13 years ago, Alan Wake became my favourite game of all time. Something about this game resonated with little 13 year old Jake, and much like my crush on Ramona Flowers, it's nice to know this adoration has survived through my teens and well into my adulthood.
Back then, I couldn't properly explain why I loved this game so much, and honestly I'm not even sure I can now. The closing sentence has stuck with me for half my life at this point, and my dumbass still doesn't even fully comprehend what it means 😌
Replaying this for the first time in over a decade and using the very same collectible guide as I did back on my Xbox 360 was such a great nostalgia trip, I didn't mind the jank and rust that was still ever-present from the original release.
The last time I went for a 100% run was at my old bff's house, where I played through the entire game in one long, uninterrupted sitting. A playthrough that I'm certain was my 2nd that weekend alone, I was obsessed.
This isn't much of a review I realise but my appreciation of this game is on a deeper level than it's surface. The combat may be simple and sorta clunky but I've always really liked the unique approach of using light to basically break shields. The characters are great, a lot of them are a little one-note or weird but considering the consistent Twin Peaks vibe the game gives off, everything feels much more deliberately uncanny than lazy or amateurly written. I am of course speaking with all the bias on earth, but it's my review init 😌
The core premise with the writer and the manuscript pages you find and how everything ties together is really cool too I think. I just think it's neat :)
Hoping and praying that Alan Wake II lives up to the first, I remember liking the AWE DLC for Control so I'm confident that whatever my boy Sam has cooking will be worth the time. Maybe my review of that game will actually be a review, who knows :p
Back then, I couldn't properly explain why I loved this game so much, and honestly I'm not even sure I can now. The closing sentence has stuck with me for half my life at this point, and my dumbass still doesn't even fully comprehend what it means 😌
Replaying this for the first time in over a decade and using the very same collectible guide as I did back on my Xbox 360 was such a great nostalgia trip, I didn't mind the jank and rust that was still ever-present from the original release.
The last time I went for a 100% run was at my old bff's house, where I played through the entire game in one long, uninterrupted sitting. A playthrough that I'm certain was my 2nd that weekend alone, I was obsessed.
This isn't much of a review I realise but my appreciation of this game is on a deeper level than it's surface. The combat may be simple and sorta clunky but I've always really liked the unique approach of using light to basically break shields. The characters are great, a lot of them are a little one-note or weird but considering the consistent Twin Peaks vibe the game gives off, everything feels much more deliberately uncanny than lazy or amateurly written. I am of course speaking with all the bias on earth, but it's my review init 😌
The core premise with the writer and the manuscript pages you find and how everything ties together is really cool too I think. I just think it's neat :)
Hoping and praying that Alan Wake II lives up to the first, I remember liking the AWE DLC for Control so I'm confident that whatever my boy Sam has cooking will be worth the time. Maybe my review of that game will actually be a review, who knows :p
Alan Wake Remastered é um game que de cara me surpreendeu ao me fazer deparar com um survival horror e não um game de terror em si.
Com uma mecânica interessante de mirar através da lanterna que serve também para enfraquecer e vulnerabilizar os inimigos, o combate é bem divertido embora pouco frenético e com um sistema de esquiva meio estranho.
A experiência tem uma ambientação e um suspense muito bom, porém eu não entendi quase nada da história até minhas 5 horas de jogo, o que acredito que faz parte da proposta mas acaba não me deixando tão imerso.
Por fim é um remaster com bem cara de remaster mesmo, pouca melhoria gráfica em relação ao original e a otimização é bem ruim no pc, além de umas narrações que se tratam de comentários óbvios.
Porém o principal motivo que me faz deixar para um futuro próximo é de fato priorizar outros games, por mais que a experiência de Alan Wake me parece curta, não queria rushar o game já que vejo até um potencial e me faria entrar mais de cabeça para o segundo game que eu estou de olho, portanto, prefiro dar horas para jogos mais longos como o Dragons Dogma 2 no momento e até mesmo quero começar o No Rest For The Wicked que vem me chamando atenção.
Com uma mecânica interessante de mirar através da lanterna que serve também para enfraquecer e vulnerabilizar os inimigos, o combate é bem divertido embora pouco frenético e com um sistema de esquiva meio estranho.
A experiência tem uma ambientação e um suspense muito bom, porém eu não entendi quase nada da história até minhas 5 horas de jogo, o que acredito que faz parte da proposta mas acaba não me deixando tão imerso.
Por fim é um remaster com bem cara de remaster mesmo, pouca melhoria gráfica em relação ao original e a otimização é bem ruim no pc, além de umas narrações que se tratam de comentários óbvios.
Porém o principal motivo que me faz deixar para um futuro próximo é de fato priorizar outros games, por mais que a experiência de Alan Wake me parece curta, não queria rushar o game já que vejo até um potencial e me faria entrar mais de cabeça para o segundo game que eu estou de olho, portanto, prefiro dar horas para jogos mais longos como o Dragons Dogma 2 no momento e até mesmo quero começar o No Rest For The Wicked que vem me chamando atenção.
A game that's focused on being the light in the darkness is one that has very bright moments of brilliance among a pile of flaws. Okay, I needed to let that weird and probably inaccurate metaphor out of my brain. Let's actually break this down.
I got into Alan Wake by recommendation of my brother and any fan of Remedy's games I could find on the internet. So I decided to finally give it a shot! After FFVII Rebirth I wanted to play some shorter games to wind down from such a massive RPG.
Now, after playing it, my usual reaction to anyone who told me to try it out is a mix of “Why? Why would you make me do this?” and “I genuinely understand the vision, and I share it as well".
And that is born from the fact that playing the actual videogame is not very fun. And while I found the idea of having to break enemies' guards with a flashlight first before being able to damage them (not counting flare gun shots and flashbangs) very cool at first, I feel like as the game goes by, the concept starts becoming very repetitive as most enemy encounters feel the same. It quickly starts to become very, very annoying. Specially when you have the entire army of darkness throwing homing axes and machetes at you that you usually have to avoid by using the most unreliable dodge button ever put in an action game.
However, every time I would get into a section of the game where I could just watch the story unravel, read a manuscript, listen to a radio show, or watch the characters interact, it was delightful. It's a bizarre story that's surprisingly funny (whether it's intentional or not) at times, with interesting ways of preparing its plot twists and making the player believe they are going just as insane as Alan himself is.
What I'm trying to say, is that 1. I don't think that Alan is as unlikeable as a lot of people led me to believe, while he gives an awful first impression. It takes having to interact with a friend that has a creative hobby, whether it is writing, animating, drawing, you name it, you quickly come to realize that being creatively blocked fucking sucks, and I can also speak from experience with that. And 2. Barry is absolutely GOATED, I wish I had half of his charisma.
At the end of the day, even if I had my complaints with the gameplay itself, I found myself in more situations where I would go, “Oh, this is why people love these games,” and I want to see more of it. Soon I'll go into the DLCs, and maybe later this year, both Control and the direct sequel because I HAVE to know more.
I got into Alan Wake by recommendation of my brother and any fan of Remedy's games I could find on the internet. So I decided to finally give it a shot! After FFVII Rebirth I wanted to play some shorter games to wind down from such a massive RPG.
Now, after playing it, my usual reaction to anyone who told me to try it out is a mix of “Why? Why would you make me do this?” and “I genuinely understand the vision, and I share it as well".
And that is born from the fact that playing the actual videogame is not very fun. And while I found the idea of having to break enemies' guards with a flashlight first before being able to damage them (not counting flare gun shots and flashbangs) very cool at first, I feel like as the game goes by, the concept starts becoming very repetitive as most enemy encounters feel the same. It quickly starts to become very, very annoying. Specially when you have the entire army of darkness throwing homing axes and machetes at you that you usually have to avoid by using the most unreliable dodge button ever put in an action game.
However, every time I would get into a section of the game where I could just watch the story unravel, read a manuscript, listen to a radio show, or watch the characters interact, it was delightful. It's a bizarre story that's surprisingly funny (whether it's intentional or not) at times, with interesting ways of preparing its plot twists and making the player believe they are going just as insane as Alan himself is.
What I'm trying to say, is that 1. I don't think that Alan is as unlikeable as a lot of people led me to believe, while he gives an awful first impression. It takes having to interact with a friend that has a creative hobby, whether it is writing, animating, drawing, you name it, you quickly come to realize that being creatively blocked fucking sucks, and I can also speak from experience with that. And 2. Barry is absolutely GOATED, I wish I had half of his charisma.
At the end of the day, even if I had my complaints with the gameplay itself, I found myself in more situations where I would go, “Oh, this is why people love these games,” and I want to see more of it. Soon I'll go into the DLCs, and maybe later this year, both Control and the direct sequel because I HAVE to know more.
decided to give this a revisit with the sequel coming and i hadn't played it since back on 360. it had been awhile but i mostly remembered this as a mixed experience with ups and downs. playing today, that mostly felt correct though i wonder if i'm less forgiving of said downs than i used to be.
a lot of my struggles with the game can be tied to a lack of variety whether that comes down to the gameplay loop itself, the settings, or even the enemy types. the game is only 8-12 hours long but it feels like triple that because you're constantly going through similar looking wooded areas (there's finally a shift from this in some of the later episodes but it doesn't last long before it goes back) with never ending enemy mobs up your ass constantly. the combat is interesting in concept with the use of light to make enemies vulnerable to your bullets but the execution is lacking. this wouldn't have been as big of a deal if the combat wasn't so prevalent or fleeing was more feasible but Alan can't move to save his life. i'm pretty sure i could run further than he can and i'm fat as hell. 😭😭😭
there's interest to be had with the narrative and the game does look good but i'm not sure if it's enough to outweigh the rough patches. Alan Wake II is looking to play better from what little i've seen of the gameplay but it also seems like Remedy is saying shit like the game is 20 hours long which is a massive red flag for me after this one. i guess i'll have to see how it (and the DLC for this plus American Nightmare) turns out.
a lot of my struggles with the game can be tied to a lack of variety whether that comes down to the gameplay loop itself, the settings, or even the enemy types. the game is only 8-12 hours long but it feels like triple that because you're constantly going through similar looking wooded areas (there's finally a shift from this in some of the later episodes but it doesn't last long before it goes back) with never ending enemy mobs up your ass constantly. the combat is interesting in concept with the use of light to make enemies vulnerable to your bullets but the execution is lacking. this wouldn't have been as big of a deal if the combat wasn't so prevalent or fleeing was more feasible but Alan can't move to save his life. i'm pretty sure i could run further than he can and i'm fat as hell. 😭😭😭
there's interest to be had with the narrative and the game does look good but i'm not sure if it's enough to outweigh the rough patches. Alan Wake II is looking to play better from what little i've seen of the gameplay but it also seems like Remedy is saying shit like the game is 20 hours long which is a massive red flag for me after this one. i guess i'll have to see how it (and the DLC for this plus American Nightmare) turns out.
I first started Alan Wake years ago, but only got into the tutorial before my attention wandered. After playing Control on release and with the hype for Alan Wake 2 building, I figured it was time to sit down and play through the remaster. While this is still probably the right call for maximum enjoyment of the sequel, I found the original game to be dull, frustrating, overly long, needlessly repetitive, and honestly outright bad.
The story is Alan Wake’s only real appeal. What clearly begins by resting on the laurels of Twin Peaks does blossom (with the help of the excellent Control) into a wider narrative that is genuinely engaging. For the most part, anyway. I won’t go into too many specifics because I do think that’s what makes the game tick. It’s relatively well delivered, but paced terribly and is overly vague. There are a couple details that get expanded on in the DLC and the spinoff Alan Wake’s American Nightmare that do originate from this game, but… they’re not really actually explained. Even the wiki is a little unclear about how certain details line up. It stinks that you have to get info from so many other places to see the full broader narrative, but I guess that was the intent from the start, so it’s hardly worth criticizing. The full cast is shockingly small, with really only Alan and Barry and the Anderson brothers being consistent characters. Agent Nightingale is basically absent from the story and the other Bright Falls residents are genuinely window dressing. Still, despite these issues, there is an appeal here. YMMV if the game itself is worth trudging through for that.
The real death knell for Alan Wake is the gameplay. For a narrative focused game, almost nothing you do is related to the actual narrative. The cutscenes and manuscripts tell the story, and the bulk of the chapters (“Episodes”) of the game itself are mostly traipsing through forest segments fighting shadow people. The third person shooting mechanics here are laughably shallow. Alan’s flashlight burns the darkness off of infected people - “Taken” - (who I guess are beyond saving despite that, because he then kills the shit out of them) and your weapons kill them.
You have a pistol, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, and a variation of each (ex: pump shotgun). Flares act as “get off me” tools and flashbangs are grenades. That’s about it. Alan moves like a tank through a swimming pool of high-grade molasses, and his stamina is awful, giving you very little mobility in fights. A not-super-reliable dodge can save you sometimes, but once you’re surrounded you’re likely to take damage regardless, as the terrible camera and bad environmental design allows enemies to easily swarm you. There are really only about 5 enemies, and they’re all variations on either lumberjacks or fishermen. I figured from the first chapter that this was an aesthetic choice for that part of the story, and I would go on to fight, say, Taken engineers, or Taken chefs or something. No, it’s just lumberjacks all the way down. The game loves to just send Alan into the woods to fight things, and it is actually a majority of this game’s runtime. I cannot stress just how dull and repetitive these sections are - I groaned audibly when I figured a chapter was ending only to find out I had multiple more forest segments to go. The game also only knows to switch things up by taking away your weapons, not by throwing new enemies or challenges at you. Alan will regularly get into a car / helicopter / window accident that causes him to run into the woods, having forgotten or lost his guns and ammo, forcing you to scavenge new ones that are exactly the same. The game will throw a wave or two of enemies at you over and over until you reach a checkpoint, get given ammo for every gun you have, heal, and then do it again.
To be a little more analytical, Alan’s iconic flashlight doesn't work effectively as a mechanic since it is REQUIRED to make enemies vulnerable - there's nothing clever you can do to manage a crowd like in Resident Evil 4, you literally just have to focus one Taken at a time and kill them all. The addition of the flares and flashbangs helps, but these are just an escape from the central mechanics being extremely weak. The level design is atrocious, and it feels like the increase in enemy numbers is always hiding the fact that the mechanical depth is simply not enough to create any meaningful sense of progression throughout, resulting in a need to bury the player under the weight of sheer numbers and the time it takes to flashlight each enemy down before killing them.
In terms of pacing, there's rarely any payoff to a bunch of different objectives - when Alan runs from the cops (sigh... into the forest) and he sees the radio station, you'd think that once you get there you'll get character building, context, even just a break from woods-walking. Nope, the second you see the DJ inside, a cutscene plays and the cops shoot at Alan through the window so he jumps out and runs into the forest. Not a single second of this exchange is worth anything, it is blatant and embarrassing filler. The player is teased with an objective, a possible meeting with another character, a break from the mediocre gameplay - only to have it last less than 20 seconds before returning you to a carbon copy of what you did for the last 15 minutes. The other objectives outside the woods feel like busywork: get this gate open, go get a generator running, etc. Episode 5’s walk through the abandoned Bright Falls is a real highlight of the game as it is not just a break from forest segments, but also feels connected to the narrative and worth engaging with.
some bullet points:
- sheriff breaker is an agent of the bureau of control, which is kind of awesome
- there's this one clip of the dark presence taking Alan's wife that plays probably 10 times in the story when he like has a flash of pain in his head and it's only like 0.8 seconds long and it repeated so many times i thought my game was bugged
- Nightingale calling Wake different authors' names is pretty funny
- the possessed barrels and girders flying at you suck so much
- i hope you like Adidas bc this game could be an ad for it with how much that one enemy in the tracksuit shows up
- Barry gets a head torch and Alan wants it. yeah me too man, me too
- that final "boss" is such a whimper to end a game on
- the whole final act is weirdly quick and anticlimactic for a game that's already double the length it should be
- the episodes of Night Springs that play on tvs are the most well written part of the game, they really capture the tone that makes Control feel so special
I feel like I haven’t even really touched on how many things about this game bothered me, but I’m going to end there. A truly frustrating and dull experience that offers gameplay so wretched that I did consider stopping and watching a Lets Play for the last half. While looking some stuff up about it, I saw someone say that they believed this was the best linear third person shooter ever made. I truly hope for their sake that they played RE4 or Dead Space after they made that comment, because it is a grim statement otherwise.
The story is Alan Wake’s only real appeal. What clearly begins by resting on the laurels of Twin Peaks does blossom (with the help of the excellent Control) into a wider narrative that is genuinely engaging. For the most part, anyway. I won’t go into too many specifics because I do think that’s what makes the game tick. It’s relatively well delivered, but paced terribly and is overly vague. There are a couple details that get expanded on in the DLC and the spinoff Alan Wake’s American Nightmare that do originate from this game, but… they’re not really actually explained. Even the wiki is a little unclear about how certain details line up. It stinks that you have to get info from so many other places to see the full broader narrative, but I guess that was the intent from the start, so it’s hardly worth criticizing. The full cast is shockingly small, with really only Alan and Barry and the Anderson brothers being consistent characters. Agent Nightingale is basically absent from the story and the other Bright Falls residents are genuinely window dressing. Still, despite these issues, there is an appeal here. YMMV if the game itself is worth trudging through for that.
The real death knell for Alan Wake is the gameplay. For a narrative focused game, almost nothing you do is related to the actual narrative. The cutscenes and manuscripts tell the story, and the bulk of the chapters (“Episodes”) of the game itself are mostly traipsing through forest segments fighting shadow people. The third person shooting mechanics here are laughably shallow. Alan’s flashlight burns the darkness off of infected people - “Taken” - (who I guess are beyond saving despite that, because he then kills the shit out of them) and your weapons kill them.
You have a pistol, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, and a variation of each (ex: pump shotgun). Flares act as “get off me” tools and flashbangs are grenades. That’s about it. Alan moves like a tank through a swimming pool of high-grade molasses, and his stamina is awful, giving you very little mobility in fights. A not-super-reliable dodge can save you sometimes, but once you’re surrounded you’re likely to take damage regardless, as the terrible camera and bad environmental design allows enemies to easily swarm you. There are really only about 5 enemies, and they’re all variations on either lumberjacks or fishermen. I figured from the first chapter that this was an aesthetic choice for that part of the story, and I would go on to fight, say, Taken engineers, or Taken chefs or something. No, it’s just lumberjacks all the way down. The game loves to just send Alan into the woods to fight things, and it is actually a majority of this game’s runtime. I cannot stress just how dull and repetitive these sections are - I groaned audibly when I figured a chapter was ending only to find out I had multiple more forest segments to go. The game also only knows to switch things up by taking away your weapons, not by throwing new enemies or challenges at you. Alan will regularly get into a car / helicopter / window accident that causes him to run into the woods, having forgotten or lost his guns and ammo, forcing you to scavenge new ones that are exactly the same. The game will throw a wave or two of enemies at you over and over until you reach a checkpoint, get given ammo for every gun you have, heal, and then do it again.
To be a little more analytical, Alan’s iconic flashlight doesn't work effectively as a mechanic since it is REQUIRED to make enemies vulnerable - there's nothing clever you can do to manage a crowd like in Resident Evil 4, you literally just have to focus one Taken at a time and kill them all. The addition of the flares and flashbangs helps, but these are just an escape from the central mechanics being extremely weak. The level design is atrocious, and it feels like the increase in enemy numbers is always hiding the fact that the mechanical depth is simply not enough to create any meaningful sense of progression throughout, resulting in a need to bury the player under the weight of sheer numbers and the time it takes to flashlight each enemy down before killing them.
In terms of pacing, there's rarely any payoff to a bunch of different objectives - when Alan runs from the cops (sigh... into the forest) and he sees the radio station, you'd think that once you get there you'll get character building, context, even just a break from woods-walking. Nope, the second you see the DJ inside, a cutscene plays and the cops shoot at Alan through the window so he jumps out and runs into the forest. Not a single second of this exchange is worth anything, it is blatant and embarrassing filler. The player is teased with an objective, a possible meeting with another character, a break from the mediocre gameplay - only to have it last less than 20 seconds before returning you to a carbon copy of what you did for the last 15 minutes. The other objectives outside the woods feel like busywork: get this gate open, go get a generator running, etc. Episode 5’s walk through the abandoned Bright Falls is a real highlight of the game as it is not just a break from forest segments, but also feels connected to the narrative and worth engaging with.
some bullet points:
- sheriff breaker is an agent of the bureau of control, which is kind of awesome
- there's this one clip of the dark presence taking Alan's wife that plays probably 10 times in the story when he like has a flash of pain in his head and it's only like 0.8 seconds long and it repeated so many times i thought my game was bugged
- Nightingale calling Wake different authors' names is pretty funny
- the possessed barrels and girders flying at you suck so much
- i hope you like Adidas bc this game could be an ad for it with how much that one enemy in the tracksuit shows up
- Barry gets a head torch and Alan wants it. yeah me too man, me too
- that final "boss" is such a whimper to end a game on
- the whole final act is weirdly quick and anticlimactic for a game that's already double the length it should be
- the episodes of Night Springs that play on tvs are the most well written part of the game, they really capture the tone that makes Control feel so special
I feel like I haven’t even really touched on how many things about this game bothered me, but I’m going to end there. A truly frustrating and dull experience that offers gameplay so wretched that I did consider stopping and watching a Lets Play for the last half. While looking some stuff up about it, I saw someone say that they believed this was the best linear third person shooter ever made. I truly hope for their sake that they played RE4 or Dead Space after they made that comment, because it is a grim statement otherwise.
Wow I had this one SO wrong. I thought it was some kind of psychological thriller or something (I could have sworn I heard someone compare it to Twin Peaks). But it seems like it’s mostly a zombie shooting game? Zombies, collectibles and a damsel in distress: the beige, tan and khaki of the video game design palette. Completely drained all my interest over the course of 90 long minutes of playing it. I did like the design of the protagonist; I think more games should feature characters who don’t look like fashion models.
Am I being too hasty? Does the gameplay get more interesting deeper in?
Am I being too hasty? Does the gameplay get more interesting deeper in?
man what a disappointment
alan wake was definitely something that I looked forward revisiting after the release of the second game but the more I went on with the game the more its seams started to break apart
this is a remaster of the OG game and as a remaster its pretty chill you have that new texture work 60 fps shiny graphics definitely the most interesting part of the game if I gotta be honest and also kudos to remedy for making a remaster that works wonders on the pc because after playing those shitty ports for ff7r and ff15 I really needed this to play accordingly and it did
in its premise this game has such a great introduction alan is a writer that slowly descends into schizophrenic madness after the disappearance of his wife during a holiday trip in idk where probably twin peaks (I've never watched twin peaks I have no idea what yall are talking about)
bomb subject matter that may or may not be enhanced by the fact that apparently a ghost manuscript somewhere allegedly written by alan is influencing the course of the story and making every single part of the game a nightmare
now there's a lot of different points and ropes to untie here and there but it never really get more interesting than that the many side characters are only a way for alan to keep being delulu or a way to contrast his schizophrenic frenzy and there's that his trustworthy pal is a dipshit the cop is atrociously underdeveloped there's an old woman somehow and the psychiatric doctor is probably the most based character because he goes to alan and tells him “gurl you delulu” and gets punched in the face rip
the main plot is basically what I said alan searches for his wife the end theres some degree of backstory and explanation to what is happening but the game really loves remaining confused to the fucking end to the point that you can't excuse its pretentiousness anymore I really LOVE the story here but there's not enough tension or insight for you to actually make a cliffhanger open ending
and adding to all this there's a kingdom hearts typa script with stuff like “his heart is full of darkness… only the light can stop the darkness” youre tripping this is so surface level it makes me want to tear my hair which is a shame because the fact that the game is segmented in different chapters and subsequent recaps makes it feel like you're watching a TV series alright
that being said the art department is pretty alright they're really going for a realistic based type of experiment because wow thr environments are so boring for a guy experiencing schizophrenia like theres a lot of woods and woods and woods sometimes there's some points of interest like structures here and there or natural formations like falls or cliffs but it's really sedimented into the reality aspect of things and honestly that was really a disappointment particularly for a game which has a lot of focus on “light and darkness” and the answer to that is literally streetlights in the forest ok whatever
last but not least the gameplay is pretty fun . for 5 minutes before you realise all you're gonna do is get from point A to point B doing this sequence of actions: shine light on enemies -> shoot at them and OPTIONALLY try to not get killed by phantom pieces of trains or construction machines or lintels rinse and repeat sometimes the game is gonna introduct new stuff like weapons or new ways of shining lights like a bigger flashlight or unmovable spotlights but apart from that this is what you're gonna do the entire game and all that while you run through woods until a cutscene or a mob of enemies tries to kill you while saying shit like “I love McDonald's burgers but they're not healthy” literally I'm not joking here
when the gameplay and art direction are not hitting and not even the narrative gets as gripping as you want it to youre left with a mid experience and I'm pretty sad because I remembered seeing this game around on youtube when I was younger and thinking it was absolutely groundbreaking but experiencing it again after all this years maybe I set my bar too high and was left empty ended
still !!! didn't hate it please fans don't kill me also the interlude songs are definitive bops
alan wake was definitely something that I looked forward revisiting after the release of the second game but the more I went on with the game the more its seams started to break apart
this is a remaster of the OG game and as a remaster its pretty chill you have that new texture work 60 fps shiny graphics definitely the most interesting part of the game if I gotta be honest and also kudos to remedy for making a remaster that works wonders on the pc because after playing those shitty ports for ff7r and ff15 I really needed this to play accordingly and it did
in its premise this game has such a great introduction alan is a writer that slowly descends into schizophrenic madness after the disappearance of his wife during a holiday trip in idk where probably twin peaks (I've never watched twin peaks I have no idea what yall are talking about)
bomb subject matter that may or may not be enhanced by the fact that apparently a ghost manuscript somewhere allegedly written by alan is influencing the course of the story and making every single part of the game a nightmare
now there's a lot of different points and ropes to untie here and there but it never really get more interesting than that the many side characters are only a way for alan to keep being delulu or a way to contrast his schizophrenic frenzy and there's that his trustworthy pal is a dipshit the cop is atrociously underdeveloped there's an old woman somehow and the psychiatric doctor is probably the most based character because he goes to alan and tells him “gurl you delulu” and gets punched in the face rip
the main plot is basically what I said alan searches for his wife the end theres some degree of backstory and explanation to what is happening but the game really loves remaining confused to the fucking end to the point that you can't excuse its pretentiousness anymore I really LOVE the story here but there's not enough tension or insight for you to actually make a cliffhanger open ending
and adding to all this there's a kingdom hearts typa script with stuff like “his heart is full of darkness… only the light can stop the darkness” youre tripping this is so surface level it makes me want to tear my hair which is a shame because the fact that the game is segmented in different chapters and subsequent recaps makes it feel like you're watching a TV series alright
that being said the art department is pretty alright they're really going for a realistic based type of experiment because wow thr environments are so boring for a guy experiencing schizophrenia like theres a lot of woods and woods and woods sometimes there's some points of interest like structures here and there or natural formations like falls or cliffs but it's really sedimented into the reality aspect of things and honestly that was really a disappointment particularly for a game which has a lot of focus on “light and darkness” and the answer to that is literally streetlights in the forest ok whatever
last but not least the gameplay is pretty fun . for 5 minutes before you realise all you're gonna do is get from point A to point B doing this sequence of actions: shine light on enemies -> shoot at them and OPTIONALLY try to not get killed by phantom pieces of trains or construction machines or lintels rinse and repeat sometimes the game is gonna introduct new stuff like weapons or new ways of shining lights like a bigger flashlight or unmovable spotlights but apart from that this is what you're gonna do the entire game and all that while you run through woods until a cutscene or a mob of enemies tries to kill you while saying shit like “I love McDonald's burgers but they're not healthy” literally I'm not joking here
when the gameplay and art direction are not hitting and not even the narrative gets as gripping as you want it to youre left with a mid experience and I'm pretty sad because I remembered seeing this game around on youtube when I was younger and thinking it was absolutely groundbreaking but experiencing it again after all this years maybe I set my bar too high and was left empty ended
still !!! didn't hate it please fans don't kill me also the interlude songs are definitive bops
Joguei pra entrar no hype do segundo jogo, e não sei bem oq dizer, e dentre tudo que eu joguei da Remedy, esse é o mais cansativo no geral. Não me leve a mal, a Remedy tem muitos jogos excelentes, e até gostei bastante da história de Alan Wake, mas as situações de combate e o andar da história são bem cansativos.
Mas sim, estou no hype pelo segundo, não tanto por esse jogo aqui, mas por toda a evolução que o estúdio teve nos seus jogos mais recentes.
Mas sim, estou no hype pelo segundo, não tanto por esse jogo aqui, mas por toda a evolução que o estúdio teve nos seus jogos mais recentes.
O melhor: O programa Twilight Zone Night Springs
O pior: Quase tudo que envolve o combate, ou seja, uns 80% do jogo
Férias numa choupana no meio do nada: Péssima ideia. Um escritor deveria saber disso.
Control era o único jogo da Remedy que tinha jogado até então. Um jogo muito interessante e que, apesar de um começo meio lento, melhora muito conforme o progresso. Ao jogar os dois primeiros capítulos de Alan Wake (Remastered) e nada me chamar muito a atenção, insisti, pois pensei que o mesmo ocorreria aqui. Infelizmente não foi o caso.
Alan Wake é um escritor bem-sucedido que decide passar férias com sua mulher Alice em uma cidade montanhosa num fim de mundo qualquer. Coisas estranhas acontecem, Alice desaparece e agora Alan precisa lidar com todo tipo de figura excêntrica local enquanto busca por sua amada. Esses momentos de ambientação em Bright Falls e seus moradores provavelmente representam o ponto alto do jogo, onde ele consegue fazer funcionar bem sua óbvia influência de Twin Peaks. Apesar de usar alguns conceitos interessantes narrativamente, como coletar as páginas do que seria a própria história sendo contada pelo Alan Wake, sinto que a história deixa a desejar em como ela desenvolve seus personagens. O protagonista por muitas vezes parece ser apenas um tremendo boçal, seu amigo e agente Barry não vai muito além do alívio cômico e a pobre Alice na verdade mal é uma personagem. Os demais habitantes de Bright Falls também pouco conseguem fugir de serem apenas "peculiares", como o agente do FBI apresentado como um turrão alcoólatra, mas que aparentemente conhece o nome de vários autores e sempre troca o nome do Alan Wake por algum deles nos diálogos.
É bom aproveitar a vista montanhosa nos poucos momentos em que o Sol aparece no jogo, já que sua maior parte se passa em noites enevoadas. A escuridão aqui representa o inimigo, transformando as pessoas, os pássaros e até os objetos de Bright Falls num exército sem fim de homicidas. Alan Wake pode remover a escuridão de uma pessoa com alguma fonte de luz, geralmente sua lanterna, mas infelizmente isso não é o suficiente para fazer o cidadão parar de atacar enquanto repete frases mundanas num tom semi-ameaçador, então é necessário recorrer a medidas mais drásticas. Revólveres, escopetas e rifles estão disponíveis espalhados convenientemente pelo cenário, e como padrão em muitos jogos as armas e munições aparecem em maior abundância antes de algum conflito, o que sempre me fazia lamentar. Isso porque Alan Wake na real é um jogo de ação, onde a ação é a pior parte do jogo. O protagonista tem uma movimentação meio desengonçada, um pulo ridículo e um botão de corrida que dura uns três segundos antes que ele comece a andar como se não tivesse dado tempo de chegar no banheiro. A sensação de atirar não é boa, e pela mecânica principal do jogo, esse sentimento é compartilhado com o uso da lanterna. Há um botão de esquiva que, mesmo nas raras vezes em que ela funciona, não parece muito recompensador, já que mesmo os inimigos mais lentos conseguem te alcançar facilmente. Falando em inimigos, inexiste qualquer variedade entre eles, o jogo vai apresentar os mesmos 3 tipos (padrão, mais rápido, ou mais resistente) durante toda a sua duração, o que tem além disso são objetos possuídos que voam em sua direção e os pássaros daquele filme do Hitchcock. É muita repetição e pouquíssimas situações interessantes de combate. Na terceira vez que o jogo me fez lutar contra um trator possuído, eu só desejava que ele acabasse o quanto antes.
Talvez se eu tivesse jogado o original em 2010 esse sentimento de frustração fosse menor ou nem existisse, apesar de achar que mesmo na época o gênero já havia evoluído em termos de mecânicas e polimento para além do que é feito aqui. Ainda estou curioso sobre a sequência, sendo que já se passou mais de uma década desde o primeiro e o último jogo da Remedy é muito bom. Mas depois de finalmente ver do que se trata esse "clássico cult", Alan Wake 2 vai ser uma obra que vou acompanhar mais de longe.
O pior: Quase tudo que envolve o combate, ou seja, uns 80% do jogo
Férias numa choupana no meio do nada: Péssima ideia. Um escritor deveria saber disso.
Control era o único jogo da Remedy que tinha jogado até então. Um jogo muito interessante e que, apesar de um começo meio lento, melhora muito conforme o progresso. Ao jogar os dois primeiros capítulos de Alan Wake (Remastered) e nada me chamar muito a atenção, insisti, pois pensei que o mesmo ocorreria aqui. Infelizmente não foi o caso.
Alan Wake é um escritor bem-sucedido que decide passar férias com sua mulher Alice em uma cidade montanhosa num fim de mundo qualquer. Coisas estranhas acontecem, Alice desaparece e agora Alan precisa lidar com todo tipo de figura excêntrica local enquanto busca por sua amada. Esses momentos de ambientação em Bright Falls e seus moradores provavelmente representam o ponto alto do jogo, onde ele consegue fazer funcionar bem sua óbvia influência de Twin Peaks. Apesar de usar alguns conceitos interessantes narrativamente, como coletar as páginas do que seria a própria história sendo contada pelo Alan Wake, sinto que a história deixa a desejar em como ela desenvolve seus personagens. O protagonista por muitas vezes parece ser apenas um tremendo boçal, seu amigo e agente Barry não vai muito além do alívio cômico e a pobre Alice na verdade mal é uma personagem. Os demais habitantes de Bright Falls também pouco conseguem fugir de serem apenas "peculiares", como o agente do FBI apresentado como um turrão alcoólatra, mas que aparentemente conhece o nome de vários autores e sempre troca o nome do Alan Wake por algum deles nos diálogos.
É bom aproveitar a vista montanhosa nos poucos momentos em que o Sol aparece no jogo, já que sua maior parte se passa em noites enevoadas. A escuridão aqui representa o inimigo, transformando as pessoas, os pássaros e até os objetos de Bright Falls num exército sem fim de homicidas. Alan Wake pode remover a escuridão de uma pessoa com alguma fonte de luz, geralmente sua lanterna, mas infelizmente isso não é o suficiente para fazer o cidadão parar de atacar enquanto repete frases mundanas num tom semi-ameaçador, então é necessário recorrer a medidas mais drásticas. Revólveres, escopetas e rifles estão disponíveis espalhados convenientemente pelo cenário, e como padrão em muitos jogos as armas e munições aparecem em maior abundância antes de algum conflito, o que sempre me fazia lamentar. Isso porque Alan Wake na real é um jogo de ação, onde a ação é a pior parte do jogo. O protagonista tem uma movimentação meio desengonçada, um pulo ridículo e um botão de corrida que dura uns três segundos antes que ele comece a andar como se não tivesse dado tempo de chegar no banheiro. A sensação de atirar não é boa, e pela mecânica principal do jogo, esse sentimento é compartilhado com o uso da lanterna. Há um botão de esquiva que, mesmo nas raras vezes em que ela funciona, não parece muito recompensador, já que mesmo os inimigos mais lentos conseguem te alcançar facilmente. Falando em inimigos, inexiste qualquer variedade entre eles, o jogo vai apresentar os mesmos 3 tipos (padrão, mais rápido, ou mais resistente) durante toda a sua duração, o que tem além disso são objetos possuídos que voam em sua direção e os pássaros daquele filme do Hitchcock. É muita repetição e pouquíssimas situações interessantes de combate. Na terceira vez que o jogo me fez lutar contra um trator possuído, eu só desejava que ele acabasse o quanto antes.
Talvez se eu tivesse jogado o original em 2010 esse sentimento de frustração fosse menor ou nem existisse, apesar de achar que mesmo na época o gênero já havia evoluído em termos de mecânicas e polimento para além do que é feito aqui. Ainda estou curioso sobre a sequência, sendo que já se passou mais de uma década desde o primeiro e o último jogo da Remedy é muito bom. Mas depois de finalmente ver do que se trata esse "clássico cult", Alan Wake 2 vai ser uma obra que vou acompanhar mais de longe.
This game is more movie than game in it's story telling. In a weird way though it is almost fitting that a pseudo mindbending video game about a horror novel author's manuscript was actually a film the entire time.
I am exaggerating, there are obviously the obligatory zombie-, but not actually a zombie, okay maybe they are just a zombie, but with an extra shield mechanic -shooter sections. There are also some decent, often optional "walking sim" parts with additional world building, lore or foreshadowing of the story. The game is serviceable just not for me, I am hating a bit, because I am honestly always disappointed when I choose to play a Video Game instead of watching a Film or a TV Show and then I feel like I would have gotten the same x10 out of rewatching a Lynch (or Nolan, he might unironically enjoy this) flick while playing a mindless zombie shooter on the side.
Like, my favourite part in the first chapter was some silly and short Twilight Zone -eseque video you can watch on a TV in the game. Why am I even playing a game at that that point I have to ask myself?
Starting off with the nod: "Stephen King once wrote that 'Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear." and after that immediately tutorialising how to break and defeat the first "Nightmare" you encounter, and thereby lessening the potential fear of the unknown a player could experience and contradictong that corny opening monologue is baffeling to me.
The animations, sound design and fx alone convey perfectly well that the lamp has an effect on the enemy, figuring that out by yourself would work perfectly fine in a nightmare mystery setting. Why are games this inconfindent in themselves and the player that tjey feel the need to take this small and kind of intriguing revelation away?
"For a moment the repressive feeling from the nightmare I had on the ferry returns" a near comical jumpscare flashes for half a second. The shortness, randomness and how on the nose the attempt at connecting Alan's narrated thoughts to the players emotions were, made this moment kinda silly to me. These Jumpscares keep coming throughout the game and keep getting longer, showing the player more information. And idk, to me that is honestly, at least in theory, an interesting concept to excuse the use of jumpscares, by the nature of the scare getting longer the jump would slowly cease to exist. But they don't really, there is still epileptic ass editing in those moments to compensate for the length I guess. So, to me at least, this minor recurring flash of imagery, which I'm wasting way too much time on in this review, is only an annoying, tension wasting horror gimmick that is halting the gameplay instead of the intriguing, itself slowly revealing narrative exposition it could have been.
Alan Wake gives me confidence to be a writer myself, a profession not even included in the top five artistic delusions I have, but this game bumped it up a bit. The writing in Alan's manuscripts is mediocre at best, there is no way this guy is such a legend that a small town has a life-sized cardboard cutout of him in a Bar.
Damn, is he supposed to be a mediocre cardboard cut out of an author and that is a blatan admission of that? But man self-awareness wouldn't make it any better.
In one of the manuscripts it says "..to describe the dark presence as intelligent would have implied human qualities on something decidedly inhuman" all this sentence is giving me is the implications that intelligence is a quality exclusive to humans. And thats just arrogant human exceptionalism in my book.
I dropped this game after like six+, kinda slogging hours and turned on Twin Peaks instead. If there is some plot-twist that nullifies my complaints about the story related stuff or the game somehow gets way more interesting, I honestly don't really care enough to sit through even a playthrough of it to find out and I did genuinely try that a couple days after, but then again choose to watch something else instead. [Played like a month ago, but I'll log it with todays date for visibility or some shit, idk if that is how it works]
I am exaggerating, there are obviously the obligatory zombie-, but not actually a zombie, okay maybe they are just a zombie, but with an extra shield mechanic -shooter sections. There are also some decent, often optional "walking sim" parts with additional world building, lore or foreshadowing of the story. The game is serviceable just not for me, I am hating a bit, because I am honestly always disappointed when I choose to play a Video Game instead of watching a Film or a TV Show and then I feel like I would have gotten the same x10 out of rewatching a Lynch (or Nolan, he might unironically enjoy this) flick while playing a mindless zombie shooter on the side.
Like, my favourite part in the first chapter was some silly and short Twilight Zone -eseque video you can watch on a TV in the game. Why am I even playing a game at that that point I have to ask myself?
Starting off with the nod: "Stephen King once wrote that 'Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear." and after that immediately tutorialising how to break and defeat the first "Nightmare" you encounter, and thereby lessening the potential fear of the unknown a player could experience and contradictong that corny opening monologue is baffeling to me.
The animations, sound design and fx alone convey perfectly well that the lamp has an effect on the enemy, figuring that out by yourself would work perfectly fine in a nightmare mystery setting. Why are games this inconfindent in themselves and the player that tjey feel the need to take this small and kind of intriguing revelation away?
"For a moment the repressive feeling from the nightmare I had on the ferry returns" a near comical jumpscare flashes for half a second. The shortness, randomness and how on the nose the attempt at connecting Alan's narrated thoughts to the players emotions were, made this moment kinda silly to me. These Jumpscares keep coming throughout the game and keep getting longer, showing the player more information. And idk, to me that is honestly, at least in theory, an interesting concept to excuse the use of jumpscares, by the nature of the scare getting longer the jump would slowly cease to exist. But they don't really, there is still epileptic ass editing in those moments to compensate for the length I guess. So, to me at least, this minor recurring flash of imagery, which I'm wasting way too much time on in this review, is only an annoying, tension wasting horror gimmick that is halting the gameplay instead of the intriguing, itself slowly revealing narrative exposition it could have been.
Alan Wake gives me confidence to be a writer myself, a profession not even included in the top five artistic delusions I have, but this game bumped it up a bit. The writing in Alan's manuscripts is mediocre at best, there is no way this guy is such a legend that a small town has a life-sized cardboard cutout of him in a Bar.
Damn, is he supposed to be a mediocre cardboard cut out of an author and that is a blatan admission of that? But man self-awareness wouldn't make it any better.
In one of the manuscripts it says "..to describe the dark presence as intelligent would have implied human qualities on something decidedly inhuman" all this sentence is giving me is the implications that intelligence is a quality exclusive to humans. And thats just arrogant human exceptionalism in my book.
I dropped this game after like six+, kinda slogging hours and turned on Twin Peaks instead. If there is some plot-twist that nullifies my complaints about the story related stuff or the game somehow gets way more interesting, I honestly don't really care enough to sit through even a playthrough of it to find out and I did genuinely try that a couple days after, but then again choose to watch something else instead. [Played like a month ago, but I'll log it with todays date for visibility or some shit, idk if that is how it works]
I know I’m being a little generous with my rating but this game is exactly my cup of tea… or should I say coffee?
The setting, the vibe, the story, the characters and the music are just amazing to me. I especially love how creative this game gets in its way of storytelling.
The only thing that it’s lacking in is gameplay and I understand that it might impact someone’s experience with the game as a whole, but I thoroughly enjoyed it despite its repetitiveness. The focus for me was the story and exploration and they definitely delivered on that end.
I’m going to let this one sink in for a while and check out the DLCs and American Nightmare, but I already have Alan Wake II installed and I’m very excited to see what awaits me there.
The setting, the vibe, the story, the characters and the music are just amazing to me. I especially love how creative this game gets in its way of storytelling.
The only thing that it’s lacking in is gameplay and I understand that it might impact someone’s experience with the game as a whole, but I thoroughly enjoyed it despite its repetitiveness. The focus for me was the story and exploration and they definitely delivered on that end.
I’m going to let this one sink in for a while and check out the DLCs and American Nightmare, but I already have Alan Wake II installed and I’m very excited to see what awaits me there.
I loathe basically everything about Alan Wake. I played this because the sequel is so critically acclaimed, but after playing this I cannot imagine how. I think this game is a failure in every aspect of design.
First, the graphics. Even with the remaster, these environments are at best passable, while at their worst they definitely show their age. The character designs and animations, however, are truly some of the ugliest I've ever seen in a video game. This is why the developers cunningly made the main enemy force completely concealed in a black shroud - it hides their awful appearance.
The gameplay is atrociously tedious. Every single level the game has to contrive a reason for Alan Wake to leave all his equipment behind but to venture out at night regardless. It became a running joke for me to see just how long the daytime segments were compared to the nighttime ones. I think this town gets about 10 minutes of total daylight every 24 hours based on how the game presents it. The combat system of not being able to shoot the enemies until you have shone a torch on them enough might sound kind of interesting but in practice it just drags the encounters out three times as long as they need to. The enemy variety is tragic; there is only 3. Men with melee weapons, crows and inanimate objects. WOW!
I've seen the story praised by critics, but I couldn't agree any less. It's a very simple story that's told in the most confusing way possible. Don't confuse that with the story having depth - it doesn't - it just makes it even harder to enjoy. The plot sucks, the characters are detestable and everything is padded out.
The only positive I have for this game it that it is playable. I got to the end without many issues. I recently tried my best to play the game Remedy made after this, Quantum Break, and found the worst optimised triple-A release I have ever seen. I could, at least, beat Alan Wake. There was one good section in Alan Wake, the musical number at the end of episode 4. That is 5 minutes of an eight hour game. Everything else in just insufferably standard. Hours and hours of wandering around the same looking dark woodland while shooting the same enemy over and over again, occasionally stopping to feed some awful piece of poorly acted exposition down your throat.
First, the graphics. Even with the remaster, these environments are at best passable, while at their worst they definitely show their age. The character designs and animations, however, are truly some of the ugliest I've ever seen in a video game. This is why the developers cunningly made the main enemy force completely concealed in a black shroud - it hides their awful appearance.
The gameplay is atrociously tedious. Every single level the game has to contrive a reason for Alan Wake to leave all his equipment behind but to venture out at night regardless. It became a running joke for me to see just how long the daytime segments were compared to the nighttime ones. I think this town gets about 10 minutes of total daylight every 24 hours based on how the game presents it. The combat system of not being able to shoot the enemies until you have shone a torch on them enough might sound kind of interesting but in practice it just drags the encounters out three times as long as they need to. The enemy variety is tragic; there is only 3. Men with melee weapons, crows and inanimate objects. WOW!
I've seen the story praised by critics, but I couldn't agree any less. It's a very simple story that's told in the most confusing way possible. Don't confuse that with the story having depth - it doesn't - it just makes it even harder to enjoy. The plot sucks, the characters are detestable and everything is padded out.
The only positive I have for this game it that it is playable. I got to the end without many issues. I recently tried my best to play the game Remedy made after this, Quantum Break, and found the worst optimised triple-A release I have ever seen. I could, at least, beat Alan Wake. There was one good section in Alan Wake, the musical number at the end of episode 4. That is 5 minutes of an eight hour game. Everything else in just insufferably standard. Hours and hours of wandering around the same looking dark woodland while shooting the same enemy over and over again, occasionally stopping to feed some awful piece of poorly acted exposition down your throat.
A jogabilidade não é uma das melhores, a esquivar é péssima, tem vezes que os inimigos se juntam que fica impossível esquivar. Mas tirando isso até que eu gostei do jogo, muito bom...
depois dou uma olhada no 2
depois dou uma olhada no 2
Tinha uma lembrança ótima dele quando mais novo, com um gameplay bem divertido com a lanterna mesmo sendo simples. Nunca tive a oportunidade de terminá-lo, mas finalmente consegui.
A história me prendeu demais no começo, tem aquele sentimento de o que realmente está acontecendo no meio de tanta coisa estranha, mas infelizmente durou pouco, a narrativa vai deixando de lado o mistério e indo cada vez mais para o estranho por ser estranho. Um combate envolvente que pode ser punitivo em alguns momentos, precisa ter bastante noção de espaço e itens que precisam ser usados em momentos adequados.
No geral, é um remaster muito bem feito para um jogo que estava muito a frente do seu tempo, então tudo combina bastante para uma excelente experiência.
A história me prendeu demais no começo, tem aquele sentimento de o que realmente está acontecendo no meio de tanta coisa estranha, mas infelizmente durou pouco, a narrativa vai deixando de lado o mistério e indo cada vez mais para o estranho por ser estranho. Um combate envolvente que pode ser punitivo em alguns momentos, precisa ter bastante noção de espaço e itens que precisam ser usados em momentos adequados.
No geral, é um remaster muito bem feito para um jogo que estava muito a frente do seu tempo, então tudo combina bastante para uma excelente experiência.
My name is Alan Woke. I'm a translator.
A Play in Three Acts
ACT I
Setting: A Discord Server
Many People Over the Years: DC, you love Twin Peaks, you should play Alan Wake. It's inspired by Twin Peaks.
Me: Oh wow, sounds cool. I'll check it out. I liked Control but it didn't blow me away.
Many People: Just be aware that the gameplay/combat sucks.
Me: I don't care! How bad can it be? I love Twin Peaks! It has a diner in the opening segment! It's about a writer! How bad can it be?
ACT II
Setting: The First Several Hours of Alan Wake: Remastered
Me: Oh wow, I'm pretty sure my grandma can sprint longer than this guy. How did they go from Max Payne to this? Like...I know he's a writer but still..
Me: Doesn't matter! Hallucinations, fake Mrs. Tremond, a book mystery, a wife mystery! This is great! I'll just turn the game down to easy so I can get through the bad parts faster!
ACT III
Setting: Despair. A lone chair on stage while a disheveled man forces himself through a video game out of spite.
Me, quietly sobbing to my controller: please...make it stop. I never want to see a flashlight ever again.
The lights dim and go out leaving the stage in blackness.
Me, a low, trembling whisper: How did they go from Max Payne to this?
T H E E N D
ACT I
Setting: A Discord Server
Many People Over the Years: DC, you love Twin Peaks, you should play Alan Wake. It's inspired by Twin Peaks.
Me: Oh wow, sounds cool. I'll check it out. I liked Control but it didn't blow me away.
Many People: Just be aware that the gameplay/combat sucks.
Me: I don't care! How bad can it be? I love Twin Peaks! It has a diner in the opening segment! It's about a writer! How bad can it be?
ACT II
Setting: The First Several Hours of Alan Wake: Remastered
Me: Oh wow, I'm pretty sure my grandma can sprint longer than this guy. How did they go from Max Payne to this? Like...I know he's a writer but still..
Me: Doesn't matter! Hallucinations, fake Mrs. Tremond, a book mystery, a wife mystery! This is great! I'll just turn the game down to easy so I can get through the bad parts faster!
ACT III
Setting: Despair. A lone chair on stage while a disheveled man forces himself through a video game out of spite.
Me, quietly sobbing to my controller: please...make it stop. I never want to see a flashlight ever again.
The lights dim and go out leaving the stage in blackness.
Me, a low, trembling whisper: How did they go from Max Payne to this?
T H E E N D
Caramba, que jogo surpreendente! Até pouco tempo atrás nem conhecia essa franquia, fiquei sabendo de sua existência, pouco tempo após o lançamento de ''Alan Wake 2''. Desde então queria muito jogar e conhecer esse jogos. Enfim tive a oportunidade de jogar esse remastered, que me surpreendeu com o quão incrível ele é. Gostei demais do jogo, tanto das mecânicas, dos gráficos, do terror, do suspense, dos personagens e principalmente da história, que é o ponto forte desse jogo. A história de ''Alan Wake Remastered'' é contada de um jeito muito confuso, e é praticamente impossível entender tudo apenas jogando o jogo pela primeira vez. Mas após entender tudo adorei a história e achei super criativo a forma que ela é contada. Ainda não cheguei a jogar sua versão antiga, porém gostei muito de jogar esse remastered. Me diverti muito do inicio ao fim, pois o jogo conseguiu me prender de uma forma surpreendente, que me deixava confuso e animado para continuar jogando e descobrir como a história terminava. Super recomendo jogarem!
I had an absolute blast with this one and glad I finally got to play it. I never owned a 360, so I never got the chance to, but best believe I have been itching to ever since Control's DLC. It was a joy to go through and experience this story.
The only bad thing I can say about the game is that the controls are clunky as hell, and some of the combat encounters are unnecessarily unfair and frustrating, but overall that didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game too much. I didn't do the Nightmare playthrough to get the last of the manuscript pages, but that might be something I'll look into in the future.
Super excited to get Alan Wake 2 as well. Probably won't get to play it on release, but I'm gonna be playing that for sure.
The only bad thing I can say about the game is that the controls are clunky as hell, and some of the combat encounters are unnecessarily unfair and frustrating, but overall that didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game too much. I didn't do the Nightmare playthrough to get the last of the manuscript pages, but that might be something I'll look into in the future.
Super excited to get Alan Wake 2 as well. Probably won't get to play it on release, but I'm gonna be playing that for sure.
-that aint drip that’s sweat ‼️‼️ ass ending
-david lynch truly ruined media literacy for generations. not only that but he ruined how ppl conceptualize and empathize w rural america. in rural america the supernatural and paranormal take on real tangible presences bc these backroads of america exist to oppress each new generation. i grew up in a town where there was countless paranormal stories, glowing cemetery headstones and cars that when turned off at the top of the hill move on their own these are stories made to distract people from how tiresome and boring and dull and seemingly inescapable these lands are. my hometown was also very infamous for like having a meth problem. there’s smth to be said about the correlation of rural america’s fascination w the otherworldly and it’s rampant violence/racism/sexism/drug use, how made up stories are easier to comprehend than having to realize the horror stories come from our own sleepy towns. calling smth lynchian kind of just proves your own privilege and shortsightedness lmaooo. idk rural america is not quirky or weird it’s just hollow and depressing and I think this game nails it where someone like lynch never could and any comparisons between the two are so surface level and rlly only present in the first chapter.
ive seen every lynch thing besides the 2nd and 3rd seasons of twin peaks and rlly this does not have any specific vibe that made me think oh yeah lynch. I did however think of the late 90s scooby doo movies and I know what u did last summer and the original version of the fog at least in terms of map designs.
-ive seen a bunch of ppl saying the enemy designs are all very basic which sure yeah but i dont think that’s a bad thing and if anything serves as more thematic tissue of how ppl in this town are disposable for the darkness. plus I like how many of them get their own unique voice lines which are cute.
-bret easton ellis ref…sam lake go on the pod bitch
-episode three is rlly interesting mechanically as it turns the lights on you instead and puts you in the role of the enemies that you’ve spent the prior two episodes killing, it’s cool and reminds me a lot of like what if the prague chapter from mgs4 was actually uhhhh good. i like when games strip you from the central mechanics and powers of the playable characters and make you weak/vulnerable
-have only played the base game as of rn…will get to the dlc and american nitemare soon/eventually. feel like I’ll love nitemare bc rlly into the big wide open maps the base game has and how there’s plenty of ways to go about enemy encounters,,fun stuff that makes u think more logically about each fight. want to play alan wake 2 real bad but it’s seemingly the only reason to own a next gen console rn !
-david lynch truly ruined media literacy for generations. not only that but he ruined how ppl conceptualize and empathize w rural america. in rural america the supernatural and paranormal take on real tangible presences bc these backroads of america exist to oppress each new generation. i grew up in a town where there was countless paranormal stories, glowing cemetery headstones and cars that when turned off at the top of the hill move on their own these are stories made to distract people from how tiresome and boring and dull and seemingly inescapable these lands are. my hometown was also very infamous for like having a meth problem. there’s smth to be said about the correlation of rural america’s fascination w the otherworldly and it’s rampant violence/racism/sexism/drug use, how made up stories are easier to comprehend than having to realize the horror stories come from our own sleepy towns. calling smth lynchian kind of just proves your own privilege and shortsightedness lmaooo. idk rural america is not quirky or weird it’s just hollow and depressing and I think this game nails it where someone like lynch never could and any comparisons between the two are so surface level and rlly only present in the first chapter.
ive seen every lynch thing besides the 2nd and 3rd seasons of twin peaks and rlly this does not have any specific vibe that made me think oh yeah lynch. I did however think of the late 90s scooby doo movies and I know what u did last summer and the original version of the fog at least in terms of map designs.
-ive seen a bunch of ppl saying the enemy designs are all very basic which sure yeah but i dont think that’s a bad thing and if anything serves as more thematic tissue of how ppl in this town are disposable for the darkness. plus I like how many of them get their own unique voice lines which are cute.
-bret easton ellis ref…sam lake go on the pod bitch
-episode three is rlly interesting mechanically as it turns the lights on you instead and puts you in the role of the enemies that you’ve spent the prior two episodes killing, it’s cool and reminds me a lot of like what if the prague chapter from mgs4 was actually uhhhh good. i like when games strip you from the central mechanics and powers of the playable characters and make you weak/vulnerable
-have only played the base game as of rn…will get to the dlc and american nitemare soon/eventually. feel like I’ll love nitemare bc rlly into the big wide open maps the base game has and how there’s plenty of ways to go about enemy encounters,,fun stuff that makes u think more logically about each fight. want to play alan wake 2 real bad but it’s seemingly the only reason to own a next gen console rn !
é um jogo legal, a história é oq mais se salva pq a gameplay é simplesmente desastrosa, o sistema de esquiva é podre e a gunplay é bem zuada, a ideia de usar a lanterna é interessante, o problema é q vc faz isso por 10 horas enfrentando os mesmos inimigos do começo ao fim com eles te matando com 3 tapas, sem contar quando vem os objetos do cenário te matar com um hit só, além do fato de eu sentir em um filme do zack snyder de tanta camera lenta que esse jogo bota. o jogo é extremamente linear e isso deixa ele ainda mais cansativo, parece um corredor extremamente longo enfrentando inimigos com um pouco de história no começo e no final de cada episódio, da metade pra frente o jogo dá uma baita melhorada mas no geral achei bem decepcionante o jogo. provavelmente é problema do remaster mas eu tive q reabrir o jogo 3 vezes no último episódio pq o cenario ficava simplesmente todo branco. se vc for jogar só pra jogar o 2 igual eu, talvez valha mais a pena ver a história no youtube, pq só ela e a trilha sonora se salvam
Alan Wake realmente é uma obra muito peculiar, assim como eu já tinha lido muita gente falando. O roteiro é genial: um conto de terror clássico (entidade antiga do mal) com várias peculiaridades que adicionam sabor à história. A trama, apesar de complexa, vai tomando forma em cada ato, instigando o jogador a teorizar sobre cada passo dado.
Outro ponto positivo são os coadjuvantes; pessoalmente, gostei bastante. Adorei explorar as histórias de cada um, ouvir os programas de rádio e ler as notícias locais.
Como ponto negativo, posso citar o clássico: controles um pouco estranhos e uma câmera que me enjooa um pouco. Poderia ser melhor, talvez algo mais próximo do "over the shoulder". Poderia haver uma variedade de "bosses" maior, principalmente no final do jogo.
Uma ótima experiência. It's Not a Lake, It's an Ocean.
Outro ponto positivo são os coadjuvantes; pessoalmente, gostei bastante. Adorei explorar as histórias de cada um, ouvir os programas de rádio e ler as notícias locais.
Como ponto negativo, posso citar o clássico: controles um pouco estranhos e uma câmera que me enjooa um pouco. Poderia ser melhor, talvez algo mais próximo do "over the shoulder". Poderia haver uma variedade de "bosses" maior, principalmente no final do jogo.
Uma ótima experiência. It's Not a Lake, It's an Ocean.
Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 13
A fantastic story, dragged down by flawed gameplay.
I adore the Max Payne games and Control, and since Alan Wake 2 is coming I thought I'd get myself reacquainted with the story. The cutscenes and writing are where the game truly excels, with Sam Lake's storytelling at it's very best here. The David Lynch/Stephen King influences are clear, same as the vein of Hong Kong action cinema and film noir ran through Max Payne. And there are plenty of references throughout, from the obvious Twin Peaks homages all the way to Remedy's own Max Payne games.
Sadly, where the game really falls down is in the gameplay itself. The "shine a torch in the enemy's face before you can shoot them" gimmick is fun at first, but it gets old fast. Plus the game has an annoying habit of always spawning at least one enemy behind you that always seems to hit you twice, leading to half your health being gone in a flash. Combine this with the clunky movement and by about the half way point I was cursing every combat section and rushing my way to the next cutscene. Don't even get me started on the "possessed objects that are too large to dodge" sequences! The fact that Control's combat feels so amazing compared to this is a miracle.
This also seems to be quite a poor remaster; cutscenes are restricted to 30fps - there were a few instances of character's dialogue and their actual mouth animations not syncing at all - some dialogue audio cut out early. There was even one moment early in Episode 6 where the game decided to skip a TV show scene entirely - I never got to see Sam Lake "do the face"...
The DLCs are almost all reused assets and mostly feel pretty pointless. The Signal is light on story and heavy on combat, and therefore you can probably skip unless you really enjoy the combat for some reason. If you're really invested in the story like I am then play The Writer, since there's a couple of standout cutscenes and leads into Control's AWE expansion and, I assume, Alan Wake 2 itself.
If you're able to handle the clunky gameplay then one of the most interesting and engaging stories in all of gaming awaits you. Moving onto American Nightmare and Alan Wake 2!
Scary Rating 5/10 - Overall Rating 6/10 (if I was just rating the story it would be a 9!)
A fantastic story, dragged down by flawed gameplay.
I adore the Max Payne games and Control, and since Alan Wake 2 is coming I thought I'd get myself reacquainted with the story. The cutscenes and writing are where the game truly excels, with Sam Lake's storytelling at it's very best here. The David Lynch/Stephen King influences are clear, same as the vein of Hong Kong action cinema and film noir ran through Max Payne. And there are plenty of references throughout, from the obvious Twin Peaks homages all the way to Remedy's own Max Payne games.
Sadly, where the game really falls down is in the gameplay itself. The "shine a torch in the enemy's face before you can shoot them" gimmick is fun at first, but it gets old fast. Plus the game has an annoying habit of always spawning at least one enemy behind you that always seems to hit you twice, leading to half your health being gone in a flash. Combine this with the clunky movement and by about the half way point I was cursing every combat section and rushing my way to the next cutscene. Don't even get me started on the "possessed objects that are too large to dodge" sequences! The fact that Control's combat feels so amazing compared to this is a miracle.
This also seems to be quite a poor remaster; cutscenes are restricted to 30fps - there were a few instances of character's dialogue and their actual mouth animations not syncing at all - some dialogue audio cut out early. There was even one moment early in Episode 6 where the game decided to skip a TV show scene entirely - I never got to see Sam Lake "do the face"...
The DLCs are almost all reused assets and mostly feel pretty pointless. The Signal is light on story and heavy on combat, and therefore you can probably skip unless you really enjoy the combat for some reason. If you're really invested in the story like I am then play The Writer, since there's a couple of standout cutscenes and leads into Control's AWE expansion and, I assume, Alan Wake 2 itself.
If you're able to handle the clunky gameplay then one of the most interesting and engaging stories in all of gaming awaits you. Moving onto American Nightmare and Alan Wake 2!
Scary Rating 5/10 - Overall Rating 6/10 (if I was just rating the story it would be a 9!)
Hello darkness my old friend
When I was a kid I used to be afraid of the dark and watched a LOT of Twin Peaks.
I got used to it so much that being in the dark felt like an old acquaintance always watching on my shoulders.
Playing this game felt just like that, though this time it's trying to kill you while sinking its teeth in your thoughts and doubts.
An amazing game overall.
A childhood welcome back love letter kind of game.
Alan maybe my favourite character in the Remedyverse games.
Also Old Gods of Asgard/Poets of the Fall fucking rock!!
When I was a kid I used to be afraid of the dark and watched a LOT of Twin Peaks.
I got used to it so much that being in the dark felt like an old acquaintance always watching on my shoulders.
Playing this game felt just like that, though this time it's trying to kill you while sinking its teeth in your thoughts and doubts.
An amazing game overall.
A childhood welcome back love letter kind of game.
Alan maybe my favourite character in the Remedyverse games.
Also Old Gods of Asgard/Poets of the Fall fucking rock!!
this community deserves a better class of 'cult classic'. this game's hare-brained commitment to pastiche, if it can even be called homage, is as tedious as its combat. there's a crude smugness underlining much of this that tries to lighten its self-deprecating nature and vindicate the nonsensical and confused narrative that increasingly put a bad taste in my mouth. to what end does any of this serve? a game whose central concept invites boundless ideas and yet is frequently constrained by rules and thematic barriers. its lovingly rendered environments and eccentric set-pieces ultimately do little to excuse the 2010s-isms that stink up its identity. i can understand its lasting appeal and at points I found its overtly deliberate camp charming but after the hundredth flying refrigerator, thousandth needless fail state, the millionth shootout, and the trillionth Twin Peaks reference, I tapped out.
when I played Alan Wake the first time around, I immediately noticed the overt homage/pastiche of Twin Peaks on display, which was honestly the main motivation behind me checking out the game in the first place. this time around, I was floored from realizing how much inspiration Alan Wake also takes from House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, even going so far as to include music from that novel's official companion album). reading that book has been a truly illuminating experience for my extremely niche media taste - it's shown up in as a clear inspo in some of the weirdest and wildest places ever since I found out about it.
for this pre-Alan Wake II refresher playthrough, I went into the experience knowing a bit more about this game's troubled development, and, yeah, you can definitely see the corpse of a truly ambitious open world Deadly Premonition-like game just below the surface of the game we got. some people might dock points for that (something something "unfocused" something something "unfinished"), but I gotta admire the talent that goes into not only salvaging a project with that much ambition but also managing to deliver something so unique and atmospheric in the process. seriously, Alan Wake has some of the most stunning ambiance when you're running headfirst into the oppressively gloomy woods, the safety of the light just out of reach, the sentient darkness thundering louder the farther from the light you run... shit's tense, man, and the flashlight mechanics add a great level of anxiety on top of it all.
one of the things Alan Wake does so extremely right is that its primary collectibles, the manuscript pages, are just the game's written scenario in a jumbled order. going off the critical path might reward you with a vignette of what a side character is experiencing off-screen or maybe a snippet of what's about to unfold later in the episode. it keeps you on your toes and gives you a damn good reason for walking off into the spooky side areas full of ghouls ready to ambush you rather than sticking to the safety of the well-lit road.
I also really loved the remaster's addition of hidden QR codes, each of which links to different "visions" of Alan Wake from Alan Wake II as he prepares to write his return following his departure at the end of this game. it adds an extra layer of insane, nonlinear meta-narrative to an already swirling fever dream of a story filled with strange, disconnected elements - and, dear reader, that kind of thing is just the peanut butter to my jam.
yeah, I hear your criticisms, but I am unmoved: this game rocks because Remedy and Sam Lake know how to write cool stories that keep me engrossed and engaged, and sometimes, that's enough. the blinding light of the creative vision on display is enough to eliminate any shadows of imperfection for me. I mean, seriously, this remaster includes a commentary track mode from Sam Lake himself - when was the last time you played a videogame that included developer commentary? that's cool as hell.
for this pre-Alan Wake II refresher playthrough, I went into the experience knowing a bit more about this game's troubled development, and, yeah, you can definitely see the corpse of a truly ambitious open world Deadly Premonition-like game just below the surface of the game we got. some people might dock points for that (something something "unfocused" something something "unfinished"), but I gotta admire the talent that goes into not only salvaging a project with that much ambition but also managing to deliver something so unique and atmospheric in the process. seriously, Alan Wake has some of the most stunning ambiance when you're running headfirst into the oppressively gloomy woods, the safety of the light just out of reach, the sentient darkness thundering louder the farther from the light you run... shit's tense, man, and the flashlight mechanics add a great level of anxiety on top of it all.
one of the things Alan Wake does so extremely right is that its primary collectibles, the manuscript pages, are just the game's written scenario in a jumbled order. going off the critical path might reward you with a vignette of what a side character is experiencing off-screen or maybe a snippet of what's about to unfold later in the episode. it keeps you on your toes and gives you a damn good reason for walking off into the spooky side areas full of ghouls ready to ambush you rather than sticking to the safety of the well-lit road.
I also really loved the remaster's addition of hidden QR codes, each of which links to different "visions" of Alan Wake from Alan Wake II as he prepares to write his return following his departure at the end of this game. it adds an extra layer of insane, nonlinear meta-narrative to an already swirling fever dream of a story filled with strange, disconnected elements - and, dear reader, that kind of thing is just the peanut butter to my jam.
yeah, I hear your criticisms, but I am unmoved: this game rocks because Remedy and Sam Lake know how to write cool stories that keep me engrossed and engaged, and sometimes, that's enough. the blinding light of the creative vision on display is enough to eliminate any shadows of imperfection for me. I mean, seriously, this remaster includes a commentary track mode from Sam Lake himself - when was the last time you played a videogame that included developer commentary? that's cool as hell.
Alan Wake 1 is a 10/10 psychological horror/thriller movie trapped and constrained by a pretty average action adventure game. I can absolutely see why a sequel came out after 13 years. It's just so dense with potential, especially after that ending.
The gameplay itself is the only drawback. Pretty serviceable third person shooting with very repetitive and sometimes annoying encounters. Nice enemy variety, however no real variety in how to best them. The possessed objects are never fun.
The narrative, effort, and style simply elevate it far beyond a stock standard 2010s action game with horror elements. The attention to things that make it feel - for lack of a better term - off, and again, more than a production-line action game. The live action parts, the music, licensed or original (Space Oddity plays during the credits and it's amazing). Hell the entire story itself is something I've never seen before. I can't even conceptualise how someone came up with this. Very impressive.
All in all the best 7/10 I've ever seen.
The gameplay itself is the only drawback. Pretty serviceable third person shooting with very repetitive and sometimes annoying encounters. Nice enemy variety, however no real variety in how to best them. The possessed objects are never fun.
The narrative, effort, and style simply elevate it far beyond a stock standard 2010s action game with horror elements. The attention to things that make it feel - for lack of a better term - off, and again, more than a production-line action game. The live action parts, the music, licensed or original (Space Oddity plays during the credits and it's amazing). Hell the entire story itself is something I've never seen before. I can't even conceptualise how someone came up with this. Very impressive.
All in all the best 7/10 I've ever seen.
This review contains spoilers
This is supposed to be a horror game, right? Alan loved saying his book was "turning into a horror story" but nothing about this game was even a little spooky. It was more silly than it was intense.
The gameplay hurts Alan Wake the most. Flashlight before damage gimmick gets old after enough fighting, and a lot of the gameplay relies on constant shooting.
Something which I find such an obviously terrible decision is the camera. It switches shoulders constantly while playing and defaults to the left side. There is a button to switch the camera to the opposite side it is on, and having to constantly move it to the right shoulder got irritating quick. It baffles me that there is not a setting to keep the camera from moving.
I'd expect that option to be in a 2021 remaster. This being such a recent remaster is quite insane to me, it is missing so much that could potentially make this more justified. The graphics aren't terribly better than the original and animations were just not changed at all, including the odd facial animations.
Each episode often repeats itself in both layout and environment. It has a starting location and an end goal to reach, with a forest somewhere between. The forests all feel the same, almost never with defining set pieces. The exception is the last episode, which throws in many random things to make it feel special like a junk yard or a random monster truck encounter.
The pacing is slow, each episode feels same-y, just going through the motions until it tells you a new piece of information. Fortunately the core story has an interesting premise, enough to keep me engaged while slogging through endless combat. The dialogue is sloppy and is almost never delivered like a real person is speaking. I didn't find myself interested in a single character except for Alan himself.
Surprisingly my favorite thing about Alan Wake was the sweeping B-roll of the wilderness. It plays regularly and really gave a sense of how vast the nature surrounding Bright Falls was.
Rolling credits with 'Space Oddity' really did have me laughing at first but after a minute it made more sense. To me it hinted at what is happening with Alan after the game ends, likely stranded in cauldron lake awaiting an unlikely rescue (knowing Alan Wake 2 exists does kill this mystery a bit). The lyrics sorta fit but the vibe of the song definitely does not.
The gameplay hurts Alan Wake the most. Flashlight before damage gimmick gets old after enough fighting, and a lot of the gameplay relies on constant shooting.
Something which I find such an obviously terrible decision is the camera. It switches shoulders constantly while playing and defaults to the left side. There is a button to switch the camera to the opposite side it is on, and having to constantly move it to the right shoulder got irritating quick. It baffles me that there is not a setting to keep the camera from moving.
I'd expect that option to be in a 2021 remaster. This being such a recent remaster is quite insane to me, it is missing so much that could potentially make this more justified. The graphics aren't terribly better than the original and animations were just not changed at all, including the odd facial animations.
Each episode often repeats itself in both layout and environment. It has a starting location and an end goal to reach, with a forest somewhere between. The forests all feel the same, almost never with defining set pieces. The exception is the last episode, which throws in many random things to make it feel special like a junk yard or a random monster truck encounter.
The pacing is slow, each episode feels same-y, just going through the motions until it tells you a new piece of information. Fortunately the core story has an interesting premise, enough to keep me engaged while slogging through endless combat. The dialogue is sloppy and is almost never delivered like a real person is speaking. I didn't find myself interested in a single character except for Alan himself.
Surprisingly my favorite thing about Alan Wake was the sweeping B-roll of the wilderness. It plays regularly and really gave a sense of how vast the nature surrounding Bright Falls was.
Rolling credits with 'Space Oddity' really did have me laughing at first but after a minute it made more sense. To me it hinted at what is happening with Alan after the game ends, likely stranded in cauldron lake awaiting an unlikely rescue (knowing Alan Wake 2 exists does kill this mystery a bit). The lyrics sorta fit but the vibe of the song definitely does not.
The overall presentation of the game is really good. The visuals, music, and sound create a majestic atmosphere. The game follows an episodic structure and is split into 8 episode (6 main story + 2 DLC), each filled with plenty of twists and cliffhangers, which sets up the upcoming sequel quite nicely.
The story has an interesting premise and creates a world, which if you like ambiguity and speculation, will be your cup of tea.
In contrast, the gameplay kind of felt like it was neglected, leading to a bit of a mixed experience.
Checkpoints are sometimes placed a bit weirdly, forcing you to replay large sections if you die.
Due to the way the character is presented, I don't mind him having stamina, but the decision to not add a visible stamina bar was odd.
Playing optimally is indirectly discouraged, at least on normal difficulty. You have very little reason not to waste a lot of your items, since not only do you get a lot of them, but they get taken away from you at the end of each episode anyway.
The worst offender, however, is the camera. It's placed so close to the character that when you try to run from enemies, you don't have much of a choice except to either blind dodge and hope for the best, or turn it around and hope you don't get hit. Unfortunately, the overall levels are pretty narrow and there are plenty of instances where a lot of enemies will chase you, further accentuating the problem.
Overall, the story and presentation are great and create an interesting world, but the gameplay feels lacking, although if you're used to clunkiness, it won't feel as bad.
The story has an interesting premise and creates a world, which if you like ambiguity and speculation, will be your cup of tea.
In contrast, the gameplay kind of felt like it was neglected, leading to a bit of a mixed experience.
Checkpoints are sometimes placed a bit weirdly, forcing you to replay large sections if you die.
Due to the way the character is presented, I don't mind him having stamina, but the decision to not add a visible stamina bar was odd.
Playing optimally is indirectly discouraged, at least on normal difficulty. You have very little reason not to waste a lot of your items, since not only do you get a lot of them, but they get taken away from you at the end of each episode anyway.
The worst offender, however, is the camera. It's placed so close to the character that when you try to run from enemies, you don't have much of a choice except to either blind dodge and hope for the best, or turn it around and hope you don't get hit. Unfortunately, the overall levels are pretty narrow and there are plenty of instances where a lot of enemies will chase you, further accentuating the problem.
Overall, the story and presentation are great and create an interesting world, but the gameplay feels lacking, although if you're used to clunkiness, it won't feel as bad.
Another Remedy W. Passable story but it's got some of the most fun gameplay mechanics, and I have to say the evade button is frustrating af, half of the time it would get u hit/killed even if you time it properly. Love the eerie atmosphere, feel like the kind of game you shouldn't rush through, instead like play an episode every 2 days. Could've been a bit shorter tho cuz I felt like it slightly dragged on a bit at the end. The remastered version is awful ngl, filled with glitches and audio issues and it's not even that much of a visual overhaul compared to the og, next time I decide to revisit the game it's definitely going to be the original. And yeah eager to see what Remedy has cooked for Alan Wake 2.
As a remaster it's kinda lackluster, besides the "newer" models and more high-res textures it's pretty much just looks like the PC version, which isn't a bad thing since I think the game still holds up pretty well for it's era I just would've liked a few more changes to really make this game stand out as a remaster. But even if I don't think it really makes full use of it's remastered elements I can't deny that I'm glad this exist as a good way for newcomers who've never played Alan Wake on 360 to finally play it very accessible way with all of it's DLC content, which is something I wished more studios and publishers did.