This review contains spoilers
I really wish I liked this more because everything about it is perfectly up my alley, but man. This should have just been a TV show or something. I didn't dislike it, but even just sitting here and reflecting on it, it feels pretty cobbled together, so I can't really give it 3 stars even though I walked away like "yeah that was fine!"
I haven't played Control so idk if they feature in the expanded universe of these games, but like, why are Hartman and Nightingale even here? I thought Nightingale was going to be in Alan's way way more than he ever was, and that Hartman "it was all a dream" subsection barely did anything at all except suggest that Hartman likes to utilize creative control over people's powers because the lake brings them to life, but it adds pretty much nothing to the rest of the story. The first two episodes are painfully slow pacing-wise, and episode 6 feels like I'm in the world's clunkiest Mad Max game.
Conceptually this game rocks. I love what it does with Alan's power, I like the concept of the typewriter and the manuscripts and the Dark Room at the bottom of the lake--conversely, I am not a fan of how derivative this game is of Twin Peaks. The Black Lodge vs the Dark Place, Mr. Scratch vs Dale's doppelganger, they really straight up just named a character the lamp lady, Lucy vs the slightly nagging but friendly lady who works the front desk at the station, Albert Rosenfield vs Nightingale as the pissed-off FBI agent who comes to interfere with our protagonist... literally everything in this game has been lifted directly from Twin Peaks--and I love Twin Peaks, so like, that's fine, but the only really truly original spin on it is how Alan participates in the magic himself. Like why am I not just watching Twin Peaks?
I don't like what the game does with Alice as it primarily portrays her in two ways: 1) a concerned, loving wife who prioritizes her husband above all else and 2) a wife who nags. That's if the game isn't showing us that clip of her getting dragged to the bottom of the lake every 3 seconds. We know she doesn't get along with Barry, but that's because she disagrees with him on how he approaches Alan's work. It was pretty hard for me to feel any sort of attachment to their relationship as it's sort of a trope at this point: disgruntled, negative artiste with his super-supportive "babe you have to put yourself before anyone else or i'll be mad at you" wife. IDK, it's just boring.
Mechanically the game doesn't really offer you any sort of agency over what you're doing. Point A to Point B, shine a flashlight at some guys, Alan's typewriter monologue plays, you pick up a manuscript. I actually didn't mind the level design and thought the indicators were pretty clear despite everything in the maps looking pretty much the same, but I wasn't big on the actual fighting gameplay. Atmospherically it's all there, but I wish the game had leaned more into that rather than throwing mobs at you. I'm really, really glad that Alan Wake 2 is just a straight-up survival horror.
Alan's voice actor tends to use the same drone-y pitch even beyond his monologues, and man does that hurt the game. Barry's voice actor sounded like he was having the time of his life in the voice box though, so shoutout to that guy, who made me more endeared to a character I was expecting to be thoroughly annoyed by.
Anyway, I didn't hate it, but it really left me wanting more, since conceptually this game really shines for me and hits a lot of things that I quite like in media, but if it were any longer than it had been I probably would have dropped it. Especially if 2 flopped or didn't exist. So let's just say that this game feels like a really, really rough draft that touches on some pretty cool ideas, but it just doesn't land for me--so I'm very very excited to see what the final prototype has to present in Alan Wake 2 after the team had over a decade of making other stuff.
I haven't played Control so idk if they feature in the expanded universe of these games, but like, why are Hartman and Nightingale even here? I thought Nightingale was going to be in Alan's way way more than he ever was, and that Hartman "it was all a dream" subsection barely did anything at all except suggest that Hartman likes to utilize creative control over people's powers because the lake brings them to life, but it adds pretty much nothing to the rest of the story. The first two episodes are painfully slow pacing-wise, and episode 6 feels like I'm in the world's clunkiest Mad Max game.
Conceptually this game rocks. I love what it does with Alan's power, I like the concept of the typewriter and the manuscripts and the Dark Room at the bottom of the lake--conversely, I am not a fan of how derivative this game is of Twin Peaks. The Black Lodge vs the Dark Place, Mr. Scratch vs Dale's doppelganger, they really straight up just named a character the lamp lady, Lucy vs the slightly nagging but friendly lady who works the front desk at the station, Albert Rosenfield vs Nightingale as the pissed-off FBI agent who comes to interfere with our protagonist... literally everything in this game has been lifted directly from Twin Peaks--and I love Twin Peaks, so like, that's fine, but the only really truly original spin on it is how Alan participates in the magic himself. Like why am I not just watching Twin Peaks?
I don't like what the game does with Alice as it primarily portrays her in two ways: 1) a concerned, loving wife who prioritizes her husband above all else and 2) a wife who nags. That's if the game isn't showing us that clip of her getting dragged to the bottom of the lake every 3 seconds. We know she doesn't get along with Barry, but that's because she disagrees with him on how he approaches Alan's work. It was pretty hard for me to feel any sort of attachment to their relationship as it's sort of a trope at this point: disgruntled, negative artiste with his super-supportive "babe you have to put yourself before anyone else or i'll be mad at you" wife. IDK, it's just boring.
Mechanically the game doesn't really offer you any sort of agency over what you're doing. Point A to Point B, shine a flashlight at some guys, Alan's typewriter monologue plays, you pick up a manuscript. I actually didn't mind the level design and thought the indicators were pretty clear despite everything in the maps looking pretty much the same, but I wasn't big on the actual fighting gameplay. Atmospherically it's all there, but I wish the game had leaned more into that rather than throwing mobs at you. I'm really, really glad that Alan Wake 2 is just a straight-up survival horror.
Alan's voice actor tends to use the same drone-y pitch even beyond his monologues, and man does that hurt the game. Barry's voice actor sounded like he was having the time of his life in the voice box though, so shoutout to that guy, who made me more endeared to a character I was expecting to be thoroughly annoyed by.
Anyway, I didn't hate it, but it really left me wanting more, since conceptually this game really shines for me and hits a lot of things that I quite like in media, but if it were any longer than it had been I probably would have dropped it. Especially if 2 flopped or didn't exist. So let's just say that this game feels like a really, really rough draft that touches on some pretty cool ideas, but it just doesn't land for me--so I'm very very excited to see what the final prototype has to present in Alan Wake 2 after the team had over a decade of making other stuff.