2/5 ★ – sequencialis's review of Alan Wake Remastered.

This was the most brutally tedious game I’ve ever finished. I love the premise, the Twin Peaks-y setting but I ended up hating most of my time actually playing Alan Wake. This had had the potential to be an intriguing 4 hour game with a small handful of short high intensity combat encounters. By bloating it to a Full-Length™ AAA™ game with a hundred mind numbing combat encounters, Remedy didn’t just squander that potential. They produced something twisted. Something unholy. Something unnatural. I’ve read a dozen times about the ludonarrative dissonance of like-able Indiana Jones-style adventurer Nathan Drake killing lots of enemies over the course of the Uncharted games. Doesn’t anybody find that it harms the intended horror atmosphere of this game that a New York City fiction writer mows down a thousand nightmare-ish screen distorting spooky ghosts just like mowing the lawn? Doesn’t it just feel wrong? I understand that plenty of people love this game, one hundred identical combat encounters included. I wish that were me, there certainly is plenty to like, or at least appreciate. If anything, this should be right up my alley. I love horror games. I love narrative-driven third person shooters. I love whiny self-pitying protagonists. I enjoyed collecting the foreshadowing manuscript pages and hunting down all the episodes of Night Springs. But the tedium of the combat loop took its toll, I guess. Anyway, I hope that despite the overwhelmingly positive response to Alan Wake, Remedy adjusted their approach to combat in Control and Alan Wake II. For good or ill Alan Wake did hook me on the Remedy Extended Universe so I’m now honor bound to play the two follow ups. I just hope I won’t have to force myself through gritted teeth to finish them like i did with Alan Wake. Also who thought the self-hurling haunted items were a good inclusion?