Alan Wake

[Skull Commander]

Just played through this over the last four nights on hard difficulty, and although I enjoyed it for the first two or three chapters, I do feel the quality takes a slide in the latter part of the game. I loved the atmosphere at the start, but as others have said there is too much samey woodland areas rather than atmospheric town areas.

Lots of nice touches throughout, from the presentation, the soundtrack, the TV Shows, but equally some frustrating elements too

->Open Spoiler<-

why so I keep loosing all my damn torches/weapons every bloody chapter *anger*

, and also reading the manuscripts was handled really clumsy and totally ate into the atmosphere.

Also

->Open Spoiler<-

what on earth was up with the "Rock Concert" scene? It was totally bizarre and would have been more at home in the ****fest that was Brutal Legend.

At the start of the game I was thinking this was solid 8/10 material, but now I have been right the way through it it has to be a 7. Still a good game, but not great and that really isn't excusable given the amount of time they worked on the damn thing.

[Sketcz]

****fest that was Brutal Legend

Was it the atmosphere/styling or gameplay you disliked? Because I thought it would have been awesome if they'd entirely stripped out the RTS crap.

[Skull Commander]

I just disliked it in general. The RTS elements felt out of place, but the core hack n slash gameplay was sub par too, and that's before I get started on the unfunny attempts at humour and Jack Black (who I'm not a fan of).

[Fader209]

Ugh I hated the RTS element of the game. Put me right off.
Loving the tunes though! Had to trade it in the end as I realised I was only keeping the game for the music.

[Sketcz]

Had to trade it in the end as I realised I was only keeping the game for the music.

Is that such a bad reason to keep it? It's why I did.

[Fader209]

Well getting the soundtrack is fairly easy to obtain and I like to get money/credit for games where possible if I'm not playing the game anymore.
I really wish the game was better otherwise I would have kept it

Slightly on topic - Tim Schafer looked really disappointed at E3 showing that Sesame Street game.

[Brad]

This looks incredible on PC. Sadly the gameplay feels crap and I don't like the offset camera. It wants to be a movie too, constantly taking control away from me. Overall an excellent job on the PC port but let down when it switches to a cutscene with a lower res and framerate. My first waste of money in the steam sale.

[Herbalizer]

I've read in several places that you sholuld consume this as you would a tv show, one episode a night. I got it on the Steam sale too, I've played the first two or three chapters on 360 but had to give it back to a mate so never finished it.

Did you get American Nightmare too?

[Brad]

Yeah I got the whole pack I think. I just got off to a really bad start I think. It tells you to use the torch to burn the enemy and then you can shoot it. Then a bit later on my torch runs out of batteries so I an;t burn them but it seems I can just shoot them anyway? Also no indication of where I'm pointing my gun. Like an old Resi Evil :-(

Will give it another go and try to just appreciate the story. Might put it on easy. It's not a game where I'm going to appreciate the challenge really but if I can just waltz through the story it looks like it might be worthwhile. It does look REALLY lovely. Got everything on maximum at 1080 and it's still 60fps which is sweet. The drop to a lower res and framerate for the movies is really jarring though. All that said this is the best console -> PC port I've ever seen. Other devs should take note.

[Family Fry]

Remedy really did show in the end they work well on PC.
Always remember you don't need to kill all the enemies, sometimes better to flee towards light, normally when you get to a light area/lamp checkpoint the bad guys vanish.
After American Nightmare I really fancied going through this again, do hope they can continue the story of Alan Wake.

[nonny]

Yep definitely go one episode at a time and set yourself up to immerse yourself in it... by that I mean treat it like a horror film. Play it alone, in the dark, preferrably with headphones cranked up. The wind in this scares the crap out of me.

Also make sure you switch on every TV and watch the full episodes of that show thats like the Twilight Zone. Forget the name. Do that and you'll get the most out of this. From memory that are parts where you will run out of ammo/batteries and will have to run to survive. Conserve what you can but the limit to what you can carry ensures you will have to run at some point.

It's a great game to be honest but shows it age compared to todays titles.

[k0pp0]

Dredging this thread up..

Well. Apart from being unfairly hard at times I enjoyed this.. Genuinely spooky at times and the odd bits of humour brought a smile to my face,. Still got the DLC to work through, but I'd recommend it as something a bit different.

[Neon Ignition]

Hitting about halfway through on my replay. Visually it's nothing fancy but it holds up weel mostly thanks to how well the art style pulls together the tone and atmosphere so convincingly. The gameplay is massively simple, it feels borderline like a simple run n gun these days, but I'm still enjoying it. A generally short experience but definitely a fun one still.