Everything expressed in the blog does not pretend to be the ultimate truth and is the subjective opinion of the author. It will not change from your statements: “It’s stuffy”, “I wanted to open the window”, “The oxygen has left the room”, “Typical Remedy fanatic”, etc. d. If you didn’t like Alan Wake II, that’s absolutely normal, since the product is copyrighted. But please, there is no need to prove with foam at the mouth that your opinion is the only correct one. After all, we all agree that video games are art? And sometimes art works that way. Cooling down the fucking.
Have you ever wondered how dreams differ from desires?? The main differences between these mental substances are time and scale. Well, you wanted cabbage soup with sour cream and fried pies with potatoes – you cooked it, fried it and your wish came true. But if you want to meet the dawn, looking at the Earth and standing on the lunar surface, then this will require time, effort and many more different resources. But where exactly do wishes end and dreams begin?? In an hour, a month, a year, or maybe in 13? Years.
It’s simply impossible to talk about the sequel without mentioning the original, and since I’m an old motherfucker, I don’t even need to go online to tell you how it really happened. Finnish studio Remedy established itself back in 2001 by releasing the legendary Max Payne. By the way, Max’s appearance was given to him by Sam Lake, a screenwriter and creative director of Remedy, otherwise I still sometimes encounter some bewilderment among the average person. Now it’s hard to imagine, since this is already a living classic, but at the beginning of the 2000s, Max Payne, from the point of view of presentation, plot, style, did not surprise anyone, because the industry was young and there was a lot of all kinds of game. Especially the Japanese. Remember Mister Mosquito, for example. No, of course, all these aspects were appreciated by the players, but Max Payne was truly loved for his fresh approach to gameplay, namely for “Bullet Time” (which is popularly called time dilation). In 2001, this mechanic made a revolution, allowing us to completely reconsider the approach to third-person shooters – namely, their balance. Enemies could now be made stronger and placed more densely in locations, while the hero, on the contrary, could be made weak, which significantly changed the gameplay. Gamers liked this and already in 2003 a sequel was released, which also brought in technologies that humiliated the developers even after 22 years (we are talking about real-time reflections), and in 2005 they announced Alan Wake, which at that time was still an open-world game in the style of GTA. I’m telling you all this to say that, what then, what now, the announcement of each new game from Remedy is greeted by many, including me, with trepidation and aspiration, because each of their major projects still brings something new to the industry. "Bullet Time" and technology in Max Payne, a fresh take on plot structure and serial presentation in Alan Wake (yes, technically the "serial" presentation appeared in Alone in the Dark 2008, but who remembers it?), a video game mixed with a TV series in Quantum Break, cleverly used ray tracing in Control – and we only grab the top. If we take a closer look at Remedy’s games, we see much more creativity compared to other modern studios. This actually makes Remedy an indie studio at its best. Boys and girls do what they like, and not what the industry dictates. At least until the release of Condor and Vanguard. But let’s go back to the 2000s. Alan Wake had to wait five whole years after the announcement. During this time, the game managed to change not only the appearance of the main character, but also its entire concept as a whole. Since the story about the writer was created in collaboration with Microsoft, Wake became exclusive to XBOX360, and this in turn imposed a number of restrictions, including technical. And the development process itself was very difficult for the Finns. The project was much larger than Payne, and the studio simply didn’t know how to work with such a scale. In short, the first Alan Wake was a typical tortured long-term construction project, which was still difficult, but managed to be brought to release.
In 2010 the game was well https://pocketwin-casino.co.uk/games/ received. Critics and players unanimously praised the story and presentation, except for the monotony of the gameplay. Despite the roughness with the gameplay, it seemed that the game had a great future and the announcement of a sequel was just a matter of time. The studio already had developments for a sequel at the time of release, but Microsoft considered the project not financially successful enough, and the last thing we saw from Alan Wake was a small episode in the universe called American Nightmare, which was distributed in the digital store of small games “Xbox Live Arcade”. Microsoft was not going to finance a full-fledged sequel, and all rights to the franchise belonged to it, but some ideas, such as serial storytelling, were to the liking of the corporation’s bosses – so “Quantum Break” was launched into development. It seemed that the song of the unfortunate writer was over and we would never see whether Alan was able to get out of the dark monastery under Lake Cauldron. At the same time, in almost every interview that Sam Lake gave, information about the continuation slipped in one way or another. Sam has always said that he really wants to return to the writer’s story and the studio periodically works on ideas for a sequel. And in 2018, they unexpectedly announced the launch of a television series based on Alan Wake, and in 2019, Remedy bought all the rights to the franchise from Microsoft. In 2020, an add-on for the game Control called AUE was released, confirming that the actions of Alan Wake and Control take place in the same universe. In October 21st, a remaster of the first part will be released and there are no longer any doubts even among skeptics. The announcement of the continuation took place a month later – on December 9 at The Game Awards and after 2 years we can finally launch our little paws into the long-awaited continuation of the writer’s adventures.
I must say, while working on this text, I caught myself thinking that it is very difficult to talk about Alan Wake. First of all, because this is not really a game, no matter how strange this statement may seem. Wake’s dilogy is more of a media product, the understanding of which requires interaction with all its aspects at the same time. In simple terms, Alan Wake is structured in such a way that if you break it down into its components, most likely most of these components will not be good individually. But together, all these elements, like a puzzle, turn into an incredible picture. And since I don’t want to spoil your impression of the game, I simply have no right to talk about many things. Therefore, let’s gallop across Europe, so to speak.
The sequel takes place 13 years after the events of the original. Just like in real life. Which already breaks the fourth wall a little. Still in the same small town of Bright Falls (near which Alan was lost in the 10th), a certain cult commits a ritual murder. The FBI gets involved in the case and sends two of its agents – Saga Anderson and Alex Casey – to investigate. By the way, Alex Casey was again played by Sam Lake and he is given one of the central places in the plot. And for those who played and remember the original Alan Wake, the brainpower begins right here. The fact is that Casey is a fictional character from Wake’s bestselling series, but that’s tomorrow’s troubles..
At some point the investigation takes an unexpected turn, Alan himself jumps up and everything that is happening around turns into such fierce devilry that it is impossible to say in a fairy tale or describe with a pen. I will only note that if you like mystical detective stories, then you will get incredible pleasure from the local plot. She’s not just great in the game – she’s great in all aspects of it. And, unlike many similar works, the script does not sag in a single episode, unless of course you yourself want to linger longer in the locations. The plot is the key driving element here. He holds you tightly by the balls and doesn’t let go even after the end credits.
Gameplay Alan Wake is now survival horror. “But what was he then before that??"- you ask. Psychological action from a third person. “But what is the difference?"- you ask again. To answer this question, we need to remember the gameplay features of the first part of the franchise. In order to kill the enemy, we first needed to expel the darkness from him by shining a flashlight into the gycha for a certain time, and only after that he became vulnerable. Problems began the moment there were more than one enemy on the screen. We also ran through corridor, but spacious locations, collected loot along the way, manuscript pages and watched cutscenes. If you take a quick glance, it may seem that not much has changed, but that’s not the case. The locations in which battles take place have become much more compact, which very often deprives the player of maneuver. The pace of the game as a whole has slowed down and has become more similar in moments to remakes of The Residents. The amount of ammo produced has been reduced to a minimum. In rare cases, you will have an extra box of ammo in your inventory, hinting that you won’t be spoiled. In some locations, the enemies are virtually endless. Or rather, their number is of course limited, but you will never have enough firepower to kill them all. Among other things, the action of the flashlight was also changed. Let me remind you that it has a normal mode for household needs and a bright mode for expelling darkness, which eats up the battery, like yoga prana. Previously, you could choke the possessed person with bright light as much as you wanted (until the battery ran out), but now the flashes of light are divided into cells. I pressed it, and in the confusion sent it in the wrong direction – the flash vegetated, it turns out. The locations themselves have become much darker. In some places it is really impossible to navigate without light. Can’t see anything. And of course, an integral attribute of survival horror – castles and riddles. Nice castles and riddles, by the way! And for dessert they left teleporting enemies, so that it would be completely uncomfortable. And this, in fact, is the task of gameplay in any survival horror game. Make you uncomfortable. Thank you for not adding the shaky sight and its leisurely aiming – Mikami-san’s beloved props. By the way, as in other self-respecting horror films, in Alan Wake you can simply run away from your enemies. From almost any. Except bosses. Battles with which are the most shameful part of the game. I won’t talk about them – take my word for it. And for some reason they got rid of enemies who are not humanoids. In the first part there were terrible flocks of birds and the opportunity to hang cradles on a bulldozer, but in the second, alas, this unique opportunity was taken away from us.
The last gameplay feature that I would like to talk about is a unique innovation that I have never come across in games in this particular implementation. It’s no secret that Alan travels through his own manuscripts. By the second part it dawned on him that the world around him, if necessary, could be stupidly rewritten. And the prospects of this mechanic blew my mind. How many different puzzles, visual diversity, interdimensional battles and other obscenities can be implemented with this approach?. In the game, alas, there is nothing mind-blowing yet related to changing the environment, it all comes down to finding an accessible path, but it seems to me that this is because Remedy was stupidly afraid that out of habit the players would get lost in parallel universes. And if you think that this is switching between two location modes, then no. Between four. And you can switch them on the go. In certain places. And, yes. There is an asset reset here. I officially declare that this is the best asset reuse I have seen in my life. That is, literally places that are repeated over and over again, but these places have a plot justification, which means no one would even think of scolding them.
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