for vital items, the few movable items were fairly obvious and basically handed to you.

If there is one thing I think this game got right it was the story. It was far more interesting to me than Daniel's, though also incredibly obvious from nearly the very beginning who you were and what had taken place. EVEN with those roadblocks, I think the dialogue and notes told a chilling tale. The downside? The harrowing story told by finding scraps of your pre-Amnesia journal is by FAR the spookiest part of the game and will interest you more than pretty much anything taking place visually. Which is a good thing, because there is so. goddamn. much. text. At least if you're going to throw nigh-constant walls of text at a player(I would wager 1/4-1/5 of my time was spent reading notes, quite serious on this) it had better be well written and interesting. Luckily, it was! I just wish it hadn't come at me in droves.

In the end, the notes might have been the most interesting part of the game. They were certainly the scariest, as all Mandus' creations but for 2 were pretty much non-factors and no threat to you. I injured myself more touching a shorted-out switch panel than by any monster in the game. For the vast majority of the game there is no sense of imminent danger or threat.

The climax of the game was no surprise to anybody with 2 brain cells to rub together and satisfying in a way the rest of the game wasn't. 

Overall, I can't say Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is a game I'd enthusiastically recommend. For fans of the original I would probably point them towards the myriad custom campaigns built for the first game, for anybody that had played neither I would just say play the first one and stick with it.

[superfluffychickens]

If you think Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs isn't scary...you're not thinking about it hard enough

[zirobo]

A homestuck/Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Crossover with Jane as Oswald Mandus and evilAI!Jane as the Engineer/Machine

[cotton-candy-fusion]

if i streamed machine for pigs w/ my voice who would even come

[rebuggg]

My Thoughts on Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (spoilers)

 my main issue with the game is that it was missing several key elements, like, uh, gameplay. i found it almost too linear, and that made it far too short as well. when it was over, i kind of just sat there and thought, "this is what was delayed for a year because it wasnt finished?". i think too that it may have been over hyped, and that my personal expectations were too high. i do realize that it's meant to be it's own story in the same universe as the first one, but there are a few things that seem out of place or poorly thought out. its implied that mandus is alexanders nephew? where was it ever mentioned before that he had a family outside of the "love" he was trying so desperately to return to? if alexander is from another world, how can he have relatives here? unless the impllication is supposed to be that mandus is daniel's nephew, which would make more sense, since he did have a sister. it's also mentioned that mandus somehow used an orb to create the machine. isn;t it established that if anyone is to attempt to use the orb's power the shadow will follow? that confused me as well.

i also never thought that a game could focus too much on story. i'll admit, as confused as i still am by it, it's got potential and probably is as good as everyone says. i seem to have missed a fair few notes and mementos that make things clearer though, so that's on me, not the devs. one of the things that made the first amnesia so good (in my opinion anyway) was the "sanity" aspect. i didn;t see that at all in this one. i also was bothered by how the lantern never ran out. that kind of takes a good chunk of tension away. (also, it flickers around the monsters? im not sure if it was intentional, but it reminded me too much of the slender games). i do like how the puzzles were (mostly) simplified. the lack of an inventory system got annoying quickly. having to carry a fuse through several rooms just to lose it and find another closer to where it was needed really bugged me. i can kind of see why they did that (it's more tense when youre being chased and have to hang on to an item). the lack of a health indicator of any kind was a problem for me as well, and it seemed at several points as if you couldnt die in the game at all, which again takes some of the tension away.

 the enemies didn't seem that threatening at certain points either. (im referring to when you have to run from an electrified pig and flip switches. half the time, for me, it seemed like the thing didnt really notice i was there. i was also irritated by how they made that bit seem like a hallucination.) i think that's the biggest issue i have with it is that it just didnt seem scary. creppy and messed up yes, but not scary. the two biggest scares that i remember were cheap jumpscares. (the mask popping up out of nowhere while going up a ladder is forefront in my mind). i did nearly scream when the walkway collapsed and i had to escape the water monster, however that seemed almost too easy to get away from, seeing as a ladder was only a few feet away. that's another thing, the kaernk being there seemed out of place, more like an obvious reference to the first game. it just didn;t seem to fit. another thing that's been bothering me (although i did miss a good number of notes that may have explained it) is the machine. how did it gain sapience? i know that mandus developed a split personality, so did his use of the orb to create the machine somehow attach that half of him to it? i will admit, the environments were gorgeous, and i really liked how the game took you throughout the city rather than keep you in one large building. the design of the monsters was really good too, i nearly shit myself first time i saw one. the music was fantastic as well, and im already looking for the soundtrack. there were definitely some "oh my god, that's fucked" moments, like the implication that the creatures were half human, half pig and ate human flesh. the section where you go through the rooms where they are kept was really disturbing as well, which i actually liked a lot.

i didn't intend to type out a huge essay, but oh well. those are my thoughts. i am going to give it another go so that i can try to catch all the things i may have missed. it's a good story, but as a game it kind of falls flat.