Review: Alan Wake

[Abriael]

From what I've seen so far, to be honest, Alan Wake looks like an underdeveloped, undersized (7-8 hours and no multiplayer? please... what's with this silly trend of providing less and less content for our 60 dollars?), repeatitive, sub-hd attempt at an interactive B-movie with a sub-par story and characters that share the same personality as a cactus.
They cut it down to the bone, and as a result there isn't enough meat left to justify a purchase.

No reason to spend money on it when there are games out there with better stories, much better characters, a truckload more content (for the same price) and better action. Yakuza 3 is an example, but there are plenty more.

 

[Tdc2182]

I watched the review a few hours ago and I dont remember hearing anything, but did you mention how long a playthrough is? If it is a longish game I might choose this over Red Dead.

Depends on what you mean by "longish", really. I also don't know how long the single-player mode of RDR is, so comparing the two is pretty apples and oranges. They're just such different experiences.

Yeah, its just that I only have enough money for one game. So I cant decide between a good story but not extremly much replay value, or a fun game that you can infinitely mess around on.

But thanks for the review anyway. The Escapist is one of the more trustworthy sites for games.

 

[masakoz]

From what I've seen so far, to be honest, Alan Wake looks like an underdeveloped, undersized (7-8 hours and no multiplayer? please... what's with this silly trend of providing less and less content for our 60 dollars?), repeatitive, sub-hd attempt at an interactive B-movie with a sub-par story and characters that share the same personality as a cactus.
They cut it down to the bone, and as a result there isn't enough meat left to justify a purchase.

No reason to spend money on it when there are games out there with better stories, much better characters, a truckload more content (for the same price) and better action. Yakuza 3 is an example, but there are plenty more.

This game looked shitty with multiplayer(remedy made a april fools joke vid about it).Why does every game have to have multiplayer anyway?It's that mentality that has ruined great games(bioshock 2 anybody).

 

[Abriael]

This game looked shitty with multiplayer(remedy made a april fools joke vid about it).Why does every game have to have multiplayer anyway?It's that mentality that has ruined great games(bioshock 2 anybody).

Might want to read the whole sentence: "7-8 hours and no multiplayer" = very little content for the price of a full game. At the very least multiplayer options help adding some value when the single player is short.
For sure I don't want or need multiplayer with every game, but this trend of providing very little content in games is getting tiresome. I don't mean that every game needs 60-70 hours worth of content like Yakuza 3, but at the very least 15-20 should be the norm, and much less than that should definitely be frowned upon.
All this time in development to deliver less than 10 hours of gameplay is simply a new definition of lazy.

 

[Javert.]

I hope it comes out for PC so I can play it, it looks interesting but I'm not getting a 360 for it.

 

[Zombie Nixon]

This game looked shitty with multiplayer(remedy made a april fools joke vid about it).Why does every game have to have multiplayer anyway?It's that mentality that has ruined great games(bioshock 2 anybody).

Might want to read the whole sentence: "7-8 hours and no multiplayer" = very little content for the price of a full game. At the very least multiplayer options help adding some value when the single player is short.
For sure I don't want or need multiplayer with every game, but this trend of providing very little content in games is getting tiresome. I don't mean that every game needs 60-70 hours worth of content like Yakuza 3, but at the very least 15-20 should be the norm, and much less than that should definitely be frowned upon.
All this time in development to deliver less than 10 hours of gameplay is simply a new definition of lazy.

Depends. If the core gameplay is satisfying enough, it'd be worth replaying on the hardest setting(which should also unlock more tidbits and exposition about the story IIRC)

 

[Ponch]

This is the only will buy game I have on my list.
And I don't even have a list!!

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Sounds like that Secret Window movie. With zombie villagers.

Resident Secret Silent Window.

 

[Sonicron]

Aaaaaaand another solid 3-5 day rental. Thanks, Susan! Looks like hiding-under-your-covers-and-jumping-at-every-weird-sound fun of the finest variety.

 

[Abriael]

Depends. If the core gameplay is satisfying enough, it'd be worth replaying on the hardest setting(which should also unlock more tidbits and exposition about the story IIRC)

Harder difficulty (which is just some changed statistics), collectibles and things that can be accessed only during the second playthrough can't be considered a viable replacement for actual content.
Quite the contrary, they're gimmicks developers use in order to artificially increase the gameplay without having to add any real content. In other words a the easy way out for lazy bums that can't manage to make a game that offers a decent amount of content for it's price.

"satisfying core gameplay" isn't antithetical to content. There are plenty games out there with satisfying core gameplay that encourage multiple playthroughs and that last much more than Alan Wake for each single playthrough, so this simply isn't an excuse.
Delivering less than 10 hours worth of actual content after 5 years in development is simply ridiculous, to be honest. Giving it a full score is the perfect way to encourage lazy developers to cut their games to the bare bones in order to save development money and resources and still sell them for the same price, or even worse, shift content away from the actual game in order to juice us further with DLC epiosodes (like Remedy seems to be doing).

 

[Sartan0]

So yeah, Alan Wake is the first game, that makes me feel bad for not owning X360. I so want to play that...

For me it just makes me angry. There is no way I would buy a 360 for any one game particularly at this stage in it's 'life'. I can only hope they put this out on the PC. Given the way it was developed turning their backs on PC gamers is infuriating.

 

[Sartan0]

Yeah, its just that I only have enough money for one game. So I cant decide between a good story but not extremely much replay value, or a fun game that you can infinitely mess around on.

But thanks for the review anyway. The Escapist is one of the more trustworthy sites for games.

I guess it depends on how much you enjoy each hour of play. While I sunk many hours into WoW many of those hours kinda sucked. If something is very good I am willing to splash out on it a bit more. Like a nice meal now and then. That was my attitude with Monkey Island 5. Sure it was not as long as many games but I enjoyed some of the moments more.

 

[Zombie Nixon]

Harder difficulty (which is just some changed statistics), collectibles and things that can be accessed only during the second playthrough can't be considered a viable replacement for actual content.
Quite the contrary, they're gimmicks developers use in order to artificially increase the gameplay without having to add any real content. In other words a the easy way out for lazy bums that can't manage to make a game that offers a decent amount of content for it's price.

"satisfying core gameplay" isn't antithetical to content. There are plenty games out there with satisfying core gameplay that encourage multiple playthroughs and that last much more than Alan Wake for each single playthrough, so this simply isn't an excuse.
Delivering less than 10 hours worth of actual content after 5 years in development is simply ridiculous, to be honest. Giving it a full score is the perfect way to encourage lazy developers to cut their games to the bare bones in order to save development money and resources and still sell them for the same price, or even worse, shift content away from the actual game in order to juice us further with DLC epiosodes (like Remedy seems to be doing).

I don't see any reference to the game's length in the review. I've heard people say the game clocks in at around twelve hours, which is at least decent. And the free DLC should add an hour or two on top of that(I'm not a fan of DLC, but if you spend $60 on Alan Wake you are getting it). Also, I'm pretty sure the developers restarted on Alan Wake from scratch in 2007, so the game's really only been in the works for three years, tops.

I completely agree with you in principle, I'm just not sure if awake qualifies as an example yet. But I'll probably buy it and find out.

 

[Hollywood Knights]

It sounds top, and more than a little like the 360's timely answer to Heavy Rain. Let's hope it's similarly successful, and leads to the games industry giving a little bit more of a shit about storytelling. I'll be buying it as soon as I have the dough.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[BrokenBones]

Great review. I'm really excited for Alan Wake, more than I have been for any game in quite some time. I had never heard of it until a few months ago so wasn't aware of it's long development. Anyway, the more I hear about it the better it sounds, I really wish there was more of this type of game. Hardly got any money this month but there's no way I'm missing out on my collectors edition

 

[Firia]

I'd really like this to come out on the PS3.

 

[masakoz]

This game looked shitty with multiplayer(remedy made a april fools joke vid about it).Why does every game have to have multiplayer anyway?It's that mentality that has ruined great games(bioshock 2 anybody).

Might want to read the whole sentence: "7-8 hours and no multiplayer" = very little content for the price of a full game. At the very least multiplayer options help adding some value when the single player is short.
For sure I don't want or need multiplayer with every game, but this trend of providing very little content in games is getting tiresome. I don't mean that every game needs 60-70 hours worth of content like Yakuza 3, but at the very least 15-20 should be the norm, and much less than that should definitely be frowned upon.
All this time in development to deliver less than 10 hours of gameplay is simply a new definition of lazy.

lazy is when you make a game 4 hours long.10 hours for a game that takes a linear root like this one is alot of hours

 

[Abriael]

All this time in development to deliver less than 10 hours of gameplay is simply a new definition of lazy.

lazy is when you make a game 4 hours long.10 hours for a game that takes a linear root like this one is alot of hours[/quote]

Are you kidding me? Aside the fact that i said LESS than 10 hours (every source I've heard from so far indicates 8 hours for a relaxed playthrough), 10 hours for any game is VERY little. Linear or not. It's basically 6 dollars an hour, which is laughable AND lazy.

 

[Zombie Nixon]

It doesn't matter how long the game spent in development, why do you keep bringing that up?