Alan Wake II

[one-armed dwarf]

Quick thread to kick it off. I'm 2 chapters in, trying it on hard mode (you cant change after selecting, warning for that upfront). Beat a boss fight

 

It's got some cool visual stylings, but it's a game I'm not sure I have calibrated correctly. It's extremely dark and grey, have went back and forth on what the intent is here. If I set the HDR brightness high it improves things but washes out many of the darker scenes. I think they really want you to play in pitch blackness.

 

I don't want to dunk on the game too early in, it's one I was looking forward to. But I'm finding it a bit boring. It's got some interesting setup, very Twin Peaks. I guess even similar to season 3 in a sense, given the time gap. But I don't really feel like I'm investigating stuff, I'm just sort of running through mazes and corridors unlocking the next exposition dump, and a samey FMV jump scare happens now and then. Then you go into the 'mind palace' and stick photos on a wall by pressing A a lot.

 

I read a review which says it gets off to a very slow start though, so maybe I'll turn around on it. I hope so anyway. By this point with Control though I was completely bought into it. This in comparison is feeling very standard, at least in these early hours

[one-armed dwarf]

Well this really gets going once you get to the point that you can swap between the two characters. When you unlock them, you basically have two separate campaigns. A bit of a Resident Evil about it, except you can jump into the other character's 'reality' whenever you want from a save room and continue as is. This is sort of justified by the story, it gets into it. But I think it's really cool, the two separate strands. Lets the player decide when they feel like changing the game's flavor up a bit, prevents monotony

 

Saga is kind of a meat and potatoes survival horror through the woods sort of thing. For someone who's new to the story, like me, she's the point of entry. Onboards you onto the weirdness. 

 

Alan's story is more surreal, Lynchian nightmare type stuff. A bit more heavy on the space-shifting puzzles and film-noir/hardboiled fiction parody. This is an intensely intertextual game, especially with its references to Remedy's own works. It doesn't hide its outside influences either. 

 

It does tend to lean heavily in being a cinematic AAA game, despite being a survival horror. You do a little bit of combat, but it is generally about lock and key style puzzles. But it gets a good bit more open and there are lots of things to look for in Saga's part of the story in particular. Alan's chapters tend to be more spectacular though, they throw more money at it. More flash, but I prefer the gameplay elements of Saga's.

 

I'm not sure it would threaten the likes of any of the top tier RE games personally, or Control for that matter. But it's a fun pastiche of different narrative mediums, written word, FMV, (massive spoiler for a chapter 4 mission

Spoiler

a fucking interactive music video that tells you Alan's backstory

) and so on.

[one-armed dwarf]

Wrapped that one up on my bank holiday day off. I'm always happy to turn around on a game like that, it's competing with Phantom Liberty for my GOTY now. I'd probably give it the edge cause it's not an expansion.

 

It's an extremely good bit of horror storytelling with an ambitious multi-threaded structure with the otherworld dark place reflecting and refracting the 'surface' world. Multiple layers of reality, fractured identities, this is the shit I dig. It's not always coherent, I do think this game is kind of a mess. But they really went for it and I love the complete lack of fucking restraint. What won me over eventually was the slow creeping realisation that this is like the closest thing to a video game version of Twin Peak's third season. They really throw everything at it, to a point that it's a bit bloated. Self indulgent, maximalist as fuck. No darlings killed. I hope you guys like FMV and musical interludes. If they can include another layer of metanarrative surrealism they will do that and fuck you if you're not on board with that (I was on board with all of it).

 

It will be interesting if such an ambitious bit of AAA gaming probably doesnt not sell super well, due to being digital only and EGS and the Spider-Man. You really need to be into the multi-media interactive narrative experience here and not just judge it for how the shooting and upgrade mechanics work. This is the type of game you don't expect to see made these days, and frankly I'd be surprised if Remedy were able to make a habit of it given how well it comes together

 

Beyond that I also just really like it's approach to a semi-open world in a horror game. The world doesn't really feel padded out with lots of nonsense, and the random encounters you can run into in the forest at night while hunting down supplies really feel like they have an element of 'horror' to them. The way things zip around out of your periphery. The extremely considered reload and weapon swap animations, way more slow than RE. The feeling that you are actually fighting back darkness at times, where instead of creating space you're trying to preserve visibility. Rather than run behind cover, your defense is your flare or your flashlight (because these fuckers don't care how far away you are). The combat seems really divisive, reading about it online. But I think it all comes together when you look at it holistically and thematically

 

I also just really like the way you can choose to bounce between two campaigns, witness later plot events in one strand and see it connect later on in the other and make realizations along the way. It's like an interactive TV show where you can choose the ordering of some episodes. I've seen some people say it can be a bit too predictable but I think it all works rather well if you like this kind of weird horror. It's not that scary though and leans rather heavily on a certain jump scare technique, and I wish that side of it was a bit more creative especially given the graphics potential. They do a thing with the shadowy creatures which reminds me of the ghosts in Kairo, they kinda wisp into view and diffuse. It's one of the first few games where I feel like these visuals really work at setting a specific impression

 

[Nag]

I thought fuck it earlier and started it up, it is Halloween after all,  played for around two and a half hours... it's mostly been exploration and clue finding (think I've fired two bullets at an enemy so far 😂) I've quite liked the slow build approach up to now.

 

It looks lovely although there is some weird shimmering going on with the version I'm playing (PS5) and so far i've not had the voice sync issues i've read about elsewhere so hopefully that continues.

 

I'll probably stick with this now until its end and hit Spider-Man back up afterwards... I'm a sucker for good story.

[Nag]

OK... so ummmm... combat fucking sucks, why is it taking almost an entire clip to take someone down... fuck me.

[one-armed dwarf]

Combat is weird. I dont have any tips really, other than headshots seem super important.

 

I'm not fully sure of how the damage is calculated in this. I do know that I read lots of reports of people finding it took too long to kill the first boss, which wasn't my experience, so I'm assuming damage is a bit variable

 

Maybe it depends on firing when the reticle is pinched in, maybe its a bit of a dice roll. Or we need to shoot them in stun animations. Purely speculating though

[Nag]

That's my thing (headshots) but this seems super twitchy and doesn't seem to produce much of a stun... it literally took me around five attempts to get past the two dudes in the forest... and I don't like how the torch works either.

[one-armed dwarf]

Just thinking on it now, you are making sure to break their darkness shield with the light before unloading, right?

 

You can still do damage to them without doing this, and there are perks specifically that help in piercing through

 

Again though, I'm not fully sure on some of these mechanics. I don't think they communicate some of it particularly well

[Nag]

33 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Just thinking on it now, you are making sure to break their darkness shield with the light before unloading, right?

 

Yeah... and it seems 50/50 as to whether that actually works, I'm hoping that at some point I'll get a torch that doesn't work in a pulse kind've way and that you can just keep trained on them.

 

I've dropped the difficulty to story now in any case (something I literally never do usually) because warping enemies with little to no stun reactions can get fucked tbh...🙃

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah I'll be completely honest, as someone who's a purist about playing horror games the 'intended way' you're not really missing out by dropping to story. I don't mean that as a criticism of the game as such but it's overall kinda a passive experience and is about much more than shooting ghosts in the head anyway. It doesn't have much combat

 

I struggled with it as well but my version of dropping to story was... plugging in the mouse 🤣 The analog just felt very swimmy even on stunned enemies

[Nag]

Up to around 7 hours now and I'm really struggling with it... I just can't forgive this combat, it's absolutely fucking trash. Pretty gutted with this so far.☹️

[Metroid66]

Being a big fan of the first I was interested in this. Is the combat not the same as the first one? I loved the torch/gun combo.

[Nag]

In a way yes... although (unless I'm misremembering) just aiming at the taken in the first game with the torch began stripping the shield,  you could boost but you didn't have to... that doesn't seem to be the case in this and it causes a shitload of wasted batteries. 

 

Also they just move way too erratically,  some guy burst through a door earlier and proceeded to throw me to the ground three times on the trot with the camera spazzing out and me having no clue what the fuck was going on.🙄

[one-armed dwarf]

That guy was me, I beat you up cause you are saying all these mean things about this awesome game 😢

[Nag]

This'll need a miracle to even get on to my top 10 list this year...👍

[one-armed dwarf]

Truly you are the Herald of Darkness 👎

 

Funny thing is I'm starting to think it might be one of my favorite games ever, certainly of the last couple years in any case. Last time I felt that strongly about a game was Nier Automata

 

To answer @Metroid66's question a bit, imagine the old game's combat but with a bit more stiffness of the modern day Resident Evil variety. AW1 is more run and gun action, this uses the same tools in a slightly different way and is more claustrophobic and you will get fucked up for putting yourself in a bad situation. You've got to have your head on a swivel

[Nag]

I've just completed the "We sing" chapter... what the actual fuck.😂

 

How people are clocking this in around 15 hours I'll never know, I'm up to 20 now and looking at the amount of chapter trophies I'm around half way through the game.

[one-armed dwarf]

An hour count like that doesn't make much sense to me, mine ended at 24 hours. That said, this is a game purely about vibes and there's so much detail in every scene that rushing through is definitely the wrong way to play, if there is one. Sometimes its like an art installation, especially that chapter

[Nag]

Doing a bit of a collectibles clean up with Saga now that I have all the tools required for getting around before I steamroll toward the ending... I'll admit that the game's grown on me during my twenty odd hours with it. I still think the combat is trash tier though (especially with Alan) and whoever ok'd it shouldn't be allowed to work in the games industry any longer.

 

Oh... and it's getting to the point now where I actually want to punch Sam Lake.

 

Other than that it probably will  make my top ten of the year list now.😄

[Nag]

Finished up on Friday afternoon, I can see why this has been included in the GotY lists... it certainly isn't mine but I can see what an accomplishment the game is, it's complete fucking nonsense though and I can see why they'd want to connect it to Control as that game was fucking nonsense too.

 

There's a certain air of Silent Hill about the game for me and I can only hope that that remake nails the environments as well as this game did as for me those were the best part of it.

 

Finished up missing one sodding trophy too (a writers room vid) so missed out on the Platinum... thanks a bunch Alan!