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Is it just me, or is this game, I don't know...Kinda bad?
This is nothing like the original amnesia, as in you can tell The Chinese Room's influence has had a negative effect by, essentially removing gameplay to make a "Better" setting. Ultimately in my opinion, this hasn't worked. At all. There were about two genuinely good moments, like the slave storage cells and other moments, but later events in the game just made me laugh.
(Potential spoilers enclosed)
Spoiler:
The raid on London is just so unbelievable. Its so dumb and so obviously trying to use shock factor its embarrassing.
When you go back into the machine, those blood fountains...Did anyone else laugh at how stupid it was?
The game just sort of feels...wrong. It tries too hard in some aspects (The pig references started to just get in the way) but doesn't even attempt to be challenging or interesting later on. Monsters easy to escape from, obvious "Gunna be a twist" storyline, and other negative aspects ultimately end up making what felt sort of...rushed. Which is odd considering how long it took to make.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/09/13 19:08:36
Story is nice. Visuals are great. It's eerie and grotesque as expected. The "twist" is also to be expected and isn't worse off for it. It's a great story.
It's just that, as you said, the gameplay is lacking. Aside from obviously scripted sections, there is almost nowhere where I, the player, felt in danger.
In Amnesia: TDD and even Amnesia:Justine, there were whole sections of the game where the monsters would have free reign to walk around and eat you. Pretty much the entire latter half of TDD from the prison onwards was full of free-walking and deliberately placed monsters. The Choir especially was a nightmare.
Machine for Pigs seems to have dozens of "scurry-scares" and looking at a monster doesn't have the sanity drain of the original game. It's disappointing.
I've not played the game myself but I've sat and watched a friend play a few hours of it, my first impression is that the steampunk machinery and hidden rooms are kinda cool but it lacked the atmosphere of the first game.
It's not really "steampunk". Most of the machines make sense, and the storyline is understandable. As you go further on, the implications of the machinery and the grotesque nastiness fits the theme of the original.
Just replace the Brannenburg castle setting with London, replace the magic/mysticism with machinery, and replace the Shadow with slaughtered pigs.
Then again, the removal of the sanity mechanic is a huge loss. There is no longer a penalty for staring directly into bad things, and there is no longer a tradeoff between light vs dark.
Corpsesarefun wrote: Really? A lot of it didn't seem out of place for a factory in the 1800's.
Oh, pardon. I thought you were saying MFP's tech was out-of-place for the time period and broke from the Amnesia aesthetic. I'm of the opinion that it fits for the 1980's so long as you accept TTD's pain-alchemy fitting for its time period.
Absolutionis wrote: It's not really "steampunk". Most of the machines make sense.
Since when is that a stipulation of Steampunk? Yeah sci-fi illustrators are not engineers, so most of the tech is fanciful, but whether or not the technology in a Steampunk setting works or not is irrelevant to it's classification. I think this game is perfectly fitting of a steampunk branding. Also i have a sneaky suspicion that you have no idea if the machines in this game could work or not (fuel and maintenance would be my initial concerns).
Also i assume by 'Pain-Alchemy' you're referring to the genre trope of Thaumaturgy? Which in itself is a genre of sorts (Due to semantic shift (and it's total debunking in real life lol) this word is only really used in fiction now to describe any sort of retro-futuristic 'Science-Magic', apart from any genre fiction would use 'Natural-Philosophy' instead of 'Science'( for various boring reasons).
Jeez get your genre classifications right dude.
EDIT: Got sidetracked.
This game just strikes me as 'CONFIRMATION BIAS THE VIDEOGAME: Reckoning'. Critics immediately like it because of Dear Esther and Chinese Room, Gamers immediately hate it because of Dear Esthe............. You get the idea.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/09/13 23:48:33
Mary Sue wrote: Perkustin is even more awesome than me!
I may pick this up, but I heard it was inferior to the original. I had the choice between this and Outlast, and went with the latter.
Its probably a bargian at 20 bucks right off the bat, but I'll wait for a steam sale.
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
Since when is that a stipulation of Steampunk? Yeah sci-fi illustrators are not engineers, so most of the tech is fanciful, but whether or not the technology in a Steampunk setting works or not is irrelevant to it's classification. I think this game is perfectly fitting of a steampunk branding.
Steampunk, by its basic premise, is based on anachronistic or retrofuturistic technologies. The game takes place on Earth in 1899 in a world where everything operates as normal aside from one thing. This is not "steampunk". Frankenstein was not "steampunk"; it was SciFi-Horror. This storyline is Frankenstein.
Perkustin wrote: Also i have a sneaky suspicion that you have no idea if the machines in this game could work or not (fuel and maintenance would be my initial concerns).
It's a fantasy game. Whether the machines would really work or not is irrelevant. Look up the difference between 'verisimilitude' and 'realism'.
The puzzles in this game have the machines operate as they should. The puzzles are logical. Compare this to games like Myst where pushing a button in a book operates a steam-powered staircase in an underwater base in another dimension; that's fantasy.
Perkustin wrote: Also i assume by 'Pain-Alchemy' you're referring to the genre trope of Thaumaturgy? Which in itself is a genre of sorts (Due to semantic shift (and it's total debunking in real life lol) this word is only really used in fiction now to describe any sort of retro-futuristic 'Science-Magic', apart from any genre fiction would use 'Natural-Philosophy' instead of 'Science'( for various boring reasons).
So I googled "thaumaturgy trope" and the first thing that popped up was "Whatevermancy". I guess "Whatevermancy" fits your understanding of the games.
I used the term because it's some magical wishy-washy system utilizing pain. This pain-based magic was the fundamental basis behind the entire premise of the first game. I'm not sure how you could have missed that.
It really has nothing to do with thaumaturgy, so no, your assumption is wrong.
Perkustin wrote: Jeez get your genre classifications right dude.
Likewise.
Perkustin wrote: This game just strikes me as 'CONFIRMATION BIAS THE VIDEOGAME: Reckoning'. Critics immediately like it because of Dear Esther and Chinese Room, Gamers immediately hate it because of Dear Esthe............. You get the idea.
The rest of us play the game and develop an opinion based on that. It's not like Amnesia:TDD due to many of its mechanics being removed.
Also, you're a crazy person.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/09/14 01:10:52
The puzzles in this game have the machines operate as they should. The puzzles are logical. Compare this to games like Myst where pushing a button in a book operates a steam-powered staircase in an underwater base in another dimension; that's fantasy.
You've made me want to play Myst. You're a monster.
Also, I've played it for a few hours, I find it lacking compared to TDD, but I haven't written it off yet. Just going to try go for it with different expectations now.
Prestor Jon wrote: Because children don't have any legal rights until they're adults. A minor is the responsiblity of the parent and has no legal rights except through his/her legal guardian or parent.
I found taht the first half of the game was scary and got a few good jumps out of me. But...
Spoiler:
Once they showed where the pigs were held and watched them walk around, it wasn't scary anymore. They should have left that part to the very end instead of half way through the game.
Ask yourself: have you rated a gallery image today?
Mr Nobody wrote: I found taht the first half of the game was scary and got a few good jumps out of me. But...
Spoiler:
Once they showed where the pigs were held and watched them walk around, it wasn't scary anymore. They should have left that part to the very end instead of half way through the game.
Spoilers ahoy!
I'd say though, the best part of the game was when you see the Pigman playing with the blocks. Why wasn't the whole game this creepy? This part, was brilliant.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/09/24 22:37:00
Prestor Jon wrote: Because children don't have any legal rights until they're adults. A minor is the responsiblity of the parent and has no legal rights except through his/her legal guardian or parent.
I liked it from a story perspective, but I feel like there was a whole lot of lost potential.
The pig people weren't really scary. I mean, I kind of got freaked out by the one in the cemetery, but other than that not really. And I think they could have been scary, just like I think the game could have made me feel much, much more vulnerable. As it was, I knew there were a lot of points I could wander around with my light on, hopping and skipping through the Pig Factory without a care in the world.
Spoiler:
And I sort of missed this...what was the whole point of it? I mean...was it just to make pig people? I got the feeling they were a biproduct. And who was the dude on life support? I always got the idea that Mandus was both the bad guy and the good guy and that all the talking was going on in his head.
xole wrote: I liked it from a story perspective, but I feel like there was a whole lot of lost potential.
The pig people weren't really scary. I mean, I kind of got freaked out by the one in the cemetery, but other than that not really. And I think they could have been scary, just like I think the game could have made me feel much, much more vulnerable. As it was, I knew there were a lot of points I could wander around with my light on, hopping and skipping through the Pig Factory without a care in the world.
Spoiler:
And I sort of missed this...what was the whole point of it? I mean...was it just to make pig people? I got the feeling they were a biproduct. And who was the dude on life support? I always got the idea that Mandus was both the bad guy and the good guy and that all the talking was going on in his head.
Spoiler:
Its not clear if the voices are just in his head, memories, or what, I thought the guy at the end was his assistant person who he locks in the dark right near the end. Since its physically impossible for him to both be in the machine and be the player, thats what im going with, I was thinking he was just insane until the end when he takes his place and decides to shut the thing down. The dialog leads you to think that his mind was split, but then where did the body come from? its needlessly murky imo.
Its not really clear what the machine is for, near the end he keeps talking about how its purpose is to stop the new age of world wars, I'm guessing by turning everyone into pigs, but there's a bunch of talk of either a time machine or an atomic bomb, but again it doesn't really make much sense.
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Yeah, the twist(s?) wasn't/weren't entirely unexpected, and it definitely didn't have a whole lot of gameplay per se since it was mostly walking around and pick up physics objects and placing them where they were needed, but up until the spoilered bit, (and not the bit in the OP (though I agree it seemed a bit... over the top I mean the part most other people are talking about) the game was legitimately frightening at points and very tense at almost all other times.
I also felt pretty invested in Oswald and the story of the game.
Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit and wasn't to fussed about the dumbing down (basically complete removal of all) mechanics. The way it worked for me, is, I suppose, the scariest portions of Dark Descent were, generally, scarier than any point of A Machine For Pigs, but Machine For Pigs made me feel more dread and anxiety, largely due to its story.
Spoiler:
Also, if the "Stone Egg" mentioned in some of the notes is like the Orb from TDD, then perhaps it, being some kind of magic doodad/plot device, is what gave the "Other Mandus" his physical form? Also I think the point of the pigs was some flying rodent gak crazy idea to prevent the horrors of the 21st century from happening; when Mandus found the orb, it showed him visions of the future, so he decided to turn everyone into Manpigs so that WWI/WWII/etc wouldn't happen. Again, he's pretty insane, so keep that in mind.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2013/09/28 08:49:09
(fuel and maintenance would be my initial concerns).
