Alan Wake Review (Nokt)
This is the type of game that you want to love, but small issues just continue to pile up through your play-through. I do want to stress that these are mostly small issues, but the issues keep the game as just a 'good' game instead of a 'great' game. I realize that this game has been out for over a decade and there is a remaster, but I'll get to that a little later.
+ This game oozes a good story line, atmosphere, and setting.
- Enemy variety is non-existent
- Enemies constantly spawn behind you
- Hidden rewards should feel like a reward, but instead every time you find a stash you are met with enemies, wasting whatever resources you just got. Usually its a net positive, but it feels wrong to punish a player for exploring and finding hidden stashes you left.
- Dodge mechanic is janky (I got a passing grade in the tutorial at the beginning of the game despite getting hit)
- Jumping feels useless, I'm not even sure why its in the game
- You have to just stand and listen to audio doing absolutely nothing (radio, TV, phone, tapes). Would have been exceptionally better if you could run and listen.
- Audio is dependent on the direction you face. In one section specifically you are following a man telling you one thing and Barry following behind you. You constantly have to flip the camera back and forth just to follow the conversation.
- So many times you just follow slow characters, the default speed for Alan is 2x faster if not more. I just got in the habit of 'hugging' the character from the back.
- Driving just feels awful
- Motion blur can't be disabled in the menu
As for the remaster, there are heavy visual glitches with AMD CPU's making it unplayable for me and without the game receiving a patch in over a year its doubtful I will ever play it on PC, I will have to download it on a console.