AMFP Member Review Thread

[felixmole]

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.

That's what I think: the game should simply have been called "A Machine for Pigs". People would have had different expectations and the FG label would have still given the game a lot of publicity, but perhaps to a different audience.

[Vonicon]

10/10

Not better, not worse than the Dark Descent, just different - but great!

Gave me goosebumps with every ladder, every pipe that got me deeper into the heart of the machine.

Little bit confused by the ending, but the dark descent was around the same thing ^^

Hope the next Amnesia Game will support 3D Vision, Oculus Rift and not take so long ^^

[Googolplex]

It actually IS a lot shorter than TDD...like it literally is, there is not as much in game time as TDD. TDD takes about 7-9 hours to complete on average, and AMFP takes about 3-5 hours to complete... it's kind obvious that TDD is much longer.

You're not good at joking.

You must either be getting stuck on the puzzles a-lot, getting lost, or are sneaking through every single part of the game if you've been playing for 8 hours and have yet to beat it.

Puzzles are laughable easy at all. I just know how to play a game correctly by examining every single place and enjoy the atmosphere.
You must be blindly walked through the game - how can you ignore such awesome machines? I often take a break just to marvel the fantastic architecture of hundred of years old industrial machines.

A game like Amnesia is not made to run through like a thunderbolt.
This game wants to be enjoyed. As longer you have fun with it.

[PutraenusAlivius]

I think AAMFP is a masterpiece, but it's headed towards storytelling
more than scares. Also, I can't throw items which is really awful, but
I'll live.
The engine had a lot of good features like 3ds Max implemented into it. But disabling the Custom Story option was a bad call.

Now, TCR's lighting. It was pretty good, but I don't think that they
connected a light to the lamp entity. In one area of the game, I see
splotches of light in the ceiling so I don't think they made the radius
big enough.

Also, it's really dark. Most areas would have some illumination WITHOUT lights.

I think AAMFP is pretty good, but compared to The Dark Descent, this was
more story, but less scare except ATDD which steps the balance to Scare
more.
The atmosphere is good enough. You could hear pig moaning and stuff when
exploring an area. So I think TCR could done the game well enough
WITHOUT any dangers of Monster encounters or maybe just one.

Well, since this is like a review, let's continue.

The plot and story was a little off too. I mean, what does the Machine
and Oswald's children have to do with this? Why did Oswald made the
Machine in the first place?

Outdoor areas. TCR was smart with this. They made outdoor areas but made sure that other areas are not accessible.

TLDR:
AAMFP was Amnesia leaning towards storytelling more than scares and ATDD was reverse of that.

The atmosphere is good, but not that professional.

I think this game could be much, much better.

8.5/10

Copied and edited from: http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thr...#pid260285

NOTE: I haven't finished yet.

[CorinthianMerchant]

I enjoyed AMFP overall, but it felt cut-down and had a really weak final act.

Spoiler below!

Story 8/10

The story started out pretty nice, but it left me with more questions than answers and many plot points were left unexplained. How did the machine work? How did it relate to vitae and The Orb? What actually happens in the ending? What happened in Mexico? How did the pig monsters come to be?

The writing is good from an artistic POV but fails at explaining plot points IMO.

Gameplay 5/10

Not only is the lack of inventory, tinderboxes, oil, sanity and interactive environment a step down from TDD, but the levels felt more linear with less exploration and weaker puzzles. And it's too short, especially for a game that was delayed for more than a year.

Atmosphere & Scares 7.5/10

The atmosphere and scares in the first half of the game were brilliant in the first half but significantly fade in the second half of the game. Also, the monsters could have been much more imaginative and otherwordly.

Sound 9/10

The game's strongest point IMO. The only reason it doesn't get a 10/10 is because the pig monsters' footsteps aren't as menacing as in TDD and there is no terror meter.

Verdict 7/10

I enjoyed it overall, but the second half feels just like The Rickenbacker in System Shock 2. Level design stops making sense, the gameplay and story looses it's edge, and it becomes less scary. And the ending left me disappointed with many questions were unanswered.

If it had a better ending it would be a 8.5-9/10

[kojack]

I enjoyed it.

The only thing that I found disappointing (other than the reduced physics interactions) was that:

Spoiler below!

we didn't really see much of the machine itself in disturbing action. I was hoping the journey through the machine would be like the human processing lines in quake 4, prey, assault on dark athena and various other games.
Not that I think it really needed the same level of visible gore as the machines in quake 4 or prey, but at least having more of the machine's actions visible would have helped. All we really got was the iron butler.

[Diz]

Here are my thoughts on A Machine For Pigs.

I will be honest and say that the first few moments made me feel identical to how I felt in The Dark Descent: Eerie and puzzling scene, confusion, alone, and still very nervous and scared by the taunting atmosphere, feeling unsafe. After a while, I quickly noticed a new direction, different from the one The Dark Descent was headed. Although you never actually encounter anyone, this time you are not trapped in an isolated and deserted castle. You go out in the streets and pass the houses where people are silently hiding, and you even have conversations on the phone from time to time. The following might be a very small detail, yet contributing toward the new direction: You had apparatus for playing back conversations previously had. To me, this is like putting on the TV or radio when you are scared. In The Dark Descent, everything was in your head, even the real-time telepathic communication from Alexander, and while Agrippa had something which might resemble a magic voodoo speaker, that also feels like eerie telepathy.

The next element I was thinking of is the flantern (see what I did there? ) I was a bit back and forth about not running out of resources being good or bad. At first, I was thinking that watching my oil usage and scouting for more was potentially a great boost to immersion, however I quickly realized that not having to worry about resources actually felt fitting. In The Dark Descent, you have an intense fear of the dark. The darkness is one of your primary enemies, and you have to stay away from it as much as possible. Therefore, the fear of running out of oil made much more sense. In A Machine For Pigs, Oswald is not even affected by darkness by anything but eyesight and vision, so I think a lantern running out might end up becoming worse than one that does not. Also, besides the obvious fact that the lantern is electric, its nature works well for a permanent light source. It does not illuminate your surroundings like the previous lantern in The Dark Descent, it shines infront of you as it were a flashlight. I felt that not having to worry about resources and being able to use the lantern as freely as I wanted without waste, I could focus more on my immersion and purpose. For A Machine For Pigs, a slightly different game than The Dark Descent, I felt the lantern system fit quite well, and its lighting design compensating for the lack of resources, if that makes any sense.

Unearthly creatures roaming the world. In the start, it felt absolutely horrifying. The creatures came off as furious, and the scene where one charges down a door and comes full speed down the stairs for me? I flew out that window in a flash and never wanted to come back inside ever again, if only it was not for that cursed fuel container! However, later on in the game, it felt different. The creatures seemed less and less eager to come for you. Some even seemed to know your presence, shrug and roam off, while in The Dark Descent, you were feeling quite certain that the creatures were out after you. They became more and more intense in their search for you, and at one point you even have it confirmed that it is specifically you they are after. In A Machine For Pigs (I may be completely wrong), it felt like most were never bothered with you. This is by no means a bad thing. It just helps me understand that this game simply takes a different direction than The Dark Descent. Everything is happening around you, if not behind the scenes, and the game is being backed up by the story and speculation more than ever. While horror is a core element of the experience, you will notice that other factors weigh just as much in on it, if not more.

There is one thing which I missed, and that is voiced diary entries. There were playbacks, but I wanted more. There were so many diary entries and much text, I would have loved to have some of it read aloud by the, once again, excellent and atmospherical voice acting.

There is also something else that I wish to give a mention. One of the first encounters feature what I assume is a creature breaking into the cellar area below you, right after a huge quake. I heard something downstairs, I was not sure if it was things falling over from the quake or if there actually was something down there, but there was this amazing horrifying nightmare-ish track playing in the background, shouting at my soul to drop my things and get out of there stat, danger extreme. I think it is a track similar to the one in the first teaser, where the creature breaks down a door. However, I never heard that track or any other being used again. I really missed that. If there were monster themes, I at least could not notice them.

This reminds me of when we were discussing whether or not monster themes should be removed from these sort of games, and now I feel the effect of doing so. Not hearing eerie music whenever being close to a dangerous encounter sort of removed some of the horror for me. I am not talking about knowing whether the creature is there or not, I am talking about eerie music appealing to your emotions and building up tension. Music has the effect of enhancing feelings and emotions, including terror and the fear of being found by dreaded creatures. I am not talking about music for all encounters, but there were encounters where the creatures were a genuine threat to you, obviously hostile in their search, and I think musical themes would have enhanced the horror for me during those events. (I apologize if there were and I for some reason did not notice them.)

I really enjoyed the game, and I thank FR/TCR for spending a lot of time to making it what it has become. It is clearly a game stuffed rich of story and emotion. I really need to play through the game at least one more time to grasp most of what was going on. Although I think some things could be a little different, I think this game is great. I probably did enjoy The Dark Descent a little better. It was my first ever horror game, and I generally have better interest in the old castle theme with eerie spooky, ghastly impressions. A Machine For Pigs has a different theme, focus and style of horror and appeal, but I feel it worked well as a sequel to The Dark Descent.

[Alardem]

There was no more emphasis on story than TDD. Infact I'd say there's less emphasis since TDD had voice acted notes and voice acted flashbacks where Hamnesia just had all its story telling through the notes and your journal.

So that's your criteria for 'story' - having you inexplicably hear someone reading something for you?

[JPTS]

The only thing I expected from this game was to have a good experience and I certainly had it.

The story is very interesting and reveals just enough to make you curious. I wouldn't like it if we could talk for a few days here in the forum and figure everything out.

For me the only problem was that the monsters weren't as "aggressive" as in A:TDD. But that was not really a problem. In fact, I was so immersed in the first half of the game that I didn't even noticed the difference! I was moving slowly, hiding in corners and expecting monsters to appear out of nowhere. That didn't happen, but it shows how good was the immersion and the atmosphere. I felt the same way I did in A:TDD: very tense and wanting to stop playing for a moment until I could relax a bit.

When they did show, I would know in advance because the lights would flicker. But many times it didn't mean that the monsters would come to attack, so I don't think it was a bad thing (like removing the surprise factor). However, it would be interesting if another monster came later without that warning. Players would be very scared.

The removal of tinderboxes and interactive objects was a good thing in my opinion. I understand that some people liked it, but I prefer to play worrying about the story and dealing with the monsters.

Limited oil supply wouldn't be a problem, but it has to suit the story. Since Daniel had those effects in the dark, in A:TDD, it was a good idea for that game, but would be annoying with Mandus.

The puzzles were very easy but it is another thing that I don't consider very important, so for me it was all right.

The sound and music were amazing. 10/10.

In case you are reading this, Frictional Games, I would like to say that I hope you don't take some of the criticism too seriously. It appears to me that some people are overreacting because they didn't like a few things in the game and can't make a proper judgment. But I don't mean that everyone complaining is like that!

This was a very good game and I liked that you decided to make some things differently (actually allowed TCR to do it). If the game had the same characteristics as A:TDD, some people would be complaining anyway.

[Alardem]

I enjoyed it.

The only thing that I found disappointing (other than the reduced physics interactions) was that:

Spoiler below!

we didn't really see much of the machine itself in disturbing action. I was hoping the journey through the machine would be like the human processing lines in quake 4, prey, assault on dark athena and various other games.
Not that I think it really needed the same level of visible gore as the machines in quake 4 or prey, but at least having more of the machine's actions visible would have helped. All we really got was the iron butler.

Yeah, the concept art of the man's torso being hung above an assembly line made me anticipate a scene to match Quake 4's bloodiest levels. Actually seeing the assembly line from the distance was less than impressive.

The bloodfalls did make up for it a little...