Although Im yet to make my way through all of remedys portfolio, I can see a clear progression from the games I've played starting off with the poorly written and poorly designed slog that is the original alan wake to the much more competent and interesting control to the even more competent and interesting alan wake 2. While I havent loved any of these games and think one of them is just bad i still think they are intersting games and a interesting studio especially with alan wake 2 which feels like it has a singular cohesive vision rather than a lack of one as is the case with most games and the previous two games I've played from remedy. I know the main creative force behind all these games is sam lake but I fail to see his voice in alan wake and control which I think was a result of sam lake not being the main director for either of those games but with this it feels like sam lake is having a conversing of ideas and themes which is refreshing considering the general landscape of gaming. While I definitly appreciate this aspect I still don't think this is amazing but it is very good and has some super interesting ideas and at some points feels very personal mainly the stuff revolving around alans sections and how he reflects on his past work and how they've been handled throughout the years. The game is also ligitimatly scary and tense mainly due to the excellent sound and fantastic art direction and enviromental design with competent level design with tight narrow paths not much room to move making for tense and ligitimatly scary moments. Sam Lake has improved as a writer, instead of copying and making worse versions of much better work it feels like sam lake has found his own style and voice and has been able to distiguish himself. Of course there are still elements from other works such as twin peaks but it feels more like inspiration than Pastiche unlike the other two remedy games I played.
While i really liked this game I do also have problems such as the brain place feeling kinda unecessary since there is no penelty to getting the answers wrong bascially playing itself if you do get on of the connections wrong. Could've been pretty cool if the story could be impacted from your judgments but I do understand that this would be hard to implement while retaining the linear narrative so it was probably a good call but then I think the mind place needed to be reworked to be something more interesting. Also I think the alan sections are much more interesting when compared to the saga parts mainly due to the more creative levels and more abstract story elements that arent featured in saga parts. It feels like the alan sections is a worse version of silent hill and the saga parts feels more like a worse resident evil not featuring the solid level design of the resident evil games and not featuring the incredibly effective level design in silent which tells the story through the levels. Also I found the story got less interesting as the game went on especially with the ending of the game which features some uneared introspection for saga and only lightly touches on the themes that I found interesting and were well presented and the live action elements actual feel purposful to the story and what the game is trying to communicate. Also, interms of game design, this just feels like a ripoff of resident evil in terms of most of the way it plays, the ui is similar, the camera function is similar, the level design, most things except for the story and style but it doesnt mean that its bad just feels more like a pastiche than its own beast. I think that some concepts could be taken further such as the usage of music, the part that everyone is talking about is cool but it more of you just walking and watching rather than intergrating the music into the gameplay. Also, the game is somewhat unpolished, with animations sometimes being janky and collision detection with the ground can be janky as well and there was a point at the end of the game that i fell through the floor and it happened twice in a row, not a huge problem but still kinda annoying. Its not a huge problem and Im willing to not put much effort into it due to the developer being smaller when compared to other AAA developers. Also, the pc port is kinda bad, I have a 3080, 32gb ram, AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and the game is struggling which it honestly should not since the game doesnt look too demanding, its definetly looks good very good in fact but noting mind blowing or spectacular.
I really liked this but there are still problems here from being a game that I loved but I do think remedy can do it and make a game thats super interesting and something I love. I think sam lake and the devs at remedy have the ambility and ambition to do something truley special but this is a really big step up from the original alan wake and control. I really appreciate the fact that this exsists and that there is a high art AAA (maybe AA) game thats getting a lot of attention, hopefully this will inspire more big developers to take artistic risks instead of leaving all the interesting games to indie developers.
While i really liked this game I do also have problems such as the brain place feeling kinda unecessary since there is no penelty to getting the answers wrong bascially playing itself if you do get on of the connections wrong. Could've been pretty cool if the story could be impacted from your judgments but I do understand that this would be hard to implement while retaining the linear narrative so it was probably a good call but then I think the mind place needed to be reworked to be something more interesting. Also I think the alan sections are much more interesting when compared to the saga parts mainly due to the more creative levels and more abstract story elements that arent featured in saga parts. It feels like the alan sections is a worse version of silent hill and the saga parts feels more like a worse resident evil not featuring the solid level design of the resident evil games and not featuring the incredibly effective level design in silent which tells the story through the levels. Also I found the story got less interesting as the game went on especially with the ending of the game which features some uneared introspection for saga and only lightly touches on the themes that I found interesting and were well presented and the live action elements actual feel purposful to the story and what the game is trying to communicate. Also, interms of game design, this just feels like a ripoff of resident evil in terms of most of the way it plays, the ui is similar, the camera function is similar, the level design, most things except for the story and style but it doesnt mean that its bad just feels more like a pastiche than its own beast. I think that some concepts could be taken further such as the usage of music, the part that everyone is talking about is cool but it more of you just walking and watching rather than intergrating the music into the gameplay. Also, the game is somewhat unpolished, with animations sometimes being janky and collision detection with the ground can be janky as well and there was a point at the end of the game that i fell through the floor and it happened twice in a row, not a huge problem but still kinda annoying. Its not a huge problem and Im willing to not put much effort into it due to the developer being smaller when compared to other AAA developers. Also, the pc port is kinda bad, I have a 3080, 32gb ram, AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and the game is struggling which it honestly should not since the game doesnt look too demanding, its definetly looks good very good in fact but noting mind blowing or spectacular.
I really liked this but there are still problems here from being a game that I loved but I do think remedy can do it and make a game thats super interesting and something I love. I think sam lake and the devs at remedy have the ambility and ambition to do something truley special but this is a really big step up from the original alan wake and control. I really appreciate the fact that this exsists and that there is a high art AAA (maybe AA) game thats getting a lot of attention, hopefully this will inspire more big developers to take artistic risks instead of leaving all the interesting games to indie developers.