don’t ever serially experiment on lain!! worst mistake of my frigging life !!!!

double featured this w we’re all going to the worlds fair which like pair together rlly well,, touching on same themes and ideas,, even repeating some of the same dialogue which was like unexpected

prob one of the coolest and most interesting games architecturally speaking,, like how almost all of the clips/images in game are either of rotted half abandoned buildings or visual clutter and overpopulation like the cramped subway or wires connecting everything and everyone. idk idk makes sense why ppl try to find some solace online but also why the rot seeps through there too. sad game lmfao

Like everybody else’s review, this is gonna be a wall of text

With every Suda game I play, I question more and more why I continue playing them. Before playing TSC, I had played Killer7, the three main No More Heroes games, and Killer is Dead with it being the only game I came out of with a fully positive feeling. I find Suda’s writing style to be obtuse, esoteric, and obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious. I don’t feel like he writes compelling characters as most just have a single gimmick they stick to for the entire story or their characterization feels like a mishmash of other characters from media he likes (he’s stated he’s inspired by everything he likes). I feel the worlds he writes tend to not live up to their potential, feeling like he either wasn’t able to finish all the background writing or he thought he did but there’s a lot missing. His newer works also feel masturbatory, he never stops referencing his old works and how freaking awesome! they are, which is funny to me because I think almost all of them aren’t very good

I was really hesitant to play The Silver Case. My friend @Kungfugloves spent weeks shouting about how insane and amazing it is, how “it doesn’t feel like a human wrote it” and how everything feels super unique and interesting. The thing is I hate visual novels. I do not find them engaging, I put gameplay and story on an equal pedestal and visual novels tend to be stripped of the former. As stated, I also do not like Suda’s writing and this is nothing but that. He tried to ease me in by saying one of the campaigns was written by someone else so I’d at least like that one. He bought it for me despite me telling him not to and so I bit the bullet and tried my hardest to go into it with an open mind

I remember watching my friend play this a few months prior to my playthrough and genuinely getting a headache from the UI and backgrounds. I didn't have as much of an issue with it this time around but I do think they're waaaay too busy and a lot of them seem like they're trying to be cryptic and weird for the sake of it. I also found the music to be largely uninteresting, very little of it being downright bad but there isn't a single song that ever stuck out to me and I couldn't even hum a single tune from the game if you stuck a gun to my head

But how did I feel by the end? I think “underwhelmed and frustrated” is probably the best descriptor. The story wasn’t nearly as complex or interesting as I was led to believe. I did have the context that the original release was 1999, but at the same time none of the concepts or story beats felt original to that time period. I’d definitely seen police procedurals of a similar nature as a child with my grandparents that followed a lot of the same beats. Mental clones had been done before in comics and manga well before this. Manic obsessions with serial killers had been a phenomenon for ages.

This game also plays like complete and utter shit. I go into further detail about it in Placebo later in this review but I cannot understate how little I enjoyed the simple act of playing this game. The little exploration you do isn't interesting and takes ages. The puzzles aren't interesting, fun, or engaging, searching every nook and cranny for what you can interact with is actively shit. I cannot and straight up refuse to understand anyone who says that playing this is a good time

The chapter I was most disappointed by was Parade, which my friend described as being “actually crazy, there’s explosions and kidnappings, it’s insane”. Those were present, sure, but the presentation of the game didn’t do the former any good and the latter felt like any other political kidnapping in any other media, topped off with Suda’s esoteric writing that I hate (I know the conclusion is very much easy to understand but the way it’s presented prior to the reveal really rubbed me the wrong way). Runner up goes to Spectrum which felt like an insane waste of time from beginning to end and Lunatics which doesn’t add anything except a miserable conclusion for the five fans of Moonlight Syndrome

I enjoyed Placebo more than Transmitter for the sole reason that the mundane life Tokio lived was more compelling to me than the police procedural of Transmitter. Seeing Tokio’s life descend and him slowly lose his mind as it becomes less clear what’s real and what isn’t was interesting and despite how much more fantastical parts of it were than Transmitter, the grounded tone felt less miserable than Transmitter. I did feel the gameplay was more frustrating though due to the constant back and forth of the three interactables in the room, not telling you which you should do first so you have to constantly trial and error which leads to reading the same lines over and over. I’m told this is a holdover from the original PS1 version but I feel they could have just cut out that spot in the room by the bed if they wanted to

The only other character I ended up liking by the end was Kusabi. I say this because he was easily my least favorite character for a lot of the game. Most of his dialogue early on felt like it was written around the profanity instead of the profanity being written in after, it felt like Suda just discovered the words “fuck”, “shit,” and “goddamn”. I do think he gets some nice development as the game goes on and he effectively becomes the protagonist due to how intertwined he is in everything, but I feel the way he’s more or less dropped at the very end (and how he’s used in the future games now that I’ve played them) is a major misstep

I understand TSC. I get what it’s trying to say. I don’t think it’s an interesting story, I don’t think anything it does is new, I feel it expects the player to never have even considered anything it says throughout its runtime which feels like an insult to the player’s intelligence. I do think the world of the 24 wards is really interesting and had me intrigued the whole time. This game’s world seems downright miserable to live in and the things they hint toward really had me itching for more, but unfortunately instead of any interesting developments I spent the final chapter going up and down ten buildings for some lore that easily could have been consolidated to a drastic degree. Maybe if I liked visual novels more I might have given this a higher score but I don't think that's the case

Most of the criticism I’m writing comes from during and after the playthrough but now that I’ve gone through Flower, Sun, and Rain (terrible) and MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY The 25th Ward (amazing), this game’s flaws mean much more to me because I can see what was possible in this world that has been created and how the establishing framework placed down in this game could have been so much better. I do think it’s interesting how prescient the writing is when it comes to the way government corruption and terrorism are presented, but I don’t think this game is very good in any way honestly

At least it got me to play The 25th Ward

weirdly the complete antithesis of what mcgee was going for in the sequel,, the sequel is bright and colorful but ultimately dour and overly dark in tone and story. this is one of the most dark looking games ive ever played and the map layouts for each level are so utterly confounding and disorienting, a labyrinthine hell constructed by others specifically for u to suffer during. the first is a game about growth and progression, forgiveness and regret and the pain that comes w both, the sequel is concerned w regression and ig I just don’t vibe w that as much. this belongs more to an era of game design like max payne or rule of rose where ur small and the world is big and there’s plenty of ppl who don’t want you to exist within it. the structure of every world is chaotic and dizzying and scary! I love some of the weirdo imagery the enemies can conjure up like the flying bomb dropping bugs that seem almost military like.

there’s so much being said here even w like v minimal actual words being said,, alice herself conveys sm through grunts and screams it’s actually kind of wild. a simple jump to a ledge sounds blood cur-tingling and filled w anger + desperation. idk to see her suffer so often and in such extreme ways and come out the other side (at least for this game) a better and more whole person is rlly fucking fulfilling and satisfying to experience.

part of me wishes there was a third game and a better ending to both alice the character and the series, but also I realize that this series obv took a lot out of mcgee and was coming from a place that’s maybe better left sitting dormant for his own mental health. he seems kind of happy as a retired old guy living in shanghai that’s left behind a wealth of art that means a lot to a lot of ppl and now just makes emo plushes that while don’t mean rlly anything to me obv mean something to enough ppl. I think that’s nice ^_^

this and a blunt but no seriously this and a blunt

rlly lovely game :-))
in love w theresa duncan’s vision and idea of a middle america, a place innocent but not and a place that’s somehow both mundane and extravagant. I think she hoped for a better world for future generations :-) I think that’s sweet :3

highly recommend looking at her blog @ https://theresalduncan.typepad.com/witostaircase/
spent a few hours on there last night and there’s some rlly great musings and photo curation from her if u even slightly gaf about fashion/feminism/art/celebrity/conspiracy etc etc

--spooky mormon hell dream :-)
-bright falls is a town that hasn’t changed in the thirteen years since the original alan wake. being in the town again for the first time in this game it’s often times shocking and impressive how your mind is called back to the original game. everything looks the same just with the town sinking further into disrepair but with the citizens pretending everything is still fine. there’s countless towns across america where nothing ever changes, where everything just gets worse. bright falls has taken on a very common sort of traditionalism and patriotism in 2023, it makes sense that the police force are wary of saga and casey, it makes sense that the first ppl detained as suspects are a black couple. it is a town that is afraid of both outsiders and change bc they’re one and the same, bright falls is a microcosm of american bigotry, a specific kind of rural small town bigotry.
-finally finished devil house by john darnielle this year and absolutely adored it and especially its critiques on the true crime community. alan wake 2 is obviously not as focused in on critiquing true crime as a form of entertainment as devil house but regardless it still is. it’s hard to do a story about everything that happens here without pointing inwardly about what it means. you are in a way being reprimanded for enjoying the blood and the gore and the death and the suffering. as are alan and saga. alan enjoys being a writer and continuously does exploit the suffering of real world people and families and using them in his stories. saga enjoys being a detective and seeing the worst of what america has to offer, she even says at a point that she enjoys everything her job entails more or less regardless of the real life consequences of it for other people. there’s a sort of weird and giddy glee in the way she talks when investigating a crime scene
-rlly like more or less everything the game is saying in a sociopolitical way,, however idk I find myself kind of conflicted w the repeated usage of the phrase monster and victim. alan repeatedly makes use of this term to describe an ending fitting of the genre, he’s obviously the monster, more specifically his greed, ego, self interest and ambition are, and it could definitely be viewed that everyone he comes in contact w is a victim in some way. but if it’s saying that saga is THE victim idk I find that a bit weird given how much of her character is her actively going against the narrative society and alan have written for her
-I rlly love that remedy now fully understands how truly awful alan is, that he knowingly writes in real life people and families into stories to serve his own self interest. he is irredeemable no matter how hard he tries to redeem himself and make up for his past actions, that’s the loop.
-love seeing remedy finally having the tech and talent to fully accomplish a vision w seemingly no compromises. this feels like 20+ years in the medium have brought them to this. i don’t even mean in how it’s all connected to prev. titles but more so how every remedy game is built upon each other
-the first game was such a solitary lonely affair, it was rlly just alan by himself for the entirety of the game. this however is so full of like v lively and well designed characters and that makes sense given how much of the story is about connection and family and learning to like be an open person who can rely on others when need be. bright falls is designed like scary northwest version of shenmue which is v cool,, loved wandering around after each chapter and seeing how the town changed and how ppl reacted to the changes
-love the characters of rose, cynthia and alice and how the writing is at least cleverly enough subverting the idea of histrionic depressed scorned women. love their relationships w wake and zane and how we only view the female characters in this like that bc at first we don’t have the full scope of what happened in their relationships w these men. how wake and company more or less haunted them and drove them to these points and it’s smth the first alan wake never even dared to talk about, smth that most games wouldn’t ever try to broach. rose looks a lot like rosamund pike that’s cute :3
-think i <3 this for the same reasons i love nope,, like the movie nope. both are some of the strongest indictments against artists and the pursuit of art that ive ever seen. they both definitely kind of stumble into that concept while trying to be about the importance of art/pursuit of artistic ambition etc. idk seeing jordan peele say nope is about the joy of making movies is kind of crazy given that my read of it was v much so about how greed and ego killed an entire artform that being of like cinema in the seventies. and idk aw2 is def trying to be about how art connects us all no matter our differences but idk that’s a little bit hard to see where they’re coming from given the fact that everyone is in this situation bc of the greed and ego of men in pursuit of artistic importance.
-there’s like this bones/suicideboys sounding song in here and i think it’s one of the worst things ive ever heard lol
-lots of cool stuff involving alice and her work as an artist and filmmaker. alan’s sins and past failures as a man and a husband literally projected back onto him through the only way he’s capable of understanding.
-I love how sam lake and co approach stories and storytelling,, making smth pretty unique to this medium by pulling on a bunch of disparate threads and loose connections and inspirations and homages from other mediums. there’s stuff in here from bret easton ellis books and aki kaurismaki films, clear lines of influence drawn from prestige police shows like hannibal and sharp objects and true detective, visual homages to like the watchmen comics. it’s cool to pick up on these influences and see where they lead and how they differ from the original source. it would not surprise me at all if lake saw the 2011 movie twixt,, card carrying twixt fanclub member headass
-I don’t think the ending totally nails it,, lots of hokey monologues and needless exposition, mfs vagueposting like crazy in that final chapter. im sure most of my issues w it will be totally nullified once the dlc chapters come out + i have more time to sit w it.
-friend of the devil is a friend of mine if I get home before daylight i might just get some sleep tonite ;-)

feel like this is everything I wanted and expected from alan wake as a series that the original to me just didn’t rlly come through w.
kind of insane they put all the truly great level design and aesthetics into the four hour long stand alone game that came out three years after base game but w/e. wildly good and CONSOOMABLE,, I imagine most reviews from around the time called it a real pageturner haha. if I wrote fanfic I would write alan/mr scratch yaoi and it would be called alan wake’s american boyfriend. i like how often alan writes these stand ins for alice,, it’s cute bruh a wife guy oml. could def be viewed as misogynistic and it def sort of is but idk seeing how much alan likes his wife got me smiling and kicking my legs Im Sorry. remedy kind of makes games for boys that don’t read books but im a literate girl and I love how unsubtle they are w ripping off popular writers LMAO. smth about the american west is so beautiful and sparse and from another time and that works so well for this,,, shit makes me pog out. for more stuff about that area of america and that I was reminded of while watching this I recommend these rlly good movies: targets, 3 women, come back to the five and dime jimmy dean jimmy dean, human highway, inherent vice and maps to the stars !!! <33