AMFP Member Review Thread

[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.