AMFP Member Review Thread

[Fortigurn]

I've played for just over an hour and I'm still in the cellar (I enjoy playing slowly and exploring everything). To me Amnesia: Machine For Pigs (MFP), has a distinct Chinese Room flavour rather than an Frictional flavour, and I prefer my Amenesia games Frictional flavoured. I'm loving the atmosphere, the environments, and the overall presentation, but there are are few issues rubbing me up the wrong way because they're a significant departure from the original Amnesia: Dark Descent (DD). I cannot see MFP being received with the acclaim which DD earned so easily, and the reviews I've seen both here and elsewhere confirm this.

1. Far fewer interactive objects. In DD, virtually every object you saw could be picked up or at least pushed around; books fruit, tableware, chairs, rocks, boxes, barrels, tools, etc. In MFP, this is simply not the case. I was struck by this almost immediately, but dismissed it at first as possibly the game's way of leading me gently into the environment, expecting greater levels of interaction and more manipulable objects would become available later. That hasn't happened. I find it particularly disruptive that so many free standing items on tables and desks (such as candlesticks, bottles, glasses, and tableware), are absolutely immovable. You can't pick them up, and you can wallop them with a chair but they will simply not budge. I find this to be a serious breach of immersion.

2. Far more limited range of player mechanics. No inventory system, no wound system, no sanity mechanic, no light mechanic, no consumable items. This is a shocker. Those were critical elements contributing to the immense immersion and deeply satisfying gameplay of DD. I am highly concerned that without these elements, MFP gameplay will inevitably feeling like a kind of Amnesia: Dear Esther (and I loved Dear Esther, but it is a completely different gaming experience to DD), instead of another great Frictional classic.

3. Puzzle mechanics. I have obviously only completed a few puzzles so far, and a couple of them I really enjoyed.

Spoiler below!

I figured out how to open the secret door by lifting the rifle, simply by observing the scratches in the wall indicating it had been lifted up and down many times (I only read the relevant journal note after I had opened the door). The prompt for the bathroom puzzle was not too explicit, and I liked that. I found the door behind the bear entirely by accident, and I was pleased by that.

But the lack of a inventory means puzzles can't and won't be as complex as they were in DD, which concerns me, and the general lack of interactive objections means any object with which you can interact is far more likely to be a puzzle solving element, making some puzzles a lot easier to find than they should be.

4. Lighting; often clearly unrealistic. Not drastically so, but sufficiently inconsistent to irritate at times.

5. No support for the modding community (yet?). Wait, what? Really?

6. I've felt spooked quite a few times already, but I haven't yet been scared of injury or death, meaning I'm more inclined to run and explore boldly instead of creeping along the ground and peering cautiously around corners as I did in DD. I hope that changes.