The reviews Elysium syndrome

[jd1802]

And my recent favorite from other forums, used against the game of cours - "EVEN PewDiePie couldn't finish it, it was that bad". Cracked me up!

I once saw a Let's Play of Justine by pewdiepie. I absolutely love Justine's story and the way its written and showed but he just walked around killing everyone and screaming and THEN he got Daniel's Letter and didnt even read two words before deciding it was not important. So yeah I dont get how he can be so famous but oh well Miley Cyrus going naked has millions and millions of views so I dont even know how can I be surprised.

Two other things.
1. I've noticed that people can't even get through their praise for the game >unless< they open the paragraph with "Maybe AAMFP is not as good as A TDD was but..."

I cant cause for me it wasnt as good. I know theyre completely different but still. Even the story of TDD felt more disturbing, exciting and personal for me than the one from AMFP. But thats my opinion and whoever found AMFP to be so deeply personal and beautiful then lucky him or her.

[exmachinax]

I have to say also that I agree with those that think that inventory, oil management and sanity meter were big gameplay parts of TDD. They were. I had things to do and to think about instead of, you know, just walking forward. The game had exploration, involve some thinking of the player not only about the story, but also from the puzzles too (which were, mostly, just right in the first game IMO).

If only AMFP managed to be scarier, people would be more forgiven of if. But it simply wasn't. If anything, it felt more scripted for me. I could see most scares coming a mile away.

Though I have to say that one great thing AAMFP did, that as far as I've read is not mentioned at all in "big" magazines/sites review, is the fascinating subtlety of the changes in the game world since the very beginning (maybe because they are very easy to overlook). Pig mask appearing/changing, one mask that is visible when looking behind a painting but not when you are physically in the room, the owl statue that goes to the other side of the "hunting" room and more. This was really a high point of the game for me.

[Paddy™]

I'd really like the FG forums to introduce per-user posts marking so that I could mark the Amnesia-template fans or exploiters and not be exposed to their posts. I've seen such scripts for internet browsers in the past.

I know it's difficult to have people disagree with you all the time, so you can add the people who make you feel bad to your Ignore List. I'm assuming you've already done this with me because you still haven't responded to my rebuttal of your assertion that reviewers are coming up with "thin air expectations" and criticising the game for not meeting them.

Let me reiterate: if you read all of the coverage of AAMFP from 2012 until present you can perhaps empathise a little with the reviewers' positions.

[Cuyir]

A first person horror game where the only gameplay, since the days of Black Plague, has been walking, reading, puzzles, hiding and running away...has less gameplay elements and less interactivity because they removed two immersion breaking mechanics (inventory and sanity meter) and because physics affect less items in the game?
Really?

Yes. The "physics affectting less objects" is huge for me. It harkens back to the concept of immersive simulators. In TDD the physics was consistent, it helped me believe I was in a consistently logical world despite all the supernatural things going on. Helps gives a sense of immersion, of "reality". In AMFP it just shows the Game Designer Hand, just show how artificial the world is: If the all powerfull Game Designer wants, I can move this object, if he does not want, I cannot. Thus, it less believable game world for me.

You missed the whole point of my argument there mate.

I was pointing out how some people boisterously say that the game is a walking simulator because of no inventory, sanity system and a lack of physics affected items.

By them removing or neutering those three elements they didn't make it less of a game, they didn't turn it into Dear Esther and they didn't somehow change the whole gameplay flow. The gameplay flow is still the same it has always been with the exception of puzzles, which are non existent in AMFP, since the Black Plague days.

Get it?

I miss stumbling over vases, barrels and other detritus. Little touches like those made me scare myself and made me cringe when i'd be hiding and all of the sudden I run into something and stuff falls on the floor, instantly making me go ''please don't hear that, please don't hear that''. But by TCR severely limiting the objects that are affected by the physics engine they didn't make it less of a game.

---

And Paddy (Pah deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) in TCR's defense, the instant I found out that they were developing the game I knew what to expect. I didn't read articles, i didn't listen to interviews, didn't dissect trailers and etc etc etc. Just "TCR is developing while FG is publishing'' was enough to let me know how the game was going to be.

Did they overestimate the fear level? Sure, probably. They probably expected people to find more psychological focused horror as scary as the more adrenaline fueled horror from TDD. Their mistake, considering subjectivity and the fanbase.

Example: If Bethesda develops a game like....oh I don't know, some war shooter, I expect it to have their touches. You know, open world, streamlined rpg systems, and so on. I'm not expecting an Activision production from them. I'm not expecting multiplayer at all from Bethesda.

So by me hearing that they were doing AMFP I quickly had a mental image of what to expect. And guess what, I was right. I nailed the experience down almost perfectly. I had given them less credit in my prediction (I thought it was going to be creepy but not scary...wooooo boy was I wrong).

I would say some people, both critics and fans, expected something that they shouldn't have expected considering who was developing it. Some people reacted poorly to the removed elements without taking into consideration of the why they removed them. I've seen negative opinions I've agreed with and respected and have lately seen many positive opinions that make me ashamed of me loving the game and vice versa. I bring that point up to reiterate that, indeed, some people expected things they shouldn't have expected. One of the reasons I don't pay attention to pre release talk from the devs is that they usually overestimate or see their own creations in a different way. I could bring up all the pre release bluster most devs (GOOD ones too) talk and then it doesn't quite come out as you expected from their talk.

Maybe my sheer ignorance of the articles and such worked to my favor. Maybe some people expected things they shouldn't. At the end of the day, it's a fact that AMFP was polarizing and that there are ill founded opinions (on both sides and both professional and user opinions).

And sadly, ALL camps (people who liked it and hated it) have people with ill founded opinions that then insult those who have the differing opinions.

"You liked it more than TDD? You fucking hipster trash''

"You didn't like it? You're obvious mentally challenged."

Double whammy.

[Tordo]

Probably was a case of expectations not meeting reality for people. People probably expected that since the title had "Amnesia" in it and was created partly by Frictional that the game would possess similar elements of horror, etc.

In essence, what people were probably expecting was more horror in the game comparable to the original Amnesia and less of a focus on story and environment (though not saying that TDD did not do this either, but it was much more emphasized in MFP).

What people got was not that, but more of what I would say an "interactive story" kind of game -- something more in the vein of "To The Moon" or a "visual novel" type of game, albeit with maybe more gameplay added. This probably greatly clashed with what they thought they were going to play; though I think if I remember correctly, Frictional never did explicitly state that Machine for Pigs would be "scare your ass off horror."

I personally didn't really mind it given that I like getting immersed into stories, but for others, especially those who play more for the survival horror aspect, I could see how they could be disappointed.

[Paddy™]

And Paddy (Pah deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) in TCR's defense, the instant I found out that they were developing the game I knew what to expect. I didn't read articles, i didn't listen to interviews, didn't dissect trailers and etc etc etc. Just "TCR is developing while FG is publishing'' was enough to let me know how the game was going to be.

I felt the same way; I knew it would be something different and I wasn't expecting TDD 2, but I have no problem empathising the those who felt otherwise.

My point, with regards to the coverage the game received before its release, is that even when talking directly to the people who would later review the game TCR seemed to be setting themselves up for criticism. They really made it sound as if "AAMFP will be TDD 2 with tweaks" would be a reasonable assumption. Like I said I don't share these criticisms, but I find it pretty laughable that Dan and Jess are so blown away by them, and I find it pretty irritating when the critics are characterised as too possessive of their medium or that they were fools to expect the game to be something else.