Saturday, October 26, 2013

Amnesia


At the very least doesn’t Frictional Games’s latest franchise have a majority of bugs I found in Penumbra: Overture, and next to that, the setting, dialogue, voice acting and horror have improved.

You are stranded in a large castle, suffering from amnesia and it is up to you to unravel the mysteries surrounding the location and ultimately escape. The creatures following you around had the purpose of holding your tension, you are after all unable to fight back.

Like Clock Tower and Haunting Ground, you must hide, avoid and as an added effect, reach for the light, or else your sanity will get to you. Or, if you look at the Gatherers for too long, you will suffer even worse and your vision becomes blurred and your controls lessened.

Unlike Outlast, Amnesia: The Dark Descent keeps the pacing effective, and there is no repetitive nature to be found here. As your character can only carry a lamp, tinderboxes and run away, you  must adapt to the darkness and solve puzzles while avoiding the creatures.

I do applaud these kinds of independent horror games, removing the violence option and leaving survival horror closer than ever, even more than the original Resident Evil, Silent Hill or Fatal Frame. It's a good current trend.

Eventually the story takes a new direction at the climax, allowing you to make up your own ending, but as with Overture before, I wasn’t really interested in the overall story, I was only interested in the clues for solving the puzzles and disturbing events playing here and there out.

Rating: 7.5


In this indirect sequel, you are tasked with rescuing your children from some vague industrial behemoth known as the Machine. I felt that the narrative and the plot were much stronger here than in The Dark Descent.

However, the gameplay has become even more thin than before. A Machine for Pigs removes item management, lamp refillment, an inventory and even the sanity. What you get in return is a permanent lit lamp while reading journals and storing memo's are intact.

Navigation felt disoriented but I always seemed to be able to find my next path. The Manpigs are a dissapointing enemy, but an interesting story object, as the Machine was created by the main character to deal with the degenerates.

These involve the poor, the beggars, the orphans, the whores, the filthy and the rest of the lowest "classes". I am not entirely sure how the machine for pigs works, but from what I gathered, these kinds of people were captured, slaughtered and then they were turned into pigs.

Meaning they were figuratively speaking already pigs, but the Machine merely killed and perhaps disguised the bodies inside pig parts? Not really sure, but I liked where the story was going and how it ended.

But a story alone cannot save a simplistic game like A Machine for Pigs, and therefore, it's a dissapointing sequel. It's not even remotely scary.

Rating: 6.8

No comments: