moonscented's review of Alan Wake II.

I really hate to say this because I wanted to love this game. I SHOULD love this game. But what a tremendous SLOG of an experience. Alan Wake 2 is a classic case of too long for its own good, by I’d say 8 or so hours. Things I loved and found charm in became an annoying nag after the halfway point, it’s convoluted and complicated story becoming a self parody (maybe that was the point??? I’m too annoyed to care). before I rag on and drag on about my criticisms, I really wanna give the praise it deserves: I WANT more games like this. Single player, ambitious, story driven horror games. Sam Lake is still a treasure despite my annoyance with AW2, his presence in both his writing and his performance is beyond charming and filled with such evident love. A beacon to the gaming industry, truly. Ikka Villi and Melanie Liburd are absolute powerhouses, ikka’s enthusiasm is incredible to watch and brings a lot of life to Wake. Melanie Liburd has a great scene during the ending that I don’t want to spoil but I do feel like leans a lot on her performance and I think would be significantly lacking without her. (and god she’s so hot). Sam Lake, i love ya, but what dark presence possessed you to drag this damn game out so long? 20 hours is just way too long with gameplay like this. its not that it’s bad, its just not good enough to make me want to do it over and over for that long. it is slow, cumbersome, and annoying most times to use the systems in place. Combat most of all! Im sorry, but shadow people and evil twins just aren't that scary or interesting to me. Shadow people cultists were cool for a bit, like maybe 5 hours? but never truly scared me on their own, and felt annoying to fight. Enemies faded from threats to chores way before the ending credits rolled. Wake's level structure was great the first few times, changing the level by writing it is such a great idea, I hate that i became so annoyed by it. Where being excited about turning a train tunnel into a murder cult hideout, turned into a headache of navigating a theater that changed into a dumber looking theater. I know that paragraph won’t make sense if you haven’t played it but it will when you hit hour 17 trust me. You can only say “Mind Place” so many times before I stop taking you seriously, and this game hits that quota way too early. Saga’s case board works really well for a lot of parts in this story, but is a cumbersome and frustrating non-puzzle for way more. I skipped almost every cutscene leading up to what I thought was the end. I will say, the energy picks back up again but can never make up for that slog of a third act. I hate saying this, but I’m so happy that this is over. Sam Lake I love your games, but please make them more like Control, I’d like to have fun. buy on a sale or ignore outright imo🖤