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.