This review contains spoilers
Alan Wake 2
#25
PC - Epic Game Store
Beaten Nov 18th, 2023
The decade+ follow up to the beautiful schlocky Alan Wake, we finally get to try and spring our favorite horror author from his prison and find out what the final line means! Well, that's a gag in the game - I thought "Its not a lake, its an ocean" made perfect metaphorical sense, the dark place was an enormous realm that was trapping them, not something small and manageable like a lake, however there are some fun meta gags at the expense of the first game. This time we have dual protagonists: FBI Agent Saga Anderson in the real world and Alan himself, still trapped in the Dark Place trying to bust out, and this duality carries over to a lot of the game and how its systems work. But yeah, Alan Wake 2, finally.. was it worth the wait? What all has changed? Yes and a lot is the answer!
The Good:
-Damn where to even start on this one??? Art style I guess! Yeah, this is absolutely stellar. Similar to Remedy's previous game Control, almost every frame of this game is a painting. I feel equal parts sympathy and envy at my future self who have to pick ten screenshots to show off from all the exceptional art here.
-Story has some very satisfying twists and turns, some of which are nicely telegraphed but plenty come out of left field. It's a satisfying continuation of both the Alan Wake game + Control as well. I was worried Saga wouldn't be as great as Alan but she very much holds her own, especially when she has Casey to bounce off of.
-The vastly improved gameplay from the first game is pretty much the RE2/3/4make style and it serves them well. Fights are tough, not a lot of enemies, weapons handle pretty tight, enemies take quite a few hits to go down. For Alan's sequence there's a nice twist with the shadow enemies - only some are actually aggressive, most are just there to spook you and taunt you and its very difficult to tell them apart until its almost too late... helps play very well into the paranoia of the dark place
-Returning to Bright Falls in 4k is beatiful
-The environs in general are great to move around in, so much creativity on display even in the real world. Coffee World, the trailer park, the basement of the Sheriff Station, out in the spooky woods... Obviously the Dark Place too (perpetual rainy New York city) is rad
-Semi retcon of Alan Wake 1/Control: Alan's writing DOESNT just rewrite and create reality to whatever he wants, it can only twist what is there to suit the purpose of the story. I was initially having a bit of a tough time caring about our characters/story because they were fake people (Saga Anderson? Alex Casey? Yeah, these are made up people) but with the explicit change they make to how his powers were described previously I started enjoying the narrative limitations.
-Speaking of semi retcons: Alan is kinda of a douchebag. Alice talks about their marital issues and reveals the Dark Presence chose Alan for more than just his writing: he's also got some darkness in him already.. just like all the other people the dark place infects
-Saga & Casey Coffee Sips 11/10
-SHOW ME THE CHAMPION OF LIGHT!
The Bad:
-The first boss fight is easily the hardest and honestly not super interesting from a gameplay standpoint? You basically just run away, shoot, run away. No real progression against him like an RE boss, not super interesting arena or mechanics, pretty meh
-Lack of bosses in general. They're all in the dark place and there aren't that many of them.
-The mind place specific puzzles - some parts of the game require you to work through the mind place to get the door/item which was already obvious and feels like a waste of time. These need to be tossed out sorry
The Meh:
-The ending, from a gameplay perspective. You reawaken in the Dark Place as Saga and... walk around for like 15 minutes? There are a couple fights but they're against normal shadow enemies and very easy to just waltz right past. Why even bother with these if you're not going to do them right? It's not bad (the ending with her there looks awesome and offers some more leads on Sheriff Breaker and Door, the obvious sequel bait)
-Pacing - this one is on the cusp of bad honestly, but my chosen path between Alan and Saga's storylines (Alan pretty much all the way through after playing Saga to a good stopping point) I think helped it. Randomly bopping back and forth I think would feel odd
-The Mind Place in general is a neat idea, having to manually place things is kinda annoying. I'd do everything non-main-plot automatically pinned to save time.
-Encounter design/ enemies still need a level up or two. There needs to be "licker" type enemies to steal from RE2 some more: enemies where you have to interact with them in a very different way from the vanilla enemies that are dangerous AF. I also can't really remember any particular rooms/encounters other than a few ending bits as opposed to RE2/3/4 where I can think of several.
-Book Casey chime ins get long in the tooth BUT have an exceptional payoff at the end so I'll give it a pass
The Hmmmmmm:
-There's quite a few things here that are just obviously setting up for an inevitable sequel/spin off at some point that are left dangling here. A lot of it happens in the Dark Place so things being weird makes some sense but still feels a bit hmmmmmm
-Alan's story sequence is pretty hard to follow HOWEVER that does make sense given the nature of the dark place. When were the books written? Who actually wrote them? Did Scratch actually fuck with him/Alice or was it all Wake himself? Did he involve Saga intentionally and her family? The map keeps changing a little bit and its a bit hard to follow where to go... again, this could all be intentional but its definitely notable
A tour-de-force in video game art as Remedy keeps swinging for the fences and a step forward in the survival horror genre (what, these things can have interesting and layered stories now??), Alan Wake 2 follows up on its cliffhanger predecessor with a hell of a bang. Oh, and another cliffhanger lol
Final Grade: A
#25
PC - Epic Game Store
Beaten Nov 18th, 2023
The decade+ follow up to the beautiful schlocky Alan Wake, we finally get to try and spring our favorite horror author from his prison and find out what the final line means! Well, that's a gag in the game - I thought "Its not a lake, its an ocean" made perfect metaphorical sense, the dark place was an enormous realm that was trapping them, not something small and manageable like a lake, however there are some fun meta gags at the expense of the first game. This time we have dual protagonists: FBI Agent Saga Anderson in the real world and Alan himself, still trapped in the Dark Place trying to bust out, and this duality carries over to a lot of the game and how its systems work. But yeah, Alan Wake 2, finally.. was it worth the wait? What all has changed? Yes and a lot is the answer!
The Good:
-Damn where to even start on this one??? Art style I guess! Yeah, this is absolutely stellar. Similar to Remedy's previous game Control, almost every frame of this game is a painting. I feel equal parts sympathy and envy at my future self who have to pick ten screenshots to show off from all the exceptional art here.
-Story has some very satisfying twists and turns, some of which are nicely telegraphed but plenty come out of left field. It's a satisfying continuation of both the Alan Wake game + Control as well. I was worried Saga wouldn't be as great as Alan but she very much holds her own, especially when she has Casey to bounce off of.
-The vastly improved gameplay from the first game is pretty much the RE2/3/4make style and it serves them well. Fights are tough, not a lot of enemies, weapons handle pretty tight, enemies take quite a few hits to go down. For Alan's sequence there's a nice twist with the shadow enemies - only some are actually aggressive, most are just there to spook you and taunt you and its very difficult to tell them apart until its almost too late... helps play very well into the paranoia of the dark place
-Returning to Bright Falls in 4k is beatiful
-The environs in general are great to move around in, so much creativity on display even in the real world. Coffee World, the trailer park, the basement of the Sheriff Station, out in the spooky woods... Obviously the Dark Place too (perpetual rainy New York city) is rad
-Semi retcon of Alan Wake 1/Control: Alan's writing DOESNT just rewrite and create reality to whatever he wants, it can only twist what is there to suit the purpose of the story. I was initially having a bit of a tough time caring about our characters/story because they were fake people (Saga Anderson? Alex Casey? Yeah, these are made up people) but with the explicit change they make to how his powers were described previously I started enjoying the narrative limitations.
-Speaking of semi retcons: Alan is kinda of a douchebag. Alice talks about their marital issues and reveals the Dark Presence chose Alan for more than just his writing: he's also got some darkness in him already.. just like all the other people the dark place infects
-Saga & Casey Coffee Sips 11/10
-SHOW ME THE CHAMPION OF LIGHT!
The Bad:
-The first boss fight is easily the hardest and honestly not super interesting from a gameplay standpoint? You basically just run away, shoot, run away. No real progression against him like an RE boss, not super interesting arena or mechanics, pretty meh
-Lack of bosses in general. They're all in the dark place and there aren't that many of them.
-The mind place specific puzzles - some parts of the game require you to work through the mind place to get the door/item which was already obvious and feels like a waste of time. These need to be tossed out sorry
The Meh:
-The ending, from a gameplay perspective. You reawaken in the Dark Place as Saga and... walk around for like 15 minutes? There are a couple fights but they're against normal shadow enemies and very easy to just waltz right past. Why even bother with these if you're not going to do them right? It's not bad (the ending with her there looks awesome and offers some more leads on Sheriff Breaker and Door, the obvious sequel bait)
-Pacing - this one is on the cusp of bad honestly, but my chosen path between Alan and Saga's storylines (Alan pretty much all the way through after playing Saga to a good stopping point) I think helped it. Randomly bopping back and forth I think would feel odd
-The Mind Place in general is a neat idea, having to manually place things is kinda annoying. I'd do everything non-main-plot automatically pinned to save time.
-Encounter design/ enemies still need a level up or two. There needs to be "licker" type enemies to steal from RE2 some more: enemies where you have to interact with them in a very different way from the vanilla enemies that are dangerous AF. I also can't really remember any particular rooms/encounters other than a few ending bits as opposed to RE2/3/4 where I can think of several.
-Book Casey chime ins get long in the tooth BUT have an exceptional payoff at the end so I'll give it a pass
The Hmmmmmm:
-There's quite a few things here that are just obviously setting up for an inevitable sequel/spin off at some point that are left dangling here. A lot of it happens in the Dark Place so things being weird makes some sense but still feels a bit hmmmmmm
-Alan's story sequence is pretty hard to follow HOWEVER that does make sense given the nature of the dark place. When were the books written? Who actually wrote them? Did Scratch actually fuck with him/Alice or was it all Wake himself? Did he involve Saga intentionally and her family? The map keeps changing a little bit and its a bit hard to follow where to go... again, this could all be intentional but its definitely notable
A tour-de-force in video game art as Remedy keeps swinging for the fences and a step forward in the survival horror genre (what, these things can have interesting and layered stories now??), Alan Wake 2 follows up on its cliffhanger predecessor with a hell of a bang. Oh, and another cliffhanger lol
Final Grade: A