Vidjama Gmaes Work

It’s true though.

Fourteen years later and I have finally beaten Alan Wake for the first time. Granted, I beat it with cheats. But I beat it nonetheless and I’m about as proud as you can be for beating a game like Alan Wake. Not at all. Because Alan Wake kinda sucks.

And I should probably start by addressing the elephant in the room; if I hated the game so much why did I deliberately go back and play through it. For the sequel? Yes. So I could eventually play the sequel. And because despite its faults I was interested in going through and actually beating it as opposed to getting halfway through and quitting like I did the last time. But I will point out I didn’t go overboard with the cheats.

I used developer mode to give myself extra flare gun ammo. No invincibility, nothing insane. Just a lot of ammo for my flare gun.

First let’s talk about what Alan Wake does right; the vibes. I did enjoy the atmosphere and tone of the game. You play as Alan Wake, a writer on the search for his missing wife in a creepy town full of darkness that may or may not be real. Is it too early to spoil the twist for Alan Wake? I don’t know, y’all probably played the Fortnite map that just straight up explained the whole plot.

Alan Wake has a big Twin Peaks cut to it and good performances by the voice acting. It also has the interesting idea to intercut live action footage with the video game, further cementing that the world this takes place in might not be real.

And that’s pretty much it.

My biggest gripe with the tone in Alan Wake is that the combat is absolutely awful. There is one facet to combat; you shine the light on the bad guy and wait for them to become vulnerable, and then you shoot them. Or you did what I did and cut out that first step by loading yourself up with flare gun rounds and just blowing everyone up. The only change is that eventually you start blasting haunted farm equipment. I’m not joking.

You have a dodge button that is tied to your sprint that works some of the time.

I have no problem with cutscenes in games, however I do take issue when a game is constantly wrenching the camera out of my hands to make me look at something. There are points in Alan Wake where the game is pulling your controls every 20-30 seconds to make you look at the next thing that’s happening. I don’t need the game to force me to stare for five seconds at the crows that popped in out of nowhere.

Oh and the game makes me feel blind. Most of my deaths in Alan Wake were a result of literally not being able to see what I was doing or where I was going and falling into a cheap instant death pit. It’s a combination of really bright lights and filters on top of filters on top of filters on top of filters that make this game intensely painful to look at sometimes. Especially in the last quarter of the game where the effects layer on top of themselves and you think this can’t possibly be on purpose. Only it is.

I’m glad that I went back and finished Alan Wake if only to get it out of my mind and not be thinking about it whenever Remedy comes into my news feed. It’s a good story but not at all a good game from a gameplay perspective. Somehow I ended up playing it on hard mode though.