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[TVexperto]

This really gutted me. I've been a fan of Remedy for over a decade and played every game they've made. The original Alan Wake was my first experience with them, and I absolutely fell in love with their talent and their artistry. This is the first time that I felt they delivered a cheap a disrespectful experience, and I'm extremely disappointed in them for that.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

The game didn't look appealing to me from the original reveal. The first game was boring and they haven't made anything noteworthy to me since Max Payne 2.

 

[Games of Today]

Ok, so can you guys point me to some games that had a better gameplay/narrative experience than Alan Wake II.

Because it was my GOTY by far, so I must be missing out on some godly stuff for sure..

Medal of Honor: 2010

 

[MDSLKTR]

Which reminds me: I bought it on Xbox, asked for a refund because of audio bugs but the same week Microsoft fired everybody and nobody answered my request

 

[TexMex]

Alan Wake 2 is the new Bioshock Infinite then is what you’re saying lol

Perfect comparison (and I still fucking love Bioshock Infinite!!)

 

[Esppiral]

Sam Lake is the most overrated buffoon in the current gaming space.

Hideous Kojima says Hi.

 

[JimmyRustler]

? The story went plenty of places. Both characters went on an interesting journey and you might not like where it ended up, but you could say the same thing about stories like Inception or The Godfather.

“Why even watch those movies, it didn’t go anywhere at the end”.

Because it’s about the journey, not the outcome.

Fair enough… when you have a franchise with promise to go on. Alan Wake 1 flopped and was in Limbo for more than a decade and even when Epic agreed to back it was unsure how the reception will be. So you’d think Remedy would use the chance to finish the story but no, they choose to not have it progress at all. I mean, you don’t even get much more surrounding lore knowledge. Nothing. The whole 30 hours is just another random failed attempt by Wake to escape the darkness. They could make an infinite amount of those.

 

[balls of snow]

Disagree.
Good thing the sane part of gaf voted it top 3 game of last year. There is hope yet.

 

[K' Dash]

Disagree.
Good thing the sane part of gaf voted it top 3 game of last year. There is hope yet.

it's always the simpletons who are the loudest.

 

[simpatico]

Looks like those mesh shaders helped me dodge a $60 bullet!

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Remember how they kept hinting in the first game and American Nightmare that there were vast Lovecraftian beings that inhabited the Dark Place?

It is like they completely ignored that part with the second game. Boring enemies and boring story.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I just rolled credits and my feelings are mixed. This game does a lot right, I love a lot of what's here but there also a lot of things I found lacking. Particularly the first ending and the start of the game.

I failed to care about Saga as a character, let alone as a hero. Her back story is not interesting, her constant yapping is annoying, she acts very weird in the face of whats happening. Her mind place is extremely boring.

The ending goes nowhere, I was ready to forgive a lot of my grievances if they stuck the landing, but they didn't. You had to wait for an update and to replay the game again for the real ending.

I adore the music, the quirkiness of it all, the crazy old men, the metal music. We sing chapter is one of my favorite videogame segments in years.



The gameplay is an afterthought in this game, I'm convinced you'd have a better time putting it on easy and just trying to enjoy the rest.

I'm still happy I played it and would give it an 8 to 8.5 out of 10. Flawed masterpiece would be how I define this game.

 

[CGNoire]

I just don't see how the gameplay is awful. It's your bog standard third person combat, nothing special in the slightest but not bad either.

The 1st games light/dark controls and crowd control was noticeably superior. Rebeat the 1st 6 months ago and can confirm. They straight downgraded it and balanced it to 2 on 1 instead of 5 on 1.

 

[CGNoire]

Fair enough… when you have a franchise with promise to go on. Alan Wake 1 flopped and was in Limbo for more than a decade and even when Epic agreed to back it was unsure how the reception will be. So you’d think Remedy would use the chance to finish the story but no, they choose to not have it progress at all. I mean, you don’t even get much more surrounding lore knowledge. Nothing. The whole 30 hours is just another random failed attempt by Wake to escape the darkness. They could make an infinite amount of those.

Yep 24 hours of filler content the game turned out to be.

 

[Jaybe]

Thanks for saving me from considering purchasing this SlimySnake
I'm just tiring of cinematic, narrative heavy games, walk-and-talk sections, and got to these points and press X.
I just finished God of War Ragnarok yesterday. What a slog! Doesn't help that their pompous one-shot technique use, makes these scenes go on longer than needed. Plus they think so highly of their work, that you can't skip these scenes. Insufferable companions too. I'm doing a palate cleanse with an RE4 remake run, and going to give Helldivers 2 a go.
I'm sure Hellblade 2 will basically be a 6 hour movie. Would love if a reviewer had the balls to categorized it as one, and graded it relative to that genre.

 

[SenkiDala]

Took me a while to finish this because this is one boring ass game, but I have played boring games before. The story and storytelling in this game isnt just boring, it's awful from start to finish.

- Constant cheap scares with evil Alan Wake flashes on screen. After around the 100th one I was ready for this game to be over. I am not exaggerating. There are probably over a 100 of these flashes.
- Constant cuts to realtime FMVs that are poorly acted, and feel like a cheap knock off instead of an AAA game.
- Constant monologues. Alan talking to himself because has no one to talk to in his story. Saga constantly talking to herself in the mind place. People tell kojima to get an editor, someone tell Sam Lake to stop writing. Less is more.
- The meta writing a story within a story plot simply doesnt work. Again, it reeks of Sam lake thinking he's a big genius writer when it turns out he's just an amateur. Every single narrative choice he made falls flat.
- Game is like 25 hours long and has maybe 2 hours of actual combat. The rest of the time you are listening to these two protagonist talk to themselves. Sometimes Saga has cutscenes with others which are well acted and directed, but most of the time she's in her mind palace talking to others as they openly reveal to her their darkest secrets and evil plans in what is supposed to be a sinister tone, but comes across as overly robotic and laughable.

The pacing is atrocious. After the final boss fight, Saga ends up in the mind place where she talks to herself for a 30 minute sequence where you simply put up some pictures up on a caseboard. It isnt just awful gameplay, and the worst climax ive experienced in a game recently, it's also a very poor form of storytelling. it's way worse than any walking segment Sony studios have made because it goes on for what feels like 30 fucking minutes. And thats basically 90% of the game.

This is what goes for best narrative nowadays? Has the industry lost their fucking minds? 90+ metacritic, awards for best narrative, gotys. GOTYs?

P.S The ending sucked ass. They were trying to pull off a Prisoners inspired ending but failed miserably. Absolutely atrocious. In Prisoners, you know he's heard the whistle because you hear the whistle. Here, you dont hear her daughter pick up the phone. It cuts before that. Honestly, this entire game can fuck right off.

That's ok to not understand a game, you don't need to try to justify yourself.

 

[rofif]

The game is sam lake's death stranding, but not as successful because kojima has more fart sniffing fanboys around the world.

Hopefully the dude is gonna tone down the bullshits for control 2.

Death stranding might have 10 hours of cutscenes but it also had 40 hours of extremely good and engaging gameplay.
And the story of ds actually makes sense and closes at the end.

 

[Alan Wake]

Critics don't know shit.

No cap, Forspoken is 100x the game AW2 is. The gameplay is way more involving and there is actually 30+ hours of gameplay alone in forspoken.
And I liked story and characters more too. The lore is very in depth in forspoken (collectibles).
And what it sums up to? Everyone bandwagon hated it.
industry claerly has shown that great gameplay and new single player, gameplay focsed IP does not matter.
industry values slow, cinematic, no gameplay woke crap.

I understand what some people might like about AW2. But it's not a good game. Not by any margin. The industry is so fucked

You're obviously entitled to your opinion but don't pretend it's anything more than that.

 

[Sleepwalker]

The game is sam lake's death stranding, but not as successful because kojima has more fart sniffing fanboys around the world.

Hopefully the dude is gonna tone down the bullshits for control 2.

Having played Death Stranding literally before Alan Wake 2 (lol what a coincidence) I can safely say Death Stranding is far more advanced mechanically, has more varied combat, way better traversal (obvious being an open world game) and is just far more enjoyable to play through if we just take gameplay into account. It does suffer from some common issues, particularly the long drawn intro to the game.

 

[GymWolf]

Having played Death Stranding literally before Alan Wake 2 (lol what a coincidence) I can safely say Death Stranding is far more advanced mechanically, has more varied combat, way better traversal (obvious being an open world game) and is just far more enjoyable to play through if we just take gameplay into account. It does suffer from some common issues, particularly the long drawn intro to the game.

Yeah i think that overall DS is the less shitty fart sniffing exprience between the 2.

 

[GymWolf]

Death stranding might have 10 hours of cutscenes but it also had 40 hours of extremely mediocre and boring gameplay.
And the story of ds actually makes no sense and it's full of cringe.

100% agree.

 

[Danjin44]

100% agree.

 

[GymWolf]

meh it's not worthy.

 

[Ocean Dweller]

My buddy and I keep saying that the writers of the game try to be weird, just to be weird. It doesn't work

 

[Danjin44]

meh it's not worthy.

 

[bender]

100% agree.

DS didn't click with me at all so I can understand being bored by it, but I can't wrap my circuits around it being called mediocre. I think it's rather easy to see the craftsmanship to the mechanics within which makes it easy to appreciate even if I don't like them. Maybe mediocre is just the typical hyperbole of internet discourse, but I'd love to hear the thoughts of those who really believe it is mediocre.

 

[GymWolf]

DS didn't click with me at all so I can understand being bored by it, but I can't wrap my circuits around it being called mediocre. I think it's rather easy to see the craftsmanship to the mechanics within which makes it easy to appreciate even if I don't like them. Maybe mediocre is just the typical hyperbole of internet discourse, but I'd love to hear the thoughts of those who really believe it is mediocre.

I didn't used the building stuff so maybe that one is good, but i found combat, driving, stealth and even the walking gimmick to be rather mediocre to acceptable at best.

If the story doesnt' hook you there is no mgs5 gameplay to keep the whole facade from crumbling imo.

 

[angrod14]

I'm being offered 20% off on the PS Store on this. It says "just for you". I've checked PS Prices and the game isn't on sale in general. Does Sony do personalized/targeted sales now? That's so awesome... I feel special.

 

[rofif]

You're obviously entitled to your opinion but don't pretend it's anything more than that.

Your nick name is Alan wake

 

[sertopico]

I've been disappointed too.
The side content was just awful, I was hoping they'd come up with something better other than collecting lucky charms, unlock stashes and so on... Those unlocked areas after fighting the dark presence were simply lacking good content. In fact, it's the first Remedy game I played and finished once and didn't touch anymore since then, and normally I love their games. The combat was in my opinion also a step back compared to their other productions, I am not expecting a Control kind of action sequences but at least, if you want to do a survival horror, make sure those moments are more meaningful. It was so boring I ended up most of the time running away from most of the enemies, who by the way are bullet sponges.

Mind place was just a drag and drop, listen to Saga blabbering and repeat. It was no actual good addition to the gameplay. Such a shame.

 

[Senua]

Critics don't know shit.

No cap, Forspoken is 100x the game AW2 is. The gameplay is way more involving and there is actually 30+ hours of gameplay alone in forspoken.
And I liked story and characters more too. The lore is very in depth in forspoken (collectibles).
And what it sums up to? Everyone bandwagon hated it.
industry claerly has shown that great gameplay and new single player, gameplay focsed IP does not matter.
industry values slow, cinematic, no gameplay woke crap.

I understand what some people might like about AW2. But it's not a good game. Not by any margin. The industry is so fucked

 

[JerryinSoCal]

Tried it on PS+ Premium and didn't even use the full amount of time. Honestly I've never played a remedy game that I liked though.

 

[MacReady13]

My buddy and I keep saying that the writers of the game try to be weird, just to be weird. It doesn't work

Saddest thing is, they try to replicate the wierdness of a David Lynch film by trying too hard! David Lynch is just a weird guy so it comes naturally to him. These guys just made a carbon copy of a FAR superior product. What a poor waste of time this game was (for the 8 hours I played of it).

 

[Krappadizzle]

Saddest thing is, they try to replicate the wierdness of a David Lynch film by trying too hard! David Lynch is just a weird guy so it comes naturally to him. These guys just made a carbon copy of a FAR superior product. What a poor waste of time this game was (for the 8 hours I played of it).

It's strange too, as Remedy did a pretty good job of nailing Lynch's Twin Peaks-esq charm in the first Alan Wake, but it came across as so forced in the 2nd game. I remember finishing Alan Wake 1 and immediately watching Twin Peaks and really enjoying the strangeness of it all in the way they directly compare or differ, but I felt exactly the opposite in AW2.

 

[Astray]

(yay feel good, keep going!)

How is that woke in any ways lmfao?

 

[mdkirby]

I thought it was great. If you don’t like those sort of games (broadly described by OP as ‘boring games’), held these views of Alan wake, why bother playing it at all? And definitely why bother actually completing it? It clearly wasn’t made for your tastes. Me tho, and for much of the community really enjoyed it, also evidenced by the wall of imo well deserved awards it received

It would be like me playing cod, knowing i probably won’t like it. Realising, nope, this sucks balls, then choosing to continue playing it for another 30 hours, to then go bitch about how shit it is.

 

[Buggy Loop]

This is what goes for best narrative nowadays? Has the industry lost their fucking minds? 90+ metacritic, awards for best narrative, gotys. GOTYs?

They were throwing a bone to Alan wake 2, but it should have been BG3, obviously. Epic brought in the cash bags to get any sort of awards.

But VGA sucks balls for narrative winners.
2022 GOW:R, 2021 Guardian of the galaxy, 2020 TLoU 2... ← LOL
You have to go back to 2019 for Disco Elysium for a choice that makes sense.

 

[tommib]

Saddest thing is, they try to replicate the wierdness of a David Lynch film by trying too hard! David Lynch is just a weird guy so it comes naturally to him. These guys just made a carbon copy of a FAR superior product. What a poor waste of time this game was (for the 8 hours I played of it).

Hey, at least someone tried to apply The Return meta language to a game. Lynch is a master of it, sure. Even film directors fail at replicating it.

 

[KXVXII9X]

I haven't played it yet, but it looked like a game that took itself too seriously and was confusing for the sake of being "smart and complex."

In terms of combat, it looks like a big step down from Control.

 

[keefged4]

I've finished it, and found it pretty boring tbh. It reminded me of Silent Hill Shattered Memories in a weird way.

 

[M1chl]

It was also Meta as fuck, and some names are cringe. like mr. scratch

Terrible showing for last work of James McAffrey

 

[DeepEnigma]

Without reading the OP (in case I give it a go soon). Did they ever explain why the fuck homeboy is tripping balls the entire time? Or does it leave it "open ended" ... again?

 

[Shut0wen]

Not even gunna lie even i found the game boring af which is weird becquse i fucking loved wake from the 360 era and even played control just for the wake dlc (that game is also amazing) but the biggest issue i find is them steering away from stephen king and twin peak influence and just straight up making it some shitty true detective game with gay marvel multiverse cringe shit

 

[Chuck Berry]

More so than the burn I got from hitting the game breaking bug in Coffee World, the combat or lack of was just the most blasphemous fucking thing coming from a Remedy game. So many effects missing, no slow down effect of any kind, no perfect dodges, no real buzzsaw effect or screech when cutting into the darkness with your flashlight...Ill just never get the love for this, especially from longtime fans.

And Lake has unfortunately reached the point where he needs an editor just like Kojima.

 

[Last Hearth]

Remember how they kept hinting in the first game and American Nightmare that there were vast Lovecraftian beings that inhabited the Dark Place?

It is like they completely ignored that part with the second game. Boring enemies and boring story.

Sounds to me like a mystery box "Lost" type of narrative where they keep dangling mysteries but have no plans and make it up as they go.

 

[CGNoire]

Your nick name is Alan wake

Dont listen too him he's stuck in the dark place.

 

[SlimySnake]

Without reading the OP (in case I give it a go soon). Did they ever explain why the fuck homeboy is tripping balls the entire time? Or does it leave it "open ended" ... again?

they do a great job tying it to the Control universe. so basically you have to assume that there are supernatural elements in this world. its not just in Alan's head.

 

[Chiggs]

Alan Wake 2, much like Alan Wake, is a piece of overrated shit.

 

[Muffdraul]

I bought Alan Wake 2 at launch and after about an hour I thought, "Ugh, I'm not in the mood for this. Too methodical, too ponderous." I was just coming off Spider-Man 2. I deliberately put it off until my holiday break when I had a little over two weeks off at the very end of the year and I could chill out and focus on it. When I started playing it again it was rough going, the subway level early on felt like such a huge pain in the ass. I came so close to saying "Fuck this game, I'll never be in the mood for this shit." But something made me stick with it, and I ended up really getting into it. I finished it and did a NG+ 'Final Draft' playthrough before my break was over. Made me go back and finally play through American Nightmare which I had previously only played for about 30 min. when it came out. Good shit. Sucks to be those who can't get into it.

 

[DeepEnigma]

they do a great job tying it to the Control universe. so basically you have to assume that there are supernatural elements in this world. its not just in Alan's head.

So basically, their Silent Hill, which the mythos always felt ripped from.