Zero Punctuation: Alan Wake

[Kapol]

Very funny review. I personally liked Alan Wake, but I agree with a lot of the problems that Yahtzee pointed out. For me, the FBI guy yelling various author's names was one of most annoying things. But I do wonder what difficulty he was playing on. Oh well, entertaining at least.

Normal wasn't he? my friend said 2 shots and he always plays games on normal mode.

i still want this game like my friend, i can't be bothered to read a Stephen King book (or the stephen king book apparently), so playing a video game will be much easier

I was a bit dissapointed with this review, i don't know what it was, but i didn't laugh quite as much as usual... i'll watch it again and see if i laugh any harder this time

I think they died in two shots on the 'medium' difficulty. Normal was the 'easy' of the game. But when you had 4 attacking at once and aren't able to hurt them until the darkness is gone (which is what is the main difference between difficulties I believe, the time the darkness takes to dissappear), it can get hectic.

I enjoyed it myself, though I'm surprised Yahtzee didn't complain about the product placement. I guess that ones a bit too easy though.

 

[Dora]

Alan Wake was dead to me as soon as I realised it was an XBOX exclusive, so maybe (probably) this is sour grapes, but I'm glad to hear it's a bit meh since I won't be playing it. It's not console snobbery, exactly, it's "why would I buy a game system just to play a single game when I don't care about any of its other exclusives" snobbery. Maybe I would love it. I'll never know!

The repetitive Stephen King bootlicking would annoy me, anyway, even if it's being exaggerated here. Silent Hill contained a lot of nods to popular horror icons, but they were all done in subtle ways, like the "Study, Dammit!" poster and street names. It's basic show vs tell. Anything that obvious just pierces the atmosphere for me. "Inanimate objects, such as Stephen King would create, like in From a Buick 8, which still owes me three hours of my life back YOU BASTARD!"

 

[MR.Spartacus]

I guess I'll have to give it a rent then. It should at least be funny. Also on the ads for the book at the end why does it provide so little information? All I know is that it's made from trees and has letters inside that were arranged by Yahtzee.
Edit: Looked it up, know what it's about, and have a new curiosity for why it's only available in paperback.
Double edit: He doesn't like King ,eh? Then I'll avoid his advice on books as we are in disagreement. Of course that's just presumption but it seems to have been implied.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

This review/rant describes Bioshock better than Alan wake 0-o

 

[gmanyo]

Hmm... I can't seem to think of any other games that have horrible combat, bad voice acting/narration and characters that make terrible decisions all the time, but a really good atmosphere. Hmm..

OH WAIT EVERY SILENT HILL GAME EVER.

 

[Kojiro ftt]

I don't understand everyone's complaints about the combat. Does it have to do with the difficulty? I would think that by now everyone has figured out that every game made after 2001 should be played on Hard difficulty, or harder. Alan Wake's biggest mistake is not making the Nightmare difficulty available from the start. And the difficulties should be renamed from "Normal, Hard, Nightmare" to "Easy, Normal, and (kind of) Hard".

 

[RJ Dalton]

To be fair, not all of Stephen King's novels are about a writer with personal problems being haunted by an ancient, unknowable evil in small town America. Sometimes, the evil is knowable.
And his best novels weren't anything like that. At which point I take the opportunity to recommend the Dark Tower books to anyone bothering to read my post.

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

I had heard before about the TV-style recaps at the start of levels, and that concept just couldn't help but make me go "Why?" It was annoying when it was done in Lost: Via Domus and it would certainly be annoying when done in a game not based in any way off of a TV show, thus having no reason to include them, especially when the plot seems to only follow one point-of-view the whole way through. Though, it could have worked if it was done like Yahtzee suggested (encouraging players to turn off the game and do something productive for a while, before coming back), or if it was an episodic release, or if they only implemented the recap after players loaded a save file.

With those recaps and the narration, and the fact that the plot sounds incredibly bad, I'd have probably avoided it, even if it came out for the PS3 or Wii (don't have a 360, I just like watching the reviews).

 

[Artemus_Cain]

I am surprised Yahtzee didn't mention Silent Hill once during this review. Same kind of foggy atmosphere, same kind of, "stuck in town by self" plot, same bad combat, isn't Alan Wake even made by some of the same people as Silent Hill?

No. I think it was the Max Payne people.

 

[SamStar42]

I agree with the characters faces looking creepy and Barry needing to STFU at times, but tbh I didn't find this review as good as others. Maybe it's because I liked the game, not sure. Just didn't really find it that funny.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

I thought the game was pretty good, but I tend to agree with Yahtzee on at least a few bits. First of all, I thought it was much scarier when you're alone in the woods at night then when the bad guys show up, because bad guys you can deal with--point the light at them for a second or two, shoot them, poof, gone. (And what exactly does it mean to "boost" a flashlight, anyway? I've owned a number of flashlights in my time, and none of them have had an extra button that makes them super-bright by draining the batteries in seconds.)

And yeah, the characters' lip movements almost never match up with their dialogue; it's as if Remedy decided that as long as Alice's mouth is open when she's supposed to be talking, that was good enough. Other games don't seem to have a problem figuring out how to make faces work, so I don't see why this one should.

 

[Worgen]

looks like he made it tho the tutorial this week, thats something

 

[jamescorck]

I so knew he was going to rip off the guts of this game XD It was a lot of fun seeing him doing so, but I still find the game good in my own opinion.

 

[Artemus_Cain]

I had heard before about the TV-style recaps at the start of levels, and that concept just couldn't help but make me go "Why?" It was annoying when it was done in Lost: Via Domus and it would certainly be annoying when done in a game not based in any way off of a TV show, thus having no reason to include them, especially when the plot seems to only follow one point-of-view the whole way through. Though, it could have worked if it was done like Yahtzee suggested (encouraging players to turn off the game and do something productive for a while, before coming back), or if it was an episodic release, or if they only implemented the recap after players loaded a save file.

With those recaps and the narration, and the fact that the plot sounds incredibly bad, I'd have probably avoided it, even if it came out for the PS3 or Wii (don't have a 360, I just like watching the reviews).

Yeah, It sort of made me feel that gaming still has a self confidence problem. Videogames are an artform that needs to stay in its own medium. TV shows don't act like movies, and movies don't try to be TV shows, and when they try, they almsot always fail completly. That's why video game movies always fail (Prince of Persia doesn't count. see moviebob for more).

It's just... frustrating.

 

[cabutler03]

Funny review, though to be honest, I do like Alan Wake because it reminds of Silent Hill, and despite the long development time, it still came out well.

I do have some gripes, though, like the driving sections, the "jumping mechanics", and the FBI guy, but overall, it was an enjoyable game.

So yes, I must respectfully disagree with you, Yathzee.

Not really that good IMO.

Possibly because I really really want to play this game but M$ says no to us PC pricks.

You know, every time I see somebody post "M$", it makes me want to punch somebody, mostly because I'm sick of seeing it. Please stop doing that, okay/ It means absolutely nothing, even the supposed message of them being in it for the money.

Guess what? They're all in for the money. That doesn't make MS any different or special. So drop it already.

 

[Egitor]

I loved Alan Wake and loved this critique. It's funny because it's true.

I especially agree with mr Croshaw this game is too easy on normal. This chips away at how frightening it is, thus I restarted the game on a higher difficulty after the first bit of combat. It helps a lot and I recommend playing it on hard at least, I was still fully stocked with bullets, flashbangs and flares of all sorts at the end of the episodes.
Nightmare is a blast and makes the game properly spooky by making you feel really overwhelmed and under-equipped at times.

 

[Jonsbax]

Man am I glad Yahtzee bashed this game. I'm really into the horror games and there hasn't been any intresting releases in that genre for a while except for this, but I don't have an Xbox360. I was even more dissapointed because this game was developed by the only game company in my country that actually matters, but after seeing this I don't really have to worry anymore...

Shit, I'm not even fooling myself. The game looks great to me and I've disagreed with Yahtzee before, and I think I could stand the forced SK references, too... It's not like I've got anything against the guy (I freakin' love The Shining, screw the film!).

 

[Yassen]

Yeah the whole camera slow motion zoom on enemies prevented the game from being scary in the slightest. The only time I was even slightly scared was when enemies showed up and they DIDN'T do the zoom. Throughout the entire game, that was just once.

Bizarrely enough I found the game funny rather than scary. Make of that what you will.