Alan Wake is quite the interesting beast. It has neat, well executed ideas that ultimately make it stand the test of time, even if it took a while for the game to truly become good.
The big theme of the story is being in the perspective of a writer, who is trapped in a story that seems to constantly spiral out of control, as it slowly turns into a horror story that will only benefit the darkness that desires it. It's a meta story that is very much self-aware of its weirdness. It takes a while to set up its main mysteries, but once it does, it becomes an engrossing and somewhat campy hero story. As one character describes, Wake's a bit heavy on the metaphors, and the entire game fits this belief like a glove, which speaks to how well it executes its ideas.
While the constant narration from Wake himself might be a turn off for people who likes to figure out the story on their own, I thought that his inner monologues made him more likeable, and also adds to the game's campy feel. It reminds me of The Velvet Underground's music video for After Hours, which had a charming and literal interpretation of the lyrics.
I also appreciate the details in its extra lore content, and how the game presents them. The manuscripts pretty much spoils near future events, and I find it to be a fresh and interesting take on meaningful side content. I savor the warm and cozy feel of the radio shows, and the silly Night Spring shows. You can tell that the people making the shows are having a blast making them.
The gameplay mostly involves using your flashlight to weaken enemies and blasting them to smithereens with conventional ballistic weapons, or using stronger light sources in the environment to get rid of them in a flash. The first three episodes (basically the game's chapters) were very one dimensional in terms of encounter and level design, you just keep running into the same kind of enemies and forced to deal with them in the same ways, and I almost wanted to quit the game because its such a slog. Thankfully it gets more interesting in every episode after that, especially in the post-main game special episodes. There's also tricky platforming puzzles and vehicular sections in larger areas that slightly helps the variety.
On Normal, it almost plays like a survival horror game. I thought the game is at its most fun when you're just trying your best to quickly get to the next checkpoint without killing every enemy, so naturally I had a lot of extra resources in hand. The game also takes away your resources quite frequently for story reasons, which is a bit annoying but it does lead to some interesting and challenging sections.
The combat itself is quite satisfying, with a highly fluid cinematic look to its presentation, and solid weapon feedback. It reminds me of older shooters like original RE4 and Timesplitters, where the gun and its reticule won't always be in the center of the screen, which in this case, adds to the cinematic feel. It's definitely held back by a lack of weapon variety, and somewhat uncreative encounter designs for a good portion of the journey.
It's not exactly a slam dunk bestseller, and yet Alan Wake still impresses. But the cloak over its true potential will soon be lifted, as Remedy sets the stage for its return. See you in October... fingers crossed.
The big theme of the story is being in the perspective of a writer, who is trapped in a story that seems to constantly spiral out of control, as it slowly turns into a horror story that will only benefit the darkness that desires it. It's a meta story that is very much self-aware of its weirdness. It takes a while to set up its main mysteries, but once it does, it becomes an engrossing and somewhat campy hero story. As one character describes, Wake's a bit heavy on the metaphors, and the entire game fits this belief like a glove, which speaks to how well it executes its ideas.
While the constant narration from Wake himself might be a turn off for people who likes to figure out the story on their own, I thought that his inner monologues made him more likeable, and also adds to the game's campy feel. It reminds me of The Velvet Underground's music video for After Hours, which had a charming and literal interpretation of the lyrics.
I also appreciate the details in its extra lore content, and how the game presents them. The manuscripts pretty much spoils near future events, and I find it to be a fresh and interesting take on meaningful side content. I savor the warm and cozy feel of the radio shows, and the silly Night Spring shows. You can tell that the people making the shows are having a blast making them.
The gameplay mostly involves using your flashlight to weaken enemies and blasting them to smithereens with conventional ballistic weapons, or using stronger light sources in the environment to get rid of them in a flash. The first three episodes (basically the game's chapters) were very one dimensional in terms of encounter and level design, you just keep running into the same kind of enemies and forced to deal with them in the same ways, and I almost wanted to quit the game because its such a slog. Thankfully it gets more interesting in every episode after that, especially in the post-main game special episodes. There's also tricky platforming puzzles and vehicular sections in larger areas that slightly helps the variety.
On Normal, it almost plays like a survival horror game. I thought the game is at its most fun when you're just trying your best to quickly get to the next checkpoint without killing every enemy, so naturally I had a lot of extra resources in hand. The game also takes away your resources quite frequently for story reasons, which is a bit annoying but it does lead to some interesting and challenging sections.
The combat itself is quite satisfying, with a highly fluid cinematic look to its presentation, and solid weapon feedback. It reminds me of older shooters like original RE4 and Timesplitters, where the gun and its reticule won't always be in the center of the screen, which in this case, adds to the cinematic feel. It's definitely held back by a lack of weapon variety, and somewhat uncreative encounter designs for a good portion of the journey.
It's not exactly a slam dunk bestseller, and yet Alan Wake still impresses. But the cloak over its true potential will soon be lifted, as Remedy sets the stage for its return. See you in October... fingers crossed.
2 Comments
@cowboyjosh it's a good time to play it since the sequel is comin. Also, thx!
cowboyjosh
11 months ago