Was I Wrong About Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs?
Painticus
123,435 views
Let's meet some travellers from some antique lands.
Twitch: Twitch: painticus
Patreon: Patreon: painticus
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VoD Channel: @painticus-archive5801
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was the second game in the massively influential Amnesia series, following up from the legendary Amnesia: The Dark Descent. However, unlike its predecessor, it was not made by Frictional Games - the company behind other IPs like SOMA and Penumbra. Instead, it was made by The Chinese Room - an English development studio best known for narrative-heavy games such as Dear Esther, Still Wakes the Deep, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
This change in development studio meant that the game deviated from The Dark Descent's innovative new take on survival horror, and instead ended up as something much more akin to a walking simulator with some puzzles and basic enemy encounters. This caused a lot of people (my younger self included) to dislike the game upon release.
But since then, I've had the chance to revisit the game many times - and I can now appreciate it for what it is. A narrative and thematic masterpiece. With some puzzles and basic enemy encounters.
In this video I summarise the plot of the game and explore its characters. Among some other stuff. I don't like writing descriptions and I reckon I'll stop right here.
Video Sources:
"Paint's Complaints - Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs": Paint's Complaints - Amnesia: A Machine fo...
Body Of A Pig: Body Of A Pig
ACEPHALE HORROR FICTION - "MASTICATION": https://open.spotify.com/episode/7M4g..., https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace
The Inbetweeners - S3E5 "Home Alone"
Audio Sources:
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Amnesia: Rebirth
Amnesia: The Bunker
Penumbra: Overture
Penumbra: Black Plague
Scratches Director's Cut ("Where The Dead Might Lie", "The House, in Dust")
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky ("Ghost City")
Conscript ("Refuge", "Carrying the Flame")
Dark Souls ("Gravelord Nito")
REPULSIVE - "Les Vieux Habitants", "1908 Vol. II", "In my dreams, we sat there for hours..."
Timestamps:
0:00:00 Why was it disliked?
0:09:01 My evil old video...
0:17:24 Why do I like it now?
0:58:54 Closing thoughts
Business Email: painticus@gmail.com
20 Comments
Despite being an abomination of metal and flesh, the machine is, at its core, the broken heart of a man who realized too late what he was becoming. Ive rarely seen the dark reflection archetype being handled so well.
Mandus, the industrialist, the man who most epitomizes the successes and affluence of the society he despises, sees these pigs as the natural state of humanity laid bare. But they're not natural, they're his own creations. Their violence, their filth, their cruelty— all were shaped by his hands. He's created a self fulfilling prophecy, just as a society which demonizes the poor and the weak will always do. It will create enforcers, and it will create the wretched.
But in that section, despite everything they've endured— they don't attack him. He sees them play, and sing, and eat. They live with some scrap of genuine humanity preserved, something Mandus couldn't carve out from them.
In the end, when Mandus chooses to allow humanity to survive, to commit to the worst of their atrocities— it reflects the spark we can see still lingering in the pigmen.
The new century will come, and the millions will die— but a child in the ruins will still find a way to play. And a family will manage to survive for another night. And the world will be preserved through small acts.
56:56 and Mandus does see it, eventually. But only once he's remembered his own humanity.
In Mandus's final moments, he hears "the Manpigs singing to one another," as the new century dawns. Humanity, with all its inflicted faults, still alive and singing.
"I have stood knee deep in mud and bone, and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws, and starved the masses into faith. A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. This is your coming century! They will eat them Mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat your hearts!"
I still rewatch the Slendrina video at least once a day.
I remember watching an interview with him a year ago or so, conducted shortly before he died. In this, he told the interviewer that he wasn't an evil person and never did something wrong. Because this word is getting flung out so often I hesitate to use it, but Pol Pot was a monster! All the things that happened during his regime - the killing fields, the genocides, the executions, etc. - belong to the darkest moments of the last century. So having him being completely sure about his own innocence made me (I kid you not) cry.
I study fascism and imperialism in university. My main research consists of the influence of propaganda during the second world war (and to some extend during the times of colonialism). Over the years, I became desensitized towards all kinds of atrocities. All the wars, mass murders, camps, and so on and so forth. Studying this stuff nowadays makes me feel empty. Not that it doesn't affect me; I just feel hollow and cold. But seeing a monster in human disguise saying that he never did something wrong? It broke me.
I tell this story, because I never played A Machine for Pigs myself. But the ending monologue of the machine made me feel as broken as when I watched the interview. A powerful game. And a powerful video. I don't know any youtuber who can talk about this stuff as serious as you did without being completely cynical or trying to play it down with jokes. Your reaction was something I sometimes miss in others and myself: It was completely human. Thank you for this great video!
Was I Wrong About Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs?
Painticus
123,435 views
Let's meet some travellers from some antique lands.
Twitch: Twitch: painticus
Patreon: Patreon: painticus
Discord: Discord: discord
VoD Channel: @painticus-archive5801
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was the second game in the massively influential Amnesia series, following up from the legendary Amnesia: The Dark Descent. However, unlike its predecessor, it was not made by Frictional Games - the company behind other IPs like SOMA and Penumbra. Instead, it was made by The Chinese Room - an English development studio best known for narrative-heavy games such as Dear Esther, Still Wakes the Deep, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
This change in development studio meant that the game deviated from The Dark Descent's innovative new take on survival horror, and instead ended up as something much more akin to a walking simulator with some puzzles and basic enemy encounters. This caused a lot of people (my younger self included) to dislike the game upon release.
But since then, I've had the chance to revisit the game many times - and I can now appreciate it for what it is. A narrative and thematic masterpiece. With some puzzles and basic enemy encounters.
In this video I summarise the plot of the game and explore its characters. Among some other stuff. I don't like writing descriptions and I reckon I'll stop right here.
Video Sources:
"Paint's Complaints - Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs": Paint's Complaints - Amnesia: A Machine fo...
Body Of A Pig: Body Of A Pig
ACEPHALE HORROR FICTION - "MASTICATION": https://open.spotify.com/episode/7M4g..., https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace
The Inbetweeners - S3E5 "Home Alone"
Audio Sources:
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Amnesia: Rebirth
Amnesia: The Bunker
Penumbra: Overture
Penumbra: Black Plague
Scratches Director's Cut ("Where The Dead Might Lie", "The House, in Dust")
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky ("Ghost City")
Conscript ("Refuge", "Carrying the Flame")
Dark Souls ("Gravelord Nito")
REPULSIVE - "Les Vieux Habitants", "1908 Vol. II", "In my dreams, we sat there for hours..."
Timestamps:
0:00:00 Why was it disliked?
0:09:01 My evil old video...
0:17:24 Why do I like it now?
0:58:54 Closing thoughts
Business Email: painticus@gmail.com
While I cover a lot of the game's story in this video, there are still some aspects of it I neglected to cover. For example - Mandus's financial struggles, his encounters with the professor, and a few other bits and pieces. This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ylkZTKWl4 does a good job at covering all of the parts I missed, so give that a watch! (or, even better, go and play the game yourself!)
Also, apologies if any of the AMFP footage looks odd in terms of brightness/contrast. The game is notoriously difficult to record for whatever reason, and almost all raw footage of it looks super dark and therefore gets crushed by YouTube compression. I've manually brightened many of the clips to hopefully fix that though! But it's also worth noting that a lot of the game (especially in the early sections) looks strange due to the colour grading/filters that they went a bit heavy-handed with.