AMFP Member Review Thread

[gremstein]

So... I just finished the game. I'm going to conduct this as a comparison to the Dark Descent, seeing as this is basically a sequel, carries the Amnesia name, and is the one we all got into so much that we wanted to play the sequel.

If you are going to comment on this post, I will state that I have not read anyone elses review before posting mine, as I wanted to present mine without it being colored by other people's opinions.

Story - Compared to the first game, I feel like the way the story was unfolded to the player was as a little better done, and in fact even more demented and F'ed up than the first game. It took me awhile in dark descent to figure out wtf was going on, but in machine for pigs, I felt like it pieced together at a good pace. And I think we can all agree that torturing people is bad, but killing your own kids is downright sick. So points for upping the "oh that's wrong" nature of the game.

I also actually kind of liked the way they tied in the events of the first game, without doing it just to do it.

Graphics - Having seen trailers, I knew there would be some reused textures/models, and really it didn't bother me, in fact I kind of like it. There were enough new models/textures mixed with the old ones that gave me a pleasant feel of "okay this is the same world, but there is still plenty of new aspects to it." I do wish there could have been a little more light, which I know is kind of counter to what the experience is supposed to be, but I just wanted to see more of the world around me.

Sound - This, in my opinion, was the best part of the game, and showed the biggest improvement over the dark descent, and I liked the sound in the first game alot. Playing it with a decent set of headphones, from the very first part of the game walking around the house, I thought the sound was amazing. It had a really nice depth to it, it sounded like you were really walking around a big house with wood floors, and I also thought the ticking clock in the main room was a nice touch.

I also liked how when I opened the door to the outside, the sound would change to reflect that, and you heard the noises you might actually hear on a dark creepy night outside, and then when you shut the door, it all went quiet again. Spot on.

Gameplay - This is where it fell short for me.... My very first instinct when I started playing was to interact with everything I could find, to immerse myself in the experience.... only to find all I could do was pick up chairs, open the few desk drawers I saw, and open a few select doors. That was a huge disappointment for me, as my favorite thing about the first game was how immersive the environment was. I loved being able to pick up any random object lying around, it made the world feel more real, gave it a kinetic feeling to me. In a machine for pigs, I didn't feel like I could connect with the environment around me. It was all just background. I did, however, like the fact that they did away with the insanity mechanic. Nobody goes insane by sitting in the dark for a few minutes. As for the infinite lantern and the lack of an inventory.... meh, kind of lame, but not so much so that it ruined the experience for me.

To expand upon this, when it came to picking up objects, all I could do was pick up chairs normally. Other than that, the only time I was able to pick anything up was if it was a progress specific item. That made the puzzles a little too easy for me, because I could walk into a new environment, and even without knowing what the use for it was, if I could pick it up, it must be the thing I need to progress.

I also felt the game was too linear. I didn't feel like I had much to explore, and there was only a few times I recall having a real choice as to which way to go first. It probably won't bother some people, but I prefer a more open ended exploration experience.

I'm on the fence with the monsters... at first the encounters felt pretty legit, there was plenty of dark spaces to hide in, but close enough to them that I still felt threatened. In a few other cases though.. I felt like they were just cheap, particularly the one on the way out of the cold storage area. I felt like I had no real opportunity to do anything to get away from that one, and it promptly gave me my only death of the game. overall though, I guess it wasn't too bad... despite being able to avoid the electric armored ones later on fairly easily, they still felt pretty menacing.

Lastly, the game just felt like it came up short. I remember playing custom stories for dark descent that felt longer. I didn't play hardcore nonstop either, I played fairly casually. This game also doesn't really seem to have much replay value, because I tried to explore every inch I could find, so I don't feel like I missed much, if anything at all.

Final Thoughts - Overall the game wasn't horrible.. but I feel like I could have spent that 16 bucks on something more productive. For me personally, removing the majority of the interaction/exploration was a huge letdown. I do still feel that the other aspects of the game were solid though, so I wouldn't call it a bad game, just one that, for me personally, didn't live up to it's predecessor.

Final score for me would be 5/10