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dkirschner's Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (PC)

[January 8, 2016 10:15:27 PM]

I enjoyed this, though I'd heard a lot of people trash-talking it. That's what happens when you try to follow up the original Amnesia I guess. It's been a long time since I played Amnesia, so I can't identify everything that's different with this. I do know that you're in less mortal danger, so it's not as scary. The pigmen in A Machine for Pigs are largely there for atmosphere, and they're really easy to avoid when you have to. There is no more sanity meter, which is a shame, because that was a defining feature of Amnesia. I fondly remember the bugs crawling on my screen when I was going out of my mind from fear, and myself getting more and more anxious the deeper into madness my character went. No such thing in this one. Also, did you have to find torches in the first one? Or keep it lit or something? Maybe...But in this one, you have a trusty lantern that for some reason never burns out. Basically, you don't have to manage anything. And the puzzles are simple and the environments are pretty linear and you are guided efficiently from A to B.

What did shine was the atmosphere. You descend deeper and deeper into a machine (for pigs) chasing after your children. The machine is disgusting; it's a processing facility for like engineering pig people from pigs and...people. There's filth everywhere, steam, blood, guts, grime, gross water, leaks, rust. And it's always creaking and hissing and roaring. The sound design was possibly my favorite part of the game, simple but effective. Visually, not terribly impressive aside from the machine aesthetic. Honestly I thought it looked like crap, and there are some weird color effects. Much of the game is tinged with a gray-blue. Not sure why they went with that. There are also irritating visual disturbances your character has when he is talking with the Engineer. Those make you slow down and you can't see straight until they are done talking. Also I immediately noticed tons and tons of the same posters and signs. This isn't a big or long game, and I wish there was some more variation in the rooms and things, especially in the beginning. Like 3 minutes in and I'd seen the same things hanging on the wall and seen about all the types of furniture I'd see for the next 4 hours.

Story is revealed piece by piece, which was fine until I started getting really confused toward the end about who various characters were. It could have been clearer with its plot turns, as that sapped some of my enjoyment. But do yourself a favor and go read a plot summary at the end, and it makes sense enough, though it does get oddly supernatural. And I have to say, this machine (for pigs) is really impractical and would never work ideologically either. The main character(s) are convinced that processing whores and beggars and orphans into pig-people will somehow redeem humankind...uuh. ok. I really don't follow the logic. It gets weirder.

Anyway, neat game. Not essential, but I'm glad I played it.