re: Anybody play Alan Wake?

quote:

---

So I decided to start Alan Wake this weekend. Big mistake. I'm about halfway through with the final episode, and I think I might not even bother finishing it.

Good
- The atmosphere and "feel" of the game is great.

- The story and narrative are interesting and suck you in, which makes you want to keep playing.

- The game is very generous with check points.

- The episodic format is a really unique touch.

Bad
- The first half of the game is literally 5-6 hours of running through the woods on a 4 foot wide path. It's incredibly repetitive and boring. There are some different areas in the later half of the game, but you still somehow end up running through the woods in almost every episode.

- The combat sucks. There's very little variation in the enemies or the strategies needed to fight them. I never felt any real satisfaction after a fight except for being glad that it was over.

- There's practically no variety to the gameplay. You just run from checkpoint to checkpoint fighting enemies. No puzzles or anything else to break up the monotony.

- The controls feel wonky as hell, especially during combat. Inexcusable.

- The character faces are ugly. They're almost as bad as the ones in GTA4.

- Long combat sections are clearly tacked on to add length to a game that should have been 8 hours, not 12 hours, long.

- The story mostly unfolds in noninteractive cutscenes between boring slogs through waves of enemies. They make no effort to make the story part of the gameplay.

- Alan is a terrible, boring character who is poorly voiced. I cared more about his agent Barry than I did about him.

Conclusion
I can't believe it took Remedy five years to develop this game. I honestly don't see where all the time and money went. Sure, the story and atmosphere are top notch, but they forgot to add a fun game to their great story. This is not a game I would honestly recommend to anyone.

If you want to play a game like Alan Wake, pick up Silent Hill:Shattered Memories for the Wii. It's a much, much better game. It also probably took less than half the time to make.

Score: 2/5

---