Finished this a couple weeks ago. It was an awe inspiring triumph of the artform. I have many great things to say about this wonderful game.
Before writing this review I played 2 other games from Remedy's catalog: Alan Wake 1 and Max Payne. I played them because I wanted to gain a bit of perspective on how far Remedy has come. Max Payne's story is told very bare bones style through still frames and narration in a film noir style, Alan Wake 1 is told through a first person narration in the style of a mystery novel through mostly cutscenes. Alan Wake 2 does narration similarly but it becomes a less solipsistic experience with the introduction of a second main character. The dual main characters of Saga Anderson and Alan Wake are an interesting pair to bounce back and forth from. For me it highlights how similar their 2 professions can be, detective and writer. Art and science are often thought to be distinctive things but I have found they actually use a very analogous methodolgy. After all what is the difference between finding a clue or finding inspiration from a story beat? Both come from a place of searching, whether one searches the inside of ones head or the objective world, it is a combination of combining the internal and external world that helps a scientist or an artist solve their respective problems.
In the case of Saga, much of the exposition of the story is done through her Mind place. An internal board of connections used for the purpose of organizing real world information relevant to the case that is being solved. Alan Wake on the other hand has a mind place that is dedicated to writing a story to help him escape the dream world he is stuck in.
I find a side effect of the mind place is that the story becomes easier to follow. I am reminded of FF16's active lore system, which was supposed to help user's follow the story, unfortuantely for me, it made me realize how much needless lore Square stuck in FF16 that was not very interesting. Everything is interesting in Alan Wake 2, there is an undercurrent of understanding and creating psychology, it is, from my standpoint underexplored territory in gaming narratives.
Now I feel a desire to address the sweet baby controversy. In quick summary for those who don't know, there is an attempt at a Gamergate 2.0 by gaming communities such as Neogaf to tip people off to a consulting company called sweet baby incorporated. SBI is basically a consultancy that is hired out to look over gaming narratives in from the lens of critical race theory and feminism. It is no surprise that gamers, ever the insecure and perpetually paranoid bunch, are so easily tricked by an election year psyop. I bring this up because Alan Wake 2 had some consultation done by Sweet baby inc. Sam Lake has said that this did not impact the decision to write Saga into the game and she was there before they came on board. The topic of race is actually nearly never brought up and feminism is touched on indirectly. I bring this up because some people might be inclined to boycott this game because of sweet baby's involvement but I can tell you, this is a very tasteful and not politically heavy handed narrative. It's savvy, touches on the topics it needs to touch on and does not preach to person playing it. Alan Wake 2 is more about the creative process and how a creative's intentions when crafting can have an impact on the real world. Any political ideas it may or may not espouse are on the level of the subliminal.
Now that this tangent is out of the way. I will get back to addressing the gameplay. It's survival horror for the most part, you have limited ammo and healing items and the stressors of the environment are fairly constnatly upon you. The shooting is nice and the camera is responsive. The game looks great on the ps5, an environment like the pacific northwest is a great backdrop for a story about creativity and nightmares.
In conclusion Saga's last mind palace segment really stuck with me, felt like an internalized therapy session. Live troubleshooting of insecurity, trauma and imposter syndrome. Similar to how Control addressed feelings of existential euphoria, Alan Wake 2 addresses the restructuring of one's mind and personality to overcome obstacles. It is beautiful art that I hope people don't miss out on for political reasons.
Before writing this review I played 2 other games from Remedy's catalog: Alan Wake 1 and Max Payne. I played them because I wanted to gain a bit of perspective on how far Remedy has come. Max Payne's story is told very bare bones style through still frames and narration in a film noir style, Alan Wake 1 is told through a first person narration in the style of a mystery novel through mostly cutscenes. Alan Wake 2 does narration similarly but it becomes a less solipsistic experience with the introduction of a second main character. The dual main characters of Saga Anderson and Alan Wake are an interesting pair to bounce back and forth from. For me it highlights how similar their 2 professions can be, detective and writer. Art and science are often thought to be distinctive things but I have found they actually use a very analogous methodolgy. After all what is the difference between finding a clue or finding inspiration from a story beat? Both come from a place of searching, whether one searches the inside of ones head or the objective world, it is a combination of combining the internal and external world that helps a scientist or an artist solve their respective problems.
In the case of Saga, much of the exposition of the story is done through her Mind place. An internal board of connections used for the purpose of organizing real world information relevant to the case that is being solved. Alan Wake on the other hand has a mind place that is dedicated to writing a story to help him escape the dream world he is stuck in.
I find a side effect of the mind place is that the story becomes easier to follow. I am reminded of FF16's active lore system, which was supposed to help user's follow the story, unfortuantely for me, it made me realize how much needless lore Square stuck in FF16 that was not very interesting. Everything is interesting in Alan Wake 2, there is an undercurrent of understanding and creating psychology, it is, from my standpoint underexplored territory in gaming narratives.
Now I feel a desire to address the sweet baby controversy. In quick summary for those who don't know, there is an attempt at a Gamergate 2.0 by gaming communities such as Neogaf to tip people off to a consulting company called sweet baby incorporated. SBI is basically a consultancy that is hired out to look over gaming narratives in from the lens of critical race theory and feminism. It is no surprise that gamers, ever the insecure and perpetually paranoid bunch, are so easily tricked by an election year psyop. I bring this up because Alan Wake 2 had some consultation done by Sweet baby inc. Sam Lake has said that this did not impact the decision to write Saga into the game and she was there before they came on board. The topic of race is actually nearly never brought up and feminism is touched on indirectly. I bring this up because some people might be inclined to boycott this game because of sweet baby's involvement but I can tell you, this is a very tasteful and not politically heavy handed narrative. It's savvy, touches on the topics it needs to touch on and does not preach to person playing it. Alan Wake 2 is more about the creative process and how a creative's intentions when crafting can have an impact on the real world. Any political ideas it may or may not espouse are on the level of the subliminal.
Now that this tangent is out of the way. I will get back to addressing the gameplay. It's survival horror for the most part, you have limited ammo and healing items and the stressors of the environment are fairly constnatly upon you. The shooting is nice and the camera is responsive. The game looks great on the ps5, an environment like the pacific northwest is a great backdrop for a story about creativity and nightmares.
In conclusion Saga's last mind palace segment really stuck with me, felt like an internalized therapy session. Live troubleshooting of insecurity, trauma and imposter syndrome. Similar to how Control addressed feelings of existential euphoria, Alan Wake 2 addresses the restructuring of one's mind and personality to overcome obstacles. It is beautiful art that I hope people don't miss out on for political reasons.