Zero Punctuation: Alan Wake
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Nice stuff, one of his best. I was wondering if i was abel to buy Mogworld from WH Smith or other good book shops, or do i have to buy them online?
Before you plan to not get this game, know that Escapist gave it 10/10.
I use to think that he just doesn't like most games,but now I'm convinced he doesn't care if the game is good or not and always hates on any game.
I use to think that he just doesn't like most games,but now I'm convinced he doesn't care if the game is good or not and always hates on any game.
I don't think these kind of games (this and Heavy Rain) that want to be movies should retail for more than $30 to begin with. You get one or two playthroughs of it and have seen everything making $60 an incredibly bad value.Monshroud said:
I liked the review, but was expecting hint of Silent Hill 1 which was released 10 years ago and stars a writer running around in a spooky town, searching for a loved one after he seemingly lost her in a car crash. But I guess the game literally begs to explore the Stephen King parallells, which are also plentiful. And of course, Silent Hill 1 is a SD PSX title from long ago, a small while before Remedy started patching Alan Wake together. Played and finished Alan Wake, by the way, nice atmospheric game nonetheless. Will certainly finish Nightmare to complete the Achievements, but first I'm going to take Red Dead Redemption for a spin, I think.
@dmcc85: Don't worry about punctuation, there isn't supposed to be any in this review anyway
. Slightly more seriously though, in the "anglo-german" World of Spelling(r) which has been with us for quite some time now, "ü" is meant to be replaced by "u" in order to enable phrasing such as "my uber-wit" or "blimey, am I uber today or what" ?
@dmcc85: Don't worry about punctuation, there isn't supposed to be any in this review anyway
. Slightly more seriously though, in the "anglo-german" World of Spelling(r) which has been with us for quite some time now, "ü" is meant to be replaced by "u" in order to enable phrasing such as "my uber-wit" or "blimey, am I uber today or what" ?
For some reason I laughed most at the "ibblebibblebibble" running gag. I really have no idea why it amuses me so, but it does.
Sorta surprised he didn't mention how nonthreatening the shadow-thrown-objects seemed to be. Figured that statement was going to be something along the lines of, "blahblah good mechanic until I realized that Alan can take a train car to the face and barely stumble." Then again the Stephen King remark probably caused more chuckles. Tricky thing balancing critique with humor.
Sorta surprised he didn't mention how nonthreatening the shadow-thrown-objects seemed to be. Figured that statement was going to be something along the lines of, "blahblah good mechanic until I realized that Alan can take a train car to the face and barely stumble." Then again the Stephen King remark probably caused more chuckles. Tricky thing balancing critique with humor.
Yahtzee had his work cut out for him... one can't help but feel that Alan Wake made a mockery enough of itself before he came along.
This is better! Funnier!
I bought Alan Wake the other day and whilst the story looks decent, the gameplay is really boring and repetitive! Haha Yahtzee was bang on about the lip synching everyone has a weird smile stuck on their face like they're being rectally probed for the whole game.
I quite enjoyed the voice acting though, it wasn't half as bad as some games I've seen.
I bought Alan Wake the other day and whilst the story looks decent, the gameplay is really boring and repetitive! Haha Yahtzee was bang on about the lip synching everyone has a weird smile stuck on their face like they're being rectally probed for the whole game.
I quite enjoyed the voice acting though, it wasn't half as bad as some games I've seen.
Playing through Alan Wake makes me wonder at what difficulty level reviewers play through their games. It makes me want to make a game with different and unique experiences on each of the difficulty levels, distribute review copies, and see how many people get in on the joke.
Back to A. Wake, I played through Hard incidentally, and then went back to Normal to collect more stuff - and the game's combat is much more appealing on hard mode, I must say. All enemies take an additional shot or two to kill, so ammo and the other weapons become much more valuable - 42 shots in your revolver is suddenly not so much when it takes 3 to take out a normal guy and a whole cylinder to take out one of the big guys looming at you - which means you can easily go through 20 or more shots in one fight with just the basic revolver. The big guys also survive a flashbang at their feet, take forever to strip of darkness-protection, and occasionally charge you when you try to stunlock them - they become monstrous foes indeed. Not to mention the REALLY big guys with CHAINSAWS - it's much easier to run away when you're facing down two of those and their buddies, and when it becomes easier to run away, you get less ammo stashes and have to manage your flares better.
That isn't to say it's without its problems. The enemies (especially the little guys) love to flank you, and that can feel cheap since it's easy to lose them in the darkness.
The slow-mo chase camera is also kind of necessary since it alerts you of enemies outside of your normal field of view; otherwise the first sign of taken might be an axe to the back of the head, which as we all know may be fatal. I know it saved my ass more than once, and when the game starts piling on enemies and you're running low on health it can be quite unnerving.
Back to A. Wake, I played through Hard incidentally, and then went back to Normal to collect more stuff - and the game's combat is much more appealing on hard mode, I must say. All enemies take an additional shot or two to kill, so ammo and the other weapons become much more valuable - 42 shots in your revolver is suddenly not so much when it takes 3 to take out a normal guy and a whole cylinder to take out one of the big guys looming at you - which means you can easily go through 20 or more shots in one fight with just the basic revolver. The big guys also survive a flashbang at their feet, take forever to strip of darkness-protection, and occasionally charge you when you try to stunlock them - they become monstrous foes indeed. Not to mention the REALLY big guys with CHAINSAWS - it's much easier to run away when you're facing down two of those and their buddies, and when it becomes easier to run away, you get less ammo stashes and have to manage your flares better.
That isn't to say it's without its problems. The enemies (especially the little guys) love to flank you, and that can feel cheap since it's easy to lose them in the darkness.
The slow-mo chase camera is also kind of necessary since it alerts you of enemies outside of your normal field of view; otherwise the first sign of taken might be an axe to the back of the head, which as we all know may be fatal. I know it saved my ass more than once, and when the game starts piling on enemies and you're running low on health it can be quite unnerving.
Personally I loved this game and thought the story was phenomenal..Yahtzee kinda just gave the simplified version of it, but if he didn't he'd have a huuuuuge video on his hands.
Still, this review was hilarious..especially the sexually repressed bear with his "gentle ben" hahaha
Sum up: respectfully disagree, try it before basing decisions on others =D
Still, this review was hilarious..especially the sexually repressed bear with his "gentle ben" hahaha
Sum up: respectfully disagree, try it before basing decisions on others =D
It's not. There's nothing wrong with the pacing whatsoever. Sure the basic gameplay is a case of 'get from point A to point B', but what linear game is really any different? The combat system is actually massively deep when played on the hardest difficulty (ok, so you have to play through the game once to unlock that, but that's not really a chore). Frankly, if Yahtzee really claims to have got through the whole game using only his pistol then either he's straight out lying or the adaptive difficulty decided he was some kind of mutant with stumps for thumbs and only 2 fingers and proceeded to shower him with enough ammo to choke a basking shark.Blue-State said:
Yes the story references Stephen King a lot, but the whole 'dark presence' idea is a theme common in many horror scenarios other than that. The character is an author, and Stephen King wrote arguably the most highly prized book on writing that exists to this day. It's pretty reasonable for an author to reference King. You'd have thought that a supposed fellow author would have realised that. Besides, looking at Yahtzee's peculiar disdain for possibly the most respected horror author on the planet, I can only assume that Stephen King ran over his dog. And then slept with his mum.
The narration and manuscript pages work pretty well as a device to drip feed the player with information, and it's the most original storytelling device that gaming has seen in a good while.
So hang on a gosh darned minute here. A game finally comes along that cares primarily about telling the story and makes the effort to change the gameplay up a bit(removal of weapons and/or torch at key points, giving you just enough ammo on harder difficulty levels that you often end up running for the next light source or desperately trying to fire up a generator before the enemies catch up, etc.) in order to create genuine tension throughout, and Yahtzee hates it. So what exactly DOES he want in a game?
Oh, and by the way, you can quit out of the game at the end of an episode, but it involves that little known trick of pressing start and selecting 'quit to menu'. Sure it's not explicitly stated, but for someone who complains when a game holds the player's hand too much that's a pretty petty complaint. And of course it's not diy-urine-puddle scary, it's a thriller, not a horror. Sure it has horror elements, but frankly dismissing it for not being scary (when in fact on higher difficulty levels it actually is, but because of the extremely well balanced gameplay rather than through OTT gore or wierdness for it's own sake) is like dismissing an RPG with character customisation elements for not being The Sims.
The supporting character that yahtzee hates so much is actually much loved by the fans. but then, Yahtzee apparently only wants human characters with real quirks and personality until they're actually given to him.
One thing I do agree on is that the lip synching is bad. And yes, Alan's wife does look like Miss Uncanny Valley 2010 at times. The latter issue is only noticable in a very small portion of the game, and the former isn't always the case at all, due to multiple facial animation techniques being employed. When it's bad it's really bad, but when it's good it's similiarly excellent.
Yahtzee also neglected to mention the gorgeously realised environments, the fact that the lighting effects are literally second to none, and that the story is generally excellent. Ignore any nonsense about the 'cliffhanger' ending (Yahtzee didn't mention it, but I doubt he completed the whole game anyway). The main story is resoved but some threads are left unanswered and more questions are raised. Did anyone complain when the final episode of Lost season 1 ended in a similiar manner? No, they just got excited about season 2. The fact of the matter is that Alan Wake is the first game to really pull off the TV show format, and the result is a truly multi-media entity.
If you have any interest in story driven gaming then you'd be doing yourself a massive favour to ignore this 'review' and give it a shot. If MS had bothered to advertise Alan Wake properly, we should have been looking at a contender for Game of the Year. That's how good this game is.