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My name is Alan Wake. I'm a writer. |OT|

S

Spiegel

Member
MightyHedgehog said:
Why not just hook up a ethernet cable to download the episode and then unhook afterward? It's an offline game, after all.
Click to expand...

There's no TV on that room and the ethernet cable is not long enough.

I'm too lazy to move the TV/console but I guess I'll have to do that.
 
S

soco

Member
Spiegel said:
There's no TV on that room and the ethernet cable is not long enough.

I'm too lazy to move the TV/console but I guess I'll have to do that.
Click to expand...

friends with a laptop work well and a crossover cable work well!
 
S

Solid warrior

Banned
Shake Appeal said:
I just did 'Gunless Wonder' on Nightmare. What do I win?
Click to expand...
33ymcqp.png

well done man, I did it on Normal Mode!
 
S

Shake Appeal

Member
Cool. Nightmare playthrough down, here are my stats:

Manuscript pages found: 104/106
Coffee thermoses found: 96/100
Can pyramids knocked over: 9/12
Chests found: 28/30
Radio shows found: 11/11
TV shows found: 14/14
Signs found: 23/25

I know which chapters the pages are in, but I may have to cave and use a guide for the rest.
 
P

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Up to episode 3 on nightmare, so far I nabbed all the pages. Will the game always toss Nightmare pages in the normal path or do they start to require more exploring again?
 
B

brandonh83

Banned
slasher_thrasher21 said:
YAY Brandon likes it! :D
Click to expand...

The graphics are blowing my mind apart, the environments are just insane. In my very videogame-graphics-uneducated opinion, this is one of the most impressive looking titles I've seen on home consoles.

I'm not sure what I expected from the game horror-wise and it's certainly no Silent Hill, but it has its own distinct flavor and its own methods of creeping me the fuck out and to credit the devs, they are kicking my ass in this department. I've had more than one extremely standout moment, the best being when I entered a dark cabin at night, I'm just looking around in the living room and without warning one of the dark presences walks by the window all nonchalantly. Really creeped me out bad and made me not want to leave the cabin.

Story wise, no clue, as I'm still deep in the narrative and I have no idea where it's going. I have a few cliche-ridden ideas for what the twist is going to be but thankfully I think I'm very wrong. All I can say is that I'm very intrigued by the story and I love reading the manuscripts which is something I usually find myself disliking; but where they actually relate them to what's going on in the game, I feel that they're an excellent way to build tension.

"And then, I heard the chainsaw."

I like the characters; they're voice acted well enough and the writing is pretty good. Alan is a pretty decent character though he hasn't been fleshed out as well as I'd hoped, though I'm definitely going to reserve judgment on that note until post-credits. Music goes without saying, when there's music it's fantastic and I love all the detail they put into the game which is just insurmountable. One of my friends argues with me saying that he can't understand why it took so long for them to make it and while I wouldn't exactly say that the very extensive development time shows, I can easily see why the game took a while for them to make.

So yeah. It kicks ass. It's a story-driven horror/thriller thing so naturally I love it. I find it really intense and even terrifying in moments, unlike the more recent Silent Hill installments, and I think the only regret I have now is that I played this before seeing the next Silent Hill that will be shown at E3 because I won't lie, I just don't think it's going to look as good as this. Remedy may have spoiled any excitement I may or may not have had for Vatra's Silent Hill, but we'll see. Let's just say that I think Alan Wake finally showed us what this genre can be like on current-gen systems and everything else has a lot to live up to.
 
B

Brother Sport

Member
Netrunner2k2 said:
These guys are awesome. :D
Click to expand...
So awful, yet at the same time so awesome. I love it.

Playing on nightmare difficulty right now to find the manuscript pages I missed my first playthrough plus the nightmare ones. Listening to the two pages from "The Sudden Stop" brought back some memories. :D
 
V

vitaminwateryum

corporate swill
Just finished this today.

Thought the story was great until about the point where
you get the clicker from Zane
then it got kinda weird, but still pretty good at the same time. The lighting is so damn rad throughout, so many times where I thought to myself, "holy shit, this looks so good."

It's great to see how many of the game elements come together to make such an interesting game. The controls for the most part felt really great aside from the jumping being a tiny bit weird sometimes and the timing on the dodge feeling a bit odd.
 
L

Lunchbox

Banned
plagiarize said:
What a wonderful thing to watch the day my wife and I confirmed that we would be making it out to the pacific northwest again in august!
Click to expand...

:0

take these -

zc0TZ.jpg


remember, find the lady of light, thats how you reshape destiny
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
wow, this game looks so damn good. shame about the god awful animation.

so far I'm enjoying it. I'm mid way through Chapter 3. Hopefully there aren't many more stretches like the end of Chapter 2. That got kind of tedious. Hopefully they keep mixing things up like they have so far in Chapter 3.
 
R

Rated-Rsuperstar

Member
Halfway through chapter 4. I'm losing interest and don't know if I'll finish it. I wish there was more to the game then the flashlight combat. It was ok at first but now several hours in it's just boring.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Rated-Rsuperstar said:
Halfway through chapter 4. I'm losing interest and don't know if I'll finish it. I wish there was more to the game then the flashlight combat. It was ok at first but now several hours in it's just boring.
Click to expand...
eek, I was afraid of this.
 
D

derFeef

Member
Rez said:
eek, I was afraid of this.
Click to expand...
Just judge for yourself :) Combat is a blast imo, was not tired of it even in the second playthrough. It was even better I´d say because I had more chance to play around.

edit: Don´t get me wrong. I can understand why people might get tired of it, But it really has no effect on myself.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
oh, yeah, sure. I'm still in the honeymoon phase with the game, I'm nearly certain I'll be seeing it through to the end.
 
F

Feindflug

Member
Rez said:
wow, this game looks so damn good. shame about the god awful animation.

so far I'm enjoying it. I'm mid way through Chapter 3. Hopefully there aren't many more stretches like the end of Chapter 2. That got kind of tedious. Hopefully they keep mixing things up like they have so far in Chapter 3.
Click to expand...

Well I wouldn't call the animations god awful but sure the animations and especially the facial animations could've been much better.

Episode 4 is even better and definitely the best I've played thus far (I'm at the start of Ep.5), also combat gets much better in Ep.3 as the game gives you some new and interesting stuff to play around which makes the combat much more interesting and fun.

And please tell me you're playing on Hard... :p
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Feindflug said:
Well I wouldn't call the animations god awful but sure the animations and especially the facial animations could've been much better.

Episode 4 is even better and definitely the best I've played thus far (I'm at the start of Ep.5), also combat gets much better in Ep.3 as the game gives you some new and interesting stuff to play around which makes the combat much more interesting and fun.

And please tell me you're playing on Hard... :p
Click to expand...
I was on Hard for Chapter 1 and 2, but I kicked it down when I started Chapter 3.

While there haven't been any horrible difficulty spikes during my time on Hard, it feels to me like the sort of game that might end up fucking me over later and end up making me frustrated.

I'll raise it again for Chapter 4 and beyond if I can get some assurance that the game doesn't suddenly throw up a wall later in the game! =p

I'm really enjoying the feel of both the day and night time. The story is good fun as well. Once again: stunning game, visually.
 
A

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
I finished it yesterday.

After a day of reflecting and listening to the CAG Alan Wake spoilercast and reading through some threads, I understand the story a little bit better. But it's one of those type of game/stories that I don't like.

The game's story in the end boils down to "Well what do you think happened?". I don't know! YOU wrote the damn story, just tell me! I know that some people really like those type of stories and being able to discuss different theories, and to an extent I enjoy that to. But when it gets so much down to the fact where you have 3-4 different interpretations of the game's story... I don't like that. I just want the creators to sit down and explain to me what they were thinking when they did what they did. THAT would give me a much better appreciation to the game. But when the game's creators just play that game of "Well we didn't really make it mean anything, that's for you to interrupt"... I don't enjoy that kind of story telling.


So yeah different things for different people. I did enjoy the environment a lot, the radio shows and TV shows were awesome. I even enjoyed the combat after I "got it" around the 3rd chapter. It was different and fun, and yes while it was the same thing over and over again... I never really got tired of it. I can do repetitive combat as long as the combat is fun (like Dead Space).

... I really didn't enjoy the characters a whole lot. Barry was super annoying, I hate characters like him in TV and Movies, the comic relief in an otherwise "serious" story. I think it would've helped the tone of the game a lot more not to have him in there. And I also didn't enjoy the Rock Concert part, felt so out-of-place to me in the game.

I also didn't think a whole lot of the graphics. I thought they were good, but nothing as good as Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain. Yes, I know I'm trolling but this was my first was my Xbox360 game, so that's all that I have to compare it to. It was a good start but I think I'll be trading this in for Mass Effect 2 or something.

500/1000 Gamerscore on the finish as well. :D
 
L

Larsen B

Member
I'm too lazy to go into details of why (which completely undermines my point here) but the story isn't that open to interpretation.
 
S

soco

Member
Adam Prime said:
The game's story in the end boils down to "Well what do you think happened?". I don't know! YOU wrote the damn story, just tell me!
Click to expand...

it's not really that type of story. it's open to some interpretation, but it's fairly clear what happened and the few things left open will get resolved in the sequels, pretty much like any product with a sequel.
 
A

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
imtehman said:
i'm surprised people didn't "get" the combat at the beginning part of ch. 1, you know, the section with the tutorial.
Click to expand...

For some reason I missed the part that you HAD to weaken them with the light first... and I didn't even notice the lens flare that shows their "health" until someone pointed it out to me on this thread. :lol

I'm an idiot... ah well.
 
B

Beaulieu

Member
Silly.Mikey said:
I don't understand how everyone at Remedy and MS missed this. Ur trying to sell everyone on episodic gaming and yet, i cant even play the game that way, even though its supposed to be played that way. Well done.
Click to expand...

Every time I finished an episode, I went back to Xbox dashboard or closed the console...
If you want to stop playing after an episode, why don't you just do that ? What's the point for going back in the main menu ?
 
D

derFeef

Member
Beaulieu said:
Every time I finished an episode, I went back to Xbox dashboard or closed the console...
If you want to stop playing after an episode, why don't you just do that ? What's the point for going back in the main menu ?
Click to expand...
I played for 3 hours and want a brake after the episode, but do not want to spoil the beginning and straight tell the game "save and quit to main menu" to be sure the game is saved at the right spot.
If you saved the game after the intro of the next episode, and then take a brake, you will loose the flow of the game as you start ingame, and not the "previously on alan wake" intro after you pick it up again.

I hope my crappy english could explain this.
 
B

Beaulieu

Member
derFeef said:
I played for 3 hours and want a brake after the episode, but do not want to spoil the beginning and straight tell the game "save and quit to main menu" to be sure the game is saved at the right spot.
If you saved the game after the intro of the next episode, and then take a brake, you will loose the flow of the game as you start ingame, and not the "previously on alan wake" intro after you pick it up again.

I hope my crappy english could explain this.
Click to expand...

I understand what you mean, but each time I quit after getting the achivement (right before "previously on allan wake..") and when I continued my game, it started at that exact point.
 
D

derFeef

Member
Beaulieu said:
I understand what you mean, but each time I quit after getting the achivement (right before "previously on allan wake.." and when I continued my game, it started at that exact point.
Click to expand...
Hm, should have tried that, but I was afraid it did not save. Still, it would not harm to have a button for this to make it clear.
 
H

harriet the spy

Member
I am through chapter 3 and so far I am pretty disappointed. I won't post my thoughts too much because I don't want to crash the party of those who love the game (i am glad for them), but the writing makes me cringe a fair bit (the writing of the whole game, the worse offender being the manuscript. I know it's 'supposed to be bad' , but that's not an excuse for me. Even 'bad' writers write much better than this. Unless there is a twist it was written by Alan wake when he was five, i am really bothered by it).

One thing that worries me is that everyone comments on how pretty the game is. It doesn't look great on my xbox. In particular, anything far away, in a shadow or smoke, is incredibly pixelated. I am not talking pixel counter stuff here, I am talking about _really_ pixelated.
And the game slows down sometimes. Like freezes for a split second (like a 1/4 s), and goes ahead.

Is there a chance this indicates my xbox is going the way of the dodo?

Also, is it me or the mouth animation of Wake is one of the oddest I have seen in big budget titles? He always seems to have his mouth open in some kind of weird, unnatural angle?
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Chapter 4 was great. Probably the best yet. I loved the stage scene.
 
J

jedimike

Member
Finished the game last night. Absolutely amazing gaming experience! Likely to be my GOTY. I really hope other developers follow Remedy's formula with making the episodes like TV shows. It worked out great for me since my gaming time is hit and miss.

Most story driven games are a waste of my time because I can't stay connected with the game. I may go a week without playing and will forget what has happened. With AW, the "previously on..." kept me connected to the story.

I noticed in the credits that Remedy farmed out a lot of work including the facial animations. Honestly, things like that are uncalled for. It makes people want to nitpick the game because the lip syncing is so off.

Gameplay, graphics, and story is where AW really exceeded all of my expectations. I can't wait for the DLC to hit.
 
A

a Master Ninja

Member
Finally finished the game, I don't know why I put it down before. The Poet and The Muse is the song that stuck with me more than any other. Great original song that fit perfectly in the narrative. The lyrics do a great job at explaining Zane. Can't wait for the DLC.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
started to really, really enjoy the game mid-way through Chapter 4, loved it through Chapter 5 and thought Chapter 6, while it dragged on a little, was pretty decent.

the game had a nice rhythm to it, once it got going. there were moments during the game where I was totally in love with it, and others where I was a tad so-so.

Hell, it kept me playing for hours at a time. Some of the story stuff was goofy, and there were the occasional boring stretch, but Remedy did a great job of keeping new scenarios and locations moving, while making everything feel so damn cohesive. I'm a total sucker for this sort of thing. Two steps away from brilliance, but what a good bit of fun.
 
S

Solid warrior

Banned
Rated-Rsuperstar said:
Finished it. Waste of time. I should have expected the ending to be nonsense to compliment the mundane combat. At least the graphics were pretty.
Click to expand...
well, when I beat the game for the first time I didn't get the ending, but then I played it again on Nightmare and went on to discuss the story with my friend and a lot of things made sense but again it's kind of mysterious and I have a lot of questions left unanswered. but It's really awesome overall.

I hope that the DLCs doesn't have anything to do with the main story, because I've already sold the game.
 
M

MirageDwarf

Member
Rez said:
started to really, really enjoy the game mid-way through Chapter 4, loved it through Chapter 5 and thought Chapter 6, while it dragged on a little, was pretty decent.

the game had a nice rhythm to it, once it got going. there were moments during the game where I was totally in love with it, and others where I was a tad so-so.

Hell, it kept me playing for hours at a time. Some of the story stuff was goofy, and there were the occasional boring stretch, but Remedy did a great job of keeping new scenarios and locations moving, while making everything feel so damn cohesive. I'm a total sucker for this sort of thing. Two steps away from brilliance, but what a good bit of fun.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this.

I really hope Remedy gets deal with some other publisher for future installments, if MS is not interested.
 
NinjaBoiX

NinjaBoiX

Member
Solid warrior said:
well, when I beat the game for the first time I didn't get the ending, but then I played it again on Nightmare and went on to discuss the story with my friend and a lot of things made sense but again it's kind of mysterious and I have a lot of questions left unanswered. but It's really awesome overall.

I hope that the DLCs doesn't have anything to do with the main story, because I've already sold the game.
Click to expand...
You do realise that you'll need the disc to play the DLC right?
 
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