[Official Review] Alan Wake

[The Grue]

This thread makes me very glad I didn't buy this game.  I try to judge games that are on the fence regarding whether I can skip them or not and I think I made the right choice.

It's definitely worth playing so I wouldn't advocate skipping it outright.  It may be more of a rental for some people but I don't regret paying full price. 

All the posts about hoping it would end sooner and it being repetitive seem to differ.  With Heavy Rain, I didn't care about time at all.  If I will want this to end, that doesn't bode well for a game where story is key.

[Kevin Grey]

All the posts about hoping it would end sooner and it being repetitive seem to differ.  With Heavy Rain, I didn't care about time at all.  If I will want this to end, that doesn't bode well for a game where story is key.

Well plenty of games overstay their welcome and I don't see that as reason for skipping them altogether.  There is a lot of neat stuff in Alan Wake and it's well worth experiencing.  But I would say that what would have been a great 8 hour game makes for a good 12 hour game. 

I'm not sure exactly what genre you would call it (survival horror doesn't seem to fit anymore) but I would slot it with Dead Space and RE4 and RE5, which isn't exactly a crowded genre right now.  So for anyone who likes that action/horror mix, Alan Wake is well worth the time. 

[Ridah]

When I begin to realize that I'm nearing the end of a game, like within 1-2 hours, I become anxious for it to end. It doesn't matter how good the game is, by the time I'm near the end I'm almost always ready to finish and move on.

[jblank]

Just finished it.....

Not gonna spoil anything, but the ending.....ugh, not happy with it at all.

I'll give the game overall a B-. It was good, but far too repetitive and the ending was sorely lacking.

[spigot]

Just finished it.....

Not gonna spoil anything, but the ending.....ugh, not happy with it at all.

I'll give the game overall a B-. It was good, but far too repetitive and the ending was sorely lacking.

Hopefully it's better than the ending to Lost (which I haven't seen but only heard about)

[Ridah]

Just got through the second episode. And I'm supposed to go camping this weekend?? 

On another note, the pre-order bonus from Amazon includes two avatar t-shirts and a theme pack. Woot  That's not even worth the effort of typing in the redemption codes. If anyone wants 'em:

Here is your bonus code to unlock the male avatar shirt: WTX2K-RCJXY-C2CYQ-QMH4Q-TMMPT
Here is your bonus code to unlock the female avatar shirt: RPY4V-BC8K6-GWV8B-3BMRQ-XRYJG
Here is your bonus code to unlock the Brightfalls theme pack: V682D-X8922-R6R2P-D3TW9-677W6

You might want to mention here that you claimed them if you did.

[metallicorphan]

Just got through the second episode. And I'm supposed to go camping this weekend?? 

On another note, the pre-order bonus from Amazon includes two avatar t-shirts and a theme pack. Woot  That's not even worth the effort of typing in the redemption codes. If anyone wants 'em:

Here is your bonus code to unlock the male avatar shirt: WTX2K-RCJXY-C2CYQ-QMH4Q-TMMPT
Here is your bonus code to unlock the female avatar shirt: RPY4V-BC8K6-GWV8B-3BMRQ-XRYJG
Here is your bonus code to unlock the Brightfalls theme pack: V682D-X8922-R6R2P-D3TW9-677W6

You might want to mention here that you claimed them if you did.

the theme is quite cool actually(i already used my pre-order thing),i currently have it installed on my dash,waiting for R* to send me the RDR one


the T-Shirts-yeah very crap,they are just Black T-shirts with 'I am Awake' on them


this is my US account,you can't even make out the words

[Bullwinkle]

I've been looking for a new theme, so I grabbed it.

Thanks, Ridah!

[Razgon]

Just got through the second episode. And I'm supposed to go camping this weekend?? 

On another note, the pre-order bonus from Amazon includes two avatar t-shirts and a theme pack. Woot  That's not even worth the effort of typing in the redemption codes. If anyone wants 'em:

Here is your bonus code to unlock the male avatar shirt: WTX2K-RCJXY-C2CYQ-QMH4Q-TMMPT
Here is your bonus code to unlock the female avatar shirt: RPY4V-BC8K6-GWV8B-3BMRQ-XRYJG
Here is your bonus code to unlock the Brightfalls theme pack: V682D-X8922-R6R2P-D3TW9-677W6

You might want to mention here that you claimed them if you did.

the theme is quite cool actually(i already used my pre-order thing),i currently have it installed on my dash,waiting for R* to send me the RDR one


the T-Shirts-yeah very crap,they are just Black T-shirts with 'I am Awake' on them


this is my US account,you can't even make out the words

Are you a chick?

[metallicorphan]

i thought you knew

[spigot]

So I finally beat it last night. The ending was quite unsatisfying and deliberately convoluted, or maybe I just didn't "get it". The story dragged on too long, gameplay felt too repetitive and ended with more questions than answers (which hopefully the DLC will address).

Some questions about the ending:

Spoiler for Hiden:

• So is Thomas Zane Alan's father?
• Does Alan even exist? Or is his whole reality conjured up by Zane?
• Mr. Scratch? Huh? Alternate reality/dimension Alan?
• Alan sacrifices himself to the Darkness in the end to save Alice and maintain the "balance" between good and evil?
• "It's not a lake, it's an ocean." - I felt a little chill when he uttered this. Is he saying this evil darkness is much much bigger than we think it is?

[metallicorphan]

So I finally beat it last night. The ending was quite unsatisfying and deliberately convoluted, or maybe I just didn't "get it". The story dragged on too long, gameplay felt too repetitive and ended with more questions than answers (which hopefully the DLC will address).

Some questions about the ending:and replies

Spoiler for Hiden:

• So is Thomas Zane Alan's father?

not sure with Alan not knowing him,it could very well be,other people have asked the same thing or have said what you have asked in the second

• Does Alan even exist? Or is his whole reality conjured up by Zane?
• Mr. Scratch? Huh? Alternate reality/dimension Alan?

when Alan isn't present in his body,this is the version who other people will see...from folklore Mr Scratch is the devil or a demon who parades around in someone elses skin...the fairy tale is called Old Mr Scratch and Tom or something like that......too much of a coincidence being called Tom as well

• Alan sacrifices himself to the Darkness in the end to save Alice and maintain the "balance" between good and evil?

is that a question?..but yeah that's pretty much correct...or at least that's the impression i got as well

• "It's not a lake, it's an ocean." - I felt a little chill when he uttered this. Is he saying this evil darkness is much much bigger than we think it is?

thats exactly what i thought at the time,so i reckon it prolly is
[/list]

[/quote]

i am quite surprised that you didn't ask about .......

Spoiler for Hiden:

Rose being the new lamp lady(she held the lamp at the end,even though it was daytime)..and what looks like Agent Nightingale behind her in the window...i took this pic from a youtube vid of the ending

don't worry too much about 'not getting it'...i figure this is the part where they say they were influenced by Lost,i reckon a lot of questions are supposed to pop up

Spoiler for Hiden:

whether the DLC will take care of the answers though i am not sure,Remedy have already said that Alan Wakes outcome will not be decided in the DLC...which means Alan Wake 2!!!

[Kevin Grey]

So I finally beat it last night. The ending was quite unsatisfying and deliberately convoluted, or maybe I just didn't "get it". The story dragged on too long, gameplay felt too repetitive and ended with more questions than answers (which hopefully the DLC will address).

Some questions about the ending:

Spoiler for Hiden:

• So is Thomas Zane Alan's father?
• Does Alan even exist? Or is his whole reality conjured up by Zane?
• Mr. Scratch? Huh? Alternate reality/dimension Alan?
• Alan sacrifices himself to the Darkness in the end to save Alice and maintain the "balance" between good and evil?
• "It's not a lake, it's an ocean." - I felt a little chill when he uttered this. Is he saying this evil darkness is much much bigger than we think it is?

Spoiler for Hiden:

Yeah, I think the whole what was real, what was created thing is intentionally ambiguous.  I had thought that maybe everything that happens after they get to Cauldron Lake was based on characters that we meet in the opening between the Ferry and the Lake but I don't remember Alan meeting Rusty and the Sheriff during that portion. 

As far as Alan's fate, I don't think he actually sacrificed himself but I think he removed himself from Alice's life somehow to ensure that the ending wasn't too happy (which was the mistake that Zane made).  I expect that Alan Wake 2 (if one is made) will focus on Alan defeating the darkness while writing himself back into Alice's life. 

I took the "ocean" line the same way that you did.  But I've read some other speculation that it's Alan re-writing events to move the location from a lake to an ocean which may be a hint at the setting of the second game and would also tie into the lighthouse section from the opening dream level. 

[CeeKay]

Just got through the second episode. And I'm supposed to go camping this weekend?? 

On another note, the pre-order bonus from Amazon includes two avatar t-shirts and a theme pack. Woot  That's not even worth the effort of typing in the redemption codes. If anyone wants 'em:

Here is your bonus code to unlock the male avatar shirt: WTX2K-RCJXY-C2CYQ-QMH4Q-TMMPT
Here is your bonus code to unlock the female avatar shirt: RPY4V-BC8K6-GWV8B-3BMRQ-XRYJG
Here is your bonus code to unlock the Brightfalls theme pack: V682D-X8922-R6R2P-D3TW9-677W6

You might want to mention here that you claimed them if you did.

the theme is quite cool actually(i already used my pre-order thing),i currently have it installed on my dash,waiting for R* to send me the RDR one


the T-Shirts-yeah very crap,they are just Black T-shirts with 'I am Awake' on them


this is my US account,you can't even make out the words

Are you a chick?

I think he's just a crossdresser.

why anyone would want to dress up crosses though I'll never know.

[spigot]

So I finally beat it last night. The ending was quite unsatisfying and deliberately convoluted, or maybe I just didn't "get it". The story dragged on too long, gameplay felt too repetitive and ended with more questions than answers (which hopefully the DLC will address).

Some questions about the ending:

Spoiler for Hiden:

• So is Thomas Zane Alan's father?
• Does Alan even exist? Or is his whole reality conjured up by Zane?
• Mr. Scratch? Huh? Alternate reality/dimension Alan?
• Alan sacrifices himself to the Darkness in the end to save Alice and maintain the "balance" between good and evil?
• "It's not a lake, it's an ocean." - I felt a little chill when he uttered this. Is he saying this evil darkness is much much bigger than we think it is?

Spoiler for Hiden:

Yeah, I think the whole what was real, what was created thing is intentionally ambiguous.  I had thought that maybe everything that happens after they get to Cauldron Lake was based on characters that we meet in the opening between the Ferry and the Lake but I don't remember Alan meeting Rusty and the Sheriff during that portion.  

As far as Alan's fate, I don't think he actually sacrificed himself but I think he removed himself from Alice's life somehow to ensure that the ending wasn't too happy (which was the mistake that Zane made).  I expect that Alan Wake 2 (if one is made) will focus on Alan defeating the darkness while writing himself back into Alice's life.  

I took the "ocean" line the same way that you did.  But I've read some other speculation that it's Alan re-writing events to move the location from a lake to an ocean which may be a hint at the setting of the second game and would also tie into the lighthouse section from the opening dream level.  

So a reasonable theory, one of many obviously, could be that:

Spoiler for Hiden:

• History repeats itself. Wake is the new Zane, Rose the new lamp lady and Nightingale is the new Jagger?
• Darkness is growing beyond the size of the lake. Either it was always this way when Alan came to the realization or it's power's have grown.
• Since Alan trapped himself in the darkness, "Mr. Scratch" is another version of wake concocted by Zane that will live out the events of the story. Zane mentions that version is the "one your friends will see".
• But where does Clay Steward play into all this?

My head hurts....

[El-Producto]

I want this game SO badly.  However I refuse to pay $75 for games anymore.

[Dante Rising]

A shame that Alan Wake appears to be selling so poorly. It has some really fantastic set pieces, wonderful atmosphere, and probably the best use I've seen of lighting in a console game yet. I can't help but feel that this title would have sold significantly better on the PS3, as the 360 seems to have a very homogeneous user base that doesn't go for these types of games...or JRPGs...or strategy games...or...

And while I agree that the Taken can get somewhat repetitious, the part of the game that I found most distracting were the manuscripts. Remedy should have hired an actual horror writer to pen those pages, because whoever did the in-game manuscript has the vocabulary of a 6th grader and a poor understanding of pacing.

[CeeKay]

A shame that Alan Wake appears to be selling so poorly. It has some really fantastic set pieces, wonderful atmosphere, and probably the best use I've seen of lighting in a console game yet. I can't help but feel that this title would have sold significantly better on the PS3, as the 360 seems to have a very homogeneous user base that doesn't go for these types of games...or JRPGs...or strategy games...or...

it's not doing well?  I thought someone here guaranteed it'd do better than RDR on the 360 

[Bullwinkle]

A shame that Alan Wake appears to be selling so poorly. It has some really fantastic set pieces, wonderful atmosphere, and probably the best use I've seen of lighting in a console game yet. I can't help but feel that this title would have sold significantly better on the PS3, as the 360 seems to have a very homogeneous user base that doesn't go for these types of games...or JRPGs...or strategy games...or...

And while I agree that the Taken can get somewhat repetitious, the part of the game that I found most distracting were the manuscripts. Remedy should have hired an actual horror writer to pen those pages, because whoever did the in-game manuscript has the vocabulary of a 6th grader and a poor understanding of pacing.

The manuscript pages are pretty lame.  They read like bad fan fiction.

[Kevin Grey]

Not sure I buy it but I've read some speculation that the manuscript stuff is intentionally bad do to some specific story reasons:

DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE FINISHED THE GAME

Spoiler for Hiden:

  Basically, when Tom Zane created Alan (or at least heavily rewrote an existing character), he mandated that he was a very successful writer but didn't bother to impart any actual writing talent (hence a couple of references in the game to Dan Brown).  Which leads to further speculation that the whole reason that Alan Wake has writer's block is because Zane only put a finite amount of books into him.  Since Alan has no innate writing talent or muse, once he had finished all of the book's Zane mandated Alan didn't have the creativity and skill to write anything new.

Again, I'm  not sure I buy it (just like I didn't necessarily believe that the writing in Max Payne was intentionally bad), but it's an interesting spin on the events of the game. 

[spigot]

I hope in the next 5-8 years when we finally get Alan Wake 2, it will be:

Spoiler for Hiden:

a text-based action adventure RPG where Alan takes to the greater ocean of evil darkness and confronts the Old Ones by using his rapier wit and quick typewriting fingers to change events of the world! Using a sophisticated and super dynamic game engine players will be able to write their own manuscript pages to change anything in the game! By defeating even more of the same cookie-cutter Taken ad-nauseum in monotonous and repetitive turn-based RPG combat, Alan can upgrade abilities such as Agility (for improved typewriting speed and dodging) and Imagination (to conjure up new items)! Watch in riveting suspense as Alan confronts Thomas Zane, the mastermind and puppeteer behind the sinister events that began in Bright Falls!

Will the mysteries finally be revealed? Or just become more twisted? Will Alan be able to start his own business selling all the coffee canisters he's collected?

Reality, imagination and the darkness that slumbers in all of us come crashing together in a surrealistic orgy of confusion in the next exciting installment of Alan Wake!

[Dante Rising]

A shame that Alan Wake appears to be selling so poorly. It has some really fantastic set pieces, wonderful atmosphere, and probably the best use I've seen of lighting in a console game yet. I can't help but feel that this title would have sold significantly better on the PS3, as the 360 seems to have a very homogeneous user base that doesn't go for these types of games...or JRPGs...or strategy games...or...

it's not doing well?  I thought someone here guaranteed it'd do better than RDR on the 360 

Who would have ever thought that. 

Estimated sales in the US are about 200,000 from the last numbers I saw. Perhaps the game will have a long lifespan since there aren't many other titles in that genre. Based upon how front-loaded most Xbox sales seem to be, I doubt it.

[CeeKay]

It's odd, I have had zero need to get back to this. It's sitting next to my tv gathering dust.

[Bullwinkle]

It's odd, I have had zero need to get back to this. It's sitting next to my tv gathering dust.

I've sort of been feeling the same way.

[CeeKay]

a new live action teaser, I'm guessing it's for the DLC.

[metallicorphan]

a new live action teaser, I'm guessing it's for the DLC.

i saw that yesterday,i was thinking it could be a new web episode,but yeah with the DLC due soon you could be right


i have started to watch Twin Peaks..i watched the Pilot episode yesterday...and i did a 'OMG' at the Log lady,as i didn't make the connection with the lamp lady in AW when i played it a few weeks back

[CeeKay]

a new live action teaser, I'm guessing it's for the DLC.

i saw that yesterday,i was thinking it could be a new web episode,but yeah with the DLC due soon you could be right

it's a... music video.

[spigot]

Oh Remedy, you crazy guys. When will we see the musical?

[Razgon]

Okay - got the collectors edition cheap and played through act (Episode?) one, and I have to ask - Does it get better? The animations were really, really horrible, and the camera control is rather bad as well. Also, the game is competely on rails... There is nothing for me to do than move forward forward forward, right?

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, does the game change? And if the story doesnt grip me yet will it? I cant stand it in movies/stories when things are out to kill you just because..well..its evul!

I realize it sounds like hate, but it isnt - I was so really looking forward to this, but it just seems off for so many small reasons, and I feel I'd rather exchange it for something like Alpha Protocol.

[Kevin Grey]

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, does the game change? And if the story doesnt grip me yet will it? I cant stand it in movies/stories when things are out to kill you just because..well..its evul!

The game did get better for me (it peaked for me around Episode 3 and 4) but it also doesn't change much. 

There is definitely more to the story than things are out to get you because they are evil. 

[metallicorphan]

i quite liked Episode 4,the scenery changes a lot


and you can go off track,maybe not in Episode 1,but later when you get to..

Spoiler for Hiden:

drive cars

^^not much of a spoiler

[Kevin Grey]

The whole "go off track" is becoming absurd now.  I don't know if it's because of the way that FF13 went under the microscope for that poisoned everything but it seems like people expect everything to be open world or at least hub-based.  All I did in Uncharted 2 was move forward but it certainly didn't seem to have bothered anyone. 

[Razgon]

Finished the game, and the ending was kinda meh.... And the story as well...really...thats the best they could come up with? After some pretty good moments along the way, I Feel like I' watched a show that ran out of time at the end and just threw something together to finish it..

oh well, of to the barter bin with this!

[CeeKay]

7 bucks an episode for DLC.

[CeeKay]

the freebie episode The Signal is out today.

[metallicorphan]

the freebie episode The Signal is out today.

not got the game anymore,but i kept the card,so i am still gonna download it,so if and when i get the game again i can play the DLC,and may just delete the DLC straight after downloading,so that at least it will be in my download history and i can re-download it whenever i need to

[dkass]

Do we need the original disc to play the DLC?

[CeeKay]

I actually just got back to the game the other night; figured I'd see how it was with my new X41 headphones.  the atmosphere was pretty good but I started getting bored traipsing through the woods again in episode 2.

[CeeKay]

Do we need the original disc to play the DLC?

the DLC is only 48 megs or so, I guess you probably do.

[metallicorphan]

Do we need the original disc to play the DLC?

the DLC is only 48 megs or so, I guess you probably do.

thats how big The Signal Trailer is...the actual DLC is 381mb