Alan Wake Catch All

My brand new Xbox has a bad hard drive and ate my save game. Not only do I get to start this over, but I'm not going to touch it until I can return my defective console.

The writing isn't amazing but I'm not going to let that bother me. Not everything has to be amazing for me to enjoy it. Great games overcome their flaws and I think Alan Wake does that very well. I don't find the manuscript pages are ruining my sense of willing disbelief at all. I'm not as totally immersed within the game like I've been with others, but I don't find I'm forcing myself to turn it on.

It's definitely different from any other horror game I've played.

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.

Shedding light on Alan Wake's mysteries (warning: end game spoilers)

I just saw this on digg this morning. I haven't read it as I've not yet finished the game, but thought it might be helpful.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

My brand new Xbox has a bad hard drive and ate my save game. Not only do I get to start this over, but I'm not going to touch it until I can return my defective console.

Save to a USB stick in the meantime.

Jeff-66 wrote:
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.

Shedding light on Alan Wake's mysteries (warning: end game spoilers)

I just saw this on digg this morning. I haven't read it as I've not yet finished the game, but thought it might be helpful.

Thanks for sharing. The book is great, and it is nice to make some of its content open to all players. The writer also offers some additional insight I'd missed.

Spoiler:

I can't believe I didn't realize Zane might be Wake's father.

EvilDead wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

My brand new Xbox has a bad hard drive and ate my save game. Not only do I get to start this over, but I'm not going to touch it until I can return my defective console.

Save to a USB stick in the meantime.

That's a fantastic idea, but I'm irritated enough that I'm just taking my ball and going to play Wii instead.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

That's a fantastic idea, but I'm irritated enough that I'm just taking my ball and going to play Wii instead.

Hehe, understandable. When my Assassins Creed 2 save file just disappeared I swore off the game for good.... then came back to it 6 months later

Jeff-66 wrote:
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.

Shedding light on Alan Wake's mysteries (warning: end game spoilers)

I just saw this on digg this morning. I haven't read it as I've not yet finished the game, but thought it might be helpful.

Damn, now I wish I had picked up the Collector's Edition. Still not sure it was worth the extra $20 though.

Okay, new to the thread, just sharing my thoughts after barreling through the first three episodes.

Controls are a bit squirrelly, and they made a couple button placement choices I question. Sprint and dodge on the same button is weird, especially when a lot of games have agreed that clicking the left stick is good for sprint.

Lighting is amazing, as expected. Mood is very tense, atmospheric. Alice's facial animations are god awful.

Combat is functional but unspectacular. I feel like I'm slogging through it only to reach the more cinematic points.

Has anyone else played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Alan Wake reminds me a lot of that, except I liked the SH game quite a bit more.

Blind_Evil wrote:

a lot of games have agreed that clicking the left stick is good for sprint.

Clicking a stick should never be used for an often needed core gameplay function. Zooming on a rifle, sure - if it's a sniper, crouching, maybe - if it's a toggle, running in reaction to bloodthirsty locals, no way.

I do agree the controls are sometimes a bit awkward, but I won't stand for advocating stick-clicking.

I think having sprint and dodge on the same button is perfect since one usually leads to the other. Dodge crazy taken, sprint away to get some room then flash and shoot.

jlaakso wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

a lot of games have agreed that clicking the left stick is good for sprint.

Clicking a stick should never be used for an often needed core gameplay function. Zooming on a rifle, sure - if it's a sniper, crouching, maybe - if it's a toggle, running in reaction to bloodthirsty locals, no way.

I do agree the controls are sometimes a bit awkward, but I won't stand for advocating stick-clicking.

If it works for CoD, it likely isn't broken. The series takes understandable flack for some things, but it's universally accepted that the controls are buttery smooth and the best in the genre.

Sinatar wrote:

I think having sprint and dodge on the same button is perfect since one usually leads to the other. Dodge crazy taken, sprint away to get some room then flash and shoot.

That's much more reasonable logic, but I still don't get much use out of the dodge. I'll just have to accept it til the end, which isn't that far anyway.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Has anyone else played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Alan Wake reminds me a lot of that, except I liked the SH game quite a bit more.

I've played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Alone in the Dark, both of which have similar styles to Alan Wake. And yes, Silent Hill had a very similar pattern of story-and-plot-then-OH-sh*t-EVIL. However, I prefer Alan Wake's method of doing it since, well, there's a bit more polish in the evil world. Running from faceless creatures is certainly heart-pumping, but the options in dealing with them are few. As a result it feels like playing a PS1 game where the controls don't always respond and the game seems to generally be treating you unfair.

In the end I found the nightmare world to be the worst part of the game, whereas Alan Wake I view it all as part of a three-act story structure.

If it works for CoD, it likely isn't broken.

It's also the one control in Call of Duty I can't stand. It's great if all you want to do is run forward, but I've had too many moments where I fall in and out of sprinting because pushing a stick down and forward at the same time is uncomfortable and counter-intuitive.

For the most part I'm completely fine with the controls in Alan Wake, and don't really get where all the discomfort is coming from.

jlaakso wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

a lot of games have agreed that clicking the left stick is good for sprint.

Clicking a stick should never be used for an often needed core gameplay function. Zooming on a rifle, sure - if it's a sniper, crouching, maybe - if it's a toggle, running in reaction to bloodthirsty locals, no way.

I do agree the controls are sometimes a bit awkward, but I won't stand for advocating stick-clicking.

I agree. CoD players seem fine with it, but I find it counterintuitive and downright horrible. It also seems to f*ck up your controllers... my old roommate, who is currently 8th level prestige or something ridiculous like that, has three 360 controllers with a super loose and wobbly left stick.

Clemenstation wrote:
jlaakso wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

a lot of games have agreed that clicking the left stick is good for sprint.

Clicking a stick should never be used for an often needed core gameplay function. Zooming on a rifle, sure - if it's a sniper, crouching, maybe - if it's a toggle, running in reaction to bloodthirsty locals, no way.

I do agree the controls are sometimes a bit awkward, but I won't stand for advocating stick-clicking.

I agree. CoD players seem fine with it, but I find it counterintuitive and downright horrible. It also seems to f*ck up your controllers... my old roommate, who is currently 8th level prestige or something ridiculous like that, has three 360 controllers with a super loose and wobbly left stick.

I've logged quite a bit of time in both games, and you've got a point. The left stick on my old controller wasn't wobbly, but it was prone to drifting left occasionally when in the neutral position.

I don't see the counterintuitive part, though. As far as breaking your sprint when you change directions...well, strap on 50 pounds or more of gear, get up to top foot speed and see if you can maintain momentum during a 75 degree turn.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I don't see the counterintuitive part, though. As far as breaking your sprint when you change directions...well, strap on 50 pounds or more of gear, get up to top foot speed and see if you can maintain momentum during a 75 degree turn.

That sort of justification is more along the lines of "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" though. It does not slow down or anything based on design, similar to how Gears of War restricts how much you turn as you sprint. It's more like a slight movement and the game stops registering the down-click. And I'm not talking major shifts in direction, I'm talking like a 5-degree shift to the left or right to sprint more accurately behind cover and suddenly we're walking. Yep, just walking while bullets sail over the head.

That's not a feature, that's poor ass design.

I'll add my voice in agreement that clicking the left stick to run isn't comfortable or useful. I prefer the LB to sprint used in Alan Wake and The Orange Box.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Has anyone else played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Alan Wake reminds me a lot of that, except I liked the SH game quite a bit more.

I have, and, unlike ccesarano, I feel that Alan Wake suffers for the comparison. The nightmare sequences in Shattered Memories were a lot better than the combat segments of Alan Wake, the character animations were much better, and the story was more elegantly told.

ccesarano wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

I don't see the counterintuitive part, though. As far as breaking your sprint when you change directions...well, strap on 50 pounds or more of gear, get up to top foot speed and see if you can maintain momentum during a 75 degree turn.

That sort of justification is more along the lines of "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" though. It does not slow down or anything based on design, similar to how Gears of War restricts how much you turn as you sprint. It's more like a slight movement and the game stops registering the down-click. And I'm not talking major shifts in direction, I'm talking like a 5-degree shift to the left or right to sprint more accurately behind cover and suddenly we're walking. Yep, just walking while bullets sail over the head.

That's not a feature, that's poor ass design.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. It plain does not happen like that for me. Unless I take a wide (60 degrees or more) turn I do not stop sprinting. Maybe you're trying to turn too quickly?

"Poor ass design" generally doesn't net you tremendous critical acclaim, a spot among the best selling games of all time, and numerous game of the year nominations. Very few things in that game were poorly designed, outside of the main narrative.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'll add my voice in agreement that clicking the left stick to run isn't comfortable or useful. I prefer the LB to sprint used in Alan Wake and The Orange Box.

To reiterate my original point, I am not upset about sprint being mapped to a shoulder button. I think mapping dodge to the same button was a bad choice.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I have, and, unlike ccesarano, I feel that Alan Wake suffers for the comparison. The nightmare sequences in Shattered Memories were a lot better than the combat segments of Alan Wake, the character animations were much better, and the story was more elegantly told.

I haven't completed Alan Wake yet, but when it comes to Shattered Memories, I actually really liked the game and plan on adding it into my permanent collection some day. It was also the first Silent Hill I've played so I did not have to deal with any of the "boo hoo it's so different" that fans of the series did. I really enjoyed the story and the ending I got (generic lawful-good) was fantastic.

Yet for a game built around fleeing it felt as if options were limited. Sometimes it worked! But when it suddenly failed, it became game-breakingly frustrating.

I guess it's more a matter of polish that I think Alan Wake is more of a winner in terms of the gameplay. However, at the same time, while the game has similarities, it's also a different game altogether. Alone in the Dark bares similarities as well in that foes are weak to some sort of light source, but I think it is safe to say Alan Wake is an overall better game (I wanted to like Alone in the Dark, but the writing was God awful and there were so many ideas that should have been left on the cutting room floor so that others could be fine-tuned. Instead they were all left in there and as a result were all mediocre).

Blind_Evil wrote:

"Poor ass design" generally doesn't net you tremendous critical acclaim, a spot among the best selling games of all time, and numerous game of the year nominations.

We're still talking about the video game industry, right?

Just because everything else is fine-tuned doesn't mean Infinity Ward still made a mistake in its button placement. As for your original argument of them being mapped to the same button, in that case I would have suggested dodge be the stick-click function rather than sprint. Either one would be uncomfortable, but at least dodge is more along the lines of a toggle ability.

Clicking the left stick for sprint sucks ass. Call of Duty is not the best shooter ever made. Alan Wake is a cool game.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Has anyone else played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Alan Wake reminds me a lot of that, except I liked the SH game quite a bit more.

I definitely got the same vibe. Combat (or lack thereof) is better in AW, but I think SHSM nailed the atmosphere and exploration slightly better. Little things like no HUD getting in the way, the cell phone menu that didn't pause the action, and zooming in to read signs rather than hitting a button for a little pop-up text window made a big difference at the end of the day. Also no dumb coffee thermos collecting. Controlling the flashlight with the Wiimote was better, but that's not AW's fault any more than the graphical difference is SHSM's fault.

Can't compare the stories yet until I get to the end of Alan Wake, I'll be interested to see how they stack up.

I'm not sure why people keep saying the coffee thermos collecting is "dumb" or "silly". I mean, I guess you could say that, it's certainly trivial, but it has zero bearing on the game, and can be completely ignored. I guess what I mean is I wouldn't call it anything ... it's just an achievement for XBL points. I suppose it's for exploration, but a ton of games have this meaningless easter egg hunt convention.

What I found funny in my own game, is that I'd desperately need ammo, and I'd walk into a room full of shells and bullets and batteries, and what do I do? "oooh, thermos!"

Maybe it's just me, but I think that the mere presence of the thermoses detracts from the atmosphere. You're in these creepy woods, with shadows leaping out at you and fog blowing all about, nervously looking left and right wondering when the next monster is going to jump out at you, and all of a sudden in the distance you spot: a glowing coffee thermos. "Hey, kid!" it seems to shout at you. "Forgot for a second you were playing a video game, didn't you? Well, that's okay, because I'm here to remind you! And remind you! And remind you! Remember 12 years ago when Banjo-Kazooie came out and they couldn't think of any better way to get you to explore a 3D environment than hiding lots of useless little tokens around the world for you to collect? Remember how much that sucked? Well, apparently game design hasn't improved at all since then, because here I am!"

I exaggerate, of course; it's not THAT bad. But it IS a distraction that the game would've been better off without. The manuscript pages and radio shows actually tie into the story and the Night Springs shows are weird and quirky and cool. The game would've been fine with just those without adding a FOURTH type of token to collect.

By way of contrast, Batman Arkham Asylum had a similar mechanic with the Riddler trophies, but that was actually implemented well. It tied into the story: you could just SEE the Riddler sneaking around the island hiding these things and chuckling at his own cleverness. And while some of them were just placed in unlikely spots, many of them required you to to cleverly use Batman's traversal mechanics in order to figure out how to get to them. It wasn't a distraction because it fit the tone of the game.

In AW, the coffee thermoses are scattered entirely at random, with no explanation for their presence, and requiring no skill beyond pure bloody-mindedness to collect.

I agree with hbi2k; as I said a couple pages back, the thermoses just break immersion for me. Some of them appear in reasonable places (work site, kitchens, etc.) but not all of them. I'd rather they'd swapped out the coffee thermoses with something like the memorabilia from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. They're also collectible bits, and there's little advantage to finding them, but they're all items from a pivotal moment in the game's backstory and so serve to flesh that out, even indirectly.

I actually found the thermoses to be a source of tension. For one thing, crawling through the deep forest looking for manuscript pages often gets you in trouble, and the thermoses are a good consolation prize if there isn't a page around. Secondly, sometimes I will spot one during a big fight and I have to try to grab it before the bad guys get me. Of course, I have never subscribed to the whole "video games create extremely fragile illusions of reality and the slightest wrong thing destroys it completely" line of thinking; I don't really care why the thermoses are there, but they are a target for metagame reasons and as an abstract game mechanic they succeed in making the game space more interesting.

hbi2k wrote:

I exaggerate, of course; it's not THAT bad. But it IS a distraction that the game would've been better off without. The manuscript pages and radio shows actually tie into the story and the Night Springs shows are weird and quirky and cool. The game would've been fine with just those without adding a FOURTH type of token to collect.

I agree with you that the game could've done without them, and in a few cases they might be oddly placed, but I think for the most part they are just another object in the game world, and most are placed where you might expect to find one. I mean most of them I've found in houses, kitchens, work areas, etc. A couple out in the woods, sure, but really, if that's all I have to complain about with Alan Wake, I'd say the game is doing pretty good

It's not my only complaint really, I'm with those who think the Dodge button is odd placed, but at least they gave us an option, with the alternate control scheme in the options menu. Other than that, this game has been a great experience for me, and I've loved just about every minute.

I'm really liking Barry. He's decent comic relief, and so loyal to Alan.

Barry dialogue spoilers: (thru Ep.5)

Spoiler:

When Alan is being besieged with Taken while Barry is looking for the gate key:

"i know it's around here somewhere ... oooh a quarter!"

And when he shows up wearing the headlamp and the xmas lights, I busted out laughing. He thought the xmas lights "were like garlic to a vampire".

4xis.black wrote:

Clicking the left stick for sprint sucks ass. Call of Duty is not the best shooter ever made. Alan Wake is a cool game.

1. This thread is the first time I've ever heard anyone say this.
2. I agree. Turok 2 is.
3. I agree.

The thermoses are dumb because they have no connection at all, unless there's something to do with them later on. Alan isn't established as a big coffee drinker or anything, it's completely arbitrary. It seems like the developers felt they needed a collectible and couldn't think of anything relevant to the characters or narrative.

Perhaps I'm the minority but I couldn't dig much about SHSM. Maybe I'm too into the Konami-developed SH games in the main series but Shattered Memories just had something about it I didn't care for. It's hard to put my finger on what exactly it is though. The story was well told, I just didn't find the actual meat of the plot very engaging. It didn't feel nearly as psychological as it's predecessors. The nightmare scenes were clunky and maybe my hands are too big but I hated the controls for running. It felt like such a chore. SH was never about that "a killer is coming and you're trying to unlock your front door" type of fear. And as the only aspect of the game with enemy encounters, it only served to make the non-nightmare parts of the game dull.

To me, SH is at it's best when something could happen at anytime. There's a tension there, that any closed door or any dark area could house something you don't know about. Anytime. When I'm out of a nightmare scene, and I'm not advancing the plot through triggered scenes, I'm just plain bored. Because the tension and the fear is completely gone. There was never a blend of both, it was just "This is your scary part, this is your exploring part and this is your story part. Enjoy".

I didn't like the visuals either and believe horror games are one of the genres where graphics are most important, though I've talked about the game too much already. I did feel a similarity between the two titles though, almost right off the bat. Though in AW it's a little more streamlined. I'm starting chapter 6 in a few minutes but by halfway through the game I was well aware when the enemies were going to show up. Though sometimes it's a surprise and overall, it doesn't feel neatly divided between enemy part and non-enemy part. I still feel like sh*t could get real any minute. Not as much as classic SH titles but still.

And I dunno if I'd automatically blame the devs for the coffee can thing. That sounds like a publisher demand.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Alan isn't established as a big coffee drinker or anything, it's completely arbitrary. It seems like the developers felt they needed a collectible and couldn't think of anything relevant to the characters or narrative.

Well, actually, there is kind of a running joke in the dialogue about how good Rose's coffee is.

Spoiler:

From the get go when Alan first goes in the diner, the deputy talks about how good Rose's coffee is, and she makes a comment about how the deputy is just a layer of thin skin stretched over coffee, and then Barry makes a comment about how good her coffee is when they visit her in her trailer. I even think Barry makes a comment at some point about how the coffee is no good in small towns or something along those lines. I liken it to the coffee joke in Pulp Fiction, not essential to the overall plot but a reoccurring 'wink wink' moment between the author and the audience.

But in the end, they are like the flags in the first Assassin's Creed. Pointless. It would have been cool if they gave Alan a little health boost or something like that, or unlocks an avatar award. I tried to ignore them after getting the Collect 25 achievement, but like Jeff 66 I was like a moth to a flame everytime I'd see one in the distance.

Edit, now that I think about it, the coffee thermoses were nothing compared to

Spoiler:

the f*cking Verizon ad on the television in Hartman's lodge. I mean, goddammit, the game has conditioned you thus far to turn on TVs to watch Night Springs episodes and see clips of when Alan was holed up in the cabin writing the manuscript and then *BANG* right in the middle of a tense escape sequence they blast you with a f*cking commercial

Blind_Evil wrote:

Edit, now that I think about it, the coffee thermoses were nothing compared to

Spoiler:

the f*cking Verizon ad on the television in Hartman's lodge. I mean, goddammit, the game has conditioned you thus far to turn on TVs to watch Night Springs episodes and see clips of when Alan was holed up in the cabin writing the manuscript and then *BANG* right in the middle of a tense escape sequence they blast you with a f*cking commercial

Spoiler:

I thought that part was delightfully tongue-in-cheek. They are making fun of the fact that you stopped to turn on a TV in the middle of an escape sequence; I got the 5G achievement "Boob Tube" for doing that, which is described with "See what's on TV". Nothing's on TV man, get out of that building before the shadow tornado thing eats you.