Zero Punctuation: Alan Wake
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Please fix your life. Stephen King is wonderful. I would definitely say that he reading his novels gives one a better appreciation for various elements in horror film and gaming.The Noble Shade said:
Yeah Alan Wake never particularly appealed to me. Honestly, I'd rather play Heavy Rain but I don't own a PS3.
Likely, noone will ever read this but I've been playing Alan Wake and here's my 2 cents (From someone who strongly dislikes scary games)
The combat is fine. It gave me no trouble whatsoever and I rarely play the shooty style games. The puzzles are simple and not too tedious.
And that camera pan to show an enemy behind me usually freaked me right out, BEACAUSE SOMEONE WITH AN AXE WAS RIGHT BEHIND ME! And while I'd immediatly spin to fight him, his buddy would flank me and I'd see an edge of another axe flashing towards my head.
I like how each character feels real, as does the locations.
And the atmosphere is increadible. I loved every second of it. It made exploring a little bit to find extras a slightly nervewracking experiance, because while you're fairly sure nothing is here, it's just that damn creepy that something might be here.
My only complaint is the driving mechanics, but I just put them down to Alan being a really bad driver. Remember his wife was driving at the start of the game, he hits someone in his nightmare, and he manages to wake up in a car wreck after his wife goes missing.
The combat is fine. It gave me no trouble whatsoever and I rarely play the shooty style games. The puzzles are simple and not too tedious.
And that camera pan to show an enemy behind me usually freaked me right out, BEACAUSE SOMEONE WITH AN AXE WAS RIGHT BEHIND ME! And while I'd immediatly spin to fight him, his buddy would flank me and I'd see an edge of another axe flashing towards my head.
I like how each character feels real, as does the locations.
And the atmosphere is increadible. I loved every second of it. It made exploring a little bit to find extras a slightly nervewracking experiance, because while you're fairly sure nothing is here, it's just that damn creepy that something might be here.
My only complaint is the driving mechanics, but I just put them down to Alan being a really bad driver. Remember his wife was driving at the start of the game, he hits someone in his nightmare, and he manages to wake up in a car wreck after his wife goes missing.
Ironically, someone again reviews "Alan Wake" while mentioning "Twin Peaks" and "Steven King" (who is admittedly mentioned in the game), but totally misses mentioning "In The Mouth Of Madness"... a John Carpenter movie, which if you've gotten to the reveals in AW you should probably realize was arguably more ripped off (or more of an inspiration rather) than either of the other sources.
But did he like it?
In his Silent Hill 2 review Yahtzee said that atmosphere can make up for a lot of bad things. And he kept coming back to the fact that the atmosphere was good. I mean he said that a lot of things were shit, but I also think that atmosphere can make up for a lot of problems.
But I guess it doesn't really matter, I'm still going to play the game. Not buy it, but play it. : )
In his Silent Hill 2 review Yahtzee said that atmosphere can make up for a lot of bad things. And he kept coming back to the fact that the atmosphere was good. I mean he said that a lot of things were shit, but I also think that atmosphere can make up for a lot of problems.
But I guess it doesn't really matter, I'm still going to play the game. Not buy it, but play it. : )
Only a cynical gamer with a stick up their ass would call any of the LEGO games terrible. I mean, sure, they're repetitive and a bit formulaic, and far from being great games, but they're not terrible, and they're fun enough to play. This is exactly what this guy was saying to you. There, believe it or not, can be a, wait for this, MIDDLE GROUND. Shocking, I know. Yahtzee takes this middle ground far more often than you would think listening to retards like you.Sparrow said:
If I had to assign an arbitrary number score to his review based off of what he said, it would probably be a 7/10 or something. Good, but flawed and certainly nothing worthy of wetting your pants over.Phenom828 said:
Lol, I wasn't talking about the war(s) (although discounting 21 years between completely unrelated wars is ridiculous anyway), I was saying that the game only took around 5 years, not 9 or 10.saiyanwarrior said:
Lol, that's an awesome movieTherumancer said:
I wouldn't say the similiarities are enough to say ripped off, but inspiration (as you say) would be more apt. After all, at no point in Alan Wake did any of the supporting cast cast 'crab walk'. Perhaps one character (who I won't name because it'd be a spoiler) should have been voiced by Sam Neill Well worth itWaif said:Heh, actually, this looks like a pretty interesting game. Not sure why, though. I might end up getting this game in the near future
Get the Limited Collector's Edition if you can still find it at a reasonable price, it's well worth it.
Well I might consider it, depends on the bonuses that you get with the collectors edition. I'll look into it o~O!Though it's been awhile since I've played an Action Horror genre. Last one I played was Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth. I had fun with that game XD.Mako SOLDIER said:Well worth itWaif said:Heh, actually, this looks like a pretty interesting game. Not sure why, though. I might end up getting this game in the near future
Alan Wake isn't anywhere near as disturbing as Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was (it's closer to Stephen King than to Lovecraft, and Yahtzee did have a point, he is mentioned quite a lot in the first half of the game), but it has a unique tension of its own. Definitely skip over normal and play on hard first though. Then play NightmareWaif said:Well I might consider it, depends on the bonuses that you get with the collectors edition. I'll look into it o~O!Though it's been awhile since I've played an Action Horror genre. Last one I played was Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth. I had fun with that game XD.Mako SOLDIER said:Well worth itWaif said:Heh, actually, this looks like a pretty interesting game. Not sure why, though. I might end up getting this game in the near future
The difficulties are really well balanced, and they encourage tactical play (along with ratcheting up the tension massively) rather than just being a bit cheap like some hard modes.The LCE contains a bonus disc with 3 documentaries, 2 themes, one avatar item unlocked by installing and activating the next item: a video in video director's commentary option. The same disc also holds some art galleries (including comparisons of actor to character, along with side by side comparisons of the cinematics to their storyboards).
There's also a soundtrack disc(not full, but excellent nonetheless), and 'The Alan Wake Files' which is a book full of character interviews, some of Alan's writing, etc, but to say more would be spoilers (so definitely read it AFTER playing the game
).It all comes in a case made to appear like a hardback book, and it frankly looks awesome on the bookshelf
It takes a little while to get into the game on it's own terms, but one it gets its nails into you you're hooked
Alan Wake was not that good, since they very quietly removed the free roaming from the game and turned it into Episodic, I think the game suffered horribly from it, it became too redundant and linear, which also translates to boring. I think Yahtzee is right on the money with his review.
If anyone thinks this game sounds good, save yourself money and boredom and get Deadly Premonition instead. It does the whole twin peaks thing much much better.
If anyone thinks this game sounds good, save yourself money and boredom and get Deadly Premonition instead. It does the whole twin peaks thing much much better.
