The worst part about first Penumbra are the dogs. If they came up with a better idea of a monster, that would be a much better horror experience.

Black Plague is much more like Amnesia, because you can't fight back, you have to run, and the monsters are better.

Why the game didn't made by Frictional Games?

It's the dogs vs. the broom combo that makes it that much more ridiculous.

Gamasutra: Why Frictional passed Amnesia to Dear Esther's developer

I played this game from a friend this night...and well, is nothing special at all.
I loved Penumbra games and Amensia, I think they are the only survival horror games you cand find at the moment, with a good story and a very good gameplay, level design and artistic direction.

The first Amnesia was a must-buy title, and the fact you can play custom stories is an added value.
Sadly, A Machine for Pigs isn't an Amnesia game.

I hated Dear Esther: it was nothing more then a tech demo with a confusing story. I loved Home but not Dear Esther.
And well, AMFP is much better then Dear Esther.
At least, it has a good story (but hey, if you've read horror novels there isn't anything new here, really. Even the plot in some ways is the same of the original Amnesia, but I think it is "right" this way, because if there weren't common elements, it will not be an Amnesia game), nice art direction, a great soundtrack, good voice acting...but stop.

It doesn't scare the player. I saw maybe four enemies on the screen while playing the game, but no one touched me.
And if you are playing an HORROR game, this is bad. When you realize that basically you can't die, the game is over.
Yes,of course there's a way to die, but you must be a very bad player to die in this game...and yes, this is a game, not a visual novel, it's an interactive story better then Gone Home, but nothing more. The only thing you do in this game are: activate the level, turn on the valve, place the fuse. Stop.

And the enemies....yes, they could be a nice idea, but the moment you SEE them, you will laugh. Just imagine Pumba from the Lion King. Yes. Hakuna Matata, friend, you can't die here.

And the "game" is short, around three hours. Again, we have an overpriced game, 16€ for a three hours of gameplay, with no replay value at all. I found all the documents, listen all audio things...but stop. There is nothing more to do, the game doesn't provide any challenge. The moment you beat it, you'll forget it.

But it was a nice "movie", if I can use this term. Much better then Dear Esther and Gone Home, at least here you interact with some elements.

I think I will buy this game when it will be 75% off because it's a good piece of software if you like horror. But if you are buying this hoping for a second chapter in the Amnesia franchise, avoid this. No sanity meter, no items to collect, only documents, valve and so on.

Well, I saw Outlast gameplay videos, and it seems a good survival horror, so if you want some, take that instead of this.

Earhtworm Jim 3D is not a bad game

Besides, there are much worse games in the GOG catalogue

They were afraid that they would make a bad sequel, so they let some other studio make a bad sequel. Brilliant!

This is one of the reasons why I almost dont' pre-order games anymore or buy anything at launch, multiply that x10 for PC releases.

Fucking Publishers and Developers treating paying customers like Beta Testers.

This game is really, really bad. I hesitate to even call it a "game", as I've to taken to calling it, it's a Walking Simulator, like Dear Esther.

It would be offensive to even put this game in the same category as "greats" like EWJ 3D, Daikatana, and Master of Orion 3.

Sadly the hipster "MAH STORY WITH FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS" crowd will still lap up a shit game like this, because they don't care about gameplay, they only care about some pathetic desire for video games to be viewed as a mature art-form. See all the bullshit over "The Walking Dead" and more recently "Gone Home". There's an entire subset of "gamers" and "gaming journalists" (lol) out there who actively hate gameplay and game systems, and just want to sit back and watch a movie that panders to their feelings.

University arts students, all of em.

Just so that you know

I have nothing against actual plots or emotional attachments to games but I fucking hate it when devs try to sell a game purely on that

ICO
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
NieR

These are just a couple of examples of titles that have a lot of "Feels" in them and yet at the same, they are actual good games


What I hate the most is when a developer does nothing but focus on style, story and aesthetics while the actual game part of the damn game is ignored

Here's the thing: I am a fan of games as art, but I still require that they not abandon the whole "game" aspect in furtherance of telling a story. I at one point considered making a list of the best examples of games as art before realizing that such a list should also be accompanied by a list of bad games as art so as to allay accusations of not valuing gameplay. Long story short, all the good entries had actual gameplay and used the gameplay and its mechanics to both engage the player and further develop the narrative and tone (SH2's controls might have been clunky, but given that it was a horror game featuring someone with no combat experience, it only made sense that everything about that game made combat awkward and something one wanted to avoid). Stuff like Dear Esther and Journey ultimately would have been hammered on the bad list for the crime of perpetuating the idea that games are only art the moment they stop being games, or at the very least begrudgingly allow the player to have some level of interactivity with the environment while still being glorified machinima that required pressing the odd button to watch.

Point being, don't be so quick to lump in the games as art crowd with the insufferable tosser crowd. If this new Amnesia really is as bad as people are saying, then rest assured I will not be buying it. I hope that gaming evolves as an art form, not that the gaming devolve in the process.

I agree with you. In fact Nier is one of my favorite games of all time, I loved the characters and kinda post-apocalyptic setting, it had this peaceful yet beautiful tone about it, also one of the best soundtracks of all time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNZmzLzvJo8

Sucks that I want to replay it but don't own a PS3, I played it on a friends console who is a friend no-longer.

I don't consider this game to be something like Amnesia 2. As it was developed bythe chinese room, I consider this to be more something like a Dear Esther 2. If you look closely, you got a whole bunch of similarities. Dark Descent was a horror adventure. A machine for pigs is merely an interactive story with spooky elements in it. That's the reason why you don't need an inventory and all that stuff. They want to tell a story. I am not saying that this story is a bad one (even though the end is utter crap, to be honest), but it has all those poetical allegories (like Dear Esther!) in it, and I don't like that.
In this game I did not get the heart attacks I paid for... Also 20 bucks for an interactive spooky story and 4 hours (sic!) of gameplay is definietely far too much. I mean, seriously... that's what I waited for the whole time?
IMHO this game is my biggest disappointment regarding video games so far this year. how sad...

I've heard Frictional has been working on something themselves for 2 years, and this was just an outsourcing project, so hopefully we haven't heard the last of them. Still, to have their own best IP damaged in such a way makes no sense.