To be honest I loved "a machine for pigs"'s story. It tlkes about a fear that is very human. "A dark descent" and "rebirth" both talk about fears that are shared in the animal kingdom, the fear of death and the fear of losing one's child. But a machine for pigs talks about an exclusively human fear, the fear of the future, of impending doom and powerlesness to stop it. Mandus saw the two more cruel wars in human history, the two bombs dropped in japan and the dead of his two children, and was offered a way to give an end to all of that
Completely disagree, Mandus isn't "afraid of the future" he's afraid of his children dying, to the point where he kills them himself in his fever. And on that note, isn't Daniel also "afraid of the future" because he does everything he does to ward off what will eventually come.
@@qing7902 the fear of his children dying is in fact part of what a machine for pigs is about, but mandus didn't stop at killing his offspring, did he? he designed and built an entire facility dedicated to erase humanity so that the horrible future he saw never came to be. The machine for pigs was built because he was afraid of the future he saw. on the other hand Daniel is afraid of the darkness that follows him but during most of the game the theme is surviving the current horrors in the castle, so I think that the main fear is the fear of dying immediately.
@@vulpesaxis8494 Firstly, it is factually inaccurate that Mandus is trying to "erase humanity", he is trying to sacrifice enough people so that the first and second world wars do not happen, not destroy them altogether; where did you get the idea that he was trying to genocide humanity from? Additionally, you're obfuscating the difference between narrative and gameplay, Daniel is very much so trying to escape his future in the narrative but in game he is trying to evade the monsters... and Mandus is doing the same thing. The narrative sees Mandus trying to destroy the machine, then fix it, then destroy it while the gameplay sees you avoiding the immediate threat of pigs, and this is where this is where the "fear" comes from; it's immediate not existential. I haven't played Rebirth so I'm not going to comment on it but the idea that the Dark Descent focuses on the future any less than Machine for Pigs does is ridiculous I find.
@@qing7902 killing enough people to stop the first and second world wars is basically genocide, also I don't know which note or memory said anything about stopping, in fact the engineer says "show me this worthy people Mandus" when Mandus asks to forgive the worthy from being killed. Also Daniel's life is already being affected by the darkness at the beginning of the game so it is an immediate danger with future implications rather than a fear of the future, Daniel's life is already being doomed. But for the sake of argument yes, Daniel is trying to stop the curse so it is in fact a fear of the future, I just see it as a more present matter than a future thing. The curse feels more immediate that the first world war from the respective perspectives.
I read posts on Tumblr discussing about the notes in AMFP long time ago. One that interested me the most is about the belief that the Earth core is a giant solid metal "egg". Iirc, I think it was also implied that the humans were caught and slaughtered in the machine to extract Vitae from their blood. In Compound X puzzle, we learned that Compound X could be used to destroy metal lock and it required Vitae to create it. Basically, the machine tried to mass-produce Compound X, somehow inject it into the Earth core in hope the Earth would explode and we all sent to the heaven, without experiencing the horror of upcoming century. Such mundane puzzle doesn't seem so innocent anymore.
I feel like if this game didn't have the Amnesia brand attached to it, it would have been a little more accepted amongst horror fans. Still flawed but the fact that people were expecting it to fill in TDD's shoes is what made it so much more disappointing.
4:40 section... this reason was why I enjoyed this game so much, and had the desire to play it. I love a good story, but I do not love being scared 24/7. When I heard the story of amfp, the reasons why a lot of people dislike it were the exact things that piqued my attention. The "walking simulator" aspect really allowed me to appreciate the amazing story being told. I'm so glad it was the route taken, or else I probably wouldn't have ever gotten into amnesia as a whole. That being said, I still completely understand being not liking the game. I think it would have been much better not under the amnesia title (with a few tweaks, as it does have its connection to the dark descent)
I recently played A Machine for Pigs in one sitting just as I did with Dark Descent. Both are phenomenal games in their own right. I like them both equally for different reasons. Dark Descent felt empowering as Daniel fought valiantly to defeat the evil one who deceived him, whilst Machine for Pigs felt woefully remorseful as Oswald fought the evil he had created from his dystopian delusion of "peace" through control, betrayal, and bloodshed. I feel that Dark Descent has more replay value between having more achievements and also custom stories, but the atmosphere on top of the story of Machine for Pigs felt so dangerous, lonely and intricate that I was immersed the whole time.
as someone who binged anmesia vids back in 2012, was always confused about how I didn't hear about the sequal. Thank you for covering it! It makes me wanna hop into the game myself
Excellent video. AMFP has forever and always been my favorite Amnesia game. Its story, similar to more character-driven stories like Bioshock 2, is often misunderstood. Hard to say without sounding pretentious, but it’s true: people don’t “get” this game, which is sad.
I really like A Machine For Pigs. It wasn't very scary, was quite short and too easy but I played it more like an experience, rather than a game. The atmosphere of XIX century London at the beginning of indindustrialisation was really well captured and it made the game's world very interesting to roam around. The voice acting, notes and locations were set a really uneasy tone. It was different than The Dark Descent but still a great game.
@SillyBeans-m1l Each to their own, for me The Dark Descent was scarier because there was a bigger threat. In Machine For Pigs there are maybe only 2 areas when in one you are chased by a pig and in the second you have to hide before the electric pig and that's it. The Dark Descent has more areas like this, for example in The Prison there is a lot of monsters roaming around, earlier you have this water monster, then near where you meet Agrippa. A lot more scarier areas in general.
I dont know if this game would still be considered good if it wasn’t an amneisa game. Its story, while a great premise, is too big to grand and supernatural to be told through brief journal entries, flashbacks, and cryptic dialog. If it was made differently, (i dont know how but) it could have been more fun to play and delivered its story better.
I still find the story substandard and the lack of gameplay predictably disappointing, given it's the Chinese room doing it, but the game has potentials and merits. I think you did a great job presenting the odds it faced. Have my subscription good sir!
The video was really well done. I never watched a play through or played amnesia a machine for pigs myself so this video was the first time I heard anything about the story...and despite it losing some of the horror aspects that made amnesia so great, despite this wehn I saw the part wehre you get closer to the machine, the music, the voice acting, the weight of it all just made me look at it with awe, a shame this game had to be called amnesia...any other name and this game may have been something greater...not a masterpiece...but something greater, just my two cents on the video, I will definitely subscribe, love your channel so far and I hope you become more popular
Thank you for making this video, I don’t see nearly enough folks talking about this game even in passing! Lovely to see such a rad video on the subject
i really enjoyed this game. because i knew what it was and i had the right mindset going in. i didnt except a horror game or even a proper follow up to the dark descent. i took it as a good interactive story with some fantastic sounddesign and writing. had a blast.
For me I think it’s failure was just about the time it came out in, We just got Outlast and Slender: The Arrival and everybody was hyping this to be the best horror game ever and, It was good, But boring and not scary compared to TDD, So it was easier to just pay attention to Outlast and Slender after it released.
I just wonder what happened to the original build of this game. Whatever they originally had in mind for us was undoubtedly supposed to be terrifying. Think of the sequence in the very first trailer we got where the pig busted down the door that never made it into the final product. You could even say the second trailer spoke that same message to, the one where Oswald walked through that door with the plastic slaughter house strips and seemed to lead to an area similar to the church basement. It looked like it was originally geared to control a lot like TDD did but something between that first trailer and release derailed the game into being something completely different. The narrative, creature design, and setting is good enough that if frictional were to go back and overhaul this title in means of gameplay then this could actually be a good game. Especially in today’s politics with all the war and shit, a story like this might hit home with people.
Mm... Nah. AMFP's does not really warrant this second look. Nothing you said was revelatory regarding its content, nothing made me see it in a new light. Its just reaffirmed to me that its plot is actually extraordinarily simple and almost boringly straightforward, but it conceals that simplicity beneath a shroud of absurdly verbose language. Its story is not particularly compelling. It doesn't say anything new or exceptional (WWI was miserable, the elites are assholes, etc.), and the indirectness with which it tries to deliver its ideas through the established storytelling conventions of Amnesia means that none of them are driven into you with any sort of impact, since it's just some old English dude bitching and whinging about things we barely see the echoes of. The image is supposed to be of humans degenerated to the base beasthood from which all of the petty lusts and hungers which drive us arise, prowling about the creaking labyrinthine edifice of the industry we've cocooned around ourselves, but that caricature is all that's there, and it dresses that sparse image up in a whole lot of hollow filler. AMFP isn't held back by the Amnesia name, it's held back by the fact it's a bad game built on the shoddy foundation of a bad story. If anything, the Amnesia IP propped it up, allowing it to be more successful than it could ever have dreamed of being on its own.
I just play recently Amnesia A Machine for Pigs. I can understand that it terms of the story it was pretty unique, even if I didn’t find it extraordinary I thought it was original. But I think the main issue of the game is simply the gameplay. The Dark Descent had amazing mechanics with the use of the dark and the inventory for the puzzle and A Machine for Pigs just took away all the good ideas of gameplay and ad nothing more. It still a sequel, so it needs to improve the gameplay of the first or ad something new, but Instead it just took away interesting mechanics and nothing more. So this is why for me this game is pretty mediocre: in my opinion the writing is pretty descent, but the gameplay is really weak.
The pros and cons of this game: 1- Better graphics but far less impressive and animations and cut scenes . 2-The "game is so boring and unegaging you could literally take your hands off the key board and mouse to just watch it play itself . 3-redendant use of notes the old game use cool sences and and awesome animations to make the game more enthusiatic and fun the new one however ironically used only pen and paper for story telling even though the developers should have capable of animation cooler stuff . 3-While the start of the game is amazing and get real hyped the fact that 90 precent of what is left is just walking and listing to spooks is just utterly unamusing let alone scary. 4-Personally I found the Pigs to be disturbing and horrifying but they only showed for few moments plus its so easy to troll them and get by unnoticed.
Oh, yes, claim the only reason Amnesia: The Dark Descend is popular and well-respected because of Let's Players. Don't give any credit to the game, itself.
To be honest I loved "a machine for pigs"'s story. It tlkes about a fear that is very human. "A dark descent" and "rebirth" both talk about fears that are shared in the animal kingdom, the fear of death and the fear of losing one's child. But a machine for pigs talks about an exclusively human fear, the fear of the future, of impending doom and powerlesness to stop it. Mandus saw the two more cruel wars in human history, the two bombs dropped in japan and the dead of his two children, and was offered a way to give an end to all of that
Completely agreed, as much as I love The Dark Descent, I think the story of pigs is so tragic and human
Completely disagree, Mandus isn't "afraid of the future" he's afraid of his children dying, to the point where he kills them himself in his fever. And on that note, isn't Daniel also "afraid of the future" because he does everything he does to ward off what will eventually come.
@@qing7902 the fear of his children dying is in fact part of what a machine for pigs is about, but mandus didn't stop at killing his offspring, did he? he designed and built an entire facility dedicated to erase humanity so that the horrible future he saw never came to be. The machine for pigs was built because he was afraid of the future he saw. on the other hand Daniel is afraid of the darkness that follows him but during most of the game the theme is surviving the current horrors in the castle, so I think that the main fear is the fear of dying immediately.
@@vulpesaxis8494 Firstly, it is factually inaccurate that Mandus is trying to "erase humanity", he is trying to sacrifice enough people so that the first and second world wars do not happen, not destroy them altogether; where did you get the idea that he was trying to genocide humanity from?
Additionally, you're obfuscating the difference between narrative and gameplay, Daniel is very much so trying to escape his future in the narrative but in game he is trying to evade the monsters... and Mandus is doing the same thing. The narrative sees Mandus trying to destroy the machine, then fix it, then destroy it while the gameplay sees you avoiding the immediate threat of pigs, and this is where this is where the "fear" comes from; it's immediate not existential.
I haven't played Rebirth so I'm not going to comment on it but the idea that the Dark Descent focuses on the future any less than Machine for Pigs does is ridiculous I find.
@@qing7902 killing enough people to stop the first and second world wars is basically genocide, also I don't know which note or memory said anything about stopping, in fact the engineer says "show me this worthy people Mandus" when Mandus asks to forgive the worthy from being killed. Also Daniel's life is already being affected by the darkness at the beginning of the game so it is an immediate danger with future implications rather than a fear of the future, Daniel's life is already being doomed. But for the sake of argument yes, Daniel is trying to stop the curse so it is in fact a fear of the future, I just see it as a more present matter than a future thing. The curse feels more immediate that the first world war from the respective perspectives.
I read posts on Tumblr discussing about the notes in AMFP long time ago. One that interested me the most is about the belief that the Earth core is a giant solid metal "egg".
Iirc, I think it was also implied that the humans were caught and slaughtered in the machine to extract Vitae from their blood. In Compound X puzzle, we learned that Compound X could be used to destroy metal lock and it required Vitae to create it.
Basically, the machine tried to mass-produce Compound X, somehow inject it into the Earth core in hope the Earth would explode and we all sent to the heaven, without experiencing the horror of upcoming century.
Such mundane puzzle doesn't seem so innocent anymore.
I feel like if this game didn't have the Amnesia brand attached to it, it would have been a little more accepted amongst horror fans. Still flawed but the fact that people were expecting it to fill in TDD's shoes is what made it so much more disappointing.
I want everyone who dissed on this game back in the day to write it a formal apology
4:40 section... this reason was why I enjoyed this game so much, and had the desire to play it. I love a good story, but I do not love being scared 24/7. When I heard the story of amfp, the reasons why a lot of people dislike it were the exact things that piqued my attention. The "walking simulator" aspect really allowed me to appreciate the amazing story being told. I'm so glad it was the route taken, or else I probably wouldn't have ever gotten into amnesia as a whole. That being said, I still completely understand being not liking the game. I think it would have been much better not under the amnesia title (with a few tweaks, as it does have its connection to the dark descent)
I recently played A Machine for Pigs in one sitting just as I did with Dark Descent. Both are phenomenal games in their own right. I like them both equally for different reasons. Dark Descent felt empowering as Daniel fought valiantly to defeat the evil one who deceived him, whilst Machine for Pigs felt woefully remorseful as Oswald fought the evil he had created from his dystopian delusion of "peace" through control, betrayal, and bloodshed. I feel that Dark Descent has more replay value between having more achievements and also custom stories, but the atmosphere on top of the story of Machine for Pigs felt so dangerous, lonely and intricate that I was immersed the whole time.
as someone who binged anmesia vids back in 2012, was always confused about how I didn't hear about the sequal. Thank you for covering it! It makes me wanna hop into the game myself
Excellent video. AMFP has forever and always been my favorite Amnesia game. Its story, similar to more character-driven stories like Bioshock 2, is often misunderstood. Hard to say without sounding pretentious, but it’s true: people don’t “get” this game, which is sad.
I really like A Machine For Pigs. It wasn't very scary, was quite short and too easy but I played it more like an experience, rather than a game. The atmosphere of XIX century London at the beginning of indindustrialisation was really well captured and it made the game's world very interesting to roam around. The voice acting, notes and locations were set a really uneasy tone. It was different than The Dark Descent but still a great game.
@SillyBeans-m1l Each to their own, for me The Dark Descent was scarier because there was a bigger threat. In Machine For Pigs there are maybe only 2 areas when in one you are chased by a pig and in the second you have to hide before the electric pig and that's it. The Dark Descent has more areas like this, for example in The Prison there is a lot of monsters roaming around, earlier you have this water monster, then near where you meet Agrippa. A lot more scarier areas in general.
I dont know if this game would still be considered good if it wasn’t an amneisa game. Its story, while a great premise, is too big to grand and supernatural to be told through brief journal entries, flashbacks, and cryptic dialog. If it was made differently, (i dont know how but) it could have been more fun to play and delivered its story better.
Always excited when you upload!
Another super interesting video.
Also, I did get Lost in Vivo based on your last video xD
Thanks for commenting as always, really appreciate your support
Hope you like Vivo!
I still find the story substandard and the lack of gameplay predictably disappointing, given it's the Chinese room doing it, but the game has potentials and merits. I think you did a great job presenting the odds it faced. Have my subscription good sir!
A Machine for Pigs crawled so SOMA could run
The video was really well done. I never watched a play through or played amnesia a machine for pigs myself so this video was the first time I heard anything about the story...and despite it losing some of the horror aspects that made amnesia so great, despite this wehn I saw the part wehre you get closer to the machine, the music, the voice acting, the weight of it all just made me look at it with awe, a shame this game had to be called amnesia...any other name and this game may have been something greater...not a masterpiece...but something greater, just my two cents on the video, I will definitely subscribe, love your channel so far and I hope you become more popular
I like your shorter, compilation stuff but if you want to move to longer, deeper reviews I'm down. I enjoyed this.
The shorter videos aren't going anywhere don't worry, I plan on doing both, I'm glad you enjoyed!
Thank you for making this video, I don’t see nearly enough folks talking about this game even in passing! Lovely to see such a rad video on the subject
Thank you so much, I appreciate it
Honestly same, even in the horror scene, it's criminal how few people talk about it
i really enjoyed this game. because i knew what it was and i had the right mindset going in. i didnt except a horror game or even a proper follow up to the dark descent. i took it as a good interactive story with some fantastic sounddesign and writing. had a blast.
For me I think it’s failure was just about the time it came out in, We just got Outlast and Slender: The Arrival and everybody was hyping this to be the best horror game ever and, It was good, But boring and not scary compared to TDD, So it was easier to just pay attention to Outlast and Slender after it released.
I love this game, too bad it was so badly received by the fans..
I just wonder what happened to the original build of this game. Whatever they originally had in mind for us was undoubtedly supposed to be terrifying. Think of the sequence in the very first trailer we got where the pig busted down the door that never made it into the final product. You could even say the second trailer spoke that same message to, the one where Oswald walked through that door with the plastic slaughter house strips and seemed to lead to an area similar to the church basement. It looked like it was originally geared to control a lot like TDD did but something between that first trailer and release derailed the game into being something completely different. The narrative, creature design, and setting is good enough that if frictional were to go back and overhaul this title in means of gameplay then this could actually be a good game. Especially in today’s politics with all the war and shit, a story like this might hit home with people.
“babe wake up, new cicada wave vid”
This was an excellent video and made me reconsider my opinion about This game
Mm... Nah. AMFP's does not really warrant this second look. Nothing you said was revelatory regarding its content, nothing made me see it in a new light. Its just reaffirmed to me that its plot is actually extraordinarily simple and almost boringly straightforward, but it conceals that simplicity beneath a shroud of absurdly verbose language. Its story is not particularly compelling. It doesn't say anything new or exceptional (WWI was miserable, the elites are assholes, etc.), and the indirectness with which it tries to deliver its ideas through the established storytelling conventions of Amnesia means that none of them are driven into you with any sort of impact, since it's just some old English dude bitching and whinging about things we barely see the echoes of.
The image is supposed to be of humans degenerated to the base beasthood from which all of the petty lusts and hungers which drive us arise, prowling about the creaking labyrinthine edifice of the industry we've cocooned around ourselves, but that caricature is all that's there, and it dresses that sparse image up in a whole lot of hollow filler. AMFP isn't held back by the Amnesia name, it's held back by the fact it's a bad game built on the shoddy foundation of a bad story. If anything, the Amnesia IP propped it up, allowing it to be more successful than it could ever have dreamed of being on its own.
"Conceals simplicity beneath absurdly verbose language"
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about this comment.
I just play recently Amnesia A Machine for Pigs. I can understand that it terms of the story it was pretty unique, even if I didn’t find it extraordinary I thought it was original. But I think the main issue of the game is simply the gameplay. The Dark Descent had amazing mechanics with the use of the dark and the inventory for the puzzle and A Machine for Pigs just took away all the good ideas of gameplay and ad nothing more. It still a sequel, so it needs to improve the gameplay of the first or ad something new, but Instead it just took away interesting mechanics and nothing more. So this is why for me this game is pretty mediocre: in my opinion the writing is pretty descent, but the gameplay is really weak.
Dead Space 3 was amazing, dude.
The pros and cons of this game:
1- Better graphics but far less impressive and animations and cut scenes .
2-The "game is so boring and unegaging you could literally take your hands off the key board and mouse to just watch it play itself .
3-redendant use of notes the old game use cool sences and and awesome animations to make the game more enthusiatic and fun the new one however ironically used only pen and paper for story telling even though the developers should have capable of animation cooler stuff .
3-While the start of the game is amazing and get real hyped the fact that 90 precent of what is left is just walking and listing to spooks is just utterly unamusing let alone scary.
4-Personally I found the Pigs to be disturbing and horrifying but they only showed for few moments plus its so easy to troll them and get by unnoticed.
This game sucked man. Boring. Thankfully, Outlast came out the same year and totally mogged this drivel.
great video !
Hi
very epic
amogus
Oh, yes, claim the only reason Amnesia: The Dark Descend is popular and well-respected because of Let's Players. Don't give any credit to the game, itself.