Zero Punctuation: Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

[Taunta]

You liked this atrocious piece of garbage, Yahtzee? lol. Well to each their own, but TheChineseRoom can serious gtfo of the game industry considering it has never made a real game. Just interactive stories. Yes, there is a difference.

I admit this game doesn't hold a candle to The Dark Decent, but why this game gets so much hate mystifies me. I loved it, and yes, it wasn't "gamey" or as scary as the predecessor, but I felt that it was at least a good game by itself, at most a worthy enough sequel. And I'm gonna be honest, I preferred the Machine to the dark corridors of Brennenburg Castle; as Yahtzee said, the whole machine did feel like this groaning monster itself.

Here's the thing, it's not a game. Nor was Dear Esther.

It's a computer program, it's interactive, it uses animated picture (aka video) and sound as a feedback, you have to press a certain pattern of buttons in the right order to make progress and get to the end, so yeah I really don't see why it shouldn't be categorized as being a game. Besides whatever you call it the experience has to be judged on its own merits, not out of some expectations for what a game should be, or how scary it should be, or how it should be exaclty the same thing than the dark descent.
I really don't get all the hate for this game and really agree whith yathzee that despites its flaws it's still way above average of most of what's coming out of the "gaming industry" today (well maybe he didn't exactly say that).

Every book written about "what is play" and "what is a game" would never classify this kinda thing a game though.

(Citation needed)

*shrugs* if people like it, so be it. But don't pretend it's a game or requires any real thought or skill when the most you do is press forward and at points grab something and move it elsewhere.

Who said games require more thought or skill than that? That wasn't in my copy of the dictionary.

Dear Esther is a hell of a lot more complex than Pong, in which the most you do is press up and down and at points hit a pixel with another pixel, but no one argues that's not a game.

 

[Vicioussama]

You liked this atrocious piece of garbage, Yahtzee? lol. Well to each their own, but TheChineseRoom can serious gtfo of the game industry considering it has never made a real game. Just interactive stories. Yes, there is a difference.

I admit this game doesn't hold a candle to The Dark Decent, but why this game gets so much hate mystifies me. I loved it, and yes, it wasn't "gamey" or as scary as the predecessor, but I felt that it was at least a good game by itself, at most a worthy enough sequel. And I'm gonna be honest, I preferred the Machine to the dark corridors of Brennenburg Castle; as Yahtzee said, the whole machine did feel like this groaning monster itself.

Here's the thing, it's not a game. Nor was Dear Esther.

It's a computer program, it's interactive, it uses animated picture (aka video) and sound as a feedback, you have to press a certain pattern of buttons in the right order to make progress and get to the end, so yeah I really don't see why it shouldn't be categorized as being a game. Besides whatever you call it the experience has to be judged on its own merits, not out of some expectations for what a game should be, or how scary it should be, or how it should be exaclty the same thing than the dark descent.
I really don't get all the hate for this game and really agree whith yathzee that despites its flaws it's still way above average of most of what's coming out of the "gaming industry" today (well maybe he didn't exactly say that).

Every book written about "what is play" and "what is a game" would never classify this kinda thing a game though.

(Citation needed)

*shrugs* if people like it, so be it. But don't pretend it's a game or requires any real thought or skill when the most you do is press forward and at points grab something and move it elsewhere.

Who said games require more thought or skill than that? That wasn't in my copy of the dictionary.

Dear Esther is a hell of a lot more complex than Pong, in which the most you do is press up and down and at points hit a pixel with another pixel, but no one argues that's not a game.

Except in pong you have to actually react to the game, Dear Esther you don't. And there is an actual lose state in the game. One thing that defines what is a "game" for pretty much all developers is that there's a lose state or a punishment for actions (as well as rewards). Is there one in Dear Esther? No. That's generally why people consider pong a game and Dear Esther just an interactive novel or movie.