Cleared Alan Wake

So yeah, cleared Alan Wake.

Ending... what the fuck was that? Seriously?

Also, the final boss was crap.

The game's not very good, honestly. The whole light gimmick is somewhat original but nothing to call home about, and is kind of ruined by how the stages all feel unnaturally stretched out as if just to buy more time so that people won't complain about how short it is.

There aren't even any real gimmicks aside from a few exceptions (and even then, those are way too few and far between) to really define the stages, you run around, start up a generator once in a while, enemies ambush you and you kill them, repeat a million times. There isn't even much variation in the enemies, either. You either get the people who try to cut you up (some have more life, some move faster, but they're basically the same), the birds, and poltergeist activity (random shit flying at you and the occasional possessed vehicle). None pose much of a challenge or require you to do anything besides shine the light at them and then shoot them if they're human, or whip out a flashbang or flare if there're too many. There's only one real boss enemy (the final boss) in the game and it's pathetic.

As for the whole horror aspect... Anyone who says that the game had any scary moments at all is lying. Or suffering from mental degradation which results in them pissing their pants at Disney movies. The only vaguely creepy bit at all in the game is the house with Zane's name scrawled all over the walls, and that just turns out to be his crazy old stalker's doing, and she's on the good side. It even gets a bit funny at the end, where the bad guy tries to drop a fucking ship on your head (I chuckled at that).

Looking at Metacritic made me throw up a bit in my mouth. To keep it short, anyone who gave it more than 70 is either lying through his teeth (possibly due to being paid off), an absolute idiot, or both.

The story isn't bad but is in all honesty nothing exceptional; The average Stephen King novel or X Files episode is tons more interesting (by the way, I'm pretty sure I saw/read this whole writer-writing-story-that-comes-true thing somewhere else before). Also, the way the narrative is executed is not very good because you might miss parts of the story because you didn't know that you had to go up to someone and stand next to them for five minutes to listen to them yap on about something, or because you opened a door too soon which caused someone to be cut off.

I hated how they rub references in your face too hard. "Dude he's hitting the door with an axe! LIKE IN THE SHINING!", "The birds are attacking! LIKE HITCHCOCK'S BIRDS!".

The gameplay is just the same things over and over and over again for hours. It's terrible, in all honesty. The graphics are nice but, again, nothing special.

It's not bad by any means. Just nothing out of the ordinary. I certainly wouldn't use words like "brilliant" or "intense" or "gripping" or "astounding" or "intelligent" to describe it, and to say that it's "so unnerving you'll sleep with the lights on for a month" is so plain fucking ridiculous that I'm at a loss for words here.

Also, it's short, Very short. Took me about ten hours, and I'd estimate that at least half of that was just trekking along the countryside in the dark following the icon that tells you where to go next. You don't get lost because of that thing, and there aren't any puzzles (I can think of about one exception, but that wasn't much of an exception anyway. "Hey, that viking boat looks like it could be used as a ram!" says Alan. Ten seconds later you hit a green button and use it as a ram.) to solve or whatever. You just walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, and walk for fucking hours on end, stopping only once in a while to shoot an enemy or two or start a generator.

Replay value? Er, right. Go collect all the items! Some are only available on higher difficulties!

Bah.

It's really sad, because I see a lot of wasted potential here. This game could've been something special. It isn't. But people are claiming that it is which just makes it even sadder.

I may sound pretty negative about all this but I still enjoyed the game somewhat (though the ending kind of ruined everything for me). There were a bunch of pretty cool moments, namely the battle on the stage, and the bits where Sarah and Barry accompany you. Driving through enemies was kind of fun, too, and I also sort of enjoyed the Twilight Zone parody show you can find on the TVs.

Ah well, I'll probably check out the DLC (have the bonus code for the first one) when it's out, but until then, there's nothing left for me to do in here.

Anyway, the aftertaste left by Alan Wake was so bad that I went and washed it out of my mouth by getting the rest of the achievements I was missing in Idolmaster L4U. Yay.