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Alan Wake

Joined
Sep 16, 2016
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296
I agree with that. I loved the game for the characters, atmosphere, and writing, but "I loved" doesn't translate to it being the best game ever. It's more of a really fun, campy B-movie or TV show, that'll hopefully get a follow-up some day. Gameinformer just posted an interview with Sam Lake, who noted that the initial attempt at creating an open world game left them with a ton of large spaces and things like a proper "position of the sun/moon" lighting system, which both means that the world feels very real and properly sized but also that gameplay spaces tend towards being just a bit too long. If you get into it, I thought the DLCs were well-made and imaginative, too.

For my two cents, I'd recommend cranking up the difficulty as much as possible to make the enemies more dangerous. There are several encounters you won't have enough ammo to clear on the harder settings, forcing you to ration everything and run away when possible. I thought this helped with both encounter variety and the atmosphere, since you're not just blasting everything in sight to bits every single time.

I'd also say that I thought Alan Wake's American Nightmare was worth playing, but it's an objectively worse game and absolutely only something to run through if you liked the original. More repetitive, heavily focused on action over atmosphere, and made on a much smaller budget. It was originally released as a 15 dollar game, not a full-priced title, and that explains a lot. Still, there's some cool fights, greater enemy and weapon variety than the original game so the combat-focused structure doesn't grate too badly, and I thought Mr. Scratch was a fun villain that plays well into the schlocky nonsense I love in Remedy's stuff. The FMV bits were great.

Gameinformer's article, if anyone is interested.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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The initial attempt at creating an open world game left them with a ton of large spaces and things like a proper "position of the sun/moon" lighting system, which both means that the world feels very real and properly sized but also that gameplay spaces tend towards being just a bit too long.
That's cool! This explains why the game feels so spacious. Although I wouldn't truly call this a horror game, it's great when horror type games can make use of negative space. Still too bad they put in those distracting collectibles but on the whole the atmosphere here is quiet, spooky, and focused.
 

Deleted member 7219

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This is one of my favourite games due to the atmosphere, the art direction and the soundtrack. There's some really great eerie moments as you explore Bright Falls and the surrounding areas. There's also an interesting developer commentary.

I played the DLCs but they were nothing special. I wish the game was given a sequel, though.
 

Puukko

Arcane
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Jul 23, 2015
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The Khanate
I do have fond memories of this though I can't say I've really considered replaying it. I also have a 360 copy that's still wrapped and those aren't sold anymore due to the licensing afaik. Time to stash it away for 30 years!
 

Tancred

Learned
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
105
It's been so long since I played it. I know it did look, sound and feel very atmospheric but it didn't really play that way IMO. I remember excessively long forest levels and endless shadow enemies that weren't really challenging since they all took the same tactics to beat.

At any rate, once I finished I never went back and I still don't feel any desire to replay it.

Always found it interesting tho that similar Japanese games like Deadly Premonition often have this focus on a simulationist 'day in the life' way of playing the game where it's more open with option to do jobs, interact with NPC's, walk & drive around, mini-games and all that whereas western games like Alan Wake funnel you down the restrictive cinematic storytelling path. I definitely remember wishing there was more freedom in Alan Wake to explore and do things.
 

Jinn

Arcane
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Nov 8, 2007
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4,930
That was a really great interview, and makes me want to play Alan Wake way more than ever before. Makes me want to play Control too, which I had no interest in before. Thanks for posting it MapMan!
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,172
I liked the setting and atmosphere, some really knewl 'murrican locations for those of us who read Stephen King shit as kids.

Story was decent, liked the human characters more than the "horror" bits but overall it wasn't bad. Didn't make me rage at its retardation which is all you can ask for in a game in this day and age.

Gameplay was pretty retarded unfortunately. This is definitely one of those games that once you play through once there's hardly any reason to play it again, unless for some reason you want to "re-experience" the story. Also never played the DLC 'cause there was no point from what i saw.
 
Joined
Sep 16, 2016
Messages
296
Control DLC should tie Alan Wake but don't know in what way.
It's a pretty simple tie in, but I'll still jam it in spoiler tags, just in case.
Control and Alan Wake take place in the same universe. Over the course of the base game, you can find proof that the Bureau of Control has been looking into the events of Alan Wake because it's one "altered world event" (AWE) of many in this universe. The upcoming DLC, entitled AWE, will supposedly dive into this more directly.
 

vortex

Fabulous Optimist
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Mar 25, 2016
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Temple of Alvilmelkedic
It's a pretty simple tie in, but I'll still jam it in spoiler tags, just in case.
Control and Alan Wake take place in the same universe. Over the course of the base game, you can find proof that the Bureau of Control has been looking into the events of Alan Wake because it's one "altered world event" (AWE) of many in this universe. The upcoming DLC, entitled AWE, will supposedly dive into this more directly.
I think Dark Presence is manifestation of Hiss.
 
Joined
Sep 16, 2016
Messages
296
I think Dark Presence is manifestation of Hiss.
Huh. That's an interesting idea. I could definitely see there being some sort of connection there - the final line of Alan Wake
"It's not a lake, it's an ocean."
was always pointing to a larger universe. Hopefully they're able to make an Alan Wake 2 at some point.
 

Carrion

Arcane
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Jun 30, 2011
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Lost in Necropolis
I liked the setting and atmosphere, some really knewl 'murrican locations for those of us who read Stephen King shit as kids.
That's pretty much what Alan Wake has to offer, yeah, along with the Twin Peaks vibes and maybe a bit of Lovecraft. I wanted to like the game a whole lot than I actually did. As a writer Sam Lake probably has always been a bit too conscious of his influences, and the gameplay suffers from poor pacing and general suckiness. It doesn't really work as a horror game nor as an action game, which is a shame considering that before Alan Wake Remedy made two of the best third-person shooters out there.

The Sam Lake video above is really interesting, and it's a shame so many of their initial ideas were scrapped. To me Alan Wake always felt like a game that should've been a mix of survival horror and adventure game, not necessarily with an open world but with nonlinear areas to explore, dialogue trees, a proper inventory system, some light puzzles and detective work, and so forth. As it is, the daytime scenes are nice but barely have any actual gameplay mechanics tied to them, whereas the nightly shooting parts are so long and repetitive that they become tedious almost right away.
 

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