Just FYI to everyone - this effort is being done by Accursed Farms' Ross Scott. He is the creator and voice artist for the Freeman's mind series, runs a show called Ross's Game dungeon (if you like Mandy's channel i can almost garuntee you'll like it) and is fighting to give us consumers and game-enjoyers the right to play our games after the publisher arbitrarily decides to cut support for it. I HIGHLY recommend you all go check out his latest video, and the entire channel, Accursed Farms. I don't think you'll be disappointed!
In what can only be considered a thematic masterstroke, the action that ultimately causes our main character to try and undo his wrongs is to squeeze his hog.
As a game it's basically a walking sim, and the story doesn't really make sense when you look at it too closely, but to be fair, thematically it stuck with me in a way other Amnesia games didn't. The ending is haunting, poetic, and resonates deeply. The writing of the closing monologues is some of the tightest I've seen, and still gives me goosebumps when I find myself thinking back on them. It lingered with me for a long time. It's a shame those moments are little more than bright sparks in an otherwise quite needlessly dull and drab and perplexing experience.
You weren't joking about how dark the game was. I'm sitting here trying to watch this on my phone at work and I'm just staring at my reflection most of the video
Yeah, that's pretty wild. The life we are all living RIGHT now and the world we live in is so horrifying to a person of the past that they decide it would be better to just blow up the planet than let that happen. I honestly feel a lot of trepidation for the future. It seems the world is gearing up for WW3, Germany says that Russia will attack NATO in the next 5 years and their army will be twice its current size in 2 years European countries bordering Russia are bringing back conscription. The US keeps trying to make it so they can draft women. China seems determined to eventually attack Taiwan, which the US says they will use nukes to defend. Global warming has already gone past the point of no return it is no longer possible to avoid the worst events. In 20 years the equator will shift southward making it impossible to farm in the current equator which is were 90% of the worlds food is grown. Anywhere higher than Germany on the equator will become unlivable arctic wastelands. My sister shared a theory to me about why Russia is attacking the Ukraine is actually because global warming will make Russia nigh unlivable and Ukraine is further south and is also where a pretty hefty chunk of the worlds grain is grown. Russia is fleeing the coming climate apocalypse by invading their southern neighbors. TLDR we are all so fucked
Fun fact: Mandus is voiced by Toby Longworth, one of the best audiobook readers for Warhammer’s Black Library. And having listened to plenty of the books he’s narrated, I’m not surprised that the voice acting is one of the strong suits of this game. The man has some serious talent.
@@michaelmiller7928 While we’re at it, I must shout out my personal favorite narrator, and one that is severely underrated, David Timson. His ability to portray quiet desperation, fear, confusion, despair, and horror in his voice is second to none. The quiet whispers send chills down my spine every time. Fulgrim, Legion, Angel Exterminatus, they’re all fantastic. (And he’s my personal head canon voice for Fulgrim.)
As a game it's basically a walking sim, and the story doesn't really make sense when you look at it too closely, but to be fair, thematically it stuck with me in a way other Amnesia games didn't. The ending is haunting, poetic, and resonates deeply. The writing of the closing monologues is some of the tightest I've seen, and still gives me goosebumps when I find myself thinking back on them. It lingered with me for a long time. It's a shame those moments are little more than bright sparks in an otherwise quite needlessly dull and drab and perplexing experience.
someone took a lot of drugs and wrote down "people are just pigs dude" then came back later and made a game out of it none of it is thought through and the basic premise is never expanded upon so I can only imagine that's what happened Or they are just incompetent writers
@@Arkangel630 Congratulations, you missed the whole story and theme. Within it is the manic obsessions with realizing systems exploit people for nothing but the benefit of the machine itself. Capitalism, industrialism, class structure, extractionism, imperialism, colonialism, organized religion, and so on. Systems that benefit a very few, but ultimately horrors that are carried out not because it'll centralize power more to those specific people, but because they are necessary for the system itself to survive. The driving force behind these atrocities isn't limitless greed, it's survival. It's not driven by any human at the top, it is purely mechanical by the system itself. Then upon realizing that, humans will build new systems to usurp the old ones they see as corrupt, but merely end up recreating similar systems because certain means have to justify its ends, and because exploitation and its mechanisms is all these humans have known, it's what they know how to recreate. It's a criticism of cultural revolutionary ideas that instead of abandoning systems altogethether, merely turns the system on its head to target the new perceived threat. Even a system like that aimed at "the rich" or "the church", ultimately sees the same previously poor and downtrodden sacrificed in the process, because it's ultimately anger aimed at the past and its cruelties, not then hope for a better future. That last part is just the justification. It's very good framing to have this from the perspective of an industrial capitalist who is the kind of person who has the means to create new systems, and thus is the one to enforce his reality onto society as a whole, regardless of how flawed and emotionally driven it truly is. He is already "the elite" that he claims to be against, but also sees himself as better equipped to fix the world than anyone else who doesn't have his(inherited) means, and just like the people he claims to be against, will use the poor as fuel for his own personal revolution, and thus participates in the same dehumanization that he critiques other institutions for. The story and theming is excellent, and what we should be mentioning when talking about why writing in video games is important, but like mandalore pointed out, it's still quite flawed in executing these themes properly, sometimes being too blunt or forceful with its metaphors, so my interpretation of its writing is more what I would like to imagine the game is trying to examine, not so much what it actually does or how well it does it. There's good writing attached, but it's quite telling that this good writing is only really apparent from actual plain text, so it's not really translated into the video game medium.
"Man, this game is so dark." "Yeah, it has some pretty crazy themes huh?" "No, I mean I literally cant see whats happening, this game is extremely dark"
Probably the only thing I liked about this game. I'm done with walking simulators. It's hard to have fun when a game has basically no mechanics to speak of. Or puzzles.
I loved the idea, but was disappointed by how little we actually got to see of the titular machine. Early concept arts had these blood soaked processing lines with torsos on meat hooks and whatnot, but in the game you mostly just see drab corridors and pipes. (When you see anything at all that is, since it's so dark all the time.) You rarely feel in danger, even though you are allegedly crawling through the guts of a machine made for turning you into sausage. And where's all the meat?
@@Ohio.Gozaimasu I've one person say of A Machine for Pigs, it's a game with a story so good it would've been much better off as a book instead of a videogame...
First thing I thought when the name was mentioned. I was like hang on are we not gonna acknowledge how outrageously eye-roll inducing that is? Vidya game writing y'all.
Non native english speaker here, is Oswald Mandus a pun ? Or is it just a ridiculously old-timey name ? [edit] thank you all ! So yeah that name has the subtlety of a cinderblock.
"Almost like a graphical bug." Yes, the "blue fog bug" which relates to the "color grading" option, basically adds a layer of colored fog with each new level that loads in. It has been there since the beginning and can only be removed with a new mod that you can find on nexusmods. With it, the game looks like a remastered version.
I was kinda surprised he didn't mention any kind of modding to see if it helped with the visuals. Yeah, I know its kind of a cop-out, because it's obviously working as the devs intended, but I might've been nice for him to try out that Mod on Nexus to see if it helped. I kinda wish I'd know about it now.
Mandalore covered at least four other games where mods fix em. There's likely hundreds of games that get fixed up by a dedicated player base. @@peppermillers8361
big credit for shouting out stopkillinggames Ross Scott is doing lord's work and seeing him being able to organize something with real possibility to succeed when he's been talking about the issue for so long without there being anything to grasp on to is fantastic.
According to wikipedia "Frictional Games wanted to further the Amnesia franchise, but had no time for it. Later, they met Dan Pinchbeck of The Chinese Room at GDC Europe 2011, where the plan for the game began to form. It was originally intended by The Chinese Room to be a small mod, but it was expanded to a larger scale project when "the two companies realized what could be achieved with a larger game" " This game is essentially a mod elevated by the developers to sequel status.
Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike, GMod, Rocket League, Killing Floor, Rising Storm, DayZ, etc all started as/trace lineage to mods as well. It CAN work out in the hands of skilled people with a unified vision.
25:02 i could be reaching but that also reminds me of the story of how Tenochtitlan was founded- by spotting an eagle holding a snake sitting on top of a cactus in the middle of a lake
That food analogy comment made me realise Mandalore has never actually made a food analogy in his videos until now. Edit : I looked back, he did make a food comparison with adventure games and dairy products in his Blade Runner the game review.
@@TheAsylumCatthey are usually the first and most simple ones and I’m pretty sure it’s what teachers use to teach children about analogies. A bit like comparing everything to sex I suppose. IF I WERE TO USE A FOOD ANALOGY: It’s a bit like processed food. Simple, cheap and no nutrition.
@@jelqsensei No one helping me or my kin out. Why should I help them when I'm under attack? London is getting what it deserves. They didn't welcome in the Trojan Horse. They welcomed the Trojans and claimed the gift would come later.
The ending monologue while you're moving up the machine to shut it down is the one thing that stuck with me after this game. It's one of the few upfront sections that doesn't hide behind notes, or metaphor. It just upfront reminds you why you started this process and the damnation you condemn others to for stopping this far in. It also frames the murder of his children as potentially a mercy killing instead of a sacrifice. Saving them from seeing the horror of war, and seeing their innocence get turned into pigs, I mean guilt.
Mandus's VA activated core memories when I heard him but i didn't realize why until I looked it up and saw it's Tobey Longworth, who narrates a bunch of Warhammer 40k audiobooks, including the Gaunt's Ghosts series
After seeing the most recent previews and then your own analysis of A Machine for Pigs, It'll be interesting to see how far The Chinese Room's come when we *Finally* get VTMB2... If we get it this year. It's not exactly the first time Paradox has said "oh yeah guys, it'll be THIS year."
Yeah, Paradox sucks. Also hey Charlatan, big fan of your videos, thanks to you I have several games I know I can't play out of fear of never seeing the sun again XD
They also have that game “Still Wakes the Deep” coming out this year. The premise is great. I don’t really know why but setting a horror game on an oil rig is very unsettling to me. I swear I have nightmares of floating at sea and just seeing a deep sea oil rig in the distance.
@@PANCAKEMINEZZyou couldn’t be more wrong. Jessica Curry’s legendary composition is one of the best accompaniments to the already fantastic final monologue. You have no clue what you’re talking about. AMFP’s flaws are almost all development and design based; The Chinese Room’s poor influence ends at that. You just have unimaginably shit taste I’m sorry dude
I've never played this, but had already seen the ending and knew a rough idea of the story. That last monologue had formed my assumption of the entire game's quality, and I was really looking forward to Mandy reviewing it. Man.
For the lack of features and gameplay elements, and everything else the Chinese room got wrong, the climax with mandus going into the machine, the music, the story... Every time it makes me feel something
It's one of the few games I can think of where I would recommend the whole game if just for the last five minutes. The final speech and accompanying soundtrack was really beautifully delivered. Maybe one of my favorite monologues in fiction.
@@DetectiveOlivawWriters only success is to ruin a great delivery once you think about it (or by their own words, shit themselves and ejaculate over their own excretions over the streets). A evil ghost orb that merged itself into a factory that never experienced reality (or self-seethe from split personality that 100% isnt just a writers self insert commie WW1 loss rant copy) trying to argue over humanity when it itself isnt human yet does the crimes worse is retard writing.
@@googleforcedhandleExactly. The Chinese Room does not understand how to make a good or compelling game in any way. It makes me wonder why this was even a video game and not just a short film.
Re: monsters disappearing in The Dark Descent - To this day, I think it's one of the most brilliant parts of that game's design. I remember dying twice to the same encounter, thinking "okay, I've got this", only to be unsettled when he didn't show up the third time... until a different spot. The game understands that repetition is the enemy of tension. While its solutions aren't complex "AI director" level stuff, it's a smart, efficient game, and I love it. Too bad about Machine for Pigs. I appreciate the ambition, but that entry will forever serve as a useful lesson in horror design missteps.
It's a very exploitable mechanic when you figure it out. Throwing Daniel at every threat to remove them from the play made the game much easier, especially areas like the Choir.
Pretty much all of enemy encounters in Amnesia DD are scripted and easily controllable. So much so, that once you've memorized the scripted events and monster behaviour during the aforementioned events, you'd have to go out of your way to be actively chased/killed by them. I've pretty much learned this while I was doing 100% achievements on Steam - trying to beat the game on Hard, so on and so forth. You can find numerous numbers of guides on the matter or strategies for speed running explaining these things - monsters in Amnesia DD are completely predictable and very easily to control, kite, or "despawn" them all together. And there's zero randomness to it either. Once again, once you've learned that, you'd have to do things "wrong" on purpose, if you want monsters to chase you around and whatnot. Monsters in Amnesia DD are extremely primitive in terms of their execution, even though devs masterfully managed to make it seem otherwise. Especially if it's a first or a blind playthrough.
@@ANDELE3025 I realize that this might be simply a preferential thing, but I fully disagree. A good horror game has just as much replay value as any other non-session based game. Because yeah, it's kinda difficult to top roguelikes, arena shooters or some MMO/ARPG games in terms of sheer replayability potential. However, I replay Alien Isolation every few years, just the same as I do with, let's say, Fallout New Vegas. Now, if we're talking about "generic-Steam-indie-horror-jumpscare-galore" kind of horror game, then yeah, I'd be inclined to agree. The point is, the better horror game's (or any game, for that matter) AI is directed or even orchestrated, the less it feels like a mindless spooky ride at the amusement park. Kinda helps with the whole "suspension of disbelief" thing, too, which is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold. Doesn't matter if it's your first playthrough or a fifth one, either.
I remember playing this game when it came out. I had been playing it like the first game: Going slowly, being careful, and hiding from monsters. But about halfway through, I realized that the penalty for death was so minor and the enemies took so long to kill me that I could just waltz through the rest of the game as if they weren't even there. It deflated the entire game for me. I was no longer scared, I was on an amusement park haunted house ride.
I had a very similar experience : one of the first times you see a pig, it sprints off down an alley. The model looked so bad, I had to chase it to get a better look, and it didn't despawn like you'd expect but just hung around at the end of its scripted movement's location. I stood there, looking at how bad it was, laughing, for about twenty seconds before the AI decided to free it to attack me... and then I found out how long it takes for one to actually take you down. And how little it matters if they do. I already hated the MC for being an idiot and a straw man, but that's the moment the game turned full dark comedy.
I'm disappointed you didn't mention the OTHER god-tier ending monolog, the one at the very end, after Mandus sacrifices himself. "I lay there, and watched the God I had created die. At the end, when we were cold as the stone we had hewn his body from, when the lights were nearly all extinguished, we heard, in the silent distance, the man-pigs singing to one another. Then, as the last lights were gone, and we lay together in the deep, they drifted away, and all was silent. Such a silence I have never known. And as the dust settled on my open eyes, and we lay together embraced forever, I heard, miles above us, the sounds of the city turning over in its sleep. A church bell ringing out. And in that moment, the new century was born."
My hope is thats because he knows it, just like the prior monologue, is merely pretentious, pointless and carried again by the music. In reality, its likely so that he doesnt spoil it for people that get immersed by the music and delivery enough to not think about what is actually happening in narrative during the speech.
You have no clue how much joy you gave me with those S.W.I.N.E. cutscenes. It’s one of the last Hungarian games that left a cultural footprint in this country that can still be felt today. Me and my dad have been quoting unit lines from it since 2008, and most people Ive met at my age still remember them.
@@ComissarYarrick both were made on the same engine. also, why does codename panzers need a remaster when the game is "get the biggest panzers you can find and right-click on the objective"
And this is the developer currently in charge of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. So chances are we'll get a pretty awesome story, but god help you if you want it to be anything other than a linear story. As evidenced by the fact that the main character in that game is pre-named, so they likely will have some very clear ideas about the character that might not line up with your ideas.
Mandus: "Society bad." Professor: "Okay, are you going to do anything to make it better?" Mandus: "Lmao nah the opposite in fact. Get in my pig machine."
Professor: "This plot of your is madness, Mr. Mandus. What do you hope to achieve with this so-called Amnesia™: A Machine For Pigs?" Mandus: "I'll fashion mankind into pigs! Pigs are simple creatures, Professor. They can not wage war, have no interest in nuclear arms... Professor, did you know you can not hug your children with nuclear arms?" Professor: "Dude, did you hit your fucking head or something?" *rips brass Edwardian vape, blows cloud in Mandus's face* "Are you going bonkers, my scud? Go lay down, pig-man. Get your fucking head on right, get out of here."
I call it the Curze approach "Oh I can see the future and how everything will go to shit and I will go down in history as a monster" "Are you gonna try and fix/avoid it tho?" "Lmao, no, if my predictions are 100% accurate I might as well become the best monster I can be, death is nothing in the face of vindication" It's just giving up and despairing while trying to appear cooler than you are in practice
When the trailers for this game dropped, my friend and I comforted ourselves by speculating wholesome things the "machine for pigs" would do. Like maybe it's a machine that fits pigs with little wigs and tophats. We're very unpopular people.
The ending speech of the game is quite powerful, I'm not gonna lie it reminds me of blade runner, that famous “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe" line.
I remember writing a walkthrough for this game. I had to brighten every screenshot through Photoshop with some radical settings otherwise 90% of them were just dark black with some suggestions of lighter black.
I remember the trailer for this game was amazing. Player closing the door and hiding in the room, and then screaming pig bashing on the door. I thought to myself "oh man its dark descent but with england and scary pig monsters!" and oh boy was it not it.
It's really unfortunate that the voice's cadence when saying "Precious Eagle Cactus Fruit" makes it sound like a sleeper agent's activation phrase, because that's some solid poetic language
That ending monolog has stayed in my brain since my first and only time playing the game when I was 15. That was easily one of the most affecting moments in a game I had experienced... it's pure horror, without being "scary".
when i first played the game, i thought the final monologue said "they will eat your ass" instead of "they will eat your hearts" and was VERY confused. i think that was the final straw that got me to start playing with subtitles
i LOVE how Ross Scott's fight is just ORGANICALLY being picked up by people everywhere. we just need to add the message in every single last video until we're either won or lost this fight
Sadly, Ross Scott committed the most heinous of crimes: He directly threatened the gov't monopoly on a thing (in this case power over the market, but it really doesn't matter what, just that it happened), and will therefore remain in prison likely until his final days. My heart goes out to his Mother and all who hold him dear.
Thank you so much for this comment. That clip intrigued me so much and I never would have known what it was without this. Watched the film last night and it was an absolute masterpiece.
I had to pause the video for a sec and got a surprise mirror when the frame I stopped on was pitch black. Really, I appreciate the jump scares of this review.
@@HiddenEvilStudiosYes, why wouldn’t I? It’s great. And of course they’re different franchises, they have different names. Also, you seem to have forgotten about Rebirth. Understandable.
mr mandalore gaming, sir, i know you would probably never see this comment, but you did use a food analogy once before! in your review of Starforge, when spawned in water, you've mentioned how "you're in the land of lakes, but the framerate isn't buttery smooth"! 🤓🤓🤓
Honestly the main character being played by Toby Longworth is really nice. He is my favourite audiobook narrator. He does many of the Warhammer 40,000 novella. Bravo to him.
God i love ur videos bc generally i listen to them as i work and when 20:58 you mentioned the mexican temple i went “OH NO MARATHON” and opened up my phone to see Pathways into darkness
Delivery is great, the music is solid, but holy shit the monologue itself (especially once you think about how its a evil ghost orb that never saw the light of day or experienced anything of the world outside of a short trip from temple to factory) is complete dogshit because its just the WW1 commie projection over why they lost and failed phrased with less personal politics promotion and more pig.
@thebassplayification My apologies and mistake, but they both have an exceptionally similar cadence, and considering the revelation the the engineer and Mandus are one na sthe same you'll forgive my confusion. Regaless, it's a heart breakingly beautiful delivery.
Yep, the game is exactly how i remember it. Amazing story, spectacular bone chilling ending with blend gameplay which feels more like an obligation. That ending though i will remember for the rest of my life.
15:00 What's funny is I distinctly remember an indie horror game that came out around 2011-2013 era called like "blackwater hospital" or something which has a sequence where you go to the next chapter after escaping the monster by running into the 'forbidden basement'. The next area starts with the monster pounding on the door you just came through and if you wait like a solid 1-2 minutes it bashes through the door and comes after you even though if you proceeded normally you'd already be onto the next monster. Funny how independent developers flying by the seat of their pants entirely fueled by inspiration alone can create so much more than an organized well oiled machine of pi- I mean humans
What if they set up their development team like the Chinese Room experiment, using a game design book to guide the programmers instead of writing anything? You would get obligatory puzzles that miss the mark, monsters that are performative but don't really follow through, and an adlib plot that may have been assembled before a story was crafted. Also, horror games are better if they're dark. Make it dark.
"If you call for violent, gruesome revolution where you live, but can't make eye contact with the delivery driver, I want you to remember this scene." This line is sublime, it's so much better than this game deserves to have in a review of it
Wait, did you actually do the death whistle on Bull of Hell? Edit: I'll be damned, you did - had no idea! The ultrakill Mando crossover just keeps giving
The main good part about this game is watching video essays on the story w/ different takes on it. Playing it was borderline intolerable. Might've made a good movie
The "X is pigs, Y are pigs, Z are also like pigs" part of the writing feels like they started with Pigs, then tried to reverse-engineer the themes from that. Sometimes that works if fully explored, but the lack of direction shows in its bluntness.
Another thing in Dark Descent. Movement, whilst not directly told is encouraged due to your slowly draining sanity in dark spaces. Plus the threat of monsters getting you further reinforces this. In Amnesia AMFP, there is no punishment or such risks, you could sit in the dark waiting and learning an enemies walk pattern lowering all tension.
This game really is a prime candidate for playing through once for the story and never touching again...I enjoyed it when it came out but have not mustered up the willpower to play through it again, especially now that I've had a refresher on the plot from this vid. Frictional's own offerings outshone it afterwards, though a lot of folks seem to hate on Rebirth as well. I did realize watching this that Mandus is voiced by the excellent Toby Longworth who does a lot of great work on the Black Library audiobooks.
I really enjoyed the game. I was too scared for "The Dark Descent" when I first got it and dropped it super fast. "A Machine For Pigs" was just scary enough to keep me playing and I really enjoyed the vibe. I later finished "The Dark Descent" because of that positive memory. All that to say: "The Bunker" is too scary for me.
would you rather it doesnt exist? Personally I've played enough VTM games to know theres a lot of potential for some good writing. Part of me thinks if they just didnt call it "bloodlines 2" we'd all be pleased
@@bobloblaw418 Well, therein lies the kidney stone, don't it? Maybe it'll turn it out good from a purely narrative standpoint but the original wasn't well known for that. It doesn't even seem compatible much with what I've seen of Chinese Room's writing. They seem to be pretty heavy handed yet all of that is thinly veiled and prosaic, whereas Bloodlines was crass, occasionally subtle, mostly direct. Like, it'd work for a sequel to VTM Redemption and it's "lo, behold me and mine, the beast that thrashes within this cage of mortal coil and passions of desire" vibe. Just not so much for a sequel to a pretty satirical and dark comedy work. Kinda feels like most would rather the sequel not exist if it's bad in terms of RPG mechanics and player freedom. "Taints the reputation", some might say. I would feel bad as well because the expectations and potential I've built in my own head wouldn't be realized.
@@bobloblaw418 Im just worried that due to the development hell that game has been through and how the project might’ve been tossed onto them things might not come out so well; plus the whole world/chronicle of darkness curse for like any game being developed in the IP having development issues.
@@Insanebeast123 those concerns are much more valid. I dig chinese room's games but theyre kinda like books. They are the absolute *last* devs id "hand something over to halfway through". Especially as a followup to a game that is so "Im-Sim" it literally killed the studio. its SUCH a wierd fit, like saying the new Call of Duty game has been handed over to fucking PopCap For real I dig the Chinese Room, applied for a job there years back and have emails from Jessica Curry. It's kinda wild, they're cool guys over there
One of my favourite plot moments in this game is where in those notes Mandus talks about the "product" (apparently pigs, right?) processing on his factory in great details. And then it turns out that all this time he talked about humans, and the fact that all those processing details were not ablut pigs is almost impossible to pick up from those notes early on due to how they're written.
If The Dark Descent is an actual haunted house, A Machine for Pigs is a haunted house ride in a theme park. (Admittedly, one with a few good segments, but still.)
YES I’m so glad you uploaded this, I’ve been looking forward to your insight on the series’s downward curve ever since you uploaded the Penumbra video.
This is a very mean thing to say, so take it with a grain of salt, but The Chinese Room gives me the same feeling as David Cage-that being "video game refugees". How I define video game refugees are people who don't actually like video games, and think that books, comics, and/or movies are superior artforms. But the writing standards for those mediums are higher, so they stick around in video games so they can be a medium sized fish in a tiny pond. It is frustrating that I can't even blame them, because that strategy works really well.
I don't usually like horror games, since by their nature they're filled with jumpscares. The kind of horror I like is existential. Which is why this is one of my favorite horror games, right behind Soma. The fact that the same studio made two games with two of the most terrifying ends to a video game is honestly incredible.
There's a term for World War One, the Seminole Tragedy. A tragedy so horrible, that we can never go back to how the world used to be. If you could see that coming, and you had the means to end humanity instead of allowing such suffering, would you honestly allow it to happen?
I don't know if anyone's pointed this out, but the founding myth of the Mexica featured a eagle on top of a cactus, eating a snake. Said Cactus had grown from a HEART of a demigod who'd been slain by the Mexica.
Aw you're gonna make me cry, supporting Ross with his "stop killing games" movement. So beautiful to see you shout out and stand with we the gamers against the corpo menace. Cheers man, seriously.
there's some interesting stuff to look into regarding the development of the game. they had ideas like an infection meter to replace the sanity meter from the first game - it would have similar but expanded gameplay effects and would rise from being attacked by the pigs or dredging through murky waters, etc. and would only go down when using disinfection chambers or something like that (there's actually a few of those you have to pass through in the final game as well but they're just there for the vibe). it's pretty unfortunate that things just didn't really work out as well as they could have at the end but i think there's a bunch of stuff to appreciate about the game still. besides the stuff you already talked about, even the broad concept of combining aztec imagery and concepts with the 19th century british industrial era is very unique and creates a lot of pretty scary ideas like the whole industrial human sacrifice thing
I realized that Machine for Pigs was essentially a walking simulation pretty early on, and it immediately made the game not scary. I think you could count the actual enemy encounters on one hand for the entire game.
I had a friend in middle school who super into the Amnesia series, and he loved that ending monolog. I never knew where it came from so those opening words at the end sent me back in time crazy style EDIT: Also Holy shit OSWALD MANDUS? Andrew Ryan level character naming (loving?)
