AMFP Member Review Thread

[LuckyBlackCatXIII]

I had the same the problem, but only after I loaded a save game. And that was on a PC.

This may also be a good time to mention that the Russian version requires a bit of additional work. I noticed multiple occasions where noun cases were used wrong, which made the dialogue a bit confusing.

That's really strange but thinking back I think I only started getting those problems after saving and returning to the game as well, I wonder what that's all about? Glad to know it wasn't just me though!

I didn't notice anything like that with my Mac version.
But maybe I'm just lucky, because it seems that some people had a bunch of glitches through their playthrough of the game, both on Mac and PC, and I got none^^

I guess you did, lucky you (not that my issue was that big, but still)!

[Sir Geoff of Vader]

I've just written a review of the game that's around 2000 words, so I'm quite interested to see what y'all think. Due to its size it would be pretty inconvenient to post it here, but I'll put a link somewhere to the blog it's on. Anyway, I'm chiefly curious to see what people agree with and what they don't and I'd quite like to start some kind of discussion considering it's such an interesting game.

Here's the link:
No Work All Play

One last thing, the blog's just started and a friend of mine is writing some triple-A reviews, but if you leave him be he (probably) won't bite...

[Gilligan's Hell]

I'm a bit late to post my review so here it is.

The Story: The story is instantly better than The Dark Descent. it's more emotional and more disturbing, it really draws you deeper into the game.

The writing: Phenomenal. I loved the art style and the writing of the game.

The Gameplay: Gameplay isn't the most important thing. AAMFP's Gameplay is different to The Dark Descent in a good way. I really don't care about Infinite lantern (refueling is a pain in the ass anyway) and the lantern mechanics are better than ATDD because it actually has purpose in game, it's handy to detect that an enemy is near.

The Sound: Many ways better than ATDD. Better Music, Better Sound Design and Better Voice Acting.

The Overall: The Truth is that it is Better than ATDD in many ways, Not exactly gameplay wise mainly Story wise and Atmospheric sense. ATDD Still is the scariest game.
10/10 Unforgettable, Terrifying and Emotional.

[Diz]

The Story: The story is instantly better than The Dark Descent. it's more emotional and more disturbing, it really draws you deeper into the game.

The writing: Phenomenal. I loved the art style and the writing of the game.

The Gameplay: Gameplay isn't the most important thing. AAMFP's Gameplay is different to The Dark Descent in a good way. I really don't care about Infinite lantern (refueling is a pain in the ass anyway) and the lantern mechanics are better than ATDD because it actually has purpose in game, it's handy to detect that an enemy is near.

The Sound: Many ways better than ATDD. Better Music, Better Sound Design and Better Voice Acting.

The Overall: The Truth is that it is Better than ATDD in many ways and people need to grow up and realize and stop comparing the two.

10/10 Unforgettable, Terrifying and Emotional.

Didn't you compare the two several times just now? xD It's not just the gameplay that is different, it's the game altogether, so don't say it's better, that's up to the individual player to decide, I think it is a matter of opinion and not fact. =)

You say story and immersion was a lot better in AAMFP, which I can understand. I think they were both amazing stories. When it comes to immersion, personally, I connect better with a character, like in TDD, when your character ie. only knows his name, whereas in AAMFP, it is clear that your character seems aware of a lot of things, like secret passages before entering them and the fact that there is a great machine underground. The new lantern in AAMFP was great, it really kicked me in the crotch when danger was near, because not only would it be hard to see what was happening, but sometimes when flickering, its downtime would exceed the uptime by far, making me panic. Great addition.

I loved both games a ton, but I would not say one is a lot better than the other, that seems unfair to me. Personally, I say they are equally good, or if anything, The Dark Descent is better at one type of horror while A Machine For Pigs is better at a different type of horror, I think that might be a good way to put it. I feel A Machine For Pigs scared me in several different ways instead of focusing on sheer terror. When I took a break in fearing for my own life, I started fearing for the fate of my children, others and eventually even for the fate of the general population of the world due to what I had contributed in making, and it was running way out of control. That was intense! ^^

[TwiK999]

I'm a bit late to post my review so here it is.

The Story: The story is instantly better than The Dark Descent. it's more emotional and more disturbing, it really draws you deeper into the game.

The writing: Phenomenal. I loved the art style and the writing of the game.

The Gameplay: Gameplay isn't the most important thing. AAMFP's Gameplay is different to The Dark Descent in a good way. I really don't care about Infinite lantern (refueling is a pain in the ass anyway) and the lantern mechanics are better than ATDD because it actually has purpose in game, it's handy to detect that an enemy is near.

The Sound: Many ways better than ATDD. Better Music, Better Sound Design and Better Voice Acting.

The Overall: The Truth is that it is Better than ATDD in many ways and people need to grow up and realize and stop comparing the two.

10/10 Unforgettable, Terrifying and Emotional.

I'm not arguing with you here but you contradict yourself when you say "people need to grow up and stop comparing the two", when you're doing exactly that. It seems as if you completely bashed TDD and I'm surprised that you gave AMFP 10/10.

[Gilligan's Hell]

I'm a bit late to post my review so here it is.

The Story: The story is instantly better than The Dark Descent. it's more emotional and more disturbing, it really draws you deeper into the game.

The writing: Phenomenal. I loved the art style and the writing of the game.

The Gameplay: Gameplay isn't the most important thing. AAMFP's Gameplay is different to The Dark Descent in a good way. I really don't care about Infinite lantern (refueling is a pain in the ass anyway) and the lantern mechanics are better than ATDD because it actually has purpose in game, it's handy to detect that an enemy is near.

The Sound: Many ways better than ATDD. Better Music, Better Sound Design and Better Voice Acting.

The Overall: The Truth is that it is Better than ATDD in many ways and people need to grow up and realize and stop comparing the two.

10/10 Unforgettable, Terrifying and Emotional.

I'm not arguing with you here but you contradict yourself when you say "people need to grow up and stop comparing the two", when you're doing exactly that. It seems as if you completely bashed TDD and I'm surprised that you gave AMFP 10/10.

i'm not bashing ATDD, I Understand AMFP's story more than ATDD. I LOVED ATDD and it is still the scariest game i played. I Just didn't clearly understand the story of ATDD. I Read all the notes i could get my hands on and still it puzzled me.

I Gave AMFP 10/10 because its how i think it deserves. I Loved every minute, every hour cowering in fear of the manpigs. i loved playing it.

i may have overeacted about the comparison issue. i edited my post to avoid more confusion.

[Damascus Rose]

I think AMFP atmosphere wasn't as threating, and the music was underused. Also they didn't pick very scary environments. I was expecting to walk through the pigline into a pace where we can see the actual machine working, but we don't get anything like that. There wasn't anything disgusting like in TDD. I mean, in outlast there's fucking decapitated heads everywhere, guys impaled by sticks, you get to see a guy burn to death. there wasn't anything CREEPY like this in amfp. Past the halfway point they also completely forgot about horror and focused only on story (when you get to see the pigs up close) it greatly confused me. The horror aspect was soft. I was expecting some scary monster chase scenes too or a place where there are monsters everywhere like the dungeon, but nope.Theres like 4 encounters in the game and only two are scary at all.

That was the most depressing thing for me. I was so disappointed that I couldn't go through the piglines with hanging bodies or go to any of the awesome places in the concept art. I just expected deep in the game, past the halfway point it would turn into a hell of pigmen and gore and machines, but it went the complete opposite direction.

[Nice]

yeah i kinda imagined the game differently before i started playing it, i thought it was gonna include stomach turning gore, and disturbingness on a whole new level. I thought its gonna approach you with its horrors more directly than ATDD but i guess it was the other way around!

ah well, still, the game was good

[Edrioth]

This game was unfortunately a huge dissappointment. As an individual game it was "nice" at best but as an Amnesia-game, it was an utter failure IMHO. I had waited for the release of this game for so long and the expectations were very high. Albeit overall I think the game failed, I do appreciate some aspects of it.

I think the further I got in the game, the more it failed. At the start of the game, everything seemed promising but towards the end I felt quite annoyed. The story was quite good and the graphics were very very nice as always. So what went wrong? As so many people have already said, this game was a walking simulator by thechineseroom with some pigmen thrown here and there. There was no gameplay, no interaction. Only straight forward walking and clicking on things. Therefore, no feelings of accomplishment! The voice acting was superb, I will give thechineseroom that.

The encounters with the pigmen. Oh gosh, what can I say. The pigmen weren't scary at all in my opinion. The AI was bad and there were too few encounters and even those were very mild. Not horrifying.

I think many people will disagree with what I am about to say right now but here it goes: the soundtrack was bad. I know this is just about personal preference so what can you do. In the previous Amnesia and in the Penumbra -games the soundtracks by Mikko Tarmia were a major part what made those games for me. The soundtrack in AMFP just couldn't wake up the terror in me. I am a composer myself too so don't get me wrong, it was not badly composed or anything. Just not a soundtrack for a horrifying experience.

From what I wrote, you could draw a conclusion that I hated the game but that's not true. I actually somewhat liked it. It wasn't a bad game. It was a bad _Amnesia_ -game. Of course people are going to compare it to its predecessor because it has its name on it.

I gave this game a 4/10. If this wasn't an Amnesia -game, I would probably give it 7/10.

Describing the game in one word: Anti-climatic.

[Ossie]

I think AMFP atmosphere wasn't as threating, and the music was underused. Also they didn't pick very scary environments. I was expecting to walk through the pigline into a pace where we can see the actual machine working, but we don't get anything like that. There wasn't anything disgusting like in TDD. I mean, in outlast there's fucking decapitated heads everywhere, guys impaled by sticks, you get to see a guy burn to death. there wasn't anything CREEPY like this in amfp. Past the halfway point they also completely forgot about horror and focused only on story (when you get to see the pigs up close) it greatly confused me. The horror aspect was soft. I was expecting some scary monster chase scenes too or a place where there are monsters everywhere like the dungeon, but nope.Theres like 4 encounters in the game and only two are scary at all.

That was the most depressing thing for me. I was so disappointed that I couldn't go through the piglines with hanging bodies or go to any of the awesome places in the concept art. I just expected deep in the game, past the halfway point it would turn into a hell of pigmen and gore and machines, but it went the complete opposite direction.

Do all players need to be spoon-fed their visceral horror onscreen? I found the content of the very well written notes to be far more horrifying and disturbing than anything depicted visually in The Dark Descent (or Outlast for that matter). A Machine For Pigs mostly relies on the player absorbing the atmosphere and the content of the notes and so letting the player's imagination come up with the visuals, and that to me is far more involving than anything any graphics artist can come up with.