My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

[HarshlyCritical]

I believe The Dark Descent to be the finest horror game ever made, and the scariest game I have ever played. One of the things I particularly enjoyed about it was how immersive it was. The game seemed to "react" to how I played, and I felt like I was genuinely a part of the story. I was a participator.

I also enjoyed thechineseroom's remake of Dear Esther. I liked reading, hearing and seeing how the whole thing played out. The game was beautiful; soundtrack, environments, the works. And I was fine with simply watching. I was an observer.

Now we come to A Machine For Pigs. Where I felt like I was an observer, but periodically teased with participation.

I felt like this was a game that could not decide whether it wanted to be a visual novel like Dear Esther, or a puzzle-driven adventure like the original Amnesia. Much like the deformed half-men, half-beasts that populated the Machine's underground network, we got an amalgamated bastardization that tried to do both.

That may sound harsh, but let me elaborate. The reason this game was so infuriating for me was not due simply to a lack of interactivity with random objects, or lack of scare factor/monster encounters, it was the overall narrative inconsistency. I feel as though the puzzle-oriented interaction and brief, mostly scripted monster encounters felt out of place compared to the other 4/5 of the game, which was walking from point A to point B and reading multiple notes along the way.

Walk over here, read this note. Walk over there, read that note. Then, you reach out to grab a box and see if you can hoist yourself up to another area, and the game slaps away your hand, saying "NO! What are you doing? Be a good little player, and go through that door over there. We are master storytellers at work here, would you mind not interrupting? Please, just enjoy the expertly crafted linear experience."

I was also bothered by how pretentious this game was. To call the game an exercise in narcissism may be too far, but it certainly turned me off with how often it insisted upon its own brilliance.

I believe I read something like 40 documents and 20 mementos over the course of 4 hours. Most of the game was spent reading. I'm fine with this, I enjoyed reading the notes in The Dark Descent. But while the writing was technically impressive, it felt like it was so focused on impressing me with its intelligence and shocking me with its visceral descriptions that it wasn't engaging to read. I felt like I was being forced to read it. I felt like the game had grabbed my head, pressed my nose to the page, and shouted at me "Read this! This story is deep, dark and twisted. Don't you want to understand what's happening?"

By the time I began experiencing monster chase sequences and cool sections of the game like the "ransack", it was too late. I felt so detached from the game, so stuck in "observer mode", so numb to what I felt the game was forcing me to experience, that I found it difficult to cooperate with the game. Murderous pig-men would run up to me, and I would lethargically trod the opposite direction. I would be walking through narrow hallways and hear a hideous pig-man enter from somewhere deep in the maze of corridors, and it did not effect any reaction from me.

Once I finished the game, I was relieved. I felt like I had been trapped in an experiment for the past several hours. But the research scientists had put away their clipboards, and I finally had control over what I was allowed to experience once more!

There were some excellent things about AMFP. The voice acting was outstanding, the soundtrack was magnificent and there were several parts of the game that were executed very, very well. And the first half an hour of the game was just fine; I didn't feel inhibited, I didn't feel like I was being preached to, and I felt like I could define my own experience.

Later, this game made me feel like I was in timeout. And in timeout, my "artistically inclined" Uncle Steve read his latest novel to me cover-to-cover as punishment. Meanwhile, my friends tossed the ball around across the room and said "Hey, come play with us! Oh wait, you're in timeout."

But I digress.

Thank you for reading if you did, I just had to get this off my chest. I like some things about AMFP, but I really wish that they had made me feel like I was a part of the magic. It would have helped to have proper expectations going in, I agree, but I still feel that the narrative did not offer a consistent experience. And that's the main reason I did not enjoy it.