Alan Wake

[Obi Chris Kenobi]

http://www.alanwake.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wake

Holy crap actual game footage of Alan Wake, its only taken 6 fucking years! Looks like a cross between Res Evil, Silent Hill and all those other cult survival horror games.

http://www.vg247.com/2009/11/16/new-alan-wake-footage-is-go/

 

[Sabre]

So its finally out, ive just completed the first Episode, and it was amazing. So far everything feels really spooky considering im armed with a flashlight and a revolver.

The graphics are sublime, and even more amazing that its native resolution is 540p.

 

[Sabre]

Just cleared it after a mammoth 2 day session, being unemployed does have its perks.

The game was very enjoyable. Although it got REALLY repetative.

Episode 1 > Plot > Stuck in dark forresty place fighting the taken > Plot > End of Episode.

Repeat same formula for 6 Episodes and thats what you have to expect.

Plot

Spoiler

Taken from Gamefaqs as it sums it up better that i could.

Alan was a story written by a man named Thomas Zane. But lets go back to the beginning of the timeline. Thomas Zane was a man who lived in Bright Falls. Basically, he was a writer who loved scuba diving and dreamed of being in the stars, this is back in the day when people hadn't been to space yet. He was deeply in love with this woman named Barbara, though his best friend, a girl named Cynthia was extremely jealous, she had a huge crush on Tom. But Barbara got into a tragic accident that killed her, which tore Tom apart. Which is when the Darkness came to him

The Darkness is a force that has been around since the Dawn of Time, Darknes isn't the Absence of Light, but an entity. Darkness turns things into twisted things. The Darkness lay dormant, but the Darkness seeked people it could manipulate to give it power.

Creativity. The Darkness needs someone creative to free it. It can turn people into gods. Song Writers, Artist, Writers... It needs someone it gives power to bring it to power, to bring it the power it once had. In Tom's moment of despair, over the death of Barbara, The Darkness told him if it would write a story, he could bring Barbara back.

Tom wrote his story, and made a happy ending for him and his wife. However, it backfired, because he gave himself too much power, the story was uninteresting... And the Darkness took part since Tom didn't write the story he needed. Life needs balance, and in Tom's story, there was no balance (Since it was all just good for him). Life is all about balance, so the Dark came to be the "Editor" of the story. It allowed Tom his Happy ending. But to trade for his happy ending, his wife alive, his wife's soul was an empty hole of darkness

Tom came to realize in his horror this wasn't his love but the Darkness with her face on. The Darkness had no feelings, it only acted as her wife so in an attempt to kill the Darkness, Tom took a knife and cut her heart out. But before he did a final noble act and unwrite everything he made true. So it never happened, he made one change to his story as god and made it that anything in a shoebox would carry over to the new world. And in the shoebox, he but in a few pages of a manuscript of a young boy named Alan Wake.

The game's ending is not 100% certain yet, but Alan writes balance to life or tries to, but fails and seems to be a puppet of the darkness himself, thus the double voice in the ending citing it's not a lake, but an ocean.

 

[KOAB]

Does this game live up to the hype that anything can become possessed and end up being an enemy? I remember hearing how cars, tress, wild animals, and much more can become your enemy and that seemed really cool to me.

 

[AndrewTS]

Probably old news by now, but Giant Bomb has their quick look up for the game. Fans of Max Payne will be interesting to know that it retains narration over gameplay, the "manuscripts" fill in important plot details (although seem to forgo the graphic novel presentation of MP's intermissions), and the parody TV shows playing on various in-game TVs (different ones, of course).

On a related note, I played Max Payne 1 and 2 as somewhat of a Remedy primer, since I never played any of their games before. Max Payne 2 holds up fairly well in 2010, actually (I completed this one, BTW), although I feel games like Stranglehold and WET have raised the action bar pretty high. On the other hand, Max Payne 1 is really hard to play today. Aside from not supporting widescreen apparently, the animation, physics, interface, speed of the gameplay, draw distance (walls and corners of *tiny rooms* often are darkened out from your immediate viewpoint), and collision feels old. Really old; like PS1/n64-era-game old.

 

[Sabre]

Does this game live up to the hype that anything can become possessed and end up being an enemy? I remember hearing how cars, tress, wild animals, and much more can become your enemy and that seemed really cool to me.

Kinda, through various points of the dark foresty bits, cars/debris etc get possessed and launched at you. No animals however.

The scenes during daytime are beautiful, but the forest however gets really let down by the way they try to spook you, aka there is a really thick fog throughout which makes spotting some of the harder "taken" quite difficult.

Regarding the TV shows, there is an achievement for watching all the TV shows in the game, which i didnt have the patients to do. It reminded me alot of "The Darkness" in that they programmed TV shows into the game for shits and giggles.

 

[Baby Shoes]

I started this up the other day and was really enjoying it. I was playing it in daylight and there was some stuff that got me jumping and got me pumped up to play it, which doesn't happen too often. Just as I was starting to chug along I had a couple buddies show up which meant I was relegated to a night of Rock Band and Scene It instead so everyone could be involved. Hoping to get pick this back up tomorrow and really get into it.

 

[bps21]

I played the first chapter and liked it a lot. But I decided to finish Red Dead Redemption before commiting to this, since I had already put a lot of hours in Red Dead.

 

[bps21]

I finished my normal play through and am now playing it back on nightmare difficulty to finish off the achievements. Really good game. There's not nearly enough ammo in nightmare mode so I spent last night running for my life. Awesome

 

[KingPK]

Just finished episode 3. The story just sucks you in and the setting is too damn creepy not to make you feel uneasy. I may not be able to go camping for a while after this.

What is up with that FBI agent anyhow?

 

[KingPK]

I just did the battle on the Anderson's farm.

THAT is an awesome sequence. This is seriously becoming the 1a to ME2 on my GOTY list right now.

 

[KingPK]

I hope everyone used their code to get The Signal DLC, because it is fucking awesome. Hard, but awesome. This game needs to sell more.

 

[bps21]

I played through it getting every achievement but the don't die, don't reload one. Then I managed to make it through all of the hardest parts of the level several tries later and die near the end when my jump didn't land perfectly on a stupid platform.

Rage was had.

Game won't be played again until it makes amends.

 

[Angle-plex]

Gotta say this game was pretty slow and repetitive. I just got to episode 4 though and shit has picked up and the gameplay is at least a little different.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Second game I've ever played that made me motion sick. No idea why.

 

[bps21]

I managed to beat the Signal without dying. Although it took dying at the last fucking moment again before getting it the next time.

 

[Mik]

Second game I've ever played that made me motion sick. No idea why.

YES. I had this problem too.

Game was ok. Wasn't liking it at all at first, but it really picked up as it went along. I think I understand the ending? I'm not sure...

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I just did the battle on the Anderson's farm.

Best part of the whole game. Does the DLC shine a light on the story at all? I felt that the ending to game proper was extremely underwhelming, though I still love the idea of needing to use the flashlight to weaken enemies before you can deal any damage to them (and of flairguns being the equivalent of a BFG 9000, that's a nice touch).

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Second game I've ever played that made me motion sick. No idea why.

YES. I had this problem too.

Game was ok. Wasn't liking it at all at first, but it really picked up as it went along. I think I understand the ending? I'm not sure...

I couldn't even keep playing it. I think it was whipping the flashlight around on the dark screen or something. Don't know. The only other game that made me sick was Half Life 2. A pity, because everything I've read about both games is that they kick ass.

 

[Youth N Asia]

I'm in Episode 3 right now. I dig the game putting me on edge, but it feels like the same stuff over and over again. Just walking through the woods waiting for stuff to jump out at you.

 

[Mik]

SPOILER ALERT: Episodes 4-6 are also identically patterned.

 

[Youth N Asia]

Finished episodes 1-6. Satisfying enough game, but some variety in the game play would have helped out. Overall I'm pleased. I'll do the DLC chapters one day, but I'd rather move on to L.A. Noire for now.

I didn't die once in combat. The only time they got me was "Whoops, didn't see that hole/cliff"

Chapter 3 went on forever. I'd rather have more chapters and have them shortened up.

The story with who was writing what was getting too confusing at the end.

For the last couple chapters I lost most interest in trying to collect as much as I could and just wanted to get through the game by this point.

Nice soundtrack. This isn't my kind of song normally, but it felt like an epic moment fighting off the Taken while this song played in the background

Poets of the Fall - War (Official Video)

 

[bps21]

I liked this game just fine...but playing some parts on Nightmare difficulty still make me want to punch a hole in the wall all this time later.

 

[sbofn]

Gotta say this game was pretty slow and repetitive. I just got to episode 4 though and shit has picked up and the gameplay is at least a little different.

Yeah. What does it say when I like everything about the game but combat?

 

[KingPK]

Has anyone played American Nightmare?