242 on 6/5/2010 at 10:43
Quote Posted by vurt
On seeing a flock of birds a short distance away Alan will remark, "Birds." You wonder if he goes through life like this, and walks down the street going, "Bus, tree, postman, Tesco Metro..."
:)
Anyway, judging by the youtube walkthroughs the game seems beautiful and captivating, but too linear. I personally like how Alan (or rather his disembodied voice) comments things, it further adds some ambience IMO.
mothra on 6/5/2010 at 10:54
what i have seen in walkthroughs is a competent action game without any scares and an absymal and annoying support cast of badly written movie cliches. The "funny" guy, also a little fat. and although the world around them crumbles and claims lives left and right they take all this very lightly.
242 on 6/5/2010 at 11:03
Quote Posted by mothra
what i have seen in walkthroughs is a competent action game without any scares
I don't think it's supposed to be exactly scary, Twin Peaks wasn't either.
Quote:
and although the world around them crumbles and claims lives left and right they take all this very lightly.
Well, maybe all is not as it seems...
vurt on 6/5/2010 at 11:27
Quote Posted by mothra
what i have seen in walkthroughs is a competent action game without any scares and an absymal and annoying support cast of badly written movie cliches. The "funny" guy, also a little fat. and although the world around them crumbles and claims lives left and right they take all this very lightly.
It's kind of funny how they advertise the game as something that borrows heavily from "pop culture" and advertise that as something extraordinary remarkable. I mean wow! Remedy's writer reads Stephen King (how original!) and watches Twin Peaks on repeat and
adds those influences to the game - OMG, that's really something!
From what i've seen so far, the scares seems to be on pair with Doom3, but replace monsters with humans.. And i dont agree with 242, the game
has been advertised as being scary.
The whole "what is reality, what is dream" seems like a really boring concept.
june gloom on 6/5/2010 at 15:54
you're just mad 'cuz they're finnish and you didn't get the point of max payne
vurt on 6/5/2010 at 16:07
Quote Posted by dethtoll
you're just mad 'cuz they're finnish and you didn't get the point of max payne
The point was/is that it's, once again, shitty writing and not much else, it doesnt need a fancy name (other than "shitty writing"). Like i said back then, this game would prove my point, and it did. Case closed.
june gloom on 6/5/2010 at 16:12
lol u mad
Kuuso on 6/5/2010 at 17:55
You Swedes can never give us any justice. Always have to be better with your kötbullar and snus.
Aja on 6/5/2010 at 18:15
It sounds to me like any sense of atmosphere would be handily shattered every time Alan slams an ENERGIZER BATTERY into his flashlight, or sees a VERIZON billboard lit up against the twilight, or, if the Ars review is accurate, this:
Quote:
The absolute worst case of this occurred midway through the game, during a particularly intense segment in the dark. I turned on a television (throughout the game you'll be provided some exposition or Easter Eggs via television broadcasts) and received a full-motion, full-audio commercial. It would have been hard to find a worse place to put this commercial in the game, and as far as I could tell, this is the only place a commercial of this type is found in the game. Why completely ruin the scene with such crass commercialism? Especially when other sections of the game would have done a better job of disguising the nature of the content?
And Eurogamer doesn't seem to think much of the game's writing:
Quote:
When he's not busy telling you what's going on Alan likes to hammer home the pop culture references, just in case you didn't get them. At one point we see him backed up against a wall while an enemy hacks through a wooden door with an axe. "Like Nicholson in The Shining." Thanks Alan.
Based on the above, plus Max Payne, the popularity of which I
never understood, Alan Wake sounds like a pass to me.
Tomi on 6/5/2010 at 19:17
Quote Posted by Aja
It sounds to me like any sense of atmosphere would be handily shattered every time Alan slams an ENERGIZER BATTERY into his flashlight, or sees a VERIZON billboard lit up against the twilight
Personally I can't see how that takes anything away from the atmosphere, but I can understand your point of view. I don't know the story of the game very well, but I believe that it's based on the real world, so things like that could just make things feel more realistic to me. Just like in sports games for example, having real advertisements instead of some made up "funny" ones only make the atmosphere more real. In Alan Wake there are references to literature and to many other real world stuff too, so who cares if the batteries are Energizer or some generic no-brand ones?
Of course, if the game feels more like a playable advertisement than an actual game, then it could be a problem, but from what I've seen and heard, I don't think that's the case. It's too bad that Alan Wake is an Xbox exclusive, otherwise it would be one of this year's must-buy games for me.
