Amnesia AMP finally got better.
Some might call what I reveal below a minor spoiler, but I call it a warning and reassurance due to the incredibly long and boring opening segment of this game. It does get better, it just takes a while.
I spent the first two hours of the game just wandering about some dim areas with very little to do. The most exciting thing I did during the first part of the game was filling up a gas tank so I could move a delivery truck a staggering six inches so I could open a fence it was parked next to. Seriously, I'm not exaggerating at all. There were a couple of banging doors and a few instances of things running by making pig noises, but otherwise it was a pretty uneventful trip and I never felt that I was in any sort of peril at all. I found some secret pervert rooms with 'vintage porn' all over them, some dead pigs that didn't seem too out of place due to the meat processing plant the house is attached to, and an otherwise mundane overdecorated home. A few deranged notes that didn't make much sense and some music and bad poetry. Yawn.
Then, I [finally] got to the church past the old cemetery. This is where the game picks up, but not right away. After a couple of cheap attempted scares you'll end up solving a few puzzles and things get better finally. An actual dark area, the first close encounter with one of the monsters. Surprise...it's a pig-thing, and no that's not a spoiler either as the game makes no attempt whatsoever to hide that at any point. It's also the point that made me realize that AMP has a case of 'monster buttonitis'. Meaning you can often wander about areas unmolested and poke around for puzzle elements and notes as long as you don't mess with a certain and usually obvious interactive object such as a button or switch at which point a monster will appear or some sort of 'scare event' will happen. It's not quite as bad as Outlast in regard to this, but it is there.
It gets more familiar in the Church area and better, but it took way too long to get there. It's not like I've been getting a sense of a great story either. There is a sort of vague outline, but nothing that really connects together outside of 'you were a huge prick who owned a meat processing plant and went crazy after some shit went down in Mexico'. I didn't need two hours of wandering about in a non-scary environment to find that out. This game takes way too long to pick up and get interesting.
Interestingly, unlike the first game, it makes no attempt to hide its monster. I got a good look at the pig thing right away. The original kept you 'in the dark', if you'll pardon the expression, for quite a while. The monsters didn't look great when you finally did get a good look later in the game, but much like the film Jaws it helped make it scarier that they couldn't throw it in your face so much. It was better for it I think. The monster I've seen so far does look much better graphically speaking, but I still find it less scary than the things in Amnesia. It almost looks comical in a dark kind of way in fact.
I think there's been vague hinting that maybe you made the pig-things yourself to run the machines in the factory as a labor force. I can't say for sure at this point and I won't confirm it if it is true later. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who is playing. It's just a theory I have based on what I've seen in the game thus far that may or may not pan out later.
Also, I'm getting sick of the masks. They're overused and everywhere. I get that they're some sort of symbolism involved with them, but there are too many lying about in places that don't make sense. I remember thinking it was kind of creepy at first, but after finding fifty more it's just making me roll my eyes and think 'oh, another one. WTF is it doing in a place like this anyway?' I get the impression that maybe they are used to mark places where one of your past victims was murdered or taken from. Even if that is the case, again just a guess on my part, I still find them to be overused.
At any rate, it is finally getting better. I've found an area that is actually dark, I've gotten to the point where I might die if I'm not careful, and it's definitely a vast improvement over the very slow and far too drawn out beginning portion of the game.
My advice to people who want to play the game is to rush through and find your way to the church as quickly as possible. There isn't much to be learned before then beyond you were a huge dick with voyeurism fetish and paranoia issues. Once you get to the Church, it gets much more like the original game. It's still not quite up to the same standard as the original. You don't have to worry about running out of fuel for your lamp and don't have a time limit to how long you need to be in the dark. It's less tense because of it not only because of the lack of limiting factors on avoiding enemies, but also because you don't need to scour the areas for resources. There's less need to be as thorough in exploration as there was in the first game. You might find a note if you poke your nose about a bit more, but it's optional and areas can more easily be rushed through because of it.
I do have to say my opinion of the game has risen quite a bit now that I'm in a more familiar gameplay element as opposed to wandering about a dimly lit house where the biggest danger was my character stubbing his toe while walking about.
If you've got this game, stick it out because it does get better. It just takes a really long time. As I said, just rush through the opening area until you get to the church, then things get much more interesting and it becomes much more like its predecessor.
