Disappointed with AAMFP

[cantremember]

Imagine if Alexander was an industrialist instead of a baron. He would have made a machine where you put prisoners on a conveyor belt, and pots filled with vitae come out the other end. All automatic.

[felixmole]

I agree it was a mistake to remove interactivity.

Note that this was made for technical reasons. Blame the outdated engine, I guess.

[Geoff]

Right, because it was such a huge loss to be able to pick up a book and throw it pointlessly. =/

[Alardem]

Imagine if Alexander was an industrialist instead of a baron. He would have made a machine where you put prisoners on a conveyor belt, and pots filled with vitae come out the other end. All automatic.

I'd actually imagined Mandus to have that greedy motivation - but instead he turned out to be a nihilist.

[cantremember]

Right, because it was such a huge loss to be able to pick up a book and throw it pointlessly. =/

Indeed throwing books and flower pots was pointless anyway. But inside drawers, chests, closets and behind boxes you could find tinderboxes, so a big part of the gameplay was throwing every room upside down (figure of speech). Without anything to find, or even the ability to move or open anything, IMO a big part of gameplay is gone.

[Juvat]

Progress:
The progress in AMFP has been simplified, it is a "Go to A from B", running on rails you could say, in TDD you often had to backtrack in order to solve puzzles or gathering materials, bringing materials to different places in order to progress.

I agree with this more than anything. In TDD when I realized I had to go back into an area I had already been in in order to solve the puzzle, I was filled with dread because I knew what awaited me.

I have been reading these forms for a while but not commenting, greatly anticipating this game. And I was greatly disappointed. My first playthrough of TDD, I had to finish the game with the lights on in order to progress. In AMFP I found myself HOPING for a monster encounter halfway through. TDD had a few "did I just see something" moments to prepare you for the rest of the game and expose you to insanity and saving your tinderboxes/fuel. AMFP is nothing but scripted monsters out of the corner of your eye (except progressively more and more easy to predict/spot.

There are really only two areas where the monster roams and you need to sneak by them. Everything else is a scripted encounter. Another disappointed is that the larger monsters did not do more damage that the small ones (even the electric pig at the end could not one-hit me).

What I have noticed are that all of the positive reviews on this board are people that have not finished the game, and those that have finished it are disappointed. I can say that the first half of the game was done incredibly well. But when I got to the sewers I was no longer afraid of the monsters (don't worry, by this point you are past the parts you could encounter a non-scripted monster).

I greatly wanted this game to be great, and ignored the negative reviews from those that played it at the 3am release. However once I actually got to the ending I had fallen far off the band-wagon.

My last criticism... What happened to the parts from the trailers? Oswald hiding in the cage after going through the plastic looked TERRIFYING, yet this was removed from the final release?! At no point in this game did a monster tear down a door trying to come after me (which was even featured in the release trailer!). I saw lots of places to hide, yet no reason to!

I rarely never pre-order games, but I can guarantee that this will be the last time I pre-order one from Frictional Games. Next time I will wait to hear more reviews.

[bluel0bster]

There's already a review thread: http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-22825.html

And my recent response to people complaining about the gameplay (rather than double post): http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thr...#pid258995

[Rapture]

I was disappointed mostly because of the new pig-man monsters, by far they are nowhere near as scary as the Grunt/Brute. The animations/models themselves are less optimal than what I would have liked.

They also don't have the terrifying sounds and music that comes along with the Grunt/Brute. I was really confused whenever I was attacked and during that one particular chase scene in the city where you run past a gate and it puts a barrier between you and the pig. I didn't know I was being chased the entire time.

I would of really liked it if those man-pigs would patrol an area (4-6) and you would have to stealthily walk past each one. Ducking under cages or jumping over obstacles, something like this.
Every time you died, the patrols would be different and to make it easier on the player, 1 pig would be subtracted from the encounter each time you die.

Also the character (From what I experienced) rarely if almost none at all made any of the whimpering, wheezing, scared sounds used at the end of the trailer.
Almost every time I encountered a pig-man or got near one, the game was almost dead silent. I had my speakers on medium-loud, but for some reason almost everything would go down to a low roar or disappear.

[bluel0bster]

I was disappointed mostly because of the new pig-man monsters, by far they are nowhere near as scary as the Grunt/Brute. The animations/models themselves are less optimal than what I would have liked.

I think the real issue with the pigmen is that we see a lot of them early on. That combined with the sanity meter means we get used to what they look like way more than we did with the creatures in TDD.

Also, there's the level in the game where we are meant (I presume) to sympathize with the pigmen (the one on the chain, the one crying, etc.).

I'd say the horror and terror in "pigs" is more ideological than physical. Understanding what's going on is key.

[mazman34340]

Textures, story, artwork, modeling, all great and dandy. The game looks beautiful and I congratulate the dev's for their hard work but the gameplay was pretty bare.

Unfortunately, the rare monster encounters were disappointing and encounters were usually really short and easy.

The weirdest one was in the section of the game where I was required to make a chemical compound to dissolve a lock (pig cages I believe).

I was in a very short and tight corridor. I barely studied the pig for about 10 seconds before I found it's patrol pattern. It stopped at the door leading to the 'safe room' and then turned around. So, I hid behind a stack of boxes, waited for it to walk past the door and stop, and I snook up behind him. He catches me and I start sprinting into the safe room. He slashes me once, I reach the bottom of the stairs, and I heard the phone. The pig is gone. I am safe... wut?

Overall, I thought the game play was weaksauce, wich I hope they will improve next game. The art, story, and lighting to me were quite well done.

I thought the story though was starting to unravel near the end. I had a bit of trouble understanding or appreciating what I was doing. (spoilers) I must save my children, I must fix the facility, I must listen to this weird man, I was betrayed. The London scene was awesome but a bit short. Perhaps I rushed the game too quickly, since I finished it in... four hours.

Twenty buck for four hours. Five dollars for an hour of gameplay. It was too short, bit it's by no mean a rip-off.

7/10. Needs improvement in gameplay.