Alan Wake Catch All

Not even over the first episode yet, but this game is heavy. Not sure I can last through the whole thing without some friends by my side. Again I am reminded of how I always abandoned efforts to finish horror games.

This game is simply amazing. Feels like David Lynch, Brian K. Vaughn and Naughty Dog decided to remake Resident Evil 4. I always thought RE4 would've been better if they'd kept it simple and focused on the creepy village. Once you get to the castle and things get really weird in that game, you lose the impact of the creepiness of those initial villagers. Feels like Alan Wake is getting it right.

More games need to mix the mundane and fantastic, it's so much more impactful than all ridiculous all the time.

Spoiler:

Episode 3 makes me wonder if Remedy watched Pontypool. Not a great movie, but a cool concept, and works wonders within the game.

^Go small to go big. It's difficult to explain in words but I getcha. Resident Evil over the years just slowly dissolved away what made the games fun-isolation, growing tension, ambient music, mood. It became more action based.

I agree also when they ditched the village, it got stupid.

I find the stupidity of RE4's story as part of its charm. It really is the best in the series for me, the REmake always holds a place in my heart. Hell, I don't think it's a coincidence that the first one, whose story is self-contained and on a smaller scale, and the fourth, who ditches Umbrella completely, are my favorites. 5 was a disappointment, and part of the problem was the ridiculously idiotic plot line.

As for Alan Wake, every time this weekend I went to play it I was pulled away from my Xbox. By time I could finally game I only had an hour before my self-imposed bed time. So I just played Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands instead. Tonight is the season finale of Chuck, so with luck I'll get to play episode three of Alan Wake on Tuesday.

How many chapters total are there? It sounds like there are only about five or six.

ccesarano wrote:

How many chapters total are there? It sounds like there are only about five or six.

Six. The length felt just right to me.

Thirteenth wrote:

Not even over the first episode yet, but this game is heavy. Not sure I can last through the whole thing without some friends by my side. Again I am reminded of how I always abandoned efforts to finish horror games.

The first three episodes progressively creeped me out more and more, but once you clear the fourth, I feel as though it is less so. They actually answer a lot of questions about what is going on at that point.

ccesarano wrote:

I find the stupidity of RE4's story as part of its charm...

How many chapters total are there? It sounds like there are only about five or six.

Part of the character of Resident Evil is (intentionally?) being written like a B-grade horror movie.

Alan Wake has six episodes. As I say above, the fourth episode is really a turning point in the narrative, although the other episodes are also immensely satisfying...

...

...so obviously, I finished this past weekend. I definitely want to do another run through or two for some achievements (thank goodness for chapter select), not so much for achievement whoring as that they provides goals/excuses/challenges to play some more. It really was fun. Maybe I'll wait until closer to DLC release, I don't know.

The game's roots as an "open world"/"sandbox" type game are obvious. It wouldn't have worked for their story, but they built a great engine, and the times where you have some freedom during the day really feel like you are in a slice of a big world. I would have loved being able to freely explore Bright Falls. It also really feels like they wrote a ton of backstory that didn't make it into the game. Some of the "behind the scenes" stuff make it obvious that they were very brave about throwing away a lot of work when it wasn't working out for their ultimate vision.

Did anybody try playing with the alternate control scheme? In hindsight, it seems like a more intuitive and easy set of controls.

beeporama wrote:

Did anybody try playing with the alternate control scheme? In hindsight, it seems like a more intuitive and easy set of controls.

THANK YOU for posting this! Man, I didn't even know there was an alternate control scheme. I just looked and hell yeah, I'm going to use it. It fixes one of my few complaints about the controls, and that's that dodge was mapped to LB, which is an awkward placement for it. The alt-scheme maps it to 'X', so much better!

Thanks a bunch for the heads up. I'm still on Ep. 3, so this will help me a lot.

I tried the alternate control scheme because in theory it seemed like having dodge as a face button instead of the left bumper would be easier, but I found the opposite. Having to keep shifting my thumb from the right stick (aiming) to the face buttons (dodging) during combat ended up getting me killified more often than not. The default control scheme isn't ideal, but it's the lesser of two evils.

I'm only two episodes in: I'm trying to space this game out, only playing one episode per night. And then capping off the evening with some Super Mario Galaxy 2 so that I can sleep. (-:

So far, this game has been more than the sum of its parts. The combat is serviceable, but I've played a lot better. And the story is interesting so far, but the character models and animation range from pretty good to TERRIBLE, and some of the voice acting can be kinda iffy. The atmosphere and structure ties it all together in such an intriguing way, though, particularly with the cliffhangers at the end of the episodes, that I can't wait to pop in the next episode.

The collect-a-thon aspect is kinda stupid, though. Constantly going the opposite direction of the indicator just in case there's a coffee thermos that way, wow, fun. I like the manuscript pages, but I wish you could listen to them during gameplay like audio logs in Bioshock instead of being stuck on the menus to read/hear them. Having to break up the action and go into menus for any reason in a game like this seems like a positively prehistoric design decision in this day and age.

hbi2k wrote:

The collect-a-thon aspect is kinda stupid, though. Constantly going the opposite direction of the indicator just in case there's a coffee thermos that way, wow, fun. I like the manuscript pages, but I wish you could listen to them during gameplay like audio logs in Bioshock instead of being stuck on the menus to read/hear them. Having to break up the action and go into menus for any reason in a game like this seems like a positively prehistoric design decision in this day and age.

I feel the same way. Once in a while I felt compelled to traverse the patches of forest off the beaten path just to see if I missed something. It was not fun, especially when the darkness grew thick in the air. From time to time I would trigger enemy spawns and waste ammo for nothing. Unless the manuscript pages do something spectacular to the game, I plan to abandon efforts to deliberately collect them. I am at Episode 3 now, and it's true that the game feels less overwhelming as it progresses. With a firmer grasp on the combat system and greater familiarity with the controls, I feel a little more at ease. The atmosphere is still fantastic, and I am luckily not distracted by the voice acting.

I'm definitely not a fan of the thermoses, since they don't seem to have any real purpose. I do like the manuscript pages a lot though. However, what I don't like is that sometimes you'll trigger an enemy spawn while off the path looking for a thermos. Fighting in the thick trees is immensely harder than fighting on the path. Usually after I get killed in one of those, I just stick to the path, trigger the enemies, have a much easier time, and then go wandering again.

Chaz wrote:

I'm definitely not a fan of the thermoses, since they don't seem to have any real purpose. I do like the manuscript pages a lot though. However, what I don't like is that sometimes you'll trigger an enemy spawn while off the path looking for a thermos. Fighting in the thick trees is immensely harder than fighting on the path. Usually after I get killed in one of those, I just stick to the path, trigger the enemies, have a much easier time, and then go wandering again.

Also, sometimes you get those yellow arrows that lead off-path to the supply crates. Well, you get there, get the stuff, and that will sometimes trigger a small horde and end up using half the crates supplies on that spawned group that you would not have otherwise encountered. This is a small nit-pick, all in all I'm loving this game.

I like when I go out of my way to get to the crate, and find a single flare. That inevitably goes unused because I'm a filthy hoarder of consumables in games.

I DO like that the game resets your inventory in most chapters, meaning that there's no particular advantage to hording and you actually get to USE most of those goodies.

In Episode 2:

Spoiler:

I enjoyed the Max Payne tributes/tie-ins at the New York apartment.

hbi2k wrote:

The collect-a-thon aspect is kinda stupid, though. Constantly going the opposite direction of the indicator just in case there's a coffee thermos that way, wow, fun. I like the manuscript pages, but I wish you could listen to them during gameplay like audio logs in Bioshock instead of being stuck on the menus to read/hear them. Having to break up the action and go into menus for any reason in a game like this seems like a positively prehistoric design decision in this day and age.

I actually don't mind the execution of the manuscripts. None of the pages take nearly as long to go through as in Bioshock or Dead Space, and it allows me to focus more on what is being said, so I either know it's a foreshadowing, event that already happened, or something going on simultaneously.

As for collection in general, yeah, it would be nice if the thermoses had a purpose. It's also frustrating to be in the thick-fog areas where enemies infinitely respawn. In fact I already know a friend of mine would enjoy this game EXCEPT for that because he's a super-achievement-whore like no other I've ever known. Stuff like that in a game which prevents him from getting achievements with ease are the bane of his existence.

The crates are something I'll seek out, but in the end they don't seem worth it. There's only one type of additional ammunition and sometimes it doesn't feel as if the work balances out. Maybe in Nightmare difficulty you'll be hurting a lot more, but as it is it feels like I'm getting the crates just to collect the crates.

I always assumed the thermos' were how Alan stayed awake for 6 days straight

This game and Nier had a face-off for my money and gaming time until the new Mario Galaxy arrives; Alan Wake won by a nose.

I played through most of the first episode last night before bed. It doesn't need to be said that the game is beautiful and that a lot of hard work went into making a believable, yet creepy, forest. I'm enjoying the combat mechanics; they're not as complex or varied (at this point) as the similar, fire-based mechanics of Alone in the Dark, but the dodges are incredibly satisfying.

Unfortunately, I feel like the game is really undermined by what should be its strongest point: the writing. The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter, but they haven't even managed a good Dean Koontz; they're wallowing somewhere in the muck with Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine. Alan's narration is ham-fisted but passable; the manuscript pages, though, would be impressive work for a talented middle schooler but could hardly be credited to a best-selling novelist. With Dan Brown having sold so many books, far be it from me to require genuinely good writing from a best-seller, but the novel excerpts that appear in the game don't even manage that.

Horror games and suspense games require immersion if they're to work at all. The slightest interruption of that suspension of disbelief can turn a frightening scene into a humorous one or, worse, into something that's merely dull. Alan Wake's silly collectibles (thermoses and stacked cans) pull the player out of the game, and the shoddily-written manuscript pages make it difficult to buy-in to the character in the way that players have to if the story is to be successful.

I'm interested enough in the atmosphere, story, and mechanics of the game to keep playing, but I'll be ignoring the collectibles and manuscript pages as I go.

Interesting. I don't find the writing to be particularly great, but I don't find it bad either. Then again, I primarily read classic sci-fi (just finished 1984) or the occasional fantasy novel. I don't read much in the way of thrillers, horror or modern fiction, and the only King I'm familiar with is the Dark Tower series (though I'd enjoy reading works like The Green Mile. I find I enjoy his ideas better when they aren't trying to frighten people).

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter

So, you're telling me that it falls apart at the end?

4xis.black wrote:

In Episode 2:

Spoiler:

I enjoyed the Max Payne tributes/tie-ins at the New York apartment.

Yep I caught that. Some of it is taken directly from the official website

As far as collecting goes, once I got my 25 Thermos achievement, I pretty much left those to the curb unless I happened across them or saw them in plain view.

90% of the manuscripts are right on the path, so those I didn't mind so much. And the majority of the crates were useful IMO.

As for infinite respawns:

Spoiler:

anyone else go into the graveyard at the Anderson farm? It's behind a cabin opposite the stage in the field. Kinda annoying, but kinda awesome

iaintgotnopants wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter

So, you're telling me that it falls apart at the end?

I haven't made it there yet, but my wife and I have a running bet as to whether or not we've already guessed how it ends up.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter

So, you're telling me that it falls apart at the end?

I haven't made it there yet, but my wife and I have a running bet as to whether or not we've already guessed how it ends up.

Spoiler:

I personally felt the ending was pretty strong, but it didn't answer absolutely everything and I think it could really bug some people

PyromanFO wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter

So, you're telling me that it falls apart at the end?

I haven't made it there yet, but my wife and I have a running bet as to whether or not we've already guessed how it ends up.

Spoiler:

I personally felt the ending was pretty strong, but it didn't answer absolutely everything and I think it could really bug some people

Spoiler:

They're obviously leaving some wiggle room for Season Two aka DLC.

I like how the collectibles encourage exploration, but I think they went overboard. Between the manuscript pages and radio shows, there was enough to reward a little exploration and checking out the beautiful world that was once meant to be a sandbox. The thermoses and can pyramids felt a little silly. I would totally advise ignoring them on the initial playthrough, and go back for achievements after finishing the game. Besides collectibles, you aren't going to want to do things like "Gunless Wonder" on your first play.

I love the implementation of the crates, with arrows so you don't have to go searching every nook and cranny for them. One or two aren't worth it (at least on Hard where you get less stuff and need to use more ammo) but in a way I liked that: it increased the dread of going after them. To me, one of the big thrills of this game is in resource management, knowing you will lose everything at the end of each episode (and it is possible to max out ammo) but also wanting to save a few shells and flares for an emergency.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter

So, you're telling me that it falls apart at the end?

I haven't made it there yet, but my wife and I have a running bet as to whether or not we've already guessed how it ends up.

They're all in Purgatory?

I felt that the manuscript pages added a lot to the story. There's a bunch of stuff that's not really covered in what you experience as Wake.

The writing... I guess it's a preference thing, as I really enjoyed Max Paynes as well. I can see why it might not be to everyone's taste.

ColdForged wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

The writers at Remedy were clearly striving to emulate Stephen King's style and subject matter

So, you're telling me that it falls apart at the end?

I haven't made it there yet, but my wife and I have a running bet as to whether or not we've already guessed how it ends up.

They're all in Purgatory?

Only in the alternate timeline.

I may be giving the folks at Remedy too much credit, but I kind of assumed that the writing on the manuscript pages was intentionally bad. It's supposed to be Wake's writing, after all, and all indications (granted I'm still only two chapters in) point to him being a bit of a hack.

While I love this game, one gripe I do have is that you're sometimes attacked, and hit, by mobs that are entirely off-screen. I suppose that was by design, but it annoys me.

And it was pretty clever of the devs to have the ranged attackers sometimes throw freakin' sliders and curveballs with those axes. Sometimes my sidestep/dodge walks right into the damn things!

Had a fun romp tonight, in a part where I'm being chased by about six of them, and I have no weapon. So i'm running for the light, and dodging the swings as my only defense. It sure felt good to reach that street lamp.

Just finished it... Enjoyed the game, but the ending left me with a "Uh.. really?" feeling.

Just seems like it was missing something.

Tyrian wrote:

Just finished it... Enjoyed the game, but the ending left me with a "Uh.. really?" feeling.

Just seems like it was missing something.

Keep thinking on it, my first impression of the ending was tepid but the more I think about it the more twisted my mind becomes. Especially when considering the relationship between Zane and Wake, there is a real chicken/egg scenario there.