Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Revisited

I have a lot of games on Steam. I've converted from console gaming to PC because its just easier that way. Games always are released for PC users and they never have to upgrade like with an Xbox or PlayStation. Another reason why is because the library of PC games is much larger then that of a console. This paves the ways for a whole lot of indie games that are excusive. The Amnesia series from Frictional Games is one such. The first one, Amnesia The Dark Descent, released in 2010, took the PC community by storm. People praised it for its immersion and intriguing game play. The objective of the game was to navigate through a Gothic mansion haunted by dark forces. You couldn't fight back and could only rely on hiding for survival. I've played through it several times, taking advantage of the interaction based endings I could perform. The novelty wore off and eventually I became familiar with the stage layouts and scares. But it still has a place on my list of favorite games.
Then in 2013, after much talk and expectation, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was released. I played through it that same day and completed it in three hours. I thought to myself "Eh, it was ok." My hype for it died out a while ago. It was recently when I decided to play through it again, just to make sure I still was familiar with it. It soon all came back to me.
A Machine for Pigs is actually a prequel rather then a sequel, taking place a couple years before The Dark Descent. You're given a new character and setting, so playing the first game isn't required to have an idea as to what is going on. The plot revolves around Oswald Mandel, an industrialist and butcher, trying to find his two sons on New Years Eve 1899. Instead of taking place in a single mansion, its expanded to small town in London. Oswald is guided by someone called the "engineer" into a secret lair of sorts underground where it is claimed his children are held by a machine. This machine is capable of turning men into pig-like monsters and will continue to do so until it assimilates the global population, starting with London. The pig monsters can be encountered regularly throughout the game. As Oswald continues down, he slowly regains his memory and figures out he's more closer to the machine then he realizes.
Now there are differences in the second entry, for better or worse. The first is the lantern. In The Dark Descent, you have a lantern to light up dark areas (which is pretty much the entire game). The issue with it is that it runs out of oil and must be refilled. The lantern in A Machine for Pigs never runs out and can be accessed at anytime even when not needed. It makes navigating easier, but it must be hidden when the man pigs are near. While on the subject of the monsters; their designs are...scary to say the least. I've always enjoyed pig-like creatures and they seem to have their place in the horror genre. Appearing in movies like Motel Hell and Saw III and IV. The ones in The Dark Descent are hard to describe, but also deliver the same sense of fright. The game has a detection noise that they make when they find out your location. Trust me, its truly heart dropping when you hear that sound and the visuals only add to it.
So is it a better game then the first one with all these improvements. In my opinion, close but no banana. The reason I say that is because the gameplay. The Dark Descent was very open world like. Sure it had a start point and an end point but it offered many more in game interactions. A Machine for Pigs is very linear, its almost like a visual novel. It tries to keep you moving in a straight line to get from beginning to end while in the first game you can make curves here and there. I do, however, like the premise of the second game better. It's not too cryptic and is very upfront with everything. It's not too memorable though, consider I had to have a second play through to remind myself.
A Machine for Pigs was met with mixed to positive reviews. Most people agree that The Dark Descent is better. I see why, it's longer, requires more thinking, and has a much higher scare factor then the second one. In my opinion, its a good entry into the series. Keeping up with the connecting theme of forgetting something then slowly remembering it through a terrifying journey, but its a tad bit short and too one tracked.