Zero Punctuation: Alan Wake

[dth]

Just played Alan Wake trough yeasterday and I have to agree with everything you said
I do like the game though.

And for people who haven't palyed it yet; Play on Hard or Nightmare difficulty. Normal is redicilously easy. Even on Nightmare you don't run out of bullets or batteries if you don't go too John McLane

 

[GooBeyond]

exaggerating as always i see ...
oh well ...

 

[Jonsbax]

Judging from some of the comments I've read so far... when the hell did people actually start taking Yahtzee reviews seriously? I loved Alan Wake, and it's been getting extremely favorable reviews from nearly every major outlet (including a perfect score here at Escapist). That doesn't mean any of you are guaranteed to like it, but when the hell has Yahtzee's word ever been written in stone? He complains about EVERYTHING. That's why he's successful, because it's funny when he complains. If you only go by Yahtzee's recommendations, then enjoy playing two or three games a year.

This.

Yahtzee is more of an entertainer than a reviewer. It's also good to look up his videos about the negative points in games that the others usually miss. I can't help but to laugh how some people say they skip games, sometimes great ones, just because Yahtzee bashed it.

For example, I remember reading plenty of people saying they're glad they didn't buy Uncharted 2 in comments of the ZP about the game, but Yahtzee still said it was one of the best games of 2009, the only negative being that he didn't like the characters (because he apparently has to think laughably deeply about every fictional character he sees). Shouldn't that have taught people the obvious: Yahtzee bashes everything, even the things he says he likes. Just look at the Shattered Memories -review and all the negatives he had to say about it, but he still said he's now actually looking forward to a western Silent Hill -game.

 

[Just Craig]

Holy shit a Captain Scarlet reference!
Yahtzee, you are the man.

 

[manas]

Alan Wake for PC was canceled and unless I missed something not uncanceled.

Yes, but Remedy wants to complete the PC version and I think MS is returning to the Games for Windows initiative...

I heard that the PC version is already finished, but they are just waiting for the Xbox version to make enough money.

 

[MrDead]

Alan Wake for PC was canceled and unless I missed something not uncanceled.

Yes, but Remedy wants to complete the PC version and I think MS is returning to the Games for Windows initiative...

You've just convinced me to play Obscure again this week.

 

[Sparrow]

But if the plot and pacing is half as bad as he says it is then I won't bother.

If you use Yahtzee's reviews as a source of reviewing, you must haven nearly no games at all. That's because HE'S NOT MEANT TO LIKE ANY GAMES, IT'S WHAT HE'S PAYED FOR.

 

[DrainBat]

Anal Weak? {L}?

 

[MrDead]

Alan Wake for PC was canceled and unless I missed something not uncanceled.

Yes, but Remedy wants to complete the PC version and I think MS is returning to the Games for Windows initiative...

I heard that the PC version is already finished, but they are just waiting for the Xbox version to make enough money.

That would be pretty unsurprising.

 

[x84jdh]

The biggest problem Yatzhee has with horror games is that he plays them on Normal difficulty. Why the fuck would anyone do that? It's survival horror, but the Normal difficulty setting makes it a third-person shooter with bad illumination.

Yahtzee is bad at video games. Everyone knows this. (Or should have figured it out) Confirmed that he played GOW on normal or lower because he said they could 'Wade through bullets' he played dead space on Normal as well. Also he said Demons Souls was impossible. Which is bullshit. It has a steep learning curves yes, but once you get the hang of it the difficulty levels out.

Not that I'm defending Yahtzee's gaming ability -- he might be totally useless, I don't know -- but why would he review a game on a higher difficulty setting? Issues of available time to play aside (harder difficulty levels eat up more time), most people in fact play at the "normal" level; they might go up if it's too easy or down if it's too hard, but "normal" is generally supposed to be the baseline of gameplay set by the devs, and thus the unmodified experience that they were shooting for. If that's the baseline, then why would he (or anyone) review anything else?

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

I played a demo of the game, and from that I didn't want to buy it. Good to see that I didn't waste my money

Nice try troll. There is no demo. Jeez, do your research before you start sharting from your mouth

 

[XwingVmanX]

Great review, definitely one of the funniest you have done in a while.

 

[Michael Logan]

I acctually found the narration to be great, I wish more games would have it.

Although I agree that there was too much forest in this game, and maybe having the camera show the monsters was a bad decision.

But still I liked the game.

 

[normaldeviant]

You'd think they could have come up with some more interesting places to explore in roughly a decade.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

I enjoyed that a review a lot been waiting for yahtzee to review it for a while, sounds like the game is similar to alone in the dark, potential to be good but sadly misses the mark, rather like finaly fatasy 13, although I'm suprised it took nine bloody years to make it, took that long for the world to beat germany twice.

It actually took 5 years. Where anyone got 9 years from I don't know. The idea of doing a thriller may have been in Remedy's heads for 9-10 years, but development only started about 5 years ago.

Also, read a few more reviews before you make up your mind. Heck, the review here at the Escapist gave it full marks. Yahtzee is not really an objective reviewer. This game is leagues ahead of Alone in the Dark, there really is no contest.

 

[MeatSpace]

The biggest problem Yatzhee has with horror games is that he plays them on Normal difficulty. Why the fuck would anyone do that? It's survival horror, but the Normal difficulty setting makes it a third-person shooter with bad illumination.

Yahtzee is bad at video games. Everyone knows this. (Or should have figured it out) Confirmed that he played GOW on normal or lower because he said they could 'Wade through bullets' he played dead space on Normal as well. Also he said Demons Souls was impossible. Which is bullshit. It has a steep learning curves yes, but once you get the hang of it the difficulty levels out.

Not that I'm defending Yahtzee's gaming ability -- he might be totally useless, I don't know -- but why would he review a game on a higher difficulty setting? Issues of available time to play aside (harder difficulty levels eat up more time), most people in fact play at the "normal" level; they might go up if it's too easy or down if it's too hard, but "normal" is generally supposed to be the baseline of gameplay set by the devs, and thus the unmodified experience that they were shooting for. If that's the baseline, then why would he (or anyone) review anything else?

It's not that he can't, it's that doesn't. He'll say a game is too easy or too hard but fails to recognize that those things are subjective. Hard or easy is really not a merit for a game to stand on or a flaw to make it fall. I'm fine with him being bad, but not recognizing that difficulty levels exist seems to be a constant error on his part.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

You'd think they could have come up with some more interesting places to explore in roughly a decade.

See above. It did not take 9-10 years to make. It took 5. Play it, and THEN say that the locations weren't interesting. The game is about tension, and the locations work perfectly for that.

 

[FinalHeart95]

I was originally saying I would get this game, but then Mario Galaxy 2 and Split/Second came out. Sorry Alan, maybe when you're cheaper.

 

[TheGamerist]

I played a demo of the game, and from that I didn't want to buy it. Good to see that I didn't waste my money

Nice try troll. There is no demo. Jeez, do your research before you start sharting from your mouth

I played the demo at a gaming expo actually, so before you start trying to put people down, maybe you should ask how I did it instead of making your own assumptions

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

The biggest problem Yatzhee has with horror games is that he plays them on Normal difficulty. Why the fuck would anyone do that? It's survival horror, but the Normal difficulty setting makes it a third-person shooter with bad illumination.

I find it funny that people still seem to be under the impresion that "the harder a game is the more fun it is" because really that's not entirely true. There's a lot of games that I love playing which you would never ever catch me playing on the harder difficulty settings. More often the case it would make me dislike the game because however good I may be on an Easy or Normal setting, I would quickly become shit on a higher one. That would lead to a lack of enjoyment as I would probably have difficulty adjusting to a higher setting.

Not to mention as someone else said, with all the other stuff a lot of people have going on in their lives, the Normal setting is as high as on really needs to go. Unless you're so damn good at every game in existence (which I'd probably call a lie, because I've yet to meet someone who is perfect at EVERY game, rather than at genres) that nothing short of Battletoads-esque difficulty will satisfy you.

Sorry, wasn't trying to say that at you specifically, it's just that the gaming world in general these days seems to have a misplaced or at least confused understanding of the world difficulty. I've been playing games since the early 80's, and I've noticed an increasing trend in the last 10 years for people to complain about games being too easy. Compared to the kind of "ha ha ha fuck you" difficulty back on the Atari and NES days, games that are easy by design can be refreshing and more enjoyable than getting a brick to the face. Which is certainly what a lot of games feel like these days, sometimes even on the normal settings.

Compare Megaman 2 to Megaman X8, and you'll notice they're actually getting harder. Sorry, went off on a bit of a rant here..