As always, with a narrative heavy game like this it's tough for me to talk more in depths about the nuances of the story without getting into spoilers but I am going to do my best here as Alan Wake II has a lot to unpack. What I can absolutely say is this: Remedy continue to be masters of style, atmosphere, and story telling.

Alan Wake II is a massive departure from the first game in terms of how it looks, plays, and just generally feels. It is much more of a survival horror game this time around with proper grid-based, Resident Evil-ass inventory management. Enemies feel to be more of a threat, and in general we have a much darker and more terrifying tone than the first game.
Dark areas are dark and your flashlight feels more important than ever, as infrequent uses of street lights, safe rooms, and neon provide some semblance of relief among the atmosphere. For fans of the previous game Control, a lot of impressive visual tricks to mess with the player are used in this game, but do be warned that there is a liberal usage of old-fashioned hard-cut jump scares as well.

The game features two playable protagonists, Saga and Alan. Once both are properly introduced, the player can freely hop between them in safe rooms and play their stories in whatever order they wish. I could certainly see different players coming away with wholly different experiences depending on if they choose to prioritize one over the other, or keep an even balance throughout. Both characters have their own collectibles, with Saga pinning hers up on a corkboard and Alan using them to strengthen various gameplay abilities.

As for the narrative, it is a wild ride from start to finish. I can certainly see it being divisive (in full honesty, I am still not totally settled on this score) and at times it feels fairly cyclical. There were a couple of moments that I felt like Remedy was more "checking a box" for a thing that has to be in Remedy games now, but it all still serves a meaningful purpose for either the story or the player, and is executed well. Saga is a fantastic new character with her own quirks and struggles, and she had me every bit as invested as Alan himself. Overall, I am excited to see what the Final Draft and the DLC will bring, and what ultimately will be next in line from Remedy.

Alan Wake 2 is a work of art. It is bold, cryptic, and does not compromise on its own weirdness nor the messages it wishes to convey. It is definitely rough in some areas but still manages to be a charming package overall. I don't think I have played a AAA game so uncompromising since Death Stranding, and I hope we continue to get more crazy off-the-wall shit like this.

An interesting paradox in that it has the most content of any of the Traveler's Tales LEGO games and yet feels exceptionally lazy in almost every aspect. Actually no, sorry, that's not interesting at all. To be honest, this is one of the least interesting games I've played in quite a while.

First of all, it does a really bad job at adapting the films, even by the standards of this series. There are now only five missions per movie (because having ten or whatever there were in previous games would make the story mode just unfeasibly long) and so just by default you're glossing over a whole hell of a lot. I know this doesn't mean much because who in the world would the following apply to at this point - but if you don't already know the Star Wars movies, you're not gonna be getting much out of the campaign here. Also the levels are much, much shorter and simpler than in previous entries. It's almost silly how quick you can blow through what should really be the meat of this thing.

Additionally, as I think has been the case with some of the other recent TT LEGO games (I haven't played all of them), the different abilities and character types have been VASTLY pared down, and the overall gameplay is now simple to an almost insulting degree. All 'character' in your characters has been drained away compared to something like LEGO DC SUPERVILLAINS or MARVEL SUPER HEROES which had in the neighborhood of 50 distinct abilities instead of, like, I don't know, ten here? It's really quite basic. And therefore boring!

And this ends up affecting the real content of the game, which is the absolutely absurd overworld shit. Because when all your characters are the same, running around open world maps for MORE THAN SEVENTY-FIVE FUCKING HOURS gets really, really boring. Now, I am repeatedly on record as being a collectathon guy. I'm PYSCHONAUTS-pilled. I'm a DONKEY KONG 64-cel. Have been for a long time. But this may have broken me of it. This is the limit. The amount of absolutely drudgerous, totally meaningless shit you have to do to clear the overworld maps and 100% this thing is beyond anything I've encountered before. Yes, this is an all-ages game, but there are basically no interesting or challenging puzzles or platforming - you may as well be literally going down a list of around 2000(!!!!!!!!) checkboxes and filling them all in with a button press. Except, of course, it takes way longer than that. I've played my share of these LEGO games, and there is a really clear lack of effort in this area compared to previous ones, and there is just so unfathomably fucking much of it. It almost feels like one of those service games like FORZA HORIZON or something where you're not really ever supposed to even consider 100%ing it, but no, there's the big percentage meters all over the place letting you know how you're doing! Each level, each world, each region! And the cherry on top is that this has by far the most insulting 100% "reward" I've ever seen - so galling I don't even know if I'm gonna do the last little bit of trophy mop-up because I can't bear to give this another minute of my time after seeing what it was.

The only real bright spots lie in the writing (always pretty solid) and a couple fun deep-cut callbacks to SW lore and old EU stuff. But under that K2-sized mountain of at best blahness and at worst shocking incompetence (menus that should be prosecutable, busted-ass challenges you can cheese about twenty different ways, a frankly embarrassing amount of bugs, etc, etc.) they don't mean much.

Not a great sendoff for the series that started this whole LEGO game thing! Really should have rethought the scope on this one!

When Dead Space came out in 2008, it wore it's inspiration on its sleeve. It wasn't massively revolutionary, it simply presented you with a new setting for a survival horror over-the-shoulder TPS and executed on every element to perfection. If someone asked for recommendations in that style, Dead Space would be right alongside Resident Evil 4. I feel this exact way about Lies of P. It takes the fairy tale of Pinocchio and puts the player in the streets of Krat after the puppet frenzy, and through its own unique quirks we have a game that stands up alongside all my favourite FromSoft titles.

Through just the HUD alone, fans of the Soulsborne games would already be able to see what they are in for. You have your health/stamina/MP (legion) bars, "estus" (pulse cells), "souls" (Ergo), and various weapons, amulets, and parts to suit your playstyle/current needs while balancing equip load. In your left arm, you unlock various different Legion tools for combat. The puppet string allows you to pull enemies (or zip to them), the Aegis serves as a proper shield, there are the Falcon Eyes are a long range gun, and more to choose from and level up.

Perhaps the most unique feature of Lies of P is the weapon assembly system, which allows players to disassemble the blade and the hilt of all regular weapons and recombine them as you like. The damage comes from the blade and the scaling/animations come from the hilt, so if you find a blade you like but it doesn't fit your build, you can slap it onto a better suited hilt. This allows for a great degree of customization to the way you play. Another feature that allows for player expression is the P-Organ, which is a skill tree system on top of the standard souls-like stat-picking to level up. This allows the player to gain buffs or new abilities (e.g. more pulse cells, a second dodge, etc.) by picking multiple smaller upgrades to activate each major skill you want. There's lots to choose from and eventually respec if you aren't happy with your current choices.

As you make your way around Krat, you will also encounter a surprising number of unique enemies and bosses with impressive animations. During combat, blocking enemy attacks will have you take chip damage, but attacking enemies without being hit again allows you to regain that health back. This is somewhat similar to the rally system in bloodborne, except here full on getting hit will not allow you to recover any damage. Rolling seems to have very little i-frames, however pulling off a perfectly timed block will negate all damage that you would take (and can even stagger the attacking enemy) making it the ideal way to deal with most enemy encounters. As for bosses, you do have a summon system for major fights where you can use a consumable item at the summoning pool to summon a specter NPC to fight at your side. In theory, this is a good supplement for the lack of any online multiplayer options, however the Specter might be a little too strong and can absolutely make the difference between being shredded by a boss and outright deleting them with your advantage. However as they say, you control the buttons you push. It's a nice feature for anyone who doesn't want to struggle with a tough boss longer than they would like. Another quality-of-life feature is that if you die in a boss room, your lost ergo is dropped outside the entrance so you can pick it up and just leave if you'd like to go spend it before trying again. Nioh 2 does this as well and I really appreciate it. What's more, your lost ergo isn't completely lost either if you die twice, you just get a cut removed from the total you would have had and the pick-up location changes to your most recent death. I don't mind this either, and due to the aformentioned boss feature I think there was maybe only one time in the whole game where I lost a portion of that Ergo.

Finally, I'd like to talk a bit about the story. Lies of P tells a very coherent and quite frankly gripping story (for an action game) and also had me invested in all the characters and their story arcs. Side quests are marked on your fast travel screen so you always know when someone has something new to say, so I definitely didn't feel like I missed anything. You have plenty of dialogue choices to make throughout the game that can impact the story and characters as you lie, or tell the truth. I definitely want to play this again to see the other outcomes.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, Lies of P is a tremendous game that builds off of the legacy of the souls series, but has just enough soul and passion to really make it standout on its own. Fans of From Software really should give this game it's due, and I am excited to see what the DLC and sequel will bring.

the swinging package here is sewn up by three mechanics: the boost, the web zip, and the charge jump. in a modern design, the boost would inevitably be restrained by some kind of resource like a meter or a cooldown thanks to the idle nodding of designers seeing a chance to add an explicit limitation to the system. spider-man 2 doesn't need that; the boost's only mechanical restriction is that it can be used once per swing with no other catch. simply obtaining the speed that it comes with using it adds enough danger to traversal to avoid any need for an artificial check on its power. the web zip (once obtained) defrays this by opening up an escape hatch when you need to bail out. its ability to quickly change your angle and briefly cap your speed reins in runaway or unexpected swings. the charge jump overlays all of this with the ability to influence height out of the swing and weave in ground movement without losing momentum. it gives the player a variable amount of impulse based on how long it's been buffered, and it sits completely independent of the other moves, making it chargeable in the background while simultaneously swinging. these three beg not only multilayered decision-making, with fingers working independently to control different systems, but also robust split-second decision-making that keeps the player constantly juggling the three as the micropositioning constantly evolves.

that's primarily because the micropositioning (partially) controls where spidey's webs go, and it's nuanced to such an extent that you'll often have no idea what exactly it'll attach to or how you'll swing around its fulcrum. watch this quick speedrun of the pizza missions and you'll see even a world record holder overshoot objectives, muddle with awkward climbing angles, and get stuck inside a fire escape. this chaos persists even at lower speeds, so there's no point to holding yourself back; boost as often as you can and be prepared for disaster. the game's challenges accept this fact and run with it by featuring generously sized rings to run through without many "tricks" involved. in fact, most of the challenges would feel like filler if not for the volatility of the swinging system giving much-needed variety to what otherwise are checkpoints slapped inside city blocks. you're never expected to plan intricate routes through these because accepting inconsistency and learning to work around it is the core of the game's unique movement system. even simple additions to a challenge such as mandating wallrunning, loop-de-loops, or landing on the ground inside particular checkpoints wrinkle the necessary traversal in such a way that you'll remember one-off challenges days after you originally played them. these nuances are the crux of the game's appeal.

whether this sounds appealing to you in the long run depends on how much intrinsic enjoyment you can get out of this system without much structure surrounding it. its these challenges and the pizza missions providing most of your sustenance, and luckily they're available from mere minutes into the game. however, to further upgrade your base speed, expect to pay the piper by sleepwalking through ~4-5 hours of story-driven setpieces. it shockingly does little to play with your swinging chops and instead alternates extremely lax "get to the objective" segments with dull beat-em-up combat that rarely escalates beyond spamming the air combo and the contextual dodge. it luckily rarely veers into true frustration, but the fact that you have to engage with it all was a rather sore point to me. having to eat my veggies to enjoy my traversal dessert doesn't hit quite as hard when the dessert itself is a bit of an acquired taste, riddled with its own frustrations and inconsistencies. holistically the experience feels often more like something I enjoy dissecting in theory and less so in practice.

the similarities to gravity rush occurred to me while playing, as I outlined in my review of that game that it was also a bare-bones open world experience buoyed by its exciting traversal yet limited by rarely leaning into it outside of optional challenges. spider-man 2 is an even purer expression of that sentiment, with a washed-out, flat version of manhattan replacing the anachronistically rich hekseville and an even more wild and disorienting swinging system replacing the comparatively straight-forward gravity control. a game I see myself continuing to pop in to pick away at the remaining challenges, but not necessarily one that kept me enthralled.

Japan OCG: July 2003
North American: March 2004
(CHAOS Format)

It's been a long time since I logged one of these.

I was looking forward to going through this one in particular. Prior to my indulgence in the modern Yugioh complexities and philosophies to the duel- I did have a few attempts in trying to figure out myself how Yu-Gi-Oh played. The 'chain' mechanic always stood out to me as a weird, WEIRD system compared to the neolithic 'War' simulator of games like Dark Duel Stories and Forbidden Memories that I grew up with, effects and the legalities of specific wording on cards always eluded me. I never quite got why ritual and fusion monsters were the way they were (lo and behold the problem was that these were just poorly made mechanics from the get). 7 Trials was the first game where I decided to tackle this first hand, back around 2018-2019. I would usually just play this on VBA during class in between note takings, but to little avail. I played it a couple of times and tried to just jam a deck together but didn't quite get it still.

5 years later and I was pretty excited to see how exactly I'd feel about this game now that I have a better understanding of the card game- as well as how other games in the series progressed. However, even a modicum of preparation would have been enough for me to have noticed one of the details standing out on the main box art for this title- Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning. We'll cover this shortly but it was a pleasant surprise to me when charting these out that this game in particular would be the game to chart a new course in the meta as far as the video games were concerned.

Since the last time we talked about the YGO format, a lot of key cards were released, but ultimately I don't think I talked about the meta since the games didn't really lend themselves to expressing the format (or in some cases, the card game itself) in an interesting manner. For what it's worth, Yu-Gi-Oh itself doesn't really get REAL interesting until several years later, but in a retrospective manner it is satisfying going back and seeing how the game evolves, seeing what cards warp the meta and the way we think about molding decks. However when these games can’t even make the intermediate steps in the meta worth talking about I’d rather spare my time.

There’s a lot of cool tech cards and sets I could go into detail on, as I did skip over Magician’s Force and Dark Crisis in this gap between WC04 and 7 Trials. However this game already has a lot to deal with so I’ll only go into the key cards from these sets or anything I used pretty consistently in the game.

(Magician’s Force)
I never saw it here, but Magical Scientist sees its debut here- a powerful FTK tool that attempts to spam out fusion cards that could be launched at opponents with the help of Catapult Turtle; he has remained banned since 2005 and will likely never come off. Several ‘Spell Counter’ cards debut here including the card drawing tool Royal Magical Library and the multi-faceted Breaker the Magical Warrior (most known for that scene from the anime).

(Dark Crisis)
Not too much here, a lot of archfiend support and the ‘Guardian’ archetype (an archetype with very little modern support except a Pug that literally just got announced). Skill Drain was introduced here and remains a strong floodgate, negating all effects that are activated on the field. Vampire Lord was a pretty good mini-boss, requiring one tribute but able to send opponent’s cards to the graveyard and was able to special summon itself from the graveyard if destroyed by an opponent’s card effect. Sakuretsu Armor I sadly didn't see but is one of the cooler, more consistent removal traps- destroying a monster that declared an attack on you. The only card I was able to get and use pretty often was D.D. Warrior Lady, a monster that helped banish itself and a card that attacked it or vice versa.

While mechanically early Yu-Gi-Oh still remains fairly simple, the power dynamics of certain cards remained so basic that once the meta did evolve certain older cards began to shine so incandescently that basic cards were too powerful to keep around without limitations. The limbs were always there, but a core was necessary for things to take off. It would only be a matter of time before the competition would taste it.

(Chaos)
Chaos refers to a longstanding style of play since the titular set Invasion of Chaos, utilizing the combination of Light and Dark attribute monsters as fodder for stronger boss monsters- typically by banishing one monster from both attributes as cost from the graveyard. Over time, several waves of cards/releases would try to capitalize on this once dominating style of play, including the Synchro bosses Chaos Ruler and Chaos Angel or ever powerful support cards such as Collapserpent, Wyverburster and the now forbidden Eclipse Wyvern. It’s an incredibly popular, historical and potentially unstable theme of cards as even in the modern environment chaos pops up in decks like Dragon Link or engines alongside the Bystial cards. With regards to 7 Trials, there's only a handful of cards regarding specifically the banishing of a light and a dark- however this was enough to completely overtake deck design. Several of the best cards in the game up to this point were already either of the two Chaos attributes, so adding the new IoC tyrants just came naturally.

Previously I had mentioned the games cover card monster Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning. By banishing a light and a dark, BLS could special summon itself, meaning you wouldn’t need to use your 1 normal summon per turn. On top of being a 3000 attack monster, BLS had two incredibly potent effects, with the only limit being you could only choose one to use once per turn. First, you can target 1 monster on the field and banish it outright, no graveyard needed. The only downside is BLS couldn’t attack the turn it used said effect. To make up for this missed turn, its second effect was that it could make a second attack that turn if it had attacked and destroyed a monster by battle. If your opponent had set up a strong enough wall or boss monster, BLS was enough to get rid of that set up and potentially step over most defensive cards the next turn it attacked.

The second of the two titans of the set, Chaos Emperor Dragon- Envoy of the End was an insane way to close out games and break boards. By banishing a Light and a Dark from your GY, you can summon one of these dragons down, an easy 3K attacker like BLS. However, whereas BLS was more of a beatdown-type boss, CED relies on a more specific- albeit potentially more potent effect to close out games. By paying 1000 LP, you can remove all cards from the field and both players’ hands to the graveyard and deal 300 LP of damage for each card sent there because of that effect. While it would take a ton of cards to deal FTK or OTK levels of burn damage- if at any point in the match 10 cards were anywhere in the hands or field when CED dropped- 3000 damage on top of the 3000 done during battle would be a massive blow to your opponent. It was often used alongside sangan and Yatagarasu as part of a strategy called “Yatalock” where your opponent was kept from drawing cards due to Yata’s recurring effect to skip the opponent’s draw phase. Naturally over time CED would see errata after errata to keep this kind of lock from happening, as well as nerfing the amount of burn damage done from that effect- but in its initial showing CED was an all too powerful boss to handle.

Invasion of Chaos as a whole still remains a strong release even outside of these two game warping bosses. For starters the Ojamas!...Alongside these chaos bosses was a miniature version of BLS specifically, named Chaos Sorcerer. It required the same cost needing a light and a dark, but was generally weaker in stats and only had the first BLS effect to banish- but was never as limited in its time and could be obtained more easily with regards to rarity. Ironically, Dark Magician of Chaos isn’t a chaos monster, it's just a 2 tribute monster- but its a damn good one, allowing you to reclaim a spell from the GY and banishing any monster destroyed by DMoC. Gren Maju is one of the other stand out cards despite its more niche showings. Namely it represents one of the other recurring themes in Invasion of Chaos; banishing a lot. Gren Maju is a fairly inconsistent but frequent flier in dueling as it’s a normal summonable monster whose effect is its ATK/DEF are 400 times the amount of banished cards you have. The other elemental attributes (earth, fire, etc.) also saw special summonable monsters that required a banish, although outside of Gigantes im not sure how often these saw play. Sacred Crane is a typical 1600 normal summon however if it's special summoned by any means, you’re able to draw a card. Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands would become a staple for any ritual deck once those started becoming tolerable…

Holy shit there’s a lot of good stuff from this set. There’s just a lot of easy to slap in cards that would define what would later be coined ‘GOAT’ format, a timeframe we’ll soon be entering. Berserk Gorilla, Ryu Kokki, Smashing Ground, Dimension Fusion, Compuls??? Fucking Compulsory Evac Device was in this set? Invasion of Chaos is way too good to describe. Older sets are just as groundbreaking but had the excuse that they were compiling a lot of stuff already from the OCG.

My sad confession is that I did not utilize either of the two boss monsters of the Chaos format. They're extremely rare! If I had thought about it I could have just cheated one in with the password machine but I didn't particularly enjoy the thought of doing that. I kinda wished Chaos Sorcerer was a more common occurrence but by the time I got around to these cards my deck was already sorted out. But man, what a set…surely the game itself can capitalize on this insane moment in the card game?

Well, eh.

(The part where I actually review the game)
The thing about this game is that despite how flexible Invasion of Chaos made a lot of deck builds, 7 Trials to Glory is actually fairly simple of a game. You control a character going from areas on the map similar to Sacred Cards, and you battle any and all NPCs you can- including a dog. If you go to sleep at your house, this saves the game and a day passes on the calendar.

Basically, this works way better as a game that you would have played on car rides than on an emulator in 2023.

Tournaments only occur and progress as the day passes so playing on an emulator means you kinda just have to rest a bunch once you have a good enough deck. Once registered for a tournament, you just have to wait until that day, compete, win and repeat for several weeks. It’s pretty simple. In addition most of the time you’ll probably just be fighting Tea Gardner during any time you want to grind for currency as you now buy packs rather than get them after each match. How much currency you get is based on certain factors such as amount of monsters destroyed or how much damage you deal- however Tea covers both of these fronts better than most other duelists due to having a deck dedicated to stalling and gaining health over time. There’s also a rotating banlist each week that you’ll have to take into consideration lest you face the wrath of Mokuba. Otherwise it's just a matter of going week to week to eventual bi-weeks worth of tournaments until you beat the game.

There’s not a whole lot of interest happening throughout, although I did like the tournament based on giving you a certain restriction for the upcoming fight. This ‘Limitation Tournament’ gives you a trainer you’ll be going up against but both players will be under such rule, including rules like “no spells” or “No equip spells”. Except Yugi, Joey and Kaiba who just violate the rules regardless, cheaters. Otherwise most of the tournaments are just your standard dueling fare.

But there is a post game!

Now you get to the truly 'strong' trainers, but by now it's a bit too late to start considering anything too new- the way regulations work in the Mystic Zone allows the player to forego most deck philosophizing and just go straight to the gutter slop EZ pass cheap handie handy Boosted Exodia deck. In this freeform, endless simulator- the final boss of this game is the 'Rare Hunter' character, one so lacking in depth that he never bothered thinking of a name for himself (ignore places that call him ‘Seeker’ i dont know where this came from). Beating him unlocks a version of his 'Boosted Exodia' booster deck for purchase, the near-perfect Exodia deck to use in the Mystic Zone as no regulations means you can run multiple copies of each part, more than a third of your deck filled with these autowin pieces and the rest just stalling and drawing cards. You have now reached the end point of 7 Trials to Glory- not much story left from an already thin game. All that you can really do now is just grind matches in the Mystic Zone battles and tournaments and get crazy cash to spend on more cards.

It’s weird. It’d probably be an excellent game to have as a kid who would need to save often and would see these maybe a bit more naturally. But as is it’s freeform nature was just lacking in too many places to be my favorite of the bunch despite its inclusion of one of the best sets in the meta. Being able to save up currency to buy a big number of packs is pretty fun but I’m not sure if I like it as much as the ‘card a pack’ rewards since in some battles you might not get enough currency for the pack you’re looking to buy. I don’t know, it’s definitely a fine game but it doesn't have the structure of some prior games to really push me to think about how I build my deck. Also while the rotating banlist is a neat idea there were a lot of points where I’d just forgotten that I had certain cards because I had forgotten they were unbanned a while back- it can get kinda confusing. Regardless, it's still a pretty solid simulator and I liked the new aesthetic for battles this time around.

I also still don’t really know what the 7 trials are?

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a delightful take on 2D Mario, but as a couch co-op first player, I can't help but feel like it is a small step down from New Super Mario Bros. Wii and U.

Getting the worst out of the way first, the camera following the crown player is just terrible. I've never had problems playing Mario titles co-op with my brother, but with Wonder it was hard to have a play session when we did not curse the camera at least once, sometimes much more. It is also not the funny kind of problems collision had before, they are just plain irritating situations. Aside from the camera I'd say some stages also don't really bother trying to fit more than one player, and on these stages the problem with the camera is usually worse.

With that aside, the game really shines with its implementation of the online ghosts, the matchmaking is impressive and the ghosts not only helping with revives but also pointing secret exits and blocks is just really well done, it feels made for this style of multiplayer instead of the simultaneous couch play.

The wonder effects are a mixed bag of cool and whatever. I have only really used one badge and I feel like they are massively underutilized. The badges actually make me want some kind of Metroidvania game for Mario.

Overall, I'm one of the weirdos that prefers the New games over Wonder. I think stages are better structured and co-op was much better. Wonder has an amazing presentation, but it feels like just the foundation for greater games in the future.

From what I can tell, next to nobody agrees with me on this, but I think this game is kind of a disaster.

As a big MAX PAYNE guy and a fan of horror games, I snapped this up when it came out and played through it dutifully. In the end, I was left pretty cold by it, and over the next decade I’ve constantly thought about doing a revisit because I’ve always felt like I must have missed something. Well, thanks to the remaster, I finally got around to it, and I think that what I missed is that it just plain sucks. This run through was actively painful, and for close to the entire time, I wished I was doing anything else.

- First and foremost, I capital-h hate the combat. Hate it. After being so famously empowered by Remedy in MAX PAYNE, this game's thrilling new mechanic of having to fill out a fucking application in triplicate to ask each enemy individually if, oh please sir, may I shoot you now? feels like absolute shit. The dodge is the jankiest thing ever. Having no reticle sucks ass. The enemies taking the same amount of damage from every bullet every time makes shooting feel like homework. The overall combat design makes every encounter feel math-based, resource-based. You spend X bullets and Y items because there are Z amount of enemies. You can make some savings by exploiting the environment if you look around. Maybe that’s a deliberate choice and maybe that’s fun for people, but I like shooters to be spontaneous and surprising – I like reacting in the moment. This very much feels like the opposite of that. I Hate it.

- Moving, running, jumping – all feel like crap. Wake drives like a boat. And the camera is placed terribly.

- The enemies are bad. You’ve got a less-interesting, less-scary version of the DEADLY PREMONITION zombies, and that’s it. Seriously. Don’t talk to me about bear traps or goo puddles or flying ‘poltergeist’ physics objects or fucking BIRDS because, wow, that stuff is embarrassing. Literally make a second enemy type.

- The story is stupid, and very badly told. Hey, what if Stephen King went to Twin Peaks? (It would suck, is the answer.) I hate to be reductive and bring up those two points of reference that are quoted so, so much when it comes to this game (and so many others) but the narrative really is just those two things, and the most clumsy, unadorned, surface-level takes on them, combined to make something incredibly boring and unoriginal. From that instantly tiresome starting point (and I do mean ‘starting point’ - the words “Stephen King” are, incredibly, the first things spoken in this game) we have the sloppiest patchwork of levels and cutscenes stitched together that don’t dare slow down for a single second to analyze any particular point or let any moment breathe lest it become abundantly clear how little any single aspect OR the greater whole make sense. At times you might think they’re going for a SILENT HILL/Jacob’s Ladder type dream logic thing where there are levels of reality and individual scenes don’t necessarily connect in a logical way, but they’re not! It’s supposed to fit together and make sense! And God, it gets so King/Mike Flanagan dopey at the end (with a stunningly dumb finale), which is appropriate I guess, but still not good!

- It’s never scary, not once. Not even close, not even close to close. Not even the jumpscares. It is heroically, subversively unscary. Both MAX PAYNES are scarier, easily. Which is part of why this is so disappointing! I thought that Remedy would have had a great horror game in them.

- The woods are soooooooo fuuuckiiiiing borrrriinnnnggggg oh my goddddddddddddd

- The pacing is apocalyptically bad. Every chapter and the game in total feel impossibly, crushingly long. They deploy appropriate and fairly well-done TV show-style “Previously on Alan Wake …” interstitials, but hey guys, guess what? Episodes of Twin Peaks weren’t two and a half hours long.

- The game’s only, only move to shake things up is to take all your guns and power-ups away. It happens multiple times per chapter and has the most hilarious of justifications in the story (or just none at all, sometimes). You have to re-upgrade your flashlight and find a new revolver, like, literally ten times apiece. It feels. Like SHIT.

Are there positives? Sure, a couple. The collectible manuscript pages are a great idea and help flesh out supporting characters and unseen events in a cool, in-universe way that the main narrative definitely doesn’t have the time or confidence for. They are still by their nature the opposite of “show-don’t-tell”, but I’ll take it. What else … uh … James “Voice of Max Payne” McCaffrey shows up in a brief role and is great, but that mostly just makes me want to play MAX PAYNE 3 again. And then there’s … um …

Anyway, this has been good for me. I feel like I’m finally getting closure on this. I finally understand my relationship with this game: I really don’t like it, and I find it super disappointing! And yet a big part of me is still excited about a sequel because in my mind, this game should have been a slam dunk and I feel like Remedy can still get a horror game right. I’m pulling for them! But this sucks, man.

I beat the main game and posted my review of it on the original version's page, thinking I was going to play the DLC chapters and talk about them separately, but I just can't force myself to do it. This first one is basically just reused assets and combat challenges with a couple new ideas.

Also, what exactly is remastered about this, besides it being in 4K? Still drops frames in the cutscenes for some reason.

Okay, time to be super duper done with this.

Alan Wake II is an absolute masterpiece, defying expectations and transcending the normal bounds of the medium to explore storytelling in a completely unprecedented format. It is brought to life through masterfully crafted art direction, graphical prowess, chilling sound design, enchanting performances and powerful music. It is an emboldened, metatheatrical, multi-media driven, survival horror game setting place in a lovingly crafted connected universe. Sam Lake has proven once again that he is a virtuoso of modern storytelling. His team shares a vision of salient ambition.

Back in September of this year the website "The Gamer" published an opinion piece titled, "2023 Has been a Horrible Year for Gaming." It was, of course, meant to be provocative and invite readers into an ongoing conversation around problematic trends in the industry: incessant lay-offs as companies haphazardly excise perceived sources of "bloat" without accounting for their heads' taking ownership over their gluttonous habits and actions during the pandemic. Indeed, this commentary should of course be considered alongside problematic cultures manifesting within the AAA development space and the completely unsustainable means by which many of these blockbuster games are being made. 2023 has also been a monumental year for video games. It is without a doubt one of the greatest, ever. The machinery of the game industry has caused much suffering to its artists, but we should also acknowledge the onslaught of phenomenal video games that have managed to release in this post-pandemic development era.

Enter, Remedy Entertainment, who have chosen to return as a true champion of light. They have, outstandingly, delivered on sustainable budgets and time structures. They developed the 2019 hit "Control" with uncompromised graphical and technical prowess at a mere fraction of what we might see with other AAA hits. This rings true with Alan Wake II as well, which has already at the time of my writing recouped its development costs. They continue to keep their staff from project to project, and once again with Alan Wake II (shortened to AW2 throughout this review) they bring forward many of the lovely faces they've been working with for years… in reprised, reimagined, and new roles.

For 13 years, as he has outlined for us, creative director Same Lake has wanted to make a proper sequel to 2010's "Alan Wake." He has stood on this promise and dream with stoic determination, or perhaps more appropriately, "sisu." Finally, we have it, his initiative brought forward in Alan's highly anticipated return. I believe Sam Lake when he says he is grateful it took so many years to logistically make this project viable, because there is now a cauldron full of bubbling ideas seasoned and adjusted to perfection after the learnings of many other projects since 2010. Frankly, Alan's overwhelming journey is reflective of Remedy's own learnings and attempts to manifest this game from writing to reality.

Making a sequel to a cult classic is truly no easy task, especially when you have chosen to completely reinvent the genre it will abide by. "Alan Wake" (2010) certainly had unnerving elements, but ultimately it was a campy jaunt through what the protagonist told us was a horror story. You often fought hordes of Taken, plowed them down with cars, and had plentiful access to ammunition and batteries for your trusty flashlight. AW2 grounds the experience. The resource economy is well tuned, where every bullet, bandage and battery pack counts. A push-and-pull of exploration exists, which promises more invaluable resources but at the possible cost of spending more to survive. There are periods of suspenseful silence and uneasy tranquility, inviting players to let their guards down before suddenly being attacked by 1-3 Taken. Frankly, there is one thing hasn't changed since 2010: there are few gameplay moments more satisfying than shattering a Taken's shadow shield with a burst from your flashlight, followed immediately by a blast from your trusty revolver or shotgun. In AW2 the guns feel punchy and impactful, but anything that might feel overpowered naturally suffers from resource scarcity. Combat isn't necessarily a focal point of this experience, but what is here feels good and responsive. The crowds of enemies are, as previously alluded to, notably toned down compared to the original game. However, the campiness is still present. AW2, for as much as it revels in jump scares, pitch-black environments, or horrifying scenes… loves throwing in a little bit of zaniness at every other corner. "Wonderfully weird" is my recurring phrase for Remedy video games… it continues to be apt here.

Alan Wake II explores new-form storytelling. What is accomplished here is not paralleled by any other game, and Remedy will make you believe that this is the only medium by which they could accomplish this. It is uncompromising and tenacious in its efforts to lead a completely unique experience. Interwoven into the plot are jaw-dropping set pieces, seamless integration of expertly acted live action footage, and a captivating soundtrack. In this nightmare, everything around you is riddled with as much art as there is darkness. Thematically, as you will find with many facets of Alan Wake II, this works perfectly. The Dark Place and Cauldron Lake feed off creativity. The very lore that tells us fiction might manifest reality in this place invites the submission of art to wield this power. Whether it be to bend it to one's will in a play for power, the ramblings of a mad creative, or a desperate act to survive, you will find art everywhere in Alan Wake 2. The absurdly proficient art direction, graphical fidelity, and sound design all serve this well. This is certainly a game meant to be played with headphones, complete with haunting ambient tones and often terrifying directional audio. Even the technical prowess on display is a means by which to capitalize on AW2's multi-faceted approach to storytelling, allowing for instantaneous transitions in and out of live action pieces from controlled gameplay. Alan Wake II plays plenty homage to its inspirations, from "Twin Peaks" to Remedy's own work in "Max Payne," you will find nods and references to real-life art everywhere. AW2 is certainly not afraid to broach metatheatre throughout its own narrative, embodying the campy nature of its predecessor by doing so. The Poets of the Fall (and their alter ego, The Old Gods of Asgard) make a dazzling return as well. The music choices throughout are excellent. I made sure to jam out with end of chapter song every single time, each of which remarkably coincided with the themes of the concluding chapter. Much can be said about how Remedy chose to characterize this world, but that does not even scratch the surface of other narrative techniques employed here: inspired use of dual protagonists and the ongoing construction of the Remedy Connected Universe should also be discussed.

Agent Saga Anderson and Alan Wake are notably different protagonists, with equitable contributions to the story, in spite of the game's title. Saga represents a newcomer to Bright Falls and is fairly naïve to the altered world event occurring there in 2010. In her segments Remedy heralds in a "True Detective" style to building the narrative, demonstrating Saga slowly put together the sensible through-lines within a maddening ocean of information. Her segments often are slower paced, plotting, and inspire horror through tension or unnerving encounters in the "real world." Saga witnesses firsthand the human consequences of the horror story in a way Alan is not privy to while trapped in The Dark Place. Alan's segments, on the other hand, are notably more weird. The Dark Place's rules are loose and poorly understood, by him and us. The vastness of the Dark Place is on full display here. Alan, stuck here 13 years, remarked for us long ago that its influence was not nearly as confided as observers expected. "It's not a lake, it's an ocean." Its depths also represent the unconscious mind, although burdened with darkness and a seemingly endless loop of directionality, thus allowing its vastness to directly contribute in driving Alan past the brink of insanity. AW2 continues the franchise's ongoing themes of reality, creativity, and the power of storytelling. It pulls these threads in new directions, challenging the rules it establishes and inviting a greater depth of exploration. Deeper and deeper it seems to go, truthfully making it hard to stop thinking about AW2 even after credits roll. Alan's wrestle with identity throughout it all is brought to life with a captivating, page-turning performance. He reckons himself everything from husband to writer to monster. As Alan, more questions will arise than answers, but not in a cheap or dissatisfying way. He too plays the role of "detective" and utilizes various light puzzles to explore the nature of murders occurring in the real world that might just be directly inspired by his writings. He must navigate what feels like "loops," first introduced in Alan Wake: American Nightmare, where he must suffer through repeated events with slight variations. He is constantly left to question if he is in the last one? If they will end at all? If the content of these loops can be in any way influenced or changed through his actions, or are instead up to predetermined fate? The enemies in these segments also are questionable in their sheer threat. Distorted shadows approach you in masses… many of which will dissipate yet still others will take more solid form and attack with little warning. This adds a level of tension to every encounter unique from the quietness we experience with Saga, where your ammo conservation demands reservation in the face of constant stimulation. Alan and Saga's tales connect in a natural, understandable manner and in many ways help make two stories form one cohesive narrative. That goal takes both metaphoric and literal form, because of course it does.

Lastly, I want to speak a bit to what is building here with the "Remedy Connected Universe." With just 4 games now, including American Nightmare, it already feels like it has the makings of something special. Familiar faces from Control are seen in AW2 in ways I will not divulge here, but in charming capacity that respects recurring players and invites intrigue from new ones. Callbacks are tactful, ranging from cute and small acknowledgements to huge payouts. Old faces return from prior games, with no stories to be told. Others are yet alluded to. Small things like the "Drink 'Em Both Up" achievement or stacked solo cups of the original Alan Wake are explicitly referenced here. More critically, the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) plays such a meaningful role in this story. There are small payouts here too, including an explanation of the "raccoon situation" you could read about in a lore piece from Control's AWE DLC. Grander implications for the FBC's monitoring of Cauldron Lake, Alan Wake, and so on are of course revealed as the player presses on. All throughout, and most importantly, I felt thoroughly rewarded for my knowledge of these prior games.

There is so much love put into this title. You can tell Sam Lake has inspired a tremendous crew to adopt an outlandish shared vision that only they are truly equipped to deliver on. I welcome the upcoming DLCs "Night Springs" and "The Lake House," desperate to spend more time exploring Alan Wake II's narrative riches. I also look forward to Control 2, and whatever else might follow. This really is a special team, doing special work. There is not one game out there that is "like" Alan Wake II. It is truly, emphatically, "one of a kind."

May the Remedy Connected Universe continue to spiral, bringing us ever closer to new answers and infinitely more questions.

Bravo.

The game in the current state feels like a prototype. Even putting aside the performance issues, it feels like they created a system but struggled to create a compelling structure around it.

There is some good though, as with other Forza games driving feels really good, and the Rivals (time trial) mode is a great step up from the Horizon games at least.

The car experience and car point system is not inherently bad in my opinion, but the Builders Cup mode, what is basically the campaign, just doesn't really work with the system. If you start on a fresh car it feels like you don't earn enough levels or points to really build your car, and if you start with a leveled up car, the practice rounds are basically useless. I think they need a big revamp of the system to actually make you feel like you are building the car, and to make practice feel interesting. I would prefer more of a qualifier than the practice and I also dislike the "challenge the grid" system.

I don't care about online multiplayer, but I generally enjoy spending time in Rivals, the Builders Cup is not a great career mode and the game needs some big fixes on PC. I think the game can be OK in a few months, but it will take a lot of effort to make it great.