AMFP Member Review Thread

[SurvivalHorror]

Most people defending the game point to its storyline, but I believe the purposeful use of ambiguity and purple prose detracted from that quite abit. I didn't feel Mandus's story to be particularly striking or unique whatsoever to be honest. The lack of a twist or a poorly attempted one didn't help the storyline at all

[Mr. 3vil]

I think the problem was that I played Outlast before AMFP. When I saw the graphics of amnesia again, i had a little trouble getting used to it again. I didn't like most of the color layers they added to the game, instead of black there was blue, weird color changes throughout the game...

It also felt a bit too linear for me, amfp didn't give me any real challenges, whereas Outlast kept me on the tip of my seat the whole time, and had me collecting some stuff to progress through the game.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the "no inventory" type of approach, but it could've been much better.

The story was indeed somewhat predictable, but well written. I will never forget the moment you step outside again and see London riddled with pigs!

I liked the music much more than in TDD! The ending music and mors praematura are my favorite ones, so props to Jessica Curry!

My experience was that after playing Outlast it only made A Machine for Pigs seem like a true horror game. There is a very intense sort of feeling and the tension really builds up so much that I would have to shut the game off with Amnesia. Of course, this was even more obvious with The Dark Descent. The problem, I'm sure is that most of us are comparing it to The Dark Descent and not Outlast.

I could make a gigantic list as to what made Outlast somewhat of a disjointed experience. Here's the stuff that I thought Outlast did entirely wrong. Having a yellow objective text to remind me what to do rather than take advantage of the note page was rather annoying and breaking the immersion. Not to mention everytime it autosaves I see the words "saving" in white in the bottom left-hand corner. Any door you open will automatically be shut in a scripted event, this was especially notable in the security room that required climbing a vent to escape. The door opening and closing mechanics is terrible because standing on the wrong side of the door could cause the character to shut himself in with the monster in the same room. After finding the camcorder and running from three men, plenty of people got stuck because they were supposed to climb the lockers and that was never really possible beforehand. The night-vision camera function is very annoying, they should have thrown that away and stuck with a flashlight with batteries instead.

And the story, the whole spiritual ghost part because of nanotechnology, that almost felt slapped in the very end serving a very poor function to set up a sequel. Honestly, the yellow text is flashing "New Objective: Find a way to escape." Then it flashes later after finding the old man in a wheel chair, "New Objective: Kill Billy." Honestly, I don't remember the original Doom games flashing "New Objective: Kill boss" :New Objective, escape," because it's very annoying and more of a COD mechanic. I also don't understand why he didn't just exit the complex instead, why must I kill Billy to leave when there is an elevator that clearly worked? Where was my choice of actually wanting to survive when clearly the game wanted me to die?

I'd say it's ATDD > AAMFP > Outlast just because I really wanted to get immersed in the games and it was very difficult with Outlast with the reasons I mentioned above. Removing the inventory wasn't a bad idea because it requires picking up scattered objects, where as TDD it would entirely pause the game. Let's think about it for a moment, if a monster is behind me and I look into my inventory, I prolonged my death and I am entirely safe from harm. Although removing the inventory stopped the pausing effect, I'd like to see it implemented in the future so that it doesn't actually pause the game. Dark Souls does it and I think it only helps the immersion process. After all, if I was in real life about to get attacked by a monster, looking into an inventory would be a very dangerous thing to do right? Why look into your inventory when you should run instead?

[SurvivalHorror]

I think the problem was that I played Outlast before AMFP. When I saw the graphics of amnesia again, i had a little trouble getting used to it again. I didn't like most of the color layers they added to the game, instead of black there was blue, weird color changes throughout the game...

It also felt a bit too linear for me, amfp didn't give me any real challenges, whereas Outlast kept me on the tip of my seat the whole time, and had me collecting some stuff to progress through the game.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the "no inventory" type of approach, but it could've been much better.

The story was indeed somewhat predictable, but well written. I will never forget the moment you step outside again and see London riddled with pigs!

I liked the music much more than in TDD! The ending music and mors praematura are my favorite ones, so props to Jessica Curry!

My experience was that after playing Outlast it only made A Machine for Pigs seem like a true horror game. There is a very intense sort of feeling and the tension really builds up so much that I would have to shut the game off with Amnesia. Of course, this was even more obvious with The Dark Descent. The problem, I'm sure is that most of us are comparing it to The Dark Descent in the end and not Outlast.

I could make a gigantic list as to what made Outlast somewhat of a disjointed experience. Here's the stuff that I thought Outlast did entirely wrong. Having a yellow objective text to remind me what to do rather than take advantage of the note page was rather annoying and breaking the immersion. Any door you open will automatically be shut in a scripted event, this was especially notable in the security room that required climbing a vent to escape. The door opening and closing mechanics is terrible because standing on the wrong side of the door could cause the character to shut himself in with the monster in the same room. After finding the camcorder and running from three men, plenty of people got stuck because they were supposed to climb the lockers and that was never really possible beforehand. The night-vision camera function is very annoying, they should have thrown that away and stuck with a flashlight with batteries instead.

And the story, the whole spiritual ghost part because of nanotechnology, that almost felt slapped in the very end serving a very poor function to set up a sequel it seems. Honestly, the yellow text is flashing "New Objective: Find a way to escape." Then it flashes later after finding a scientist "New Objective: Kill Billy." Honestly, I don't remember the original Doom games flashing "New Objective: Kill boss" :New Objective, escape," because it's very annoying and more of a COD mechanic.

I felt the door opening and closing mechanic was pretty neat, superior to AMFP at least due to the fluidity of movement. The story was pretty much nonexistent and kinda forced but it really showed itself as the real deal when it comes to survival horror purely based on the gameplay experience

[Mr. 3vil]

I felt the door opening and closing mechanic was pretty neat, superior to AMFP at least due to the fluidity of movement. The story was pretty much nonexistent and kinda forced but it really showed itself as the real deal when it comes to survival horror purely based on the gameplay experience

I guess that's a matter of opinion then, I wanted the opening door mechanics of a Dark Descent because it really makes the player feel like they're pulling and shutting the doors themselves. In particular those chase sequences of Outlast, there are a bunch of locked doors and if you're being chased by something it seems silly to just shut yourself in the room you wanted to leave because of a slight accident in player/character positioning. I mean, if Michael Myers is right behind you, could you afford shutting the door and locking yourself in the room with him? That's one pretty huge accident if you ask me.

I also really wanted to enjoy the horror of Outlast, but you'll figure out sooner or later that the game just forces the character to sprint at all times. Walking becomes a chore and only enhances the chances of death almost with exception to the two naked dudes because they're one hit kills and require stealth. Outside of that, all NPC's deal about three hits before the character will die and the health regenerates way too fast. The player also never gets tired with running, a usual problem I'm starting to notice in many games and Outlast is a game where the player runs so fast that the monster lags behind a bit, so unless the player traps themselves or hides too late, they're almost always going to be safe from real danger.

[felixmole]

I'm really concerned amnesia will turn into a one game hit much like what resident evil became.Hopefully this is not the case.

Amnesia is over. It was already over after Amnesia: Justine for FG. TCR only made one episode but the whole serie ends after AMFP.

[chineseroom]

Just wanted to chip in and say I really loved Outlast, and one of the things I'm really pleased about is that the two games, which had been set-up as in competition, actually compliment each other pretty well. Both have shortfalls, of course, but they are doing very different things, and that's great to see happening.

[Fortigurn]

A Machine For Pigs story and imagery was far more horrific than a cheap sanity meter where your vision blurs and you get terrible mouse smoothing.

Then obviously you didn't play TDD.

The sanity meter was in no way "cheap". It showed that Daniel was only human, and his fears effected him in a huge sense. Staring at the monsters, or staying in the dark too long frightened Daniel to the point of tears, nervous panting, and eventually, pretty much passing out. Tell me, if you were in a similar situation, with similar fears, would you not react in a similar fashion that Daniel did?

Without the sanity meter, you're pretty much a superman, who is afraid of nothing and can just run through anything no matter how terrifying/horrible, which is completely unrealistic.

I agree with you. People seem to be forgetting that insanity in TDD was not a cheap effect simply to inform you 'Daniel is scared now'. It was a proper mechanic influencing gameplay, balanced cleverly with two other mechanics.

Darkness reduces your sanity, and light restores your sanity but makes you more detectable by monsters. In addition, solving puzzles restores your sanity while certain rooms reduce it, and some environments will change in appearance according to your sanity level (painting of Alexander, and various places in the church will change), all adding to the complexity of the mechanic.

The result is a constraint on player actions, requiring greater thought and consideration on the player's part. This is an important and intelligent gameplay challenge adding genuine immersion and encouraging attention to detail by the player.

[Exostalker]

Many plot holes and unexplained things, two notes mentions brenneburg and one note metions the orb but thats it? That doesn't make it a indirect sequel, not at all. Hard to belive this was happening in the same universe, honestly just thinking of that destroys that awesome feeling surrounding TDD and its mytical tale of other dimensions and inhuman beings.

Plot holes? You just probably didn't understand it.

The atmosphere was bad...yea Iam saying it because in TDD you were ALONE in a ancient castle in the middle of the woods far away from any help at all. In AMFP you run around in London and its underparts , it didnt make me feel like i could relate to the place like TDD did, we are all afraid of haunted castles in the woods, not the streets of London.

You don't know what others are afraid of, so you can't talk for all of us.



In my own opinion, this was a great experience. A more mature game for a more mature audience. And telling these little pipsqueeks that it's a different take on the genre won't change anything, it's just like trying to explain why 2001: A Space Odyssey is such a great movie to a little Transformers movie fan.

Little certain Swedish youtube-star fans will hate it, and that is an achievement on it's own. They can get back to their Outlast, and other jumpscare and chase driven games with barely any story.

Machine was definitely a great experience to me, yes, first Amnesia was better, but that is because it was such a genre-changer, and without it this wouldn't exist.

I can't wait for the next game from The Chinese Room, great job guys!

[felixmole]

The sanity meter was a cool element but it doesn't mean it is fit for AMFP given your night vision is very poor and you need your lantern even when a monster is around.

[Paddy™]

I wrote a pretty glowing review of the game earlier in this thread (which I stick by 100%, I loved the game) but I think I need to talk about some of the more negative aspects which I neglected to mention before.

Spoiler below!

Had the game been released as its own entity and not as a sequel to TDD none of what I'm going to say would matter, but it wasn't, and I feel like the animosity TCR is receiving from many people is something they've brought upon themselves. I don't mean that in a bitchy way.

For instance, in many interviews TCR gave about the game during its development they hammered home the idea that the game would have to be at least as scary as TDD if not scarier in order for it to be a success. Dan Pinchbeck even said on more than one occasion that if the game didn't spawn as many YouTube videos of people losing their shit he would be disappointed. The general consensus amongst reviewers - professional and otherwise - is that the game is either not scary at all or is significantly less scary than TDD. Despite loving the game I didn't find it particularly scary, either. Had they stated from the get go that the game would be much more about soaking up a good story rather than wallowing in TDD-like atmosphere and terror there'd have been a significantly smaller backlash.

The concept art and even the trailers were somewhat misleading. The concept art gave me an extremely different impression of what was coming (not the fault of anyone in particular, it just happens to be the case). The trailers - especially the first - showed gameplay which didn't make it into the final game. At no point in AAMFP do you have to hide from monsters as they beat down the door, for instance. That first trailer made it seem that AAMFP would be very similar to TDD in terms of gameplay, providing yet another reason to feel let down when it turned out not to be the case.

I have a distinct sense that TCR's inclusion of familiar Amnesia-related material was done begrudgingly. I imagine them having very specific ideas about the type of game they wanted to make but, knowing that they were pretty much obliged to adhere to certain ideas, felt they had to crowbar in plot points and set dressing which linked the game to Amnesia's world. Whether this is actually the case or not is another matter, the point is I felt this way during the game and would have had no problem whatsoever if TDD was never even hinted at during the story.

Imagine this game being released without any mention of Amnesia, either in the story or in the marketing. Imagine how fucking amazing it would be to discover a game like this without any expectations or preconceptions. The imagery, the story, the characters, the setting, the acting, the sound and the music...Jesus! I can say with as much certainty as I'd need to bet my life that this game would be acclaimed across the board had Amnesia: The Dark Descent been left out of the equation entirely.

So, that's my negative review - TCR and FG shot themselves I the foot by the way in which they publicised and marketed the game, not in how the game was developed or designed.

P.S. I love the game and FG and TCR