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My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator
sailornaruto39 Offline
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#11
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

I agree with you (hey we agree on something)
I want to go over the cons of this game


-Lack of game mechanics
The remove of the various mechnics in what made amnesia unique ruined the gameplay. I wouldn't have had so much of a problem had they at least added something new and useful. There was the one thing where you could turn on the lamp but it's a relatively bright game nor are the lamps that bright and you have an infinite lantern.

-The overdone and excessive notes
Often times when I see someone defending this game they say "well at least the story was good.
I personally don't think it was that good,but certainly the purple prose note could've been toned down to be a little easier to understand. I mean I know they are high class ppl from back in the day, but so were Daniel and Alexander.

-Lack of scares and monsters
*sigh*

-lack of music
There was no chase music and there was hardly ever any music ever being played, What did play was ok but I wish there would've been more to it.

Apparently the games wasn't suppose to be scary but a dark psychological story driven game (according to John) that actually makes sense and would be fine(not really for me I find games like that boring) had it not been for the association with Amnesia.

Really what were they thinking? Were they not aware of the expectations? I had a feeling a little while after I heard there was going to be a squeal that I might be disapointed, when I heard it would not be by FG, I was even more worried, then I looked up some reviews and read some comments and way dispointed. Now I finsihed John's playthrough and my disapointment is confirmed.

If they wanted to make something different than why not just make it different? Why sully the name of amnesia?
09-16-2013, 10:41 AM
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Jim Offline
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#12
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

I'm still processing AMFP, so I'm not 100% sure on how I feel yet, but I agree with most of the OP. I don't think of the game as narcissistic or self-indulgent though. I know you said you weren't sure what the right terms were, but I think I know what you're getting at.

The game has an interesting story to tell, that much is for sure. There are a lot of compelling elements here, lots of compelling scenery (the decontamination chambers? *swoon*), lots of possibilities for a riveting story. The problem is the way it all plays out. It really lacks that sense of... I think the word I'm looking for is "agency". There weren't any real "hubs" in the game, I sleepwalked through all of the simple drag-and-drop puzzles, and the story was vague as hell. I agree, it really felt like you were being forced to watch things happen. AMFP is so dissonant, it feels like communication between you and the game is seriously throttled; which makes it feel like AMFP doesn't care about you, when really it's just a victim of its own origins.

I knew the ride was going to be a little bumpy. Things always are when a project shifts focus like AMFP did. This was supposed to be an Amnesia/Dear Esther hybrid, and the decision to shift back into the Amnesia spectrum didn't exactly come in early development. At least, that's how I understand the situation to be.

TLDR: Is this the Amnesia we wanted? Absolutely not. Was I surprised by it? Not at all. Why frictional decided to outsource Amnesia after just one game, I don't think I'll ever understand, but as long as they're making something, I'm sure it will be good.

Edit: Never finished my thought in the second paragraph. Tongue Fixed.

(This post was last modified: 09-16-2013, 10:46 PM by Jim.)
09-16-2013, 10:40 PM
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Onlinezigeuner Away
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#13
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

I can agree with most of that. I just wonder what it would be like if AMfP was the first game.
For me it still felt like amnesia but in a limited way. On the other side i can understand that they wanted to make something different. The mainproblem was that they removed the things that made TDD so unbelievable awesome.

Sigh...time for new custom stories.
11-05-2013, 05:35 PM
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WALP Offline
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#14
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

Is this turning into another aamfp review thread?
11-05-2013, 07:13 PM
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Nyarlathotep Offline
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#15
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

For myself this definitely was the game I was 'wanted at least, to the extent I allowed myself to have expectations. I try not to fall into the problem of building up my own image of something too much pre-release. For developers like Frictional and TCR, I tend to trust their ideas and go into it with as much of an open mind as possible.

But that aside. I've been a big fan of TCR's stuff since finding their mod, Korsakovia a while back. Their music and abstract presentation is a huge draw for the people who seem to like their stuff. So I got what I was hoping for when I heard they were handling this game.

The lack of interaction is my biggest complaint - though I understand the technical issues. Other than that, the extent to which the interaction was still used helped ground me in the game more than enough. And I very much appreciated them cutting back on resource and insanity mechanics. Those elements just became annoying for me in the original.

And the expectations left over from the first game are what made this game very genuinely scary on my first playthrough. Not knowing there weren't many threats - all of their fakeouts were effective against me and had me hiding when I did not need to. I think that was actually smart design and fell in line with the first game's philosophy of faking its difficulty. Even with that aside, I still died on the way back from the cold storage room, which kept me from feeling safe for the final stretch.

So just to sum up how I felt. I did indeed feel like it was a mix of TCR's weirder style and Amnesia, I thought it worked well, and had assumed that was always the point of this collaboration.
(This post was last modified: 11-05-2013, 09:06 PM by Nyarlathotep.)
11-05-2013, 08:56 PM
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Damascus Rose Offline
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#16
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

This is exactly how I felt about the game, nice job explaining it really well. good writing

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11-05-2013, 11:28 PM
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JohnDoe Offline
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#17
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

(09-13-2013, 05:51 AM)Alardem Wrote: I agree with your premise, but have to differ on the writing. Mandus' love of purple prose is period-appropriate, and the reliance on ambiguity provokes the player to try and make sense of a fractured narrative. The actual story of an industrialist driven mad is rather basic - the writing embellishes it, however, so that we get a sense for the fractured state of the man's psyche.

Different strokes for diff'rent folks, perhaps.

I discussed this with a friend who has a double major in English and History.
Turns out it's wrong. Period literature was quite flowery, it's true. Personal writing was not. Since these are supposed to be things written by Mandus for Mandus, there's no reason that it would even begin to reach the levels of purple prose it hit.

I am not entirely sold on the story, but I do agree that the presentation was the real problem here. By the end of the game, I was annoyed when journal entries appeared because it meant that I had to jump out of the game again and see what 'brilliant' notes Mandus had written now.
11-05-2013, 11:45 PM
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Alardem Offline
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#18
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

EDIT: Whoa, the forum ate my response!

If you're really gonna use the credentials argument: I'm a double major in English and History, and I stick to my guns. I bet Dan Pinchbeck's also got plenty of experience with reading Victorian literature. :p

It's true that not all Victorian literature was purple prose, as its comprehensibility spanned a vast range, but Ozzie's overwrought monologues fit that of a self-righteous, deluded aristocratic character. As far as period-appropriate dialogue goes, he's a far more convincing character than Alexander or the folks from Bioshock: Infinite. (That game's writing has made it my punching bag.) He may appear ludicrous to an audience in 2013, but I prefer that over a man who speaks as if he's from my time.

There are plenty of flaws with the story-telling, chief being the overuse of notes in lieu of environmental or audio cues. One problem is that Mandus' notes, both in his journal and the papers he picks up, seem to represent his internal thoughts - this is supported by the fact that he writes ridiculously long notes during moments where he logically has no time to do so (chase scenes) and that you very conspicuously see a note materialize before your eyes when the woman gets grabbed by Pigs in the London Attack scene. Perhaps it would have been better to do what SOMA is doing and express Mandus' thoughts as voice-overs.

Another is that he's even more "mustache-twirling" than Alexander. We're meant to take his rants about feeding kids to piggies and calling his victims delicious seriously.

However, I would chalk down this overdose of text in a video-game as a casualty of scope exceeding limited resources. It's why so many horror games use audio-logs and notes instead of actually showing what the notes are talking about.
(This post was last modified: 11-06-2013, 01:43 AM by Alardem.)
11-06-2013, 12:23 AM
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JohnDoe Offline
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#19
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

(11-06-2013, 12:23 AM)Alardem Wrote: EDIT: Whoa, the forum ate my response!

If you're really gonna use the credentials argument: I'm a double major in English and History, and I stick to my guns. I bet Dan Pinchbeck's also got plenty of experience with reading Victorian literature. :p

It's true that not all Victorian literature was purple prose, as its comprehensibility spanned a vast range, but Ozzie's overwrought monologues fit that of a self-righteous, deluded aristocratic character. As far as period-appropriate dialogue goes, he's a far more convincing character than Alexander or the folks from Bioshock: Infinite. (That game's writing has made it my punching bag.) He may appear ludicrous to an audience in 2013, but I prefer that over a man who speaks as if he's from my time.

There are plenty of flaws with the story-telling, chief being the overuse of notes in lieu of environmental or audio cues. One problem is that Mandus' notes, both in his journal and the papers he picks up, seem to represent his internal thoughts - this is supported by the fact that he writes ridiculously long notes during moments where he logically has no time to do so (chase scenes) and that you very conspicuously see a note materialize before your eyes when the woman gets grabbed by Pigs in the London Attack scene. Perhaps it would have been better to do what SOMA is doing and express Mandus' thoughts as voice-overs.

Another is that he's even more "mustache-twirling" than Alexander. We're meant to take his rants about feeding kids to piggies and calling his victims delicious seriously.

However, I would chalk down this overdose of text in a video-game as a casualty of scope exceeding limited resources. It's why so many horror games use audio-logs and notes instead of actually showing what the notes are talking about.

I still disagree with how purple the prose was, but I'm glad you agree that Mandus was portrayed in a way that made him comical rather than scary.

I cannot agree that this is purely a problem with it being text, either. I personally feel that simply making the journals into audio clips wouldn't have improved matters. If they'd been audio they might have realized just how ridiculous they were, though.

Actually, that is another annoyance for me. Flashback audio doesn't bother me, but those audio logs scattered about were so out of place. People complained about the audio logs in Bioshock Infinite, and these were just as bad. No logic to the placement, no logic to the recordings themselves!
11-07-2013, 02:33 AM
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Nice Offline
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#20
RE: My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

(11-05-2013, 07:13 PM)The Mug Wrote: Is this turning into another aamfp review thread?

yes it is...

ughh these humans


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11-08-2013, 12:00 AM
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