I did not play Alan Wake 1. I played Control for 5-10 hours and didn't like it much so I gave up. I had zero interest in Alan Wake 2 throughout all of its pre-release trailers and such.
Then the reviews came out and the word of mouth spread fast. Apparently this game was awesome in plenty of unique ways. I decided to bite.
I'm very glad I did. It's fantastic, and mostly for reasons that other games don't even attempt to pull off. In some weird way, I'd describe this game as a Naughty Dog/Capcom game that for some reason Kojima was given creative control over. It's a strange mix of TLoU, RE, and a Kojima game. I guess that's just kind of Remedy's thing, but I don't think they've pulled it off til now. To be fair, I have only attempted playing one other game by them. But Control seems to be the one people claim is their best work (until this?), so I think this is a massive step in the right direction.
First, I will get a couple of my issues out of the way. I think it's odd that you are given the freedom to switch between the two characters for the majority of the game. I think it should be streamlined and forced a bit more. It might be a little more coherent if it was told in a more specific order instead of leaving it up to the player to figure out the timing of. I understood what was going on (to an extent) but it was always in the back of my mind... "should I be switching to Alan now?" and vice versa. I didn't like the added stress knowing I had to interrupt the flow I was in. I played most of Saga's story back to back to back because I preferred playing as her. Then I had to revisit Alan's story near the end and it was a bit of a weird transition. To sum that up - the pacing is a bit strange because it is self-dictated in a way. It would probably still be strange even if they made it more linear, but it would be less distracting that way.
The controls are just... fine. Fighting things didn't feel fantastic but it also worked well enough that it never really bothered me. I'm also glad they kept the combat to a minimum. I assume they knew it wasn't a strong point and wasn't going to be why people were engaged. The spooky atmosphere and the way everything draws your eye and attention is what is engaging. Heck, even the story itself is engaging which I can't say for a whole lot of games. I will say I constantly had way too many resources, though. For the last third of the game I literally couldn't pick things up because my inventory AND my storage box was full. I think they messed up on the balance in that regard. The game felt too easy, despite it also feeling stressful due to the way the enemies worked. Never really knowing when you're going to be attacked (or straight up jump-scared) kept me on the edge the entire game, which was great. Like I said, though, I was never afraid of actually dying, so that was a bit of a weird juxtaposition. Perhaps I should have played on Hard, if that was an option. I don't remember, but probably.
Those are really my only gripes. Now on to the good stuff.
I touched on it already so I'll expand on my thoughts. The plot(s) held my interest all the way through. This is a very difficult thing for a game to do for me. I generally don't care, unless the game really excels in this category. Even though I didn't play the things that lead up to this game, I fully enjoyed the story here. (I did watch a couple recaps, at least, so I kind of knew what I was getting in to.) Those claiming Alan Wake 1 must be played before hand are simply incorrect, because I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Some highlights are:
- Saga's Mind Place - it was oddly enjoyable piecing together the evidence on the board. It made it easier to keep up with all the aspects of the story.
- The way Alan narrates things while you play to help you understand what's going on without it breaking immersion because it actually makes sense in context. This is VERY noticeable in contrast to most games where protagonists talk to themselves for no reason. I hate that shit.
- Most of the characters are very well acted and memorable such as Saga, Alan, Ahti, Casey, Mr. Door, Tor and Odin, The Koskela Brothers, Rose, and plenty of other smaller characters. This is where I feel that Naughty Dog feeling creep in.
- For the most part, I enjoyed solving the puzzles. There were a decent amount and I never really got tired of doing them. I'd say there were 2 or 3 where I looked up a solution because I totally did not get it. Otherwise, they're pretty fun to figure out. A little more sensical than the way RE deals with things. Sticking random objects in random places is not intuitive.
- This might be the scariest game I've ever played. Or, at least... the most unsettling. I loved it. I always felt a sense of dread despite what I said earlier about not actually being afraid of dying due to the difficulty. It just makes you feel like you constantly need to be looking over your shoulder, especially when playing as Alan.
- The maps were the perfect size, and the game is the perfect length. I never felt as though there was too much ground to cover. I loved exploring every inch of each area and making sure to find everything there was to find. The game didn't overstay its welcome and I was satisfied when it ended.
All in all, it's a wonderful package. This game does a lot of special things that I hope Naughty Dog, Capcom (RE) and Kojima Productions take note of. Sure, other studios have a lot they can take from here as well, but those 3 specifically stand to benefit a ton if they took some cues from this.
OH, I FORGOT THE MUSIC BREAKS.
Man... I loved the musical interludes in between the chapters. It was always a pleasure to just sit and listen to each one as you reflect on what just happened. Specifically, a couple chapters in when "Follow you in to the Dark" played, this game solidified itself for me as one of the greats. I've listened to it many times since. Listening to it now and getting goosebumps again. I do think the game peaked early with the music but it was still great afterwards.
...also... that music video sequence with Alan was insanity. Seeing a few people on Twitter write about "that sequence" when the game released without spoiling it was one of the reasons I caved and bought the game. The insistence everyone had to ensure that was kept a secret but also the insistence on saying something about whatever "THAT" was sold me. It really is THAT wild as a concept in a mostly serious video game.
I guess that's my final thought. They did a GREAT job of making a game that is simultaneously very serious and very funny. They also don't let these two things step on each others toes... ever. This game is funny, scary, introspective, creepy, sensory-overloading, unsettling, and a little bit wholesome all rolled in to one very unique experience that I don't think will be replicated for a while.
Remedy just rose way up the ranks for me. Before this game, I didn't care about them at all, really.
Then the reviews came out and the word of mouth spread fast. Apparently this game was awesome in plenty of unique ways. I decided to bite.
I'm very glad I did. It's fantastic, and mostly for reasons that other games don't even attempt to pull off. In some weird way, I'd describe this game as a Naughty Dog/Capcom game that for some reason Kojima was given creative control over. It's a strange mix of TLoU, RE, and a Kojima game. I guess that's just kind of Remedy's thing, but I don't think they've pulled it off til now. To be fair, I have only attempted playing one other game by them. But Control seems to be the one people claim is their best work (until this?), so I think this is a massive step in the right direction.
First, I will get a couple of my issues out of the way. I think it's odd that you are given the freedom to switch between the two characters for the majority of the game. I think it should be streamlined and forced a bit more. It might be a little more coherent if it was told in a more specific order instead of leaving it up to the player to figure out the timing of. I understood what was going on (to an extent) but it was always in the back of my mind... "should I be switching to Alan now?" and vice versa. I didn't like the added stress knowing I had to interrupt the flow I was in. I played most of Saga's story back to back to back because I preferred playing as her. Then I had to revisit Alan's story near the end and it was a bit of a weird transition. To sum that up - the pacing is a bit strange because it is self-dictated in a way. It would probably still be strange even if they made it more linear, but it would be less distracting that way.
The controls are just... fine. Fighting things didn't feel fantastic but it also worked well enough that it never really bothered me. I'm also glad they kept the combat to a minimum. I assume they knew it wasn't a strong point and wasn't going to be why people were engaged. The spooky atmosphere and the way everything draws your eye and attention is what is engaging. Heck, even the story itself is engaging which I can't say for a whole lot of games. I will say I constantly had way too many resources, though. For the last third of the game I literally couldn't pick things up because my inventory AND my storage box was full. I think they messed up on the balance in that regard. The game felt too easy, despite it also feeling stressful due to the way the enemies worked. Never really knowing when you're going to be attacked (or straight up jump-scared) kept me on the edge the entire game, which was great. Like I said, though, I was never afraid of actually dying, so that was a bit of a weird juxtaposition. Perhaps I should have played on Hard, if that was an option. I don't remember, but probably.
Those are really my only gripes. Now on to the good stuff.
I touched on it already so I'll expand on my thoughts. The plot(s) held my interest all the way through. This is a very difficult thing for a game to do for me. I generally don't care, unless the game really excels in this category. Even though I didn't play the things that lead up to this game, I fully enjoyed the story here. (I did watch a couple recaps, at least, so I kind of knew what I was getting in to.) Those claiming Alan Wake 1 must be played before hand are simply incorrect, because I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Some highlights are:
- Saga's Mind Place - it was oddly enjoyable piecing together the evidence on the board. It made it easier to keep up with all the aspects of the story.
- The way Alan narrates things while you play to help you understand what's going on without it breaking immersion because it actually makes sense in context. This is VERY noticeable in contrast to most games where protagonists talk to themselves for no reason. I hate that shit.
- Most of the characters are very well acted and memorable such as Saga, Alan, Ahti, Casey, Mr. Door, Tor and Odin, The Koskela Brothers, Rose, and plenty of other smaller characters. This is where I feel that Naughty Dog feeling creep in.
- For the most part, I enjoyed solving the puzzles. There were a decent amount and I never really got tired of doing them. I'd say there were 2 or 3 where I looked up a solution because I totally did not get it. Otherwise, they're pretty fun to figure out. A little more sensical than the way RE deals with things. Sticking random objects in random places is not intuitive.
- This might be the scariest game I've ever played. Or, at least... the most unsettling. I loved it. I always felt a sense of dread despite what I said earlier about not actually being afraid of dying due to the difficulty. It just makes you feel like you constantly need to be looking over your shoulder, especially when playing as Alan.
- The maps were the perfect size, and the game is the perfect length. I never felt as though there was too much ground to cover. I loved exploring every inch of each area and making sure to find everything there was to find. The game didn't overstay its welcome and I was satisfied when it ended.
All in all, it's a wonderful package. This game does a lot of special things that I hope Naughty Dog, Capcom (RE) and Kojima Productions take note of. Sure, other studios have a lot they can take from here as well, but those 3 specifically stand to benefit a ton if they took some cues from this.
OH, I FORGOT THE MUSIC BREAKS.
Man... I loved the musical interludes in between the chapters. It was always a pleasure to just sit and listen to each one as you reflect on what just happened. Specifically, a couple chapters in when "Follow you in to the Dark" played, this game solidified itself for me as one of the greats. I've listened to it many times since. Listening to it now and getting goosebumps again. I do think the game peaked early with the music but it was still great afterwards.
...also... that music video sequence with Alan was insanity. Seeing a few people on Twitter write about "that sequence" when the game released without spoiling it was one of the reasons I caved and bought the game. The insistence everyone had to ensure that was kept a secret but also the insistence on saying something about whatever "THAT" was sold me. It really is THAT wild as a concept in a mostly serious video game.
I guess that's my final thought. They did a GREAT job of making a game that is simultaneously very serious and very funny. They also don't let these two things step on each others toes... ever. This game is funny, scary, introspective, creepy, sensory-overloading, unsettling, and a little bit wholesome all rolled in to one very unique experience that I don't think will be replicated for a while.
Remedy just rose way up the ranks for me. Before this game, I didn't care about them at all, really.