Alan Wake was already considered an exceptional game and over a decade later, this adventure holds up strong. Finding myself completely captivated, Remedy left me wanting more, even after completing the DLC. It’s regrettable that Remastered’s cutscenes have problems and I hope they can be patched, but ultimately, it’s a fine job. If you’re a fan of mystery thrillers, I cannot recommend Alan Wake Remastered highly enough.
If you look at Alan Wake Remastered as a brand new game that you never played before, you’ll definitely have some good time with this psychological thriller, but if you already played the original version then don’t expect any significant changes as the 2 versions are basically the same.
Alan Wake Remastered is a great game with capital letters and a perfect opportunity to enjoy it if it once escaped you. A horror adventure that moves the strings of psychological power like no one else, exploring the fears that we have in our heads.
Alan Wake Remastered is an example of what can be a good remaster of a videogame without an abusive price, it fixes some of the main issues that prevented a good game to make sense in today’s standards. Its ideals and the writer’s story would easily fit in any period of the gaming history so if you haven’t played it, this is an ideal opportunity to do it and the best way to fuel the hope for a potential sequel.
After finding out how deep the dark water goes, Alan Wake left us with not a lake, but an ocean of questions. And revisiting the Bright Falls through Alan Wake Remastered feels like a great way to read a certain old and dusted manuscript. Especially now, when the writer's journey through the night will seemingly continue at last.
As a big fan of the original, the announcement of Alan Wake Remastered was a pleasant surprise. And while I enjoyed my time with it, I can’t help but feel like this is merely a tiny taste of what’s to come. Veterans of the franchise won’t find any reason to go back, and if they do, they may even find that the memory of playing Alan Wake is better than the game itself. Newcomers will find a lot to love; however, granted, they can grind through its annoyances.
The original was always highly simplistic and repetitive, and neither the passage of time or being in 4K can do anything to improve this disappointingly trivial actioner.
When I started it, I had remembered nothing about my first experience with this game, so I tried it as a new, I can say so.
The game will be rather good for those who likes an atmosphere in games, and for those who likes all this little-town-mystic themes too.
But as a game, this remaster not the best one - the technical part wasn't upgraded so much so it would goes as a new game.
And the gameplay itself is not very variative, so the story and the atmosphere are save this game.
The first thing I want to say is that if you loved this game, I couldn't be more happy for you, I'm glad you enjoyed it, but the thing is I wanna enjoy the games I play too, and this simply didn't work.
I've never heard of this game in even the slightest when I was a kid or even as I grew up but then I heard about the sequel coming up and I decided to play this game to prepare myself for it and after 26 hours, I can say for sure I should've just watched a story analysis on this game instead. Before I talk about why I didn't like this game, the positives I'll say for this is that the game looks decently good for today's standards and dare I say phenomenal for an XBOX 360. The atmosphere is nothing short of breathtaking, this combined with turning off the HUD makes the game unbelievably immersive and something that got me totally lost as I wandered around the game. The guns feel weighty and satisfying with the right amount of bang and impact on the enemies. These collectables called "manuscript pages" I find hilarious as how they literally describe the game as it's going on foreshadowing future events. There was this one particular section of the game where for some reason I went all out guns blazing and admittedly that section was a lot of fun. Now this is unfortunately all the nice things I have to say, because everything else it could've done right is either totally botched up or downright a mess. Firstly, the camera for some reason is further behind Alan than I would personally like but the main problem is that it for some reason shoulder swaps on it's own and I have absolutely no idea how to stop this but it messed up my experience with how I couldn't aim while taking cover with how an object was in the way. The idea of shining a flashlight on enemies and then taking it down with the guns is a great idea, if it wasn't for the fact how the gameplay loop never changes and gets repetitive fast as there's nothing new here to keep the gameplay fresh or exciting to keep you moving forward. The dodge function is one of the most dis-orienting moves I've ever used with how it slows time down and you pretty much have no idea where you are going potentially running into an enemy and considering enemies don't make any sound cues behind you, you'll pretty much get hit from behind with absolutely no way to stop it. Speaking of enemies, there's straight up NO VARIETY to them making the game even more repetitive than it already is AND NO, headshots have no impact to whether they'll drop sooner or not. The presentation may be outstanding, the cutscenes are not with the frame straight up going all over the place during the cutscenes and considering apparently this doesn't happen in 360 version, that's blatantly unacceptable in terms of bringing this game to a new generation of gamers. Now I typically don't have a problem with linear level design, in fact I don't blame Alan Wake being linear considering this is a 360 game at the end of the day, but where I do have a problem with it is that it pretty much makes the UI pointless, the HUD in this game is easily the most "take it or leave, don't really care" with how you don't need the compass to tell you where to go with how linear it is, you'll find it yourself anyways. The characters are boring and are wildly as uninteresting as the story, and I couldn't even tell you how the story ended even if I tried as it felt abrupt, could've been explained better, and the cliffhanger ending didn't make it any better. Then there's the 2 DLC packs which resolve the base game and all I will say is that they are PATHETIC, they don't resolve NOTHING and this remaster may as well should've cut them out of the base game. Overall, while this game gained a cult following and I couldn't be more happy for those people, I have zero doubts if it released today, it would've bombed HARD and the idea of a sequel would've been dead. So overall, thank goodness you don't need to play this game to enjoy the second one because there was absolutely no way I would've recommended you to play that game if playing this game was a requirement.
I remember when the original came out it was all the rage. Several friends of mine recommended it to me but I just never went for it and eventually forgot it, even though every now and then I'd still hear friends reminiscing of Alan Wake as one of their favorite games.
So, seeing it getting a remaster was the perfect opportunity to jump in and see what it is that I've been missing and honestly, I don't get it.
My assumption is that at the time, the general gamingscape was not what it is now, and games with strong narrative focuses or grounded mechanics were rare. This is why The Last of Us (2013) was such a game changer. And why stories like Bioshock Infinite's took the medium by storm. Even if they weren't that deep by TODAY's standards, they were something else back then.
Because judging Alan Wake AS IT STANDS now, without any nostalgia goggles, it is an annoyingly repetitive and uninspired game.
While the narrative is interesting, the mundane repetitive "levels" keep it from fully enveloping me in its intriguing story set up.
Whenever a cutscene comes on (or whenever I'm playing through a narrative bit of the game like at the beginning, as well as other moments in-between acts) the game has my full attention and I am interested in what is going on.
But as soon as the game places me in the playable area, and I start making my way through what will always be the same-y looking forest hiking trails, aiming my flashlight and blasting away the same 3-4 enemies, my face drops, my excitement vanishes completely and all I feel like doing is turn off the game because there are no thrills, no challenge, no originality, and no fun whatsoever.
There are many older games I still play to this day, games that have aged ranging from 'well-enough' to 'beautifully'. Games like Deus Ex Human Revolution, Mass Effect trilogy, LA Noire, hell, even Max Payne 2 from the same developer. So on so forth.
Sadly, Alan Wake does not fit that mold, the gameplay/level design has sadly aged so terribly that it even makes getting through the story feel like a joyless chore. And this remaster hasn't done anything to rejuvenate these aspects.
Whatever glories it may have had at one point, they have all stayed in the past.
If you're interested in this game because of Alan Wake 2, my suggestion is instead of putting yourself through this, watch a "Movie Playthrough" on Youtube to catch up on the thrilling plot, without the headache of actually playing through these barren levels.
SummaryIn this cinematic action-thriller, troubled author Alan Wake embarks on a desperate search for his missing wife, Alice. Following her mysterious disappearance from the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, he discovers pages of a horror story he has supposedly written, but he has no memory of. Wake is soon forced to question his sanity...