Alan Wake Catch All

Clemenstation wrote:

Is there an Alan Wake catch-all thread?

I don't think so. I searched for one when I wanted to post the Ars review, and didn't see one. I posted here so I wouldn't hear "hey, knucklehead, there's already X number of Alan Wake threads!"

Giantbomb has done a quick look. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

edit: Just watched over lunch. This video just as well could have reached into my wallet and taken out $60. I hadn't seen much in the way of gameplay videos of this game before. It is definitely a day one purchase for me.

Giant Bomb preview looks good!

Since Dead Space has me craving more action-horror, I'm sold.

I'm getting pretty interested in AW myself, but am getting RDR due to the $20 GC Amazon deal.

But I have Dead Space still in my pile. I should probably play that first, then look for AW cheap or get it from Goozex down the road. So many games.

If you haven't aleady, check out the mini-series/prologue to Alan Wake on XBL. It's good cheesiness so far. I'm pretty hyped for this. While many criticize the writing of the Max Payne games, I still think they have some of the best writing in the business. (Which is either sad or awesome.)

Eurogamer ravaged it with weak praise. Pre-order cancelled.

Schmutzli wrote:

Eurogamer ravaged it with weak praise. Pre-order cancelled.

Yeah, that review was, umm, something. The snark almost approached Yahtzee levels. So much time was dedicated to mocking superficialities (OMG hoodie + leather jacket is SO 2005) and so little to actually discussing the game, I'm not sure that it told me anything useful at all.

Mannish, does that video have any spoilers? GT in the past has been kind of notorious for having big spoilers in their reviews.

Jeff-66 wrote:

Mannish, does that video have any spoilers? GT in the past has been kind of notorious for having big spoilers in their reviews.

Hmm, can't think of too much, but I don't know the plot that well. Depends on how spoiler concerned you are. They talk about game play mechanics and stuff that might be a bit spoilerish if you're really concerned.

The Giant Bomb quick look basically shows you most of one of the episodes, though. They try to avoid the big stuff, but you basically see all the suprises in that area (which apparently was the press demo from awhile back).

Kotaku's review was pretty interesting. It sounds like a top notch piece of storytelling.

But, I'm not sure I can justify paying full price for a fairly short game right now. Especially when it's coming out on the same day as RDR.

Got this in the mail on Monday, and completed it this morning. It was awesome. Took me about 10 hours or so (I think) on normal difficulty, and I know I didn't explore every last nook and cranny of every level. Not sure what was up with that EuroGamer review. It sounds like the reviewer has something against the game personally or something. Just very snarky, talking about his clothes, etc.

With the way it's broken down into episodes and the pacing/dialogue/etc, it feels like you're playing your way through a really good TV show. I've never gotten that vibe from a game before and it was cool.

Honestly, I think it's worth the $60 on day one. I'm not the kind of guy to finish a game in two days, yet I kept getting pulled back in because I had to find out what happens next. I'm even considering replaying it on a higher difficulty level, and I NEVER do that. So yeah, take that for what it's worth.

I've completed it twice now. This is the first review copy I've got which I will be buying on retail, as well. It easily surpassed all of my expectations, which were a bit high to begin with.

In my books, Remedy are the masters of videogame storytelling at this moment. The writing is top-notch, but I can see why not everybody is going to love it. Narrative, plotting, characters, dialogue, cutscenes - it just works all the way through. Compared to Rockstar or Bioware or whatever you care to mention, they're very good in cutting the fluff and concentrating on stuff that matters. I'm sure the six-plus years of development time has helped here a lot, though.

I especially like the TV structure, which allows them to have a lot of smaller story arcs instead of trying to span a movie structure over ten hours or so. On that note, I didn't find this a short game at all. I think it took me around 14-16 hours the first time and a bit under 10 the second time.

On the negative side, there are animation issues. The character models on the whole and especially the faces aren't quite up with the times. There are control issues with jumping and climbing, which are rare activites anyway. The combat is really good, but could use another enemy type or tactic towards the end.

The Eurogamer review... yeah, well, Ellie Gibson hated most of the stuff I loved. What can I say, videogame reviews. It's unholy.

--
Edit: Kotaku's Brian Crecente really says everything I'd care to say and I agree wholeheartedly: http://kotaku.com/5527633/alan-wake-...

I watched Giant Bomb's Quick Look. Looks a lot like Silent Hill Shattered Memories, only with an actual combat system. I half-expected Alan to start calling, "Cheryl! Cheryl? CHERYL!"

In some respects it seems to suffer from the comparison. The HUD seemed to detract a lot from the atmosphere, and pausing the action to read manuscript pages or read the text of signs in a pop-up seems archaic and overly game-y after SHSM's realtime cell phone menu and zoom-in sign-reading. It's also hard for me to imagine playing a control scheme that centered around a flashlight without Wiimote pointer controls. 'Course, you also can't deny that this game is a LOT prettier than anything the Wii is capable of putting out.

That's all just my opinion based on the Quick Look, mind you. It certainly looks interesting enough to warrant a rental so that I can form a full opinion.

Watching the Quick Look, it still reminds me of Alone in the Dark, and that still makes me giddy. I'm flush with new games right now, so this will have to wait with NIER for me to get around to it, but color me excited.

Tom Chick is pretty mixed on it. It's pretty much the flip-side of the eurogamer review, in that he doesn't care much for the shooting, but ends up liking the writing and voiceacting:

It does look pretty good, bad animation excepted. But once you've seen one forest corridor with its watery darkness effect and shadow zombies that growl and dissolve in a cool embery outline, you've seen them all. There's basically enough here for one kick-ass dream sequence, but stretched thin over a 12-hour game.

The sad thing about Alan Wake is that it's worth, uh, watching? I say watching, because it's not quite a good enough story to bear up under all the tedium. But it's too occasionally brilliant to simply ignore if you're into horror games, which have a long history of swallowing intriguing stories in tedious gameplay.

I usually really like all the games Tom Chick finds redundant or problematic. This is a good sign.

Clemenstation wrote:

I usually really like all the games Tom Chick finds redundant or problematic. This is a good sign.

So I'm not the only one?

MannishBoy wrote:
Clemenstation wrote:

I usually really like all the games Tom Chick finds redundant or problematic. This is a good sign.

So I'm not the only one? :)

Guess not! I like his writing style, he doesn't beat around the bush, but it just seems like we have rather divergent ideas about what's fun and what's not. If I recall correctly, he didn't think much of Mass Effect 2.

I like shooting stuff. I don't care if the way I'm shooting stuff isn't crazy and groundbreaking, as long as it's stylish and smooth and there's some room for strategy. And I'm okay with the game tweaking my inventory to set up a certain type of encounter, although I do like a sense of progression and growth (acquisition?) as well. Y'know, weapon upgrading and that sort of thing. But not every game can pretend to be a pseudo-RPG.

Clemenstation wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
Clemenstation wrote:

I usually really like all the games Tom Chick finds redundant or problematic. This is a good sign.

So I'm not the only one? :)

Guess not! I like his writing style, he doesn't beat around the bush, but it just seems like we have rather divergent ideas about what's fun and what's not.

I read him when I happen to need something to read in my feeds, but I definitely have a different path to my gaming fun than he does. He seems very quirky, which can be amusing.

I was really hoping for something longer than 10 hours though. Are there side missions or is everything pretty much driving the story?

CelestialNavigation wrote:

I was really hoping for something longer than 10 hours though. Are there side missions or is everything pretty much driving the story?

I think at night it is all linear, but I thought I read a couple of reviews that mentioned during the day you go around the town investigating. Not sure if it is limited to certain buildings, or if you can go around the whole town.

No, it's very a linear romp. You can sidetrack a bit, but really, it's a glorified tube. I still took way more than 10 hours on my first playthrough.

Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:
CelestialNavigation wrote:

I was really hoping for something longer than 10 hours though. Are there side missions or is everything pretty much driving the story?

I think at night it is all linear, but I thought I read a couple of reviews that mentioned during the day you go around the town investigating. Not sure if it is limited to certain buildings, or if you can go around the whole town.

I was hoping for this, night-time linear, day-time more exploration around Bright falls but after reading many reviews it seems like their isn't too much exploration. In terms of gameplay time, 10 to 12 hours doesn't bother me but had to toss up between this and RDR so I back-flipped and canceled the preorder for this - will pick it up for cheap down the line as I still got my eye on the awesome looking collector's edition

Is this the catch-all? I did a quick search, and aside from being amused by a "Games I'm looking forward to in 2006" thread that mentioned it, I didn't see anything. I don't think that there is anything that can be classed as a spoiler below; I've stayed well clear of plot.

I have to be honest, I am thoroughly perplexed by the negativity/weak praise this game is getting. Thus far, it is easily one of the best games I have played in the last couple of years, and the best survival horror game that I have ever played. I am somewhere over half way through.

Is it linear? Yes, definitely. It is following a very tight story, and the intention to to tell the story. That's it. The little bits added to it to encourage exploration are simply collect-fests. I like the manuscripts (though they aren't well written so say that a best-selling author is supposed to have written them, and it is odd to have a constant foreshadowing of what happens next). TV and radio shows are fairly amusing and informative, but it seems a bit odd to stop and watch telly for a bit when you are being chased through the woods by monsters. The coffee flasks take me out of the experience a bit.

Alan feels very physically vulnerable, even when fully loaded out. Distance is generally the key, and well timed dodging, when fighting. A couple of hits, and you are dead.

The story is definitely the thing. I am really enjoying it, and want to get home and see what happens next. The atmosphere is amazing, and I feel physically tense when I am supposed to. It's well paced; the game gives you different environment types to explore just when you start to get a bit too familiar with what you have been doing.

It could all go wrong, and if the story goes off the rails in the back half, I will be gutted, but it is a great game thus far.

spider_j wrote:

I have to be honest, I am thoroughly perplexed by the negativity/weak praise this game is getting. Thus far, it is easily one of the best games I have played in the last couple of years, and the best survival horror game that I have ever played. I am somewhere over half way through.

Where are you seeing negativity and/or weak praise? So far, I've only seen fairly strong positives on it. Someone above said they liked it so much they played it twice in succession. Reviews I've seen thus far have been quite positive.

There's just five below-80 scores on Metacritic and plenty of "game of the year" discussion already. Maybe it's because lots of people were expecting Remedy to really blow their hinges off, but for my money they've over-delivered and then some. There's the small problems with animation and not everyone is a fan of the acting or the writing, but it's still a great game. For once, I'm really looking forward to the DLC.

I was pretty much sold when I saw that reviews were allowed out of the gates before the release date. That shows confidence in this day and age when a publisher is embarrassed and fears for his job with any review score below 90. Plus it's survival horror so my wife will enjoy me playing it instead of just tying up the TV with 'splosions.

picked it up on my lunch break (the rather snazzy "looks ilke a book" collectors edition). looking forward to firing it up later.

**

Couple of chapters in and I'm loving it so far. Nuts to all those negative reviews

Oh, and on the off chance anyone cares, I've got a preorder code for a female avatar "I am Awake" black T-shirt that's of no use to me, in case anyone wants it.

Giant Bomb's video review. About the same as everything else I've been reading. Definitely want to play it, but I'll be waiting a bit. RDR's got my single player time for a bit.