Thursday, February 23, 2012

I'm Awake Now

I've been wanting to use that as a blog post title for a while now, and just never had a way of doing so.  Seems appropriate now for a post about the end of Alan Wake.  If you're wondering, it's the title of a song by the Goo Goo Dolls.  It's one of the first songs of theirs that was mildly successful -- I'm talking about the days before Iris, Black Balloon, and Slide.  The song actually appeared at the beginning of A Nightmare on Elm Street 6, better known as Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.  And now that I think about it, it's actually a VERY appropriate title for a blog post about a game that's all about being awake, given the fact that the Nightmare moves are about just that -- nightmares.

Anyway, before I get utterly and irrevocably off-track here, I finished Alan wake in a little over 8 hours on Tuesday night.  The ending wasn't the best, but quite honestly it's rare that I like the ending of a game.  Take the Half-Life series, for example.  Both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 had shitty endings.  (Don't get me wrong, the final PLAYABLE bits of those games were brilliant.  But story-wise, which is what I'm referring to here, they sucked.  It didn't make me feel any different about the games as a whole though, and that's the case here as well.)

I honestly wasn't expecting a good ending, anyway.  The game was an homage to old science fiction TV shows, and those NEVER end well!

So now that I've played through the entire game, I'm prepared to summarize the things I liked the most, and the things I liked the least.  I think most of all I enjoyed the overall flow of the story and gamplay.  The story moved along at a very good pace (until the very end), and it kept me wanting to play and wanting to see how everything turned out.  That's how a story should be.  The gameplay likewise moved along quite well, and the stakes kept getting raised.  Pistol to shotgun, shotgun to flaregun, flaregun to hunting rifle.  Standard procession of more powerful weapons.  Same with the flashlight, which I mentioned before.  Also, flares to flashbang grenades.  Same principle.

I think the thing that I disliked most of all was the movement.  It felt clunky. It felt...well, it felt like it was designed for a console.  (Shock horror.)  Dodging axes with those controls was probably one of the most frustrating things I've ever had to do in a game.  Sometimes Alan just wouldn't fucking move.  It was like he had a load of shit in his pants.  The other thing I hate was how the game enjoyed being a dick to me.  Sending enemies from every single angle and giving me zero escape is not fun.  Stop doing it.  Dick.

The bottom line is that this game is well worth the time and money.  I highly recommend it.  

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