Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Developer: The Chinese Room
Price: $20
Platform: PC
A Steam code for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was supplied to us
Amnesia: The Dark Descent was big. It was the latest title from Frictional Games and easily one of the best horror games in recent years. It got people who aren’t normally into horror games interested in it and even if you didn’t know much about the genre, you definitely knew what Amnesia was. For the sequel, Frictional decided to put their faith in The Chinese Room whose only major title was a remake of Dear Esther. Their trust paid off because A Machine for Pigs is a gruesome beast that will suck you into its twisted world and spit you back out.
Some people might be happy to know that they won’t need to play through the first game to jump into this one since it has absolutely no relation to Dark Descent at all. That said, you should still probably play that game anyway because it’s damn good. Pigs opens up with your character, Oswald Mandus, being released from a cage in a mansion; his two children have gone missing in a factory and he’s dead set on rescuing them. That’s as much as I want to say because anything more will definitely spoil some of the experience, but know that it’s definitely a more interesting (and grim) story than the previous game. Unlike how most of the story in The Dark Descent was told through flashbacks explaining how the events at the mansion transpired, Pigs actually has Mandus talking with another character at times over a phone or even updating the journal with his thoughts on the current situation. Pigs has a more focused plot and lots of the changes made to the game are clearly done to tell a better story.
Let’s kick things right off the bat with confirming that the inventory is indeed gone and so is the resource management. You won’t be scrounging around for oil or tinderboxes since there are lamps you can turn on and your lantern runs on what I assume to be magic. Ok, it doesn’t really run on magic but whatever does fuel it never runs out. Many people aren’t going to like this change and some might be excited for it, but I personally think it makes A Machine for Pigs play differently than its predecessor in a way that works for it. The game has a story it wants to tell and doesn’t want you worried about running out of oil, asking yourself whether you should really use up a tinderbox to light a candle, or search every nook and cranny for more resources. You won’t be collecting things in an inventory since there’s nothing for you to actually collect or combine together. Any puzzles that need to be done won’t have you collecting items and will instead be a bit more straightforward. There isn’t a health bar either, or at least not one you can see since you will still get hurt from falls or attacks from enemies. The gameplay is a lot more streamlined but it doesn’t feel like it’s dumbed down at all. Instead it feels like a much tighter game than Dark Descent was.
The sanity meter has also been removed which is easily my favorite change. I absolutely hated how you were punished for hiding from enemies in The Dark Descent by having your vision blurred for absolutely no logical reason. It was a neat effect but really killed the enemy encounters for me by making them more of an annoyance than anything else. The removal of the sanity meter makes you focus 100% on the monstrosities hunting you instead of worrying about having your vision blurred and it’s one of the ways Machine for Pigs truly excels over its predecessor.
Unfortunately something that really kept distracting in the beginning was the inability to pick up anything I wanted. You can’t pick up a book to toss it halfway across the room or mess around with various objects in the environment like before. The only things you’ll be able to mess around with are chairs, drawers, and whatever object is required for solving a puzzle. Eventually you just get used to it, but it’s still a fairly odd omittance. The AI is also fairly predictable and once you figure out their pattern you can easily give them the slip. Remember those musical cues from Dark Descent that alerted you whenever there was an enemy in the area? Well those have now been replaced by the flickering of your lantern. I can’t decide which I prefer, but I know that don’t like either of them. People might also get a bit dismayed to know how short this game is, with it easily completed in five or so hours. Honestly though, if it wasn’t for the story being well crafted and ending satisfyingly I probably would’ve cared more about the short length. Anything longer would’ve just felt like filler to pad out the length.
A Machine for Pigs drops the sprawling mansion of before in favor of 1899 Victorian London. The game smartly opens you up in a familiar feeling mansion then slowly takes you on a ride through the grimy industrial factories and sewers of the era. The scares are also just as good as before, if not better when you slowly realize what horrors have been done in the factory. There’s an impressive amount of detail in the game and the artists should really be commended for crafting such a ghastly world. The creatures you’ll encounter have also been greatly improved from before and not only look terrifying, but sound it too. Hearing the shrill squeal of a pig as it hunts you in a deserted factory can get quite unnerving at times.
The Final Word
A Machine for Pigs makes some changes lots of people probably won’t like, but it does so for a more focused and tighter experience. Albeit much shorter than the first game, Pigs is a fantastic sequel and has me looking forward to The Chinese Room’s future work.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
