Remedy continues their streak of making super interesting and high quality games which leave me unfulfilled by the end.
I think Alan Wake 2 is a better game overall then Alan Wake 1 with gorgeous FMV cutscenes and an insanely high quality dub which seamlessly turns two actors into one character. Certainly a step up from the 240p Night Springs episodes in Alan Wake 1. The story is also more abstract, philsiopshical and occult. It follows in the footsteps of Twin Peaks the Return but feels more distinct unlike Alan Wake 1 which was embarrassingly reverent to Twin Peaks.
The issue here is that the new horror gameplay just isn't up to snuff. Even on hard this is the first horror game where I have entirely filled up both my inventory and the storage so I just had to throw away precious resources and stop picking them up. There are some interesting combos you can set up with weapon upgrades but in 90% of the game you can just ru past enemies making the game, like Alan Wake 1, a game of mostly just dodging foreword between safe rooms. Needing to explore a single location for a bit does mitigate this problem a bit compared to Alan Wake 1, there are less annoying enemy spam hoard segments, but it also makes every combat encounter way less creative. The whole appeal of the taken to me is how easy it is to design some clever environmental ways to use light to your advantage, when outside of two scripted set pieces, the only way you damage enemies is with the flash light or other light generating items. You cant ever bang a car to quickly turn the headlights on or lure enemies into a room and flip a light switch to damage them. It just seems like a waste for such a creative game.
I think Alan Wake 2 is a better game overall then Alan Wake 1 with gorgeous FMV cutscenes and an insanely high quality dub which seamlessly turns two actors into one character. Certainly a step up from the 240p Night Springs episodes in Alan Wake 1. The story is also more abstract, philsiopshical and occult. It follows in the footsteps of Twin Peaks the Return but feels more distinct unlike Alan Wake 1 which was embarrassingly reverent to Twin Peaks.
The issue here is that the new horror gameplay just isn't up to snuff. Even on hard this is the first horror game where I have entirely filled up both my inventory and the storage so I just had to throw away precious resources and stop picking them up. There are some interesting combos you can set up with weapon upgrades but in 90% of the game you can just ru past enemies making the game, like Alan Wake 1, a game of mostly just dodging foreword between safe rooms. Needing to explore a single location for a bit does mitigate this problem a bit compared to Alan Wake 1, there are less annoying enemy spam hoard segments, but it also makes every combat encounter way less creative. The whole appeal of the taken to me is how easy it is to design some clever environmental ways to use light to your advantage, when outside of two scripted set pieces, the only way you damage enemies is with the flash light or other light generating items. You cant ever bang a car to quickly turn the headlights on or lure enemies into a room and flip a light switch to damage them. It just seems like a waste for such a creative game.