Playtime: 5 Hours
Score: 7/10
Another title in the Amnesia series I have finally played, with only Amnesia: The Bunker being left for me. I played through Dark Descent last year, and absolutely loved it despite me never being a fan of hide & seek horror games, but Frictional Games has always been the exception for me. Soma was another great experience, despite being light on gameplay, however I did not like Amnesia: Rebirth at all. That game just didn't click with me and I felt it lacked atmosphere and a compelling narrative. This game however, was developed by The Chinese Room, who make a lot of narrative focused, walking sim games. I personally really liked Dear Esther from them, but didn't really like Everbody's Gone to the Rapture, so I was interested to see their take on an Amnesia game.
A Machine for Pigs is probably the most divisive game in the series and I can see why. It strips away almost all the gameplay elements from Dark Descent, which I am not a fan of them doing that. No inventory or resource management; no healing items as your health regens automatically; you now use an electric lantern as opposed to an oil one, which never runs out; and the puzzles have been severly dumbed down. The puzzles are now just physics based puzzles where you have to physcially pick up items and bring them over to something else to interact with. And I used the term "puzzles" very loosely as most of them can be solved with just simple common sense. You also can barely pick up any items in the world like you can in most Frictional titles, unless its something needed to progress. I just found this disappointing as being able to interact and pick up almost anything in a Frictional game has always added to the immersion for me, and it was sad to see it toned down.
Some things they did get right was the sound design from the music to the sounds the machinery makes as this game is set in 1899, with very industrial themes. However, the sound mixing is not very good, especially if you play with headphones. Everything is just set way too loud. You also can't change individual sound settings such as, music, effects, voice etc.. with there only being one master sound setting. I had to basically turn the master down to half and still lower my headphone volume below what I usually set it too.
As for the horror, its got a decent atmosphere, but its definitely a step down from Dark Descent. The pig men in this game have a cool design, but there AI is really dumb and there easily avoidable, as when they chase you just have to sprint for a few seconds in the oppostie direction and they will just give up on trying to chase you. You also don't really seem to die in this game as when I did "die", my character would just wake up in another part of the level. Interesting though when I "died" the first time, it was a in a room full of cages and when I woke up, I was in a cage that the pig man must have dragged me into. I thought it was nice attention to detail to show the pigs have some level of intelligence.
That does finally bring us to the story which is what I think saves this title. I just found myself very intrigued with what was going on, and I read almost every note that I could find, trying to piece together the narrative. The voice acting is very good which adds to the powerful moments and it gave me some Bioshock vibes in some of its themes. It can feel like a repeat on plot beats from the first game, but I overall really liked it! It gets BATSHIT crazy in the last act and I didn't expect the story to do such a 180 turn!
Overall, the story is easily the best part and is why I'm scoring it higher then I normally would, with all the negatives stacked against it. This I would say is a good, entry level survival horror games for anyone looking to get into the genre. And this is still way better then Rebirth in my book.
All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 7/10
Another title in the Amnesia series I have finally played, with only Amnesia: The Bunker being left for me. I played through Dark Descent last year, and absolutely loved it despite me never being a fan of hide & seek horror games, but Frictional Games has always been the exception for me. Soma was another great experience, despite being light on gameplay, however I did not like Amnesia: Rebirth at all. That game just didn't click with me and I felt it lacked atmosphere and a compelling narrative. This game however, was developed by The Chinese Room, who make a lot of narrative focused, walking sim games. I personally really liked Dear Esther from them, but didn't really like Everbody's Gone to the Rapture, so I was interested to see their take on an Amnesia game.
A Machine for Pigs is probably the most divisive game in the series and I can see why. It strips away almost all the gameplay elements from Dark Descent, which I am not a fan of them doing that. No inventory or resource management; no healing items as your health regens automatically; you now use an electric lantern as opposed to an oil one, which never runs out; and the puzzles have been severly dumbed down. The puzzles are now just physics based puzzles where you have to physcially pick up items and bring them over to something else to interact with. And I used the term "puzzles" very loosely as most of them can be solved with just simple common sense. You also can barely pick up any items in the world like you can in most Frictional titles, unless its something needed to progress. I just found this disappointing as being able to interact and pick up almost anything in a Frictional game has always added to the immersion for me, and it was sad to see it toned down.
Some things they did get right was the sound design from the music to the sounds the machinery makes as this game is set in 1899, with very industrial themes. However, the sound mixing is not very good, especially if you play with headphones. Everything is just set way too loud. You also can't change individual sound settings such as, music, effects, voice etc.. with there only being one master sound setting. I had to basically turn the master down to half and still lower my headphone volume below what I usually set it too.
As for the horror, its got a decent atmosphere, but its definitely a step down from Dark Descent. The pig men in this game have a cool design, but there AI is really dumb and there easily avoidable, as when they chase you just have to sprint for a few seconds in the oppostie direction and they will just give up on trying to chase you. You also don't really seem to die in this game as when I did "die", my character would just wake up in another part of the level. Interesting though when I "died" the first time, it was a in a room full of cages and when I woke up, I was in a cage that the pig man must have dragged me into. I thought it was nice attention to detail to show the pigs have some level of intelligence.
That does finally bring us to the story which is what I think saves this title. I just found myself very intrigued with what was going on, and I read almost every note that I could find, trying to piece together the narrative. The voice acting is very good which adds to the powerful moments and it gave me some Bioshock vibes in some of its themes. It can feel like a repeat on plot beats from the first game, but I overall really liked it! It gets BATSHIT crazy in the last act and I didn't expect the story to do such a 180 turn!
Overall, the story is easily the best part and is why I'm scoring it higher then I normally would, with all the negatives stacked against it. This I would say is a good, entry level survival horror games for anyone looking to get into the genre. And this is still way better then Rebirth in my book.
All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/