mae
05-07-2010, 08:54 AM
http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/gamereport/alan_wake_stephen_king_the_game_67qoWQlHwuAdgCMiC0 IH4L
Remedy's Alan Wake is a fine game. It's look (especially the lighting) deserves all the praise it's receiving. The atmosphere is superb as well -- downright chilling at times.
And so too should kudos be heaped onto the structure of the game. It's episodic nature allows for it to serve as a great storytelling vehicle.
But therein lies the rub.
Alan Wake is a brilliant vehicle for storytelling, but it doesn't have a brilliant story to tell. And I'm curious as to why the game's being hailed as a storytelling triumph (in terms of actual narrative quality) by most of the media.
It isn't.
It's John Carpenter's 'In The Mouth Of Madness' as told by Stephen King, directed by David Lynch. This mutant mix is then tossed into a blender -- with a dash of almost every other major Stephen King creation out there. (They even go so far as to open the game with a King quote).
Eurogamer appears to be the only other publication to agree with me. At least as far as the storytelling goes -- which, as both a horror fan and writer, I have major qualms about.
That's not to say that I didn't love the pulp touches. I surely did. The Twilight Zone parody within the game, Night Falls, borders on brilliant. Having songs played to me at the end of the first episode was grand. And the narration is delivered with such cheese (Alan himself is way too stuffy to actually be a horror writer, but whatever) that I can't help but think Remedy really did just want to make a throwback to the good ol' days of pulp.
If they did, that's wonderful. I would love to believe that someone out there thought it was high-time to bring back the out-there craziness of 50s, 60s and 70s fiction (Lovecraft is earlier, obviously).
Or maybe it just one big homage to pulp. I'd be OK with that too.
Alan Wake certainly wears its influences on its sleeve.
You, as mega horror writing superstar Alan Wake, have hit a rough patch creatively. The solution appears to be to do all the dumb things the characters in your horror novels (presumably) do and head for a sleepy coastal town surrounded by dark woods for some peace and quiet. In true Lovecraftian fashion, those dark woods that surround said sleepy coastal town house an ancient evil presence. Things get weird. Your wife goes missing. You set forth to continue to make the mistakes folks in horror stories make.
(Including overt touches of realty-versus-fiction/real-unreal jacked from another King property, Secret Window, and the whole 'finding pieces of your manuscript that keep turning real,' a la In The Mouth Of Madness.).
Alan's not sure what's happening, of course. The townspeople are wigging out. Some of them know that the literal and euphemistic darkness is possessing folks, turning them into pointy-thing-wielding Taken who want to impale you with said pointy things.
And you just want to find your wife.
Solution?
Shoot stuff.
It's handled much more gracefully than I've written, but that's the gist of it. As the game progresses, the story gets a bit more topsy-turvy, throwing curveballs at you and making Alan doubt reality, the people around him, his own mind...
Invariably, however, confrontations with the Taken take center stage. And this is where the game shines (har har). Combat, while a bit loose, is fast and frantic, tense and spooky. You have to burn the darkness off Taken in order for them to be killed (the darkness shields them, making them invulnerable). So as three or more maniacs are bearing down on you, you have to decide how best to handle the situation with your limited supplies.
You might be able to take all three out with a well-placed blast from your flare gun, but that's a (relatively) rare weapon. You could focus your flashlight and burn the darkness from the three individually, then shoot each, but that burns through batteries and takes long enough that your health bar might regret it. Or maybe you can use the environment to your advantage.
There's a surprising level of complexity and tactics involved in the combat here. And it's definitely one of the stronger points of the game.
Unfortunately, the combat is marred by some weird animation flaws. Your dodge move, for example, is supposed to be fluid and graceful, but ends up being stuttered and jerky. And at times, you can dodge yourself right the hell off a cliff.
(There are lots of instances of weird animation in the game, as it happens. If it's connected somehow to this, I do not know, but I'll mention here that at no point -- ever -- does the facial animation sync up to the spoken dialogue.)
The enemies are also cheap. They'll appear right behind you, without warning, and just start hacking at the back of your head. Combine that with the dodge that doesn't always work the way it's supposed to and you've got a frustrated gamer.
The strongest aspect of the game, without a doubt, is the atmosphere. Alan Wake is friggin scary. My qualms with the story aside, the game really knows how to get to you. The music sets the stage. It's ambient. There's no blaring soundtrack, no steady beat or rhythm. It's all a frightening, omnipresent bassy thrum with sudden pitch changes.
In that same vein, the world around you breathes. Once that precious sun goes down, every step is made to feel like it could be your last. And it does. It really does. Alan Wake fills the player with an unshakeable sense of dread and foreboding.
And the visuals are, at times, stunning. Alan Wake really is a beautiful game when it wants to be. The towering trees that claw up at the Stygian sky, the terribly few lights that push through the darkness. It's candy for the eyes. Said visuals, however, suffer during the day. I wouldn't go so far as to say the game's ugly when the sun's up, but it's not nearly as impressive as when the monsters come out.
What we have here is borrowed pulp wearing the skin of a first-class horror survival game. It's fun, and shows incredible potential, but it's ultimately held back from greatness by persistant, nagging flaws.
Final Grade: B+
Remedy's Alan Wake is a fine game. It's look (especially the lighting) deserves all the praise it's receiving. The atmosphere is superb as well -- downright chilling at times.
And so too should kudos be heaped onto the structure of the game. It's episodic nature allows for it to serve as a great storytelling vehicle.
But therein lies the rub.
Alan Wake is a brilliant vehicle for storytelling, but it doesn't have a brilliant story to tell. And I'm curious as to why the game's being hailed as a storytelling triumph (in terms of actual narrative quality) by most of the media.
It isn't.
It's John Carpenter's 'In The Mouth Of Madness' as told by Stephen King, directed by David Lynch. This mutant mix is then tossed into a blender -- with a dash of almost every other major Stephen King creation out there. (They even go so far as to open the game with a King quote).
Eurogamer appears to be the only other publication to agree with me. At least as far as the storytelling goes -- which, as both a horror fan and writer, I have major qualms about.
That's not to say that I didn't love the pulp touches. I surely did. The Twilight Zone parody within the game, Night Falls, borders on brilliant. Having songs played to me at the end of the first episode was grand. And the narration is delivered with such cheese (Alan himself is way too stuffy to actually be a horror writer, but whatever) that I can't help but think Remedy really did just want to make a throwback to the good ol' days of pulp.
If they did, that's wonderful. I would love to believe that someone out there thought it was high-time to bring back the out-there craziness of 50s, 60s and 70s fiction (Lovecraft is earlier, obviously).
Or maybe it just one big homage to pulp. I'd be OK with that too.
Alan Wake certainly wears its influences on its sleeve.
You, as mega horror writing superstar Alan Wake, have hit a rough patch creatively. The solution appears to be to do all the dumb things the characters in your horror novels (presumably) do and head for a sleepy coastal town surrounded by dark woods for some peace and quiet. In true Lovecraftian fashion, those dark woods that surround said sleepy coastal town house an ancient evil presence. Things get weird. Your wife goes missing. You set forth to continue to make the mistakes folks in horror stories make.
(Including overt touches of realty-versus-fiction/real-unreal jacked from another King property, Secret Window, and the whole 'finding pieces of your manuscript that keep turning real,' a la In The Mouth Of Madness.).
Alan's not sure what's happening, of course. The townspeople are wigging out. Some of them know that the literal and euphemistic darkness is possessing folks, turning them into pointy-thing-wielding Taken who want to impale you with said pointy things.
And you just want to find your wife.
Solution?
Shoot stuff.
It's handled much more gracefully than I've written, but that's the gist of it. As the game progresses, the story gets a bit more topsy-turvy, throwing curveballs at you and making Alan doubt reality, the people around him, his own mind...
Invariably, however, confrontations with the Taken take center stage. And this is where the game shines (har har). Combat, while a bit loose, is fast and frantic, tense and spooky. You have to burn the darkness off Taken in order for them to be killed (the darkness shields them, making them invulnerable). So as three or more maniacs are bearing down on you, you have to decide how best to handle the situation with your limited supplies.
You might be able to take all three out with a well-placed blast from your flare gun, but that's a (relatively) rare weapon. You could focus your flashlight and burn the darkness from the three individually, then shoot each, but that burns through batteries and takes long enough that your health bar might regret it. Or maybe you can use the environment to your advantage.
There's a surprising level of complexity and tactics involved in the combat here. And it's definitely one of the stronger points of the game.
Unfortunately, the combat is marred by some weird animation flaws. Your dodge move, for example, is supposed to be fluid and graceful, but ends up being stuttered and jerky. And at times, you can dodge yourself right the hell off a cliff.
(There are lots of instances of weird animation in the game, as it happens. If it's connected somehow to this, I do not know, but I'll mention here that at no point -- ever -- does the facial animation sync up to the spoken dialogue.)
The enemies are also cheap. They'll appear right behind you, without warning, and just start hacking at the back of your head. Combine that with the dodge that doesn't always work the way it's supposed to and you've got a frustrated gamer.
The strongest aspect of the game, without a doubt, is the atmosphere. Alan Wake is friggin scary. My qualms with the story aside, the game really knows how to get to you. The music sets the stage. It's ambient. There's no blaring soundtrack, no steady beat or rhythm. It's all a frightening, omnipresent bassy thrum with sudden pitch changes.
In that same vein, the world around you breathes. Once that precious sun goes down, every step is made to feel like it could be your last. And it does. It really does. Alan Wake fills the player with an unshakeable sense of dread and foreboding.
And the visuals are, at times, stunning. Alan Wake really is a beautiful game when it wants to be. The towering trees that claw up at the Stygian sky, the terribly few lights that push through the darkness. It's candy for the eyes. Said visuals, however, suffer during the day. I wouldn't go so far as to say the game's ugly when the sun's up, but it's not nearly as impressive as when the monsters come out.
What we have here is borrowed pulp wearing the skin of a first-class horror survival game. It's fun, and shows incredible potential, but it's ultimately held back from greatness by persistant, nagging flaws.
Final Grade: B+