![]() ![]() That said, the script takes the high road, with the authors choosing literary skill and creepy subtlety over pulp violence every time. Much of this is surreal and sick, hinting at torture and mass murder on an industrial scale. Serious themes are touched on, as well, mostly courtesy of the scripting in the notes that power much of the plot development. Mandus goes from being a mildly unhinged man to a possible mad scientist playing God to a genocidal madman. Instead of bluntly beating you over the head with blood and guts, the game uses the much more satisfying tactic of slowly building a sense that something is deeply wrong with every step you take in the mansion and the steampunk-styled factory complex beneath it. You move through the ominous mansion in first person, piecing together your troubled past courtesy of notes, the odd entry in your journal, sound recordings that play on Victrola-like devices, and even telephone conversations with a mysterious man who may have your children held captive in the bowels of the factory. He seems to have lost his two sons, his wife may be dead, something bad happened recently during an expedition to Mexico, and there is something very strange going down with regard to pigs in and around his home and adjacent factory. You play as Oswald Mandus, a rich industrialist/adventurer who awakens at the beginning of the game in his mansion with no memory of his recent past. This eerie tale takes place at the end of 1899 in London. Put all of this into an incredibly creepy adventure that takes place almost entirely in the pitch dark, toss in some pig-men, and you have one supremely unnerving adventure that is impossible to put down. This semi-sequel to 2011's surprise hit Amnesia: The Dark Descent from developer The Chinese Room takes horror-movie tropes and stirs them into a meditation on the meaning of life, love, war, religion, madness, and the impact of industrialism on 19th-century England. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is cerebral, legitimately frightening, and very, very disturbing. ![]()
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