AMFP Member Review Thread

[Argoon]

Ok my review of the game (sorry for my English)

First perhaps not being a native English was the problem for me, the other was that i was trying hard to read or see the less about the game possible before release, the only thing i saw was the last trailer and that was a problem, because it gave me a totally different idea about the game than what was presented to me on the final game, for example, the scariness factor about the pig monster was very good on the trailer, but imo very weak on the game.
About the game, to me the problems started right at the start, with the very slow pacing of the game, i was not expecting a shooter or a crazy action game mind you, but the long time without even seeing any kind of credible danger was just of putting, then the scary dead children running around just didn't worked for me either.
Has i said above i'm not a native english speaker (i'm portuguese) and so i need to think harder to comprehend what i read or listen in English, and even tho i know there are portuguese BR subtitles, it has enough differences to the portuguese PT way of talking and writing, to be off putting to me, (sorry to my brazilian brothers) so i decided to stay with English subtitles, and so because of the game focus manly on the story that was a problem to me. I would love that some parts of the story could be presented more using the environment, just like the gramophones or a painting, etc, instead of only papers. The other thing that i found strange, was how unconsciously to me the monsters seemed to be more harmless than anything, instead of being that really terrible and frightening killing machines

The good things (yes i think theres good things ), the level design, character design and sound design was fantastic, the voice acting was also good but it could have add more power to it on some Mandus lines,

Spoiler below!

his voice seemed to much desensitized when he realized he killed his boys for example

, the puzzles were also very well thought out and never seemed out of place, nor very complicated, and lastly i liked how the level changed sometimes, for example how i passed a door just to look back and see it gone, does were really some WTF moments.

[Scarypigthing]

Spoilers Abound

The Chinese Room are clearly a very talented bunch of developers, I love the fact that they straight ahead tackle my pet hate with video games; that of badly written, dumb stories. The writing in this game is brilliant. Its sumptuous, literary and grisly. This a good old fashioned Gothic tale in the vein of Frankenstein, and not in a shallow way, but with all the thematic depth that entails. Great story.

However

It is probably their inexperience, but it seems to me that the reason TCH strip back everything down to its basics, is not so much to serve story but in order to easily control every aspect of the gameplay as they they do not yet have the confidence just to let rip. Its a self consciousness born out of an intense desire to make sure the player has the exact experience they want them to have - its not laziness or even a lack of talent, its that they are almost trying too hard, like an inexperienced snooker player taking twice as long to line up a shot because he has not yet gained the confidence to know he's actually good. It often sucks the air right out of the game, it creates a disconnect that stops the player, despite all these great environments, and sound design, feeling that crucial element: fear. Yes it has the odd moment of tension, but its is often dissipated as quickly as it comes. The monsters grew on me, at first I thought they were kind of goofy, but once the story was unveiled its clear that they didn't need to be these terrifying creatures, there were wretches to be pitied more than feared, playing with their toys like the children they once were. Even so the face to face monster-offs tended to begin with a scripted appearance and very short run and hide bit, and then a mysterious (frustrating) disappearance. Now the original Amnesia had disappearing monsters but it often seemed that they had wandered off down a corridor into oblivion, rather than just vanished. These guys disappear when you are with them in a small room (I don't mean the Tesla style ones who are meant to disappear either), or in the highly unlikely event they gouge you to death (happened to me only once) and you respawn. This all leads you to relax, who cares if there's a pig monster if its only going to bugger off if I run a bit, or if they kill me its like I've defeated them?

Overall I liked it, I'm not going to give this an out of ten mark, I'm going to give it a teachery, B- 'good effort, with a lot of potential for the future'. I said it earlier TCH are going to release a masterpiece at some point once their confidence grows, all the ingredients are there. Its a pity this wasn't it though.

[sproik]

For me, the game started out fantastic. Great atmosphere, ambience, music etc. Couldn't fault it too much at the start since I felt the story telling / evolution of the story were excellent.

The only two complaints I have are the length, it really could have been another hour or two longer, felt a bit short.

And the fact that it just stopped being scary and focused far too much on story telling during the last third of the game. After the sewers, once you realize London is burning, there is little atmosphere and it involves almost entirely just messing with machinery / listening to voice over. There was no danger for about 90 mins of game play, reallly hurt it I felt. I was just charging through waiting for actual terror to begin again.

7/10. Started fantastic, but the last third of the game really hurt it. Fantastic story, overall average gameplay.

[bobbo]

AAMFP: 1/10
ATDD: 9/10



Though The Dark Descent was something of a scary and weird game, the ending was severely lacking in fulfillment. I knock off one point for that and for some of the weird issues I received all along the way. It was the scariest game I've ever played, just because you were helpless.


A Machine for Pigs has been thoroughly disappointing. I love the sounds, I love the new bits of the environment... BUT HONESTLY? It's a freaking mod! The characters glitch everywhere, the textures are broken when the models are scaled up (I'm only an hour into the game, maybe two and everywhere, this is apparent!), AND WOW... THE ANIMATIONS ARE HORRENDOUS. Even items from The Dark Descent were used! There are no puzzles, there is no inventory, nothing to invoke curiosity...

Not to disrespect The Chinese Room, but, holy crap, I'd have animated these characters better for you, FOR FREE. I would've taken time out of my own schedule to MAKE THEM LOOK GOOD.

The lack of immersiveness, lack of items to move or carry, the lack of hiding spots, the blatant scripted deaths, a totally foreseeable game, and a lack of scary monsters makes this such a freakin' boar (pun intended).

I'm sorry, but no. Just no. I spent money on something that I want to quit. I loved Dear Esther because it had a POINT. There was a reason for it. This, I'm not seeing any reasons.

1/10 for the nicer materials on your newly modeled items. Good normal maps, good diffuse and specular maps. Nice job on the environments. But everything else... No.

Actually, though I worded it kinder, I share many of your points. Remembering how I used to play Custom Stories uploaded here - if this had been one of them, I would have bashed it a lot in my feedback.

[Solitary Walker]

Dark Descent: 9/10
Machine for Pigs: 4/10


I cant belive i actually payed for a game of this quality. Justine was far better.

[Fortigurn]

All of you were told that there wasn't gonna be an inventory, all of you were told that the lantern wasn't going to be refillable, all of you were told that the game wasn't going to have CSs (not true btw), all of you were told the game wasn't gonna be as interactable as the first one, and all of you were told this BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE WAS EVEN ANNOUNCED . And what did you do? ....you went ahead and pre-ordered it KNOWING all of this.

Actually I didn't know any of that, despite reading all the official announcements on the website, so I gather this information was buried somewhere else. If I had known all of that I would have still pre-ordered the game, because until you play it you don't know exactly what kind of effect those design decisions will make on the gameplay.

I pre-ordered the game (the first time I have ever pre-ordered any game), because I believed Frictional deserved that support. I still believe that. But I see no reason not to criticize design decisions I believe detract from the gameplay.

[restlessdreams]

I would give AMFP about a 6/10. If you want comparisons, I would easily give TDD a 9/10.

While the story, music and visuals were all amazing and wonderfully done, I was left with a lot of yearning for more. I wanted that interactivity that came with TDD. It really helped with making the game seem less linear and demanding of some moderate thinking skills. I wanted to be able to explore, and perhaps find some secrets, or even just little easter eggs... but every door that wasn't needed was locked. I was expecting, the entire time, for that drop to occur - the drop in which you go from slightly creepy, to extremely uncomfortable. That never happened for me. While I had a few scares, they were few and far between. TDD had a couple puzzles that admittedly ended up time consuming and frustrating for me, but I still think I'd prefer those over the barely existent ones in AMFP. The object you needed to find was usually right next to you, there was never any complex thing to solve, and the entire exploration was incredibly linear to the point of not having to think much when walking around. No turning around and going back, no missing things one or two times... always got to the right place immediately. I know that should sound like a good thing, but in survival horror it's that hopeless, 'where did i go wrong' feeling that so contributes to the atmosphere. The layout itself should be like a puzzle, I feel, and it was so perfect in TDD.

I'm not one to complain about the endless lantern, although that is another contributing factor to the 'hopeless' feeling that really is needed in games such as these. (I didn't mind so much 'cuz I love my lantern on all the time and always egging on dem bad guys :3)

Even so... I'm glad I purchased the game. I still enjoyed it. I understand that after what seemed like such a long wait, my hopes were already in really high standards. It was a beautiful dark tale, with brilliant music and sound... I loved the artwork, I loved so many things. The gameplay was really the only thing that disappointed me, and unfortunately that's the core of a game pretty much. If I could offer any consumer advice it would be to please bring back the interactive moments for whatever comes next, as well as the exploration and continual sense of dread that comes with survival horror experience.

[Kman]

i'm shit with introductions so i'm just gonna jump into this

i think a lot of the reason it's getting mediocre/bad reviews is cause too many people went into it expecting it to be amnesia 2 when really it was a very very different game than the dark descent. if you look at them separately and don't hold this game to the same standards as amfp i think it's a really great experience in its own right, though maybe lesser so than the original game

for one the focus of it was completely different from tdd which i'm guessing was mainly due to the chinese room making it. it was clear about half way through that the main focus was on the story and not about just scaring the shit out of you. in one sense i think this worked pretty well because one of tdd's biggest flaws was that the story telling was incredibly streamlined and static, whereas in amfp you kinda had to take a bunch of different pieces from diaries and notes and phonographs and telegrams and cut scenes and all sorts of different shit and put them together to form this big picture which made it feel a lot more immersive and interesting to try to piece it all together. the more personal take on the journal entries helped with that a lot and made checking your diary a lot more interesting and rewarding, since not only did it feel like you wrote it yourself, they also offered hints on the story a lot of the time. the story itself wasn't that interesting or complex honestly, but just the way it was told made it incredible.

at the same time that kinda caused a few of my biggest problems with it. for one, for a horror game it wasn't particularly… scary. that was probably the biggest issue i had. what made amnesia such a landmark in the survival horror genre was that the monster encounters were so fucking stressful and well done, and yet there were barely any in amfp, which was really disappointing. the build up of tension in the first few levels was phenomenal, but then when you finally encountered the pig monsters you only really had 3 or 4 real encounters with them before the game went full story-mode. the most memorable moments of tdd were the monster encounters, especially the levels that were solely devoted to them (the storage, the archives, the prison, the choir, etc.), and yet this game only had 1 or 2 levels that were totally horror focused which is kinda ridiculous for a survival horror game (though with that said those two levels were fucking amazingly well done and incredible tense, almost as much as the original probably).

which leads me to my next complaint which was the ending. i'm fully aware that what i'm considering "the ending" is probably a little far fetched, but i'm counting everything from the first moment where it felt like the climax, where you felt that sense of finality (i'd say this started right before you activate the machine) to the end. it just felt so insanely long winded and over the top that it kind of lost the magic that can come with a big ending like that. a friend of mine put it to words well i think, it basically felt like it was ending about 5 times, and by the actual end it just lost all it's impact. they spent at least a good hour and a half or two in that sort of climactic "this is the end of it all" mode and it had just lost so much of its power by the end of it. i'd be kind of okay with it if all of it was used well, but a good half of it was just random epic looking filler that didn't make a whole lot of sense. if they had cut a lot of that out and replaced it with more horror oriented stuff from the mid section i honestly think it would have blown the original game out of the water.

really i think if you look at those two complaints together you have what the biggest issue with it was, which was that it was just pretty poorly paced. it felt like they spent half the game in the exposition and rising action of the story and then the other half in the climax, and anyone who's past 3rd grade english could tell you that's not a good formula for a story. if they worked out that, i think a lot of the other minor issues i had with it would have gotten ironed out and it would have been a much much better experience.

as for pros i think pretty much every gameplay change they made was spot on. i'm super glad they removed tinderboxes and the need for putting oil in your lantern, that always felt like kind of a tacky system and relying on them and having to constantly look for them killed the immersion in a lot of parts. the inventory system could have been worked out better so you didn't have to carry stuff around everywhere but i think the idea to remove the menu itself was good since that reminds you you're in a game every time you used it. the puzzles were really well designed, i never got stuck anywhere for longer than 15 minutes which is a lot better than tdd, which can definitely be attributed to the lack of interaction i think. other than that, the graphics (and art design/mapping overall) and sound design were fucking amazing and absolutely blew tdd away.

with all that said, i think the good outweighs the bad in this case. they improved the story telling and overall immersion in it a LOT. putting aside the apparent pacing issues i still thought it was a very enjoyable experience in its own sense. i'm gonna give it a few more run throughs before i'm final on my opinion but right now i'd give it a solid 7.5/10

[TM2738]

For me, the game started out fantastic. Great atmosphere, ambience, music etc. Couldn't fault it too much at the start since I felt the story telling / evolution of the story were excellent.

The only two complaints I have are the length, it really could have been another hour or two longer, felt a bit short.

And the fact that it just stopped being scary and focused far too much on story telling during the last third of the game. After the sewers, once you realize London is burning, there is little atmosphere and it involves almost entirely just messing with machinery / listening to voice over. There was no danger for about 90 mins of game play, reallly hurt it I felt. I was just charging through waiting for actual terror to begin again.

7/10. Started fantastic, but the last third of the game really hurt it. Fantastic story, overall average gameplay.

I felt like that too. From the middle of the game there was no terror anymore. I still had a good time because of the story, but no more tension.

AMFP: 7/10
TDD: 9/10

[DominusVita]

Alright. Let's talk about a Machine For Pigs.

Amnesia: AMFP has made great strides in some areas, and lacked in sections(though not necessarily just the scare factor) that made the series what it was. While there were slight dissapointments, the game's high points still made it a satisfying playthrough.

Gameplay-Wise, many of the elements are still there, though the inventory has been essentially removed, and the resource management of Tinderboxes-and-Such has also vanished. While I think said resource management could've been toned down in TDD, I'm not sure an outright removal works best for Amnesia - I liked it for a better sense of realism. Losing tt wasn't a dealbreaker, but it'd be very nice to have back.

Some of the level design got some tasty editions. Having the backdoor hallways via secret entrances is always fun - Reminds me of Thief II: The Metal Age in one of the mansion levels.

The terror is pretty light. The 2 in particular that got me were unique to AMFP: "Cigarette Butts", as Fight Club referred to it(a single frame of something scary pops out), and the electro-mecha-pigs. It seems particularly inspired by Thief: Deadly Shadows in the mission "Robbing The Cradle". Those things still give me the willies. Unfortunately, the rest of the monsters in the game have AI very similar to everything else I've seen via both Penumbra and TDD, so I wasn't necessarily taken aback.

The Storyline and Setting are the high points. It has the Art Deco/Steampunk Art Style, but doesn't necessarily feel like a rehash of BioShock or the like(though the inspiration is certainly there). Neat doohickies like the air pressurization was pretty neat. It's (at least from my perspective) a more interesting setting/storyline than TDD. The telephone addition makes the experience a bit less isolated, which also is turning the terror down a bit.

So what else can I say about Amnesia: AMFP? I think Frictional/Chinese Room have the storylining, dialogue, and atmosphere down very well, but I never felt particularly challenged or as engaged as I had been in previous frictional games. It was still fun, I don't feel ripped off or anything, but I think there are gameplay sections that still have room for improvement. Many of the puzzles are a bit easier than I was expecting, generally tossing one inventory item to a different location.

I'd love to see more unique AI and art designs for monsters, puzzles that are a bit more complex than what AMFP was offering.