3.5/5 ★ – vr_'s review of Alan Wake Remastered.

Glad the Remaster exists, as it was a great excuse to replay Alan Wake in preparation for the sequel, however it definitely is not mandatory if you already played the original. Looked pretty much how I remember, besides Alan definitely looking more like his actor. I weirdly do miss the energizer batteries, but I’m probably in the minority of kinda loving surreal product placement in games. Still pretty great, I forgot a decent amount of the plot points so it was still pretty exciting seeing the plot unfold again. Either I forgot, or missed them, but I caught a few new great Twin Peaks easter eggs. Another nice feature is the higher resolution in-game TV clips, especially the interview. Yet again, the gameplay is still nothing amazing, and gets pretty repetitive by the halfway point, however the atmosphere is strong enough to make the game enjoyable. I remember being quite annoyed at how many times I died at the very end in the original game because I kept falling, and was surprised and impressed that I did it the first time I tried this run. Alan Wake is definitely a game worth playing rothe sum of its parts. Mixed in with sometimes long and tedious gameplay sections are moments of genuine charm, whether it be optional radio broadcasts to listen to or short episodes of “Night Springs,” the in universe “Twilight Zone.” The benefit of these minor interactions is that they are sparse enough to always remain fresh and enjoyable, and some are pretty high effort showing the developers truly cared about what they were making. I also really loved interacting with the townspeople, and I was truly invested in the lives of those around me, almost more than Alan Wake himself. One of my biggest critiques (which I cannot remember if this was present in the original, but assumedly so), was that often the game would have your character on the right hand side of the screen, opposed to the standard off centered-left. Fixing this was as easy as clicking R3, but it was still odd that the game kept pushing this camera position. The only other thing that bothered me was that Alan would go from clean shaven to beard to clean shaven during the flashback scenes, depending on if it was the cutscene model used or gameplay model. I cannot remember if this was in the original game as well, but with the new face, it definitely was noticeable. Overall, still a great game worth playing. Maybe a little too long in some chapters, but the overall length is pretty alright. Unless Alan Wake II retcons the events of Alan Wake's American Nightmare (which I would find unlikely), I think it is a shame it is not part of the remaster considering the price of addmission.