Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

I have a confession to make.

I never finished the first Amnesia. It's more accurate to say that, according to Steam, I have played 28 minutes of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. That includes times spent setting up options in the menu. So in reality, I've gotten far enough that the first strong gust of wind howled through a corridor before I quit. I'd like to say that's because I didn't like the controls. Admittedly, I do prefer gamepads to mouse and keyboard, but the atmospheric elements of Amnesia: TDD kinda scared me.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs recently went on sale for 66% off on Steam, so I decided to roll the dice. It does, for the record, support gamepads. As far as the technical aspects of the game, Frictional teamed with The Chinese Room, creators of Dear Esther (developer of 2008's popular First Person Walking Simulator Dear Esther). It's got a fairly hefty options menu, and the game looks gorgeous (when you can see it).  It ran well on my GTX770, and once I'd nailed down a particularly nasty case of screen tearing (disable in-game Vsync, both regular and adaptive, and enable it in the Nvidia Control Panel or your ATI equivalent), the game ran at a smooth 60 FPS with no screen tearing. The gamepad controls were responsive and simple to learn, and even the object manipulation mechanic of the first game translated well from mouse to thumbsticks.

This is not an overly complex game, though. It's pedigree shows through, as many sources have said that this game is far simpler in its gameplay mechanics than the previous Amnesia title. Your lantern has unlimited oil. There are no items to pick up, no laudanum to keep you sane. Your character is obviously far more mentally stable, seeing as the monsters in this game doesn't affect your ability to cope with the world around you.

Where A Machine For Pigs really shines is its storytelling. You wake up in a caged bedroom of a properly posh Victorian mansion, and bits of story are slowly fed to you throughout your descent (a dark one!) into the heart of a Steampunk monstrosity of brass tubes, gears, pistons, and oh-so-many nauseating swine carcasses. Like many dark horror stories, there are aspects that fall apart if you look at it too closely, but the game wraps up before most people have time to question those aspects. The game runs about 4 to 4 and a half hours, but that's a tight 4 and a half hours, with very few wasted moments, and a hectic (if overly obviously scripted) sequence later in the game where the monsters really come into play. Overall, it's dripping (quite literally at times) with atmosphere

Is it worth the usual $20 price tag? That's all going to depend on whether you're a big horror buff. Personally, I'm not. That I only paid < $7 for the game, goes a long way to my personal valuation. I feel I got my money's worth, even though it didn't quite hit that “dollar-per-hour” magic mark. If you're a fan of horror, I recommend this at a higher price than I paid, especially if you like your horror to come from the storytelling as much as the gameplay.