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Alan Wake II |OT| I'm blinded by the lights.........

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
sooooo, it gets.....worse?
From what I've seen on YouTube, very little even gets resolved in this game. Almost nothing is answered about various strange things that happened in the first two games. The ending seems like real shit to me but I'm just going by what I've seen on YouTube.
 

fatmarco

Member
From what I've seen on YouTube, very little even gets resolved in this game. Almost nothing is answered about various strange things that happened in the first two games. The ending seems like real shit to me but I'm just going by what I've seen on YouTube.
As far as Alan Wake is concerned, essentially he makes no progress. He is still, after 13 years, stuck in the Dark Place, back to square 1. He's merely a device to help Saga complete her "heroes journey", a journey where she essentially loses nothing and sacrifices nothing ultimately?
 

The Cockatrice

I'm retarded?
As far as Alan Wake is concerned, essentially he makes no progress. He is still, after 13 years, stuck in the Dark Place, back to square 1. He's merely a device to help Saga complete her "heroes journey", a journey where she essentially loses nothing and sacrifices nothing ultimately?
lmao that ending bit was so fucking stupid. "Alan: it's a horror story, so the heroes have to suffer some tragedy. Saga: nah, no deal, casey and logan have to survive, YOU suffer. Alan: kay... " Pandering writing at its finest. You can tell they wanted to make a game with a black female protag but didnt have the balls to do it, so they just wrote her in Alan Wake just to get a bit of those tiny sales. Alan Wake parts were great and initially even Sagas first hours were good, but then it just goes to shit.
 
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Luipadre

Gold Member
I absolutely hate this game.

I never know where to go. Useless map. Game is extremely dark even in places where it shouldn’t be like the morgue. I can’t see shit. The mind palace mechanics and its UI is a complete cluster fuck. Wish I could get it refunded but Sony won’t let me. Grrrr.

No yellow painting makes games harder huh? :)

If you pay attention to the game and not scrolling tiktok, you should always know what to do and where to go in this game. its not rocket science
 

K' Dash

Member
easy to see who are the ones who need everything handed to them like modern games do, constan compass and yellow paint, excessive amount of ammo at all moments, etc.

Just admit that you’re terrible at the game and play on the easiest difficulty.

Glad Remedy didn’t compromise their vision pandering to the lowest common denominator.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Between the insufferable Saga and first “boss” chasing you around the jungle while trying to pick up ammo and deal with this combat, how the f*ck did you guys not drop this after 3 hours?? I’m really, just really, like wtf lol

i'm going with 'hell, it can't keep on being this terrible, can it?...

man up, dude! you've not even really begun experiencing the awfulness...
Only 20-25 more hours of this lol. It only gets more bloated. The scores leave me dumbfounded too.
Alan parts are better but that's like 35% of the game.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
After 100% the game, I liked it but did not love it, and I'm surprised so many think it's GOTY material. I feel that the collectibles and back tracking really weigh the game down. It isn't fun to go back into unlocked areas to get resources if you have to waste resources and engage in the game's chore-like combat to do it.

The combat is clumsy and definitely worse than both Alan Wake 1 and REmake 2/3/4. The amount of times you're trying to fight unseen enemies who are attacking you through shrubbery and bushes is ridiculous.

Also please no more Sam Lake, it's absolutely obnoxious and egotistical at this point. Cameos are cute, but playing a main character is beyond the red line (Similar issue to David Lynch's Twin Peaks Season 3 shenanigans, but its worse here). Another issue is the amount of non actors, Lake and the model for Wake for example, being in the video cutscenes. The simply cannot act, the voices don't allign and sound artificial, and it stands in complete contrast to the likes of the actress who plays Alice who's excellent.
Yeah I was sick of Sam Lake too. he really thinks he is Kojima by now.

And for RE coparison
RE2make is 10 hours long and it's pure essence of game and gameplay. It's ONLY THE BEST PARTS of video games and controls are amazing. This is completely the opposite
 

Alex11

Member
Yeah I was sick of Sam Lake too. he really thinks he is Kojima by now.

And for RE coparison
RE2make is 10 hours long and it's pure essence of game and gameplay. It's ONLY THE BEST PARTS of video games and controls are amazing. This is completely the opposite
That's because in RE2 the gameplay has 1st priority and it's well balanced, in AW2 I reached a point where I had to destroy stuff from my inventory and storage constantly, I said fuck it and just avoided the enemies.
 
After 100% the game, I liked it but did not love it, and I'm surprised so many think it's GOTY material. I feel that the collectibles and back tracking really weigh the game down. It isn't fun to go back into unlocked areas to get resources if you have to waste resources and engage in the game's chore-like combat to do it.

The combat is clumsy and definitely worse than both Alan Wake 1 and REmake 2/3/4. The amount of times you're trying to fight unseen enemies who are attacking you through shrubbery and bushes is ridiculous.

Also please no more Sam Lake, it's absolutely obnoxious and egotistical at this point. Cameos are cute, but playing a main character is beyond the red line (Similar issue to David Lynch's Twin Peaks Season 3 shenanigans, but its worse here). Another issue is the amount of non actors, Lake and the model for Wake for example, being in the video cutscenes. The simply cannot act, the voices don't allign and sound artificial, and it stands in complete contrast to the likes of the actress who plays Alice who's excellent.
yeah, this's what confuses me, too. i can understand people being very pleased or satisfied with the game - it looks great, sounds great, it's quirky, weird, occasionally silly, deliberately disorienting, & full of inside joke style references / easter eggs. but goty? all i can think is that people/critics are in particular looking for games that are distinctive, that are 'atmospheric', & that do 'something different', & i suppose aw2 certainly fills that bill? now whether or not the end product is actually all that fun/entertaining? i guess that's where opinions begin to diverge...
 
yeah, this's what confuses me, too. i can understand people being very pleased or satisfied with the game - it looks great, sounds great, it's quirky, weird, occasionally silly, deliberately disorienting, & full of inside joke style references / easter eggs

This is why I am so mad at this game. I really really wanted to like it. Hell I even tortured myself by completely replaying AW1.
The ingredients are all there. But somewhere the direction went off the rails. It is a badly directed game.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
As far as Alan Wake is concerned, essentially he makes no progress. He is still, after 13 years, stuck in the Dark Place, back to square 1. He's merely a device to help Saga complete her "heroes journey", a journey where she essentially loses nothing and sacrifices nothing ultimately?
What an absolute disappointment.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
This is why I am so mad at this game. I really really wanted to like it. Hell I even tortured myself by completely replaying AW1.
The ingredients are all there. But somewhere the direction went off the rails. It is a badly directed game.
Same. Forced Replayed aw1 The remaster on ps5 and while still worse than I remember, it was way better than sequel.
What an absolute disappointment.
alan is just a tool to help saga who goes through no character arc, looses nothing and is a mary sue with powers.
I would honestly sell the game if it wasn’t digital on ps5….
 

Skitso

Member
all i can think is that people/critics are in particular looking for games that are distinctive, that are 'atmospheric', & that do 'something different', & i suppose aw2 certainly fills that bill? now whether or not the end product is actually all that fun/entertaining? i guess that's where opinions begin to diverge...

Yeah, I guess it's a lot of that. I'm so fed up of modern, by the numbers, target audience tested, committee designed triple A games with no soul, that anything that kinda manages to break the mould or is able to stand out from all the Spider Mans and Assassin's Creeds, it's just so refreshing that I'm willing to forgive a lot for it.
 
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Let's see how eager I'll hop in the dlc even though I bought the deluxe edition. The performance was so bad that I'll wait for PS5 Pro. But I don't know if I'll return to the game after such a long pause.

The reason I never played Control's AWE dlc was the long pause and I didn't want to replay the whole game.
 
Just finished the game not too long ago, nothing really more to say that hasn't been said.

Game overall wasn't satisfying. The story was up its own ass most of the time (although could definitely be interesting but anti-climatic), the atomsphere is great (as it should be for this type of game), I thought the sound design was excellent, there were a few interesting levels but most were forgettable. I just can't see how this game would even come close GOTY, I don't believe it's Remedy's best, far from actually. The last Remedy title I played was Control, it was the better package as whole from Remedy. I just wanted to get through the last chapters of the game and be done with it.
 

Umbral

Member
"Gee golly Tom, I sure do love me a serial killing crime story! Like so cool! I'm going to put on my girl scout badge, knitted sweater, and do it just like I see on those Netflix shows! Dead body reanimated? So cool Tom, this is really my jam sir!" This is who we have to play as?
Her reddit comment type responses to horrific situations is so cringey. Nobody talks like that and especially about the things her and her partner witness. “I’m so thrilled to be here for this mystery!” a short while after seeing
a fellow FBI agent, who had been brutally murdered and had his heart removed, reanimate on an examination table in a morgue, killing multiple officers and attempting to kill her before vanishing into thin air.

There are so many examples of that kind of writing in this game and it seems to only be on Saga’s side of the game for some reason.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Reading the last couple of pages:

the-honeymoon-phase-is-over-bean.gif
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
Finished the game.

I liked it a lot better than Alan Wake 1, which I thought was a total bore, but I still think the game falls behind some other survival horror titles like the best Resident Evils, Dead Space, and I think I even prefer The Evil Within games and some other survival horrors as well. I don't think it lived quite up to the praise, but certainly wasn't a bad game if you're into ridiculous convoluted stories.

Gameplay-wise though(and to me always most important) the latter chapters SIGNIFICANTLY pale in comparison to the prior ones. The game drops off an absolute cliff in the latter chapters. Much of the casual nature is lost, the structure completely changes. Sections fighting waves of enemies are thrown at you in various occasions. Doing repetitive things over and over in multiple sections. The exploration and problem solving is largely done except for one chapter in several of the latter chapters. And the final chapter was an absolute bore and a flat out nuisance IMO.

Enjoyed most of it, but the game is definitely smelling itself a lot of the time. Saga Anderson was a great character though. Better than Wake IMO who's not very interesting. Door had promise, I wonder if he'll be in a 3rd entry(if there is one). Saga's sections were the best part of the game to me. Yeah, some of the lamp stuff with Wake was cool puzzle-wise, but other than that, all his gameplay sections were far less interesting than Saga's to me. Less fighting, less inventory space, less investigating, less exploration, more annoyances.

I certainly don't regret playing it, but not close to GOTY material to me. In terms of pure fun factor and enjoyment I had a lot more fun with Control. I think it's the better game.
 
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Umbral

Member
Finished the game.

I liked it a lot better than Alan Wake 1, which I thought was a total bore, but I still think the game falls behind some other survival horror titles like the best Resident Evils, Dead Space, and I think I even prefer The Evil Within games and some other survival horrors as well. I don't think it lived quite up to the praise, but certainly wasn't a bad game if you're into ridiculous convoluted stories.

Gameplay-wise though(and to me always most important) the latter chapters SIGNIFICANTLY pale in comparison to the prior ones. The game drops off an absolute cliff in the latter chapters. Much of the casual nature is lost, the structure completely changes. Sections fighting waves of enemies are thrown at you in various occasions. Doing repetitive things over and over in multiple sections. The exploration and problem solving is largely done except for one chapter in several of the latter chapters. And the final chapter was an absolute bore and a flat out nuisance IMO.

Enjoyed most of it, but the game is definitely smelling itself a lot of the time. Saga Anderson was a great character though. Better than Wake IMO who's not very interesting. Door had promise, I wonder if he'll be in a 3rd entry(if there is one). Saga's sections were the best part of the game to me. Yeah, some of the lamp stuff with Wake was cool puzzle-wise, but other than that, all his gameplay sections were far less interesting than Saga's to me. Less fighting, less inventory space, less investigating, less exploration, more annoyances.

I certainly don't regret playing it, but not close to GOTY material to me. In terms of pure fun factor and enjoyment I had a lot more fun with Control. I think it's the better game.
I’m curious what you liked better about Saga’s sections? I’m seeing a lot of people fall into one or the other and strongly dislike the opposite character.

I personally preferred Alan’s section of the game. What I liked was the light moving mechanic, though I think it was kind of half-baked. I enjoyed the scene changes, though they were pretty superficial, but I didn’t have to spend any significant time in Alan’s writer’s room to change the scenes, unlike Saga’s case board. I thought the atmosphere was more consistent in Alan’s parts. It felt slightly tense most of the way through. I felt the flashlight was mostly necessary for navigation as well as combat in Alan’s parts, while in Saga’s it was at times only for combat because it was bright out. I really wish they would have spent more time on fleshing out Alan’s parts and maybe removed Saga from the game entirely. What we got was two half-baked games mashed together. What was sold was not what I got.
 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
I’m curious what you liked better about Saga’s sections? I’m seeing a lot of people fall into one or the other and strongly dislike the opposite character.

I personally preferred Alan’s section of the game. What I liked was the light moving mechanic, though I think it was kind of half-baked. I enjoyed the scene changes, though they were pretty superficial, but I didn’t have to spend any significant time in Alan’s writer’s room to change the scenes, unlike Saga’s case board. I thought the atmosphere was more consistent in Alan’s parts. It felt slightly tense most of the way through. I felt the flashlight was mostly necessary for navigation as well as combat in Alan’s parts, while in Saga’s it was at times only for combat because it was bright out. I really wish they would have spent more time on fleshing out Alan’s parts and maybe removed Saga from the game entirely. What we got was two half-baked games mashed together. What was sold was not what I got.
I preferred the real locations as opposed to the Dark Place locations. Plus I thought the gameplay loop in them was freer where Wake's felt more restricted and linear. Saga's areas were just larger. Also Saga's sections had more combat, more weapons, larger inventory. Her segments to me felt like the more familiar survival horror experience I like and am used to. Also liked the mysteries she was trying to piece together more than Alan's. I just thought it was more intriguing.
 
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engstra

Member
Finished the game a couple days ago. Really enjoyed my time with it. I can understand people's criticisms on the thread here but to me it all clicks. I love the shared universe Remedy has created and their multimedia approach to storytelling. A trippy detective story that oozes atmosphere, what's not to love? There's not many other games like these.
That said I do think overall that Control is a better game. Exploring the locations and solving the rhymes and sections where you change the storyline for Alan were the highlights. All the Finnish references is fun too. Combat is not so great, the wave of enemies towards end of game was probably the weakest point. Also quite a buggy game. Had a lot of issues with some sound effects getting stuck in a loop, playing intensely in calm sections etc forcing me to restart sections.
 
Why I have a feeling that this game landed on it's stomach a bit? This topic hasn't been on fire so to say.

I myself am quite stunned how quickly I let this game fly after finishing it. Maybe the reason was I got pretty angry at it in the later section of the game. I really really loved it before that.

Edit. Also the game's pretty bad perfomance mode and image quality on PS5 had a negative effect on how I felt about it.
Still I'm pretty excited for the dlc and hopefully AW3.
 
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FunkMiller

Member
This game has some of the worst janky assed, stilted, poorly executed combat I’ve ever played.

But I fucking loved the game as a whole. It swings for the fences and tries a lot of fresh, original and interesting stuff, which marks it out a lot higher than the dull as shit, by the numbers writing in things like Spider-man 2 and Starfield.

It has its faults, but god bless Remedy for giving us something that doesn’t feel like we’ve seen it all before a hundred times already.
 
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Luipadre

Gold Member
This game has some of the worst janky assed, stilted, poorly executed combat I’ve ever played.

But I fucking loved the game as a whole. It swings for the fences and tries a lot of fresh, original and interesting stuff, which marks it out a lot higher than the dull as shit, by the numbers writing in things like Spider-man 2 and Starfield.

It has its faults, but god bless Remedy for giving us something that doesn’t feel like we’ve seen it all before a hundred times already.

Yeah and the poor fps didn't help the combat either on PS5. I was waiting for NG+ but wont touch it unless they fix the performance issues on PS5. I wont hold my breath for it tho. Im definitely gonna play the DLCs
 
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kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Almost done with the game and while I will post detailed impressions later, just came to say that Alan's chapters are absolute garbage tier. Fuck those chapters and fuck whole arc of Alan. It's boring with endless enemies and crap puzzles. Saga's chapters are far better and Alan's chapters, especially towards the end are nothing but fillers which frustrate and degrade the whole experience.
 

amigastar

Member
So, how are the sales of this game, was it a flop? I bought it but haven't played very far since i'm a sissy when it comes to horror games. Wish i would enjoy them more.
 

MCplayer

Member
I absolutely hate this game.

I never know where to go. Useless map. Game is extremely dark even in places where it shouldn’t be like the morgue. I can’t see shit. The mind palace mechanics and its UI is a complete cluster fuck. Wish I could get it refunded but Sony won’t let me. Grrrr.
you are pretty goddamn dumb to not know where to go
 

Sleepwalker

Member
This game is not scary lmao. The cheap jump scares they do are more of an annoyance than anything.


Any way, I dropped this after I got to the part where you can choose between characters and struggled to get back into it since, I might go back just to check the we sing chapter everyone talks about, but the game sadly has not grabbed me as much as I had hoped.
 
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I can't finish RE2 Remake because I find it too scary. I didn't think AW2 was that scary. It does have few bits but overall I just find it tense and full of atmosphere.
The tense atmosphere was what got me especially playing with headphones.Valhalla Nursing Home, The Train Station and Coffee World were unnerving af with the ambient sound and scares.
Re2remake for me was ehh zombies and running from the big guy. More puzzle game than horror.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
This game is not scary lmao. The cheap jump scares they do are more of an annoyance than anything.


Any way, I dropped this after I got to the part where you can choose between characters and struggled to get back into it since, I might go back just to check the we sing chapter everyone talks about, but the game sadly has not grabbed me as much as I had hoped.
It’s not scary at all. The full screen jump scares are lame. First audio design is great but it’s still not scary
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Nah and I played all them modern AAA horror games too. Evil Withins, Re 2, 4, 7, 8, Dead Space, Bloodborne, All the dark pictures series, SOMA, Observer etc etc. I guess I connected to the story more.
I enjoyed AW2 but the only of enemies you fight with are these
srQ2VydYmua9b7TVjAiDKL-1200-80.png
alan-wake-2-gun.jpg


Meanwhile
tumblr_ndpkslTUrE1qm4heyo1_500.gif
latest

tumblr_o9x79xuZqk1uqbezio1_500.gif
tumblr_nej0xyywwm1r980sno1_1280.gif
TEW2_BestDeaths_Guardian.gif



AW2 is now survival horror and it rated "M" unlike original game. This was really good opportunity to be more creative and more freaky with their enemy design but they did nothing......absolutely nothing.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
This game is not scary lmao. The cheap jump scares they do are more of an annoyance than anything.
That depends on your tolerance. They did nothing for me other than becoming annoying at some point, but a buddy of mine shelved the game because of them. I wouldn't be surprised if Remedy made them less common or optional in one of the future patches.
 

hollams

Gold Member
Just finished this morning because I spent the last two nights getting all the collectables. Since I waited so long it was a pain since it was dark the whole time. I really liked the game, excluding the jump scares which needed to be toned down, and a couple of sequences with a one hit kill that took some time to load back into.
 

whatup

Member
I am at the end game, about to finish the last couple chapters. Surprised to see so many here giving up. Is it flawed? Sure. There are too few enemy types (though I never stopped finding them to be terrifying), the case board mechanic was too often just busy-work, and the meta narrative stuff was a little over-indulgent at times. But I am unabashedly loving it. Most of it works and what doesn't quite work is still above-average.

Video game storytelling is generally generic dogshit, and voice acting and writing outside of GOW and Naughty Dog is generally dogshit. AW2 doesn't quite reach the level of those Sony first party games, but it's not that far off. Easy 9/10 and the game from this year I've had the hardest time putting the controller down for.

If it's not your cup of tea, this probably won't help but the only way to play this game is with headphones and the lights off.
 
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