Zero Punctuation: Alan Wake

[MrDead]

Alan Wake for PC was canceled and unless I missed something not uncanceled.

Yes, but Remedy wants to complete the PC version and I think MS is returning to the Games for Windows initiative...

I heard that the PC version is already finished, but they are just waiting for the Xbox version to make enough money.

That would be pretty unsurprising.

 

[x84jdh]

The biggest problem Yatzhee has with horror games is that he plays them on Normal difficulty. Why the fuck would anyone do that? It's survival horror, but the Normal difficulty setting makes it a third-person shooter with bad illumination.

Yahtzee is bad at video games. Everyone knows this. (Or should have figured it out) Confirmed that he played GOW on normal or lower because he said they could 'Wade through bullets' he played dead space on Normal as well. Also he said Demons Souls was impossible. Which is bullshit. It has a steep learning curves yes, but once you get the hang of it the difficulty levels out.

Not that I'm defending Yahtzee's gaming ability -- he might be totally useless, I don't know -- but why would he review a game on a higher difficulty setting? Issues of available time to play aside (harder difficulty levels eat up more time), most people in fact play at the "normal" level; they might go up if it's too easy or down if it's too hard, but "normal" is generally supposed to be the baseline of gameplay set by the devs, and thus the unmodified experience that they were shooting for. If that's the baseline, then why would he (or anyone) review anything else?

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

I played a demo of the game, and from that I didn't want to buy it. Good to see that I didn't waste my money

Nice try troll. There is no demo. Jeez, do your research before you start sharting from your mouth

 

[XwingVmanX]

Great review, definitely one of the funniest you have done in a while.

 

[Michael Logan]

I acctually found the narration to be great, I wish more games would have it.

Although I agree that there was too much forest in this game, and maybe having the camera show the monsters was a bad decision.

But still I liked the game.

 

[normaldeviant]

You'd think they could have come up with some more interesting places to explore in roughly a decade.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

I enjoyed that a review a lot been waiting for yahtzee to review it for a while, sounds like the game is similar to alone in the dark, potential to be good but sadly misses the mark, rather like finaly fatasy 13, although I'm suprised it took nine bloody years to make it, took that long for the world to beat germany twice.

It actually took 5 years. Where anyone got 9 years from I don't know. The idea of doing a thriller may have been in Remedy's heads for 9-10 years, but development only started about 5 years ago.

Also, read a few more reviews before you make up your mind. Heck, the review here at the Escapist gave it full marks. Yahtzee is not really an objective reviewer. This game is leagues ahead of Alone in the Dark, there really is no contest.

 

[MeatSpace]

The biggest problem Yatzhee has with horror games is that he plays them on Normal difficulty. Why the fuck would anyone do that? It's survival horror, but the Normal difficulty setting makes it a third-person shooter with bad illumination.

Yahtzee is bad at video games. Everyone knows this. (Or should have figured it out) Confirmed that he played GOW on normal or lower because he said they could 'Wade through bullets' he played dead space on Normal as well. Also he said Demons Souls was impossible. Which is bullshit. It has a steep learning curves yes, but once you get the hang of it the difficulty levels out.

Not that I'm defending Yahtzee's gaming ability -- he might be totally useless, I don't know -- but why would he review a game on a higher difficulty setting? Issues of available time to play aside (harder difficulty levels eat up more time), most people in fact play at the "normal" level; they might go up if it's too easy or down if it's too hard, but "normal" is generally supposed to be the baseline of gameplay set by the devs, and thus the unmodified experience that they were shooting for. If that's the baseline, then why would he (or anyone) review anything else?

It's not that he can't, it's that doesn't. He'll say a game is too easy or too hard but fails to recognize that those things are subjective. Hard or easy is really not a merit for a game to stand on or a flaw to make it fall. I'm fine with him being bad, but not recognizing that difficulty levels exist seems to be a constant error on his part.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

You'd think they could have come up with some more interesting places to explore in roughly a decade.

See above. It did not take 9-10 years to make. It took 5. Play it, and THEN say that the locations weren't interesting. The game is about tension, and the locations work perfectly for that.

 

[FinalHeart95]

I was originally saying I would get this game, but then Mario Galaxy 2 and Split/Second came out. Sorry Alan, maybe when you're cheaper.

 

[TheGamerist]

I played a demo of the game, and from that I didn't want to buy it. Good to see that I didn't waste my money

Nice try troll. There is no demo. Jeez, do your research before you start sharting from your mouth

I played the demo at a gaming expo actually, so before you start trying to put people down, maybe you should ask how I did it instead of making your own assumptions

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

The biggest problem Yatzhee has with horror games is that he plays them on Normal difficulty. Why the fuck would anyone do that? It's survival horror, but the Normal difficulty setting makes it a third-person shooter with bad illumination.

I find it funny that people still seem to be under the impresion that "the harder a game is the more fun it is" because really that's not entirely true. There's a lot of games that I love playing which you would never ever catch me playing on the harder difficulty settings. More often the case it would make me dislike the game because however good I may be on an Easy or Normal setting, I would quickly become shit on a higher one. That would lead to a lack of enjoyment as I would probably have difficulty adjusting to a higher setting.

Not to mention as someone else said, with all the other stuff a lot of people have going on in their lives, the Normal setting is as high as on really needs to go. Unless you're so damn good at every game in existence (which I'd probably call a lie, because I've yet to meet someone who is perfect at EVERY game, rather than at genres) that nothing short of Battletoads-esque difficulty will satisfy you.

Sorry, wasn't trying to say that at you specifically, it's just that the gaming world in general these days seems to have a misplaced or at least confused understanding of the world difficulty. I've been playing games since the early 80's, and I've noticed an increasing trend in the last 10 years for people to complain about games being too easy. Compared to the kind of "ha ha ha fuck you" difficulty back on the Atari and NES days, games that are easy by design can be refreshing and more enjoyable than getting a brick to the face. Which is certainly what a lot of games feel like these days, sometimes even on the normal settings.

Compare Megaman 2 to Megaman X8, and you'll notice they're actually getting harder. Sorry, went off on a bit of a rant here..

 

[TheGamerist]

I played a demo of the game, and from that I didn't want to buy it. Good to see that I didn't waste my money

There's a demo? Cool, I'll check it out.

Funny review there, Yahtzee, now go and do Red Dead Redemption.

I played a demo at a gaming expo, there isn't a released demo

 

[MrDead]

I enjoyed that a review a lot been waiting for yahtzee to review it for a while, sounds like the game is similar to alone in the dark, potential to be good but sadly misses the mark, rather like finaly fatasy 13, although I'm suprised it took nine bloody years to make it, took that long for the world to beat germany twice.

It actually took 5 years. Where anyone got 9 years from I don't know. The idea of doing a thriller may have been in Remedy's heads for 9-10 years, but development only started about 5 years ago.

Also, read a few more reviews before you make up your mind. Heck, the review here at the Escapist gave it full marks. Yahtzee is not really an objective reviewer. This game is leagues ahead of Alone in the Dark, there really is no contest.

Agreed, there is no contest. It definitely felt a lot like Alone in the Dark 3.0.

 

[Zeroresistence]

Very funny review loved the Stephen King part

 

[MrDead]

I played a demo of the game, and from that I didn't want to buy it. Good to see that I didn't waste my money

Nice try troll. There is no demo. Jeez, do your research before you start sharting from your mouth

I played the demo at a gaming expo actually, so before you start trying to put people down, maybe you should ask how I did it instead of making your own assumptions

Some people just yell troll whenever they want. Just ignore them.

 

[Zudarkness]

LOL great review.

I agree the only thing good about the game was the envoriment and shading otherwise right up there with Yatzee. It's nothing but a Stephen king novel, a pretty medi-occured one to be honest.

Stephen king is a great horror writter but there was no real need to refference his novels every 20 seconds.

They had forever to make the game epic and it dosen't really live up to their hype. Good game but after a while zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I'm sure it'll be out for PC cause M$S problaly needs the dough rae me.

Great review Yatzee.

 

[MrDead]

You'd think they could have come up with some more interesting places to explore in roughly a decade.

See above. It did not take 9-10 years to make. It took 5. Play it, and THEN say that the locations weren't interesting. The game is about tension, and the locations work perfectly for that.

See I didn't get any tension at all... either you're more sensitive to it then I am or I'm completely jaded.

 

[Enkidu88]

How does it come Yahtzee never reviews grand strategy games like Hearts of Iron 3? That would be pretty awesome.

In a couple reviews he's mentioned he doesn't even like the Total War series, where you actually get to see entertaining battles take place. I can't imagine what he'd do with a game where all you do is manage a country through a dozen different screens and never actually see any action. Don't get me wrong, I love Hearts of Iron, but I doubt yahtzee would get very far in it. I doubt there'd be much comedy to be had from a review of it anyway, no bad voice actors to make fun of, no shitty combat, no bad storylines. He'd have to make the whole review about how boring it was, and I don't think even he could make that stretch out 5 minutes.

 

[sketchesofpayne]

Excellent critique Yahtzee. I especially loved the bit where the game is holding you up to the TV screen saying "Looooook!".

The most truly scary games for me were the Fatal Frame series. In them you are a girl with a ghost-exorcising camera and that's all you have to defend yourself. You can't run away from the ghosts most of the time, instead you have to stare them down through the viewfinder. Most people I know can't stomach watching me play the game, let alone playing it themselves.