Works better when it leans more on Wreden's more personal moments (like the epilogue, which is the only full sequence I liked). It's a lot less engaging, which is what happens when you change the focus from a choice-based game to a hour and a half essay about the expectation and perception that people have of sequels/expansions/re-releases, but even taking that apart there's just nothing interesting being said here. Yeah collectibles are useless and just an artifical way of engaging the player with extra content, yes the bucket is just a sorry excuse of an expansion and the new endings are nothing more than filler to fulfill your desire of an expanded game. Yeah expansions suck. I get, you get it, we all get it, nothing new. The bucket joke feels like a sore try to the companion cube and the commentary that it's endings try to make is just... boring, shitty even.

There's a couple of funny moments here and there, but I just bored playing through, maybe I just don't find the game's humor funny anymore or it's just a lot more uninspired. It just subtracts from the base game, though that doesn't matter since it's clearly more intended as a sequel than an expansion. You could tell me "the point of the expansion is that it sucks!!!" but idk and idc.

Or hey, maybe it's actually pretty cool and I'm just mad that I payed for virtually the same game and expected actual interesting stuff and got this instead!!

They weren't joking about the pig part, huh. Like, there's a scene where the villain sends his evil pigmen to kill you while screaming "Kill him my piggies! More pig! MORE PIG!" and that's when you realise how silly this game is. The pig motif gets so worn-out it just feels like a joke and the story gets progressively more over-the-top to insane levels like an army of pigmen that want to destroy humanity and I just can't anymore. I didn't even fully understand what was the initial intention of creating the Machine. Everything regarding Mandus' children and his relationship with them is what ended up impacting me the most, and even then I feel like it's mostly because of the cool soundtrack and atmosphere rather than whatever the writing wanted to accomplish with how unnecessarily obtuse and DEEP the notes and found documents tried to be. Game tries way too hard.

The atmosphere is cool af tho. Rooms full of giant pipes, valves, steam, sealed doors, regulators and lights. That moment when you finally get to the core of the machine and see this giant room full of catwalks, pipes and faint lights is so fucking cool. Even when you go out to the streets the ost make it a really impactful moment, despite how ridiculous the whole situation is.

Anyway, kinda disappointed about the game itself but I was expecting machines and pigs and it met my expectations so I'm good.