Gaming, Tech, Reviews & Culture
The Last Of Us : Bad spores, good stories
01 month ago
by Michael Dawes
in Opinion
One of the biggest announcements at this year’s VGAs – The Last Of Us. The surprise for most was that it’s being developed by Naughty Dog. That alone has put it on most people’s radars. Though gameplay is shrouded in mystery it looks like an action/horror game with ND’s expected level of characterisation, acting and attention to detail. If you can’t wait to find out more about the game there are at least some interesting movies, games and TV shows that have explored a similar premise of killer infections. Here’s a list of some of the more obvious ones, though I’m sure I’ve missed a lot!
NB: This list purposely avoids traditional “zombie” media. Obviously there’s a lot of overlap, but while zombies usually come in the virus/undead/parasite-infected varieties, fungal or spore-related infections are pretty rare in zombie lore.
Planet Earth: Cordyceps
This one is obvious, and if you haven’t seen it in its original form already you have to as Naughty Dog themselves included an edited version on the Last Of Us website. It’s safe to say that a human-specific form of Cordyceps is responsible for the situation in the game. This fungus controls the host’s mind and causes them to act in a way most likely to infect the greatest number of victims. And it’s real, and not even that uncommon.
It makes me think that the few human survivors in TLOU must be immune, particularly if they’re going to be head-shotting the infected like he does in the debut trailer. It’s a shame if they are totally immune as it seems like avoiding infection from fungal spores make for some interesting scenarios. I’m getting bored of immunity!
Matango – Fungus Of Terror (1963)
Probably the least known entry on the list, but important all the same. As a 1963 Japanese film (from the director of Godzilla, no less!) it’s one of the earliest zombie-ish movies as well as being the earliest I know of with “mushroom people” in. It’s quite stupid and has a mixed tone but still manages to be atmospheric and creepy at times. The enemies in TLOU definitely share some visual similarities with the Matango, and survival horror gamers will at least get a kick out of the setting.
The X-Files – Firewalker (S2Ep9)
Technically this is about an isolated research station probing a volcano and running into a previously undiscovered silicon based life-form. A lifeform that spreads by releasing spores and affects people in similar ways to Cordyceps, so it’s worth watching. I’m sure Naughty Dog have watched everything they can get their hands on, so it’s worth it to get an idea of how these scenarios can be portrayed in visual mediums.
Fringe – What Lies Below (S2Ep13)
Again, not about a fungus but a virus, but the means of infection is similar. The team have to quarantine a tower block once they discover it contains an ancient virus from deep underground. Sadly some of the Fringe team is in the building with the infected so they have limited time to come up with a cure, or other more extreme solution. The virus causes the victims to try and escape and cause maximum contagion by exploding into a puff of infectious blood. Mmm. A fun stand-alone episode.
ObsCure II – Wii/PS2/PSP
The first Obscure was based in a high-school where secret experiments were being undertaken using a strange plant spore, causing a load of plant/human hybrid mutants and associated craziness. Obscure II takes place two years later after the plants have been used as a recreational drug (duh?) and start runninh wild infecting anything in it’s path. We can only hope TLOU is nothing like the ObsCure games which are passable at best. They do have incredible music and funny-bad dialogue though so they’re worth a play through for laughs and atmosphere.
Final Thoughts
So The Last of us has piqued my interest more than any other horror-related game in a long time. As a massive Silent Hill fan who’s favourite single player action game is Resident Evil 4 – Surprisingly I’m much more eager to hear what Naughty Dog have planned for TLOU than either of those classic franchises. While Capcom and Konami have dropped the ball recently, Naughty Dog haven’t disappointed yet and it’s a long time since someone took a horror concept in a new direction. Everything they’ve revealed shows an intimacy and grittiness which puts things more in line with The Walking Dead than, say.. Dead Rising. It might even be less comical than Left 4 Dead, which would put it in a unique position in the genre. I’m hoping for a serious and emotional ride.
Fingers crossed. What do you think (and hope!) The Last Of Us will be like?
GOTY? Guess again.
62 months ago
You don’t need to be psychic to predict how the media’s GOTYs are going to turn out this year. Yes, there have been big budget hits and long awaited sequels. There have been exciting new franchises, returns of characters long left in stasis, and multiplayer gaming of a quality possibly superseding any year before.
But despite the big guns, the money makers, the games that are pushing gaming further into (and beyond) previous levels of cinematic mastery, there is one huge curve-ball. A game that has entertained, educated, scared, challenged, inspired and awed people of all ages. A game so wide in scope and purpose that to explain it to a prospective player is surprisingly difficult.
Polar opposites?
If you hadn’t worked it out already I’m talking about Minecraft. The fan response to Minecraft has been off the charts. Over four million players have bought the game despite it being in beta, and who knows how many more will buy it once it’s released in full next week. The game has made it’s primary creator Markus “Notch” Persson a household name in tech-savvy circles. Even MineCon, a convention dedicated solely to Minecraft, sold out its 4,500 seats within weeks. The sales of Minecraft would be strong even if it was a AAA big budget title, yet it started as a one-man indie project and got its sales through word of mouth.
Should Game Of The Year be decided by what games garner the best critical response? What else should be important? Which game has moved things forward? Which games have helped the industry the most? Or which games have benefitted most people?
What Makes Minecraft special?
From small beginnings...
Gaming is an intensely personal experience. No two people come away from a game seeing or feeling the same things. Games like Uncharted, Call Of Duty and Gears Of War hold your hand through a fixed narrative with a strict set of rules. This is no bad thing, and the games are executed exceptionally well. Because they excel in spectacle, action and direct story-telling everyone comes out of those games with approximately the same framework of experiences as handed down by the writers and level designers.
A game like Minecraft in contrast, has exploring, collecting, mining, farming, building and hunter-gathering as tent-poles of the single and multiplayer experience, but gives you freedom to create or do pretty much whatever you like, alone or with friends. These are approximations of the routines you’d have to perform to survive if you were really dropped in Minecraft’s virtual worlds – the resulting experience is more intimate. When playing Minecraft you never feel like you’re playing a character. You ARE the character. I’ve never felt like that in any game with a fixed narrative, even ones with an open world like Skyrim and Fallout 3.
Naturally occurring weirdness
When you explore those games you sit and admire the beauty of the hand crafted environments, knowing it’s all been set up that way for you to discover. You’re never going to stumble on truly new sights – it had to be built for you by someone else! In contrast, Minecraft generates it’s terrain on the fly. The joy you experience from discovering something noteworthy is palpable, your attachment to the environment and your achievements feel greater as the world, however blocky, is more tangible than the slick “film sets” of other games. Nobody has ever visited the bizarre mountain-range or underground catacombs you stumble into by mistake.. It IS your world. (unless you’re sharing it on a multiplayer server)
How does any of that make it worthy?
Thanks Darryl, you crazy.
Some of Minecraft’s accomplishments are well outside the realms of what “normal” games can achieve: It has been used in schools to teach teamwork, used to stimulate disabled children to open up and interact, it can be an elaborate chatroom, a way of building sculptures, a tool for mocking up and visualising architecture, a basis for virtual sporting events, player vs player turf wars, roleplaying, creating simple logic programs. It’s also very flexible and open to modders, who’ve done everything from add new animal and terrain types and to implementing complex magic and economy systems. (mods obviously don’t count when considering GOTY status, but it’s definitely part of the appeal to many gamers), it’s even won its fair share of awards pre-release, including arts prizes.
Possibly most importantly, it appeals to a very wide range of people. It’s a game that attracts attention to gaming as a positive activity without dumbing things down or leveraging physical fitness or any other subject that’s not really furthering games design. In my opinion Minecraft has done more for individuals, families, indie developers, children and gaming as a whole than any other game in a very long time.
What do you think? Does it deserve the award/s or acclaim?
NB: I’d never hate on any of the big titles this year. I wish Arkham City, Uncharted 3, Portal 2, Skyrim, Skyward Sword all the luck in the world, but all I see each of those doing is refining formulas and polishing tropes that haven’t radically changed in over a decade. I believe Minecraft and certain other titles point to a future for the industry which is much richer, and more empowering for the developers and players alike.
Reviews In Review: Replayability = Worthless?
32 months ago
by Michael Dawes
in Opinion
The first in a series of opinion pieces on flaws, inconsistencies and oddities in the gaming media.
What do you think a review means by replay value? It’s often cited as pivotal to a game’s overall quality. Many publications offer a replay value or “Lasting Appeal” rating that contributes to the final score. Whether they have a separate rating for it or not, you always get users commenting on replayability and how it affects their purchasing decisions. The length of a game’s single player campaign is always brought up, usually with someone saying “$60 for a 6 hour campaign!?” or similar. This is a complex and unusual review criteria for a number of reasons.
HOW MANY HOURS?!
People enjoy doing different things in a game. Using Uncharted 3 as an example; Some have been excited about treasure hunting in the single player campaign. Most reviews give features like this little focus because they’re secondary to the main story. A common complaint about the latest game is how it has no unlockable extras (in the single player mode) like skins and special features, both of which were in it’s predecessors. The majority of players aren’t likely to care much about that, but if you got enjoyment from them before then their absence may be missed.
Then you get reviewers complaining about the linearity and lack of player choice. This is a fair point but it doesn’t inherently reduce replay value. Look at it this way; If games are becoming more cinematic (which they undoubtably are) then should we be judging replayability at all? It’s not as if you’d mention rewatchability in a review of a movie. Movies are completely linear, and it doesn’t detract from that medium.
I’ve watched the Indiana Jones films, Star Wars etc countless times. Later it was Aliens, Evil Dead, The Thing, Phantasm and so on. Each of those only has a 1.5(ish) hour running time. I enjoy rewatching and still notice or appreciate different details each time. The same applies to games, but it’s completely subjective and arbitrary whether anyone would want to do this. Some will play the same short single-player campaigns many times. Some sink hundreds of hours into open-world games like Oblivion, others just skirt through the main quests to finish it ASAP. Others insist a game isn’t complete until you’ve cleared all of it’s achievements/trophies. Some will happily play Sudoku, Minesweeper or Patience for thousands of hours. Or Tiny Tower. Most gamers didn’t even finish Red Dead Redemption’s campaign – what does that say about long games and the value of sprawling content? (I have no idea, it’s perplexing)
But it doesn't have achievements!
It also brings up problems for entire genres. Namely, arcade ones – beat-em-ups, shooters, gun games, rhythm games. The main draw of many of these is self-betterment, beating your own and other people’s scores, mastering a complex system of movement and attack. It also applies to games like Sonic, where to one person the single player mode is “too easy” while to others trying to shave milliseconds from a run and collect all the mcguffins can be a long and rewarding challenge.
Puzzle games like Bejewelled, Tetris, etc. have potentially infinite replay value in some players hands, but I feel that if Tetris was to be reviewed in the current climate it would receive terrible scores. Surely that’s indicative of a problem.
Then there’s the fact that a large portion of people rent games or buy them with the intention to trade them in for their next game – long term appeal obviously doesn’t matter as much to some players, and companies aiming for that sort of consumer’s money might have to design games differently to accommodate that.
So could we just ditch the idea that someone can realistically estimate how much entertainment can be wrung from a game? Reviewers rarely have the time to experience multiplayer longevity or know whether they’ll want to come back to a single player game after completion. They’re simply guessing based on their own preferences and how the gameplay fits around their lives. Should guesswork play any significant role in the scoring of games?
What’s your opinion? Do you put any consideration into these sub-scores? Does it really matter? Do you only pay attention to the overall scores or ignore review scores all-together? If so, good for you!
GameBlob’s Halloween Top 13
12 months ago
by Michael Dawes
in Opinion
Halloween is upon us! Pumpkins! Costumes! Sweets! Scary stuff!
What spooky, creepy or otherwise nasty games would I recommend here at Gameblob? The criteria are simple, they have to be games from this console generation, or from within the last 5 years on the PC. This isn’t just a list of “survival horror” games and it’s certainly not a top list of the scariest. Not everyone wants to be traumatised by their games. Whether you’re up for some cute monster mayhem or something psychologically deep, there’s something here for all tastes.
13. Age Of Zombies (iOS, PSP, Android) – Halfbrick
Originally a “twin stick” style shooter for the PSP, a superior port then worked it’s way to iOS and Android. Before anyone complains that the iPhone has no dual analogue sticks note that it plays much better with 360 degree aiming than d-pad aiming. A great sense of humour and classic swarm gameplay coupled with adoreable pixel graphics make this one of the best horror themed action games available for handhelds. It’s cheap too.
I love you zombie T-Rex.
12. InFamous 2 : Festival of Blood (PS3) – Sucker Punch
As a stand-alone “what if?” expansion does as Undead Nightmare did for Red Dead Redemption before it, but for InFamous – and with vampires. Cole Mcgrath gets bitten and has just one night to reverse the curse and stop a vampire queen from taking over the city of New Marais. Adds a lot of new gameplay mechanics to an already brimming title and lets the player have a lot of fun feeding on the innocent and using evil powers. A short diversion but if you feel like building something spooky for halloween it also unlocks all the new vampire props and skills for Infamous 2′s level editor. Worth a shot as there aren’t many good vampire games around these days.
11. Shadows Of The Damned (PS3/Xbox 360) – Grasshopper Manufacture/EA
Pure unadulterated ridiculousness. Everything about SotD is tongue-in cheek, laced with innuendo, crazy level design and preposterous story development. Garcia Hotspur and his talking skull/sword/motorbike “Johnson” kick demon butt to save Garcia’s girlfriend from the underworld. This isn’t a game that can easily be explained, it really has to be experienced. Music by Akira Yamaoka. Yes!
Is it just me or does he almost look tasty?
10. Plants VS Zombies (iOS, DS, PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox360, Google Chrome, Android) – PopCap/EA
PopCap’s horticultural tower defence game has become a modern classic. Released on almost every conceivable platform, it’s a fun, simple game with enough depth to make playing through the campaign a joy. It’s also funny, and great for short play sessions. Later console ports have included multiplayer modes too, making it a fun halloween distraction.
9. Dead Island (PC, PS3, Xbox360) – Techland
Open world zombie smashing on a post-outbreak resort island. Where L4D does well on characterisation and rapid-fire action, Dead Island instead is a surprisingly traditional first person RPG with weapon crafting and branching skill trees. A game that divided critics, if you can stomach a few glitches and irritating characters along with your gore there’s a lot of fun to be had here, especially with friends.
8. Dead Rising / Dead Rising 2 / DR2: Off The Record (PC, PS3, Xbox360) – Capcom
You can’t go wrong with any of these three. Off The Record offers the most bells and whistles but the original (Xbox360) title has a charm of it’s own. Who hasn’t wanted to relive some of the Dawn Of The Dead style mall-based craziness? Whether you play as Frank or Chuck, there’s almost infinite fun to be had mashing random objects into unsuspecting zombies, pile driving them or playing hit and run with shopping trollies. Taking photos of the undead is also a laugh, so Frank and his camera get my vote.
Zombies? Might as well have fun while you're at it!
7. Alan Wake (Xbox360) - Remedy
A great interactive thriller, but not a scary game by any means. The atmosphere and spooky story make it a good yarn to while away the long autumn nights. If you like satisfying combat and/or Stephen King, Alan Wake comes highly recommended. It re-writes a lot of rules of in game storytelling and can be ran through pretty quickly. I recently reviewed Alan Wake here. (4/5)
6. Siren: Blood Curse (PS3) – Sony Japan Studio
An under-appreciated gem. A remake of “Forbidden Siren” (PS2) with new streamlined (read: fixed) gameplay and a cast of western characters visiting a small japanese village to film a documentary. Fresh and oppressive, the dependance on stealth has made the Siren games an acquired taste. Mind-jacking the villagers to see where they’re looking so you can sneak past is tense and unique, and the story throws some shocking surprises at you. This game probably crept me out more than any other on the list. Saying that, unless you can find a boxed copy, it can be a hassle downloading each of the episodes individually. What were they thinking?
I just remembered how messed up this game is.
5. Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare (Xbox360, PS3) – Rockstar
A stand-alone spinoff that takes place in an alternate RDR timeline, one where John Marston struggles to find a cure to the zombie plague that has taken his family and almost everyone else. A hilarious change of pace from the gritty pseudo-realism of the main game, and surprisingly one of the greatest, most authentic feeling zombie games yet. Probably the only one that will ever feature zombie bigfoot too. Awesome single player, and has some compelling multiplayer modes to boot! Wouldn’t it be great if games like this had split screen?
4. Costume Quest (PC, PS3, Xbox360) – Double Fine
What could be more Halloweeny than a game about Halloween? A nostalgic nod to everything that makes the night amazing as a kid. Wicked moblins have kidnapped your sibling and you, along with other kids who join your party must fight to save her. Trick or treating to collect sweets along the way, as well as building costumes with their own special skills. Candy is the currency in this game and the costumes take centre stage as something akin to character classes. At it’s heart it plays just like a JRPG, with turn based combat, and the humour is the usual sarcastic and well observed Double Fine fare. One of the few games on the list that’s child friendly, and a fun, affordable few hours of play!
Bobbing for apples.
3. Dead Space 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox360) – Visceral/EA
Dead Space 2 is the most visceral (groan) traditionally action-packed title on the list. Lots of psychological underpinnings to a dark roller-coaster ride as Isaac Clark once again faces an outbreak of disgusting necromorph creatures, this time aboard a space station. I have lots of favorite parts to Dead Space 2. Dead Space 2 is pretty much the best haunted house attraction ever.
2. Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox360, PC, Mac) – Valve
If you have 1-3 friends around this is a complete no brainer. (heh, brains) A fast, relentless trip through one zombie infested locale after another. Made great by both its gameplay, modular design and the characterisation of the human cast, there really isn’t much to say about L4D that any gamer won’t already know. This should be in everyone’s collection for LAN parties and halloween is the perfect occasion!
1. Amnesia The Dark Descent. (PC, Mac) – Frictional Games
Probably the most terrifying game to bless any platform in recent years. A deliciously dark game with a complex and well realised story. The atmosphere, lighting and treatment of the enemies is exceptional. Play it in a dark room with the volume up, preferably alone. You can’t fight back, so you’d better get used to hiding! Frictional’s earlier titles – the Penumbra series – are worth a look too if you can’t get enough of the Amnesia recipe.
Sucks to be you!
Honourable mentions.
There are a lot more games that deserve to be on this list, but it had to end somewhere. Here are some more suggestions!
Minecraft. (PC, Mac, Linux) The only reason I’ve not put it on this list is because it’s still in Beta. Obviously Minecraft can be atmospheric and creepy, but it can be truly terrifying on “Hardcore” mode. Imagine building a world, and then dying, never to see that world again? Nothing compares to that. I’m almost shaking just thinking about it! Even the most puny of enemies becomes a harbinger of unspeakable dread if it can rob you of weeks of work. AARRGH!
Zombie Smash (iOS) Few things are as fun as picking up zombies and throwing them at each other. A zombie-based tower defence game designed with multi-touch in mind. Good light-hearted and original fun. Well worth the minuscule asking price.
Zombies - meet rotor blades.
Dead Nation. (PS3) A two player stick shooter with a lot of grit, gorgeous graphics and tight gameplay. By Housemarque of Super Stardust fame. An undeniably polished and deserving title which has recently seen its first DLC pack released.
Dark Meadow (iOS) Pretty, clever and a great achievement. If you’re after a deep survival horror game for iOS, this is it. Repetitive but with a rich story. Games like this show how quality titles don’t need massive budgets, and yes – they do come on all platforms, even phones.
You know what's scary? Technology.
Limbo. (PC, PS3, Xbox360) Physics based puzzle-platforming in a mysterious and haunting side-scrolling environment. With an art style akin to shadow puppets lost in the fog, and some ambiguity to the story and goals, Limbo is a dark, bitter game in an accessible shell. Beautiful sound design helps immerse and the whole experience is unnerving, violent and just all-round odd.
There are no Silent Hill titles on this list!? Perhaps Shattered memories deserves a spot, but I’ve not played it so can’t really comment. The same applies to Deadly Premonition and COD: Zombies Nobody I know has played it.
I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!! (xbox360) 1 – 4 player retro twin-stick shooter heaven. Not even sure if it belongs anywhere on a list like this, but hell… Zombies? One of the most (annoyingly) memorable soundtracks ever.
Little Big Planet (PS3) has hundreds of spooky or halloween themed levels made by players. Some are alarmingly atmospheric considering what’s usual for the game. LBP – the game that just keeps on giving?
Killing Floor. (PC/Mac) A nuts and bolts FPS with character classes and skill levelling. A very enjoyable game you can easily sink hours into. Very repetitive hours, mind you. Only worth playing with friends or online, but the player base is welcoming and the feeling of being overpowered is stronger here than elsewhere. Worth it for the unique cocktail of desperation and panic that the game forces down your throat.
Guys! WTF? Why is nobody covering me?!
So there you have it. That’s quite a lot of games to be working with! What would your recommendations be? Are there any glaring omissions? What’s your favourite horror-themed game of this generation? What will you be playing tonight between other festivities? Have a great night!
NB: I knew I’d forget something. House Of The Dead Overkill! I deserve to suffer like G did! Also, Dead Space Extraction! We’re really spoilt for choice, aren’t we?
Review: Alan Wake (360)
03 months ago
Format: Xbox 360
Players: 1
Genre: Action/Horror
What happens when you mix Resident Evil 4-like gunplay, Twin Peaks’ setting, GTA-like driving sections, and a mishmash of Stephen King stories? Alan Wake was critically lauded on release for its pacing and storytelling. By Remedy, the studio responsible for Max Payne it suffered from a notoriously drawn out development cycle. Now it has a reduced price on Xbox Live for halloween – is it worth a purchase to late-comers or new 360 owners?
Story: Alan is a famous yet frustrated writer. Encouraged to come on holiday by his wife, Alice, he expects to take a break from worrying about his writers block. Alice has other ideas and hopes the quiet lakeside surroundings will inspire him to create. Obviously things go drastically wrong and Alan ends up fighting a dark force to rescue his wife and restore the rural town to its prior peaceful state.
Initially the story comes across as blunt, lacking any subtlety at all. The very first “monster” you meet explains a lot of things that would have been better left unexplained. It really seems like it’s treating the player like a fool to begin with. The very first words of dialogue in the game are “Stephen King”, and it makes various references to him and his work. At least they’re honest about their inspirations.
Alan talks over much of the game and generally speaking offers insights and a personal slant which helps develop the characters much better than “journal entries” or even most cutscenes would do. Unfortunately narration early in the game can be jarring and sometimes unintentionally funny in it’s persistent talking over and explaining tiny details. If you work through the first hours though the writing finds its footing and goes down its own, wonderfully realised path.
As you go through the game you find pages of Alan’s lost manuscript. Again, at first this seems clumsy and often not that brilliantly written. Stick with it and it starts getting both interesting and effective, and if you read them as you find the pages it can give a lot of insight into events that have already happened and in some cases what’s about to happen, giving you a way to be prepared, and building tension.
Characters in the game grow on you and by the end of the game you can’t help but appreciate both Alan and his agent Barry. Alan’s wife Alice isn’t so well developed, but the dialogue contains a surprising amount of humour, particularly later on and in the DLC episodes once all of the characters begin to acknowledge the ridiculousness of their situation. This is something that’s missing in most games and it’s refreshing to see at least some of the characters maintaining a sense of humour in dire straights.
As interactive story-telling I’d rank Wake very highly. It doesn’t have the subtlety or ambiguity of the best Silent Hills, but what it does have is clever and compelling. Separated into 1-2 hour chunks, the game is episodic in nature, even going as far to having “previously on Alan Wake” intros for each act. This comes off as hokey at first but it works well. Each episode ends with a cliff-hanger which offers a good place to take a break or stop playing and come back later. The pacing is unusual but nigh on perfect. The only real criticism I can muster after playing through the game and it’s two DLC episodes is the fact that the DLC contribute greatly to the story and a feeling of closure, so you’ll definitely want them too.
Graphics: Initially the atmosphere is striking, the play of shadows and weather effects almost unmatched even now. Modelling and architecture is of a great, believable level and the way the trees blow in the wind and other environmental effects contribute to a tangible and immersive setting. Technically the game seems well executed, always keeping a good frame-rate and never experiencing serious graphical artefacts. The only glitch you may notice is occasional severe screen tearing. Strangely this only seems to happen in well lit interiors where it doesn’t look like much is going on.
The balance between light and dark is central to the gameplay and story, and the treatment of torches, flares and other light related effects is beautiful, beams of light shining through tree cover and dissipating realistically in the foggy surroundings.
Alan Wake contains some of the best use of real-life video footage included in a game to date. It actually contributes to the story in enjoyable ways without feeling out of place.
It’s not all perfect on the graphical front though, some of the textures are seriously muddy and low-res, and while the character models themselves are of a very high quality, their facial animation is stilted and unintentionally creepy. It’s really not a deal breaker but it does feel like a strange oversight when so much love was put into the rest of the game. There are also a lot of cases of reused models, which although common to every game, here they stand out more than usual and it works against the organic feel of the exterior environments when you see the same battered old car again and again.
Gameplay: For better or worse this is a very “modern” action game. The gameplay shares more in common with Resident Evil 4 or even the Uncharted series than more traditional survival horror titles. It offers little in the way of exploration or real puzzle solving, instead pushing you down a closed linear path from one light-source to the next (they serve as auto-save points). This is obviously deliberate and helps maintain the pace, but don’t expect to really do anything of your own volition.
The above would be a serious problem if it wasn’t for the fact that the central combat mechanics are fun and robust. There is no hand-to-hand combat, just dodges and gunplay combined with pointing torches at enemies to weaken them. It works alarmingly well and is some of the best action gameplay in a horror title to date.
Driving sections occasionally occur and handle very well. Mowing down enemies is cathartic after they’ve caused you so many problems. It’s during these vehicle sections that you see most of the leftovers from when the game was to be an open world affair. Its a shame they missed that opportunity, and I hope more games try that approach eventually. Silent Hill Downpour perhaps? We’ll have to wait and see.
There are two significant problems though. Firstly, there is very little variety in enemy encounters. This is quite usual for survival horror titles but it’s more pronounced here. There are really only three or four enemy types and the encounters are more mixed up by environmental and inventory concerns. As well as that the camera during combat makes it very easy for enemies to creep up and hit you from behind. Fortunately…
Sound: Audio cues like enemy footsteps make staying alive and avoiding frustrations much simpler. If there was ever a good argument for surround-sound, Alan Wake is it. Between the weather and background detail it’s massively helped by a good audio setup.
Scattered throughout the game are radios that play the local talk show. This is clever as you meet most of the characters involved in the broadcasts during gameplay and their conversations add a lot of depth to the town. As well as this the game features some of the best use of both original and licenced music tracks at key points in the game, which greatly adds to the cinematic experience. The ambient background music is quite “by numbers” in comparison, but is perfectly competent.
Equally strange yet effective is the vocal work for the enemies. Their voice clips range from creepy to outright hilarious. I don’t think they were ever supposed to be funny but it’s hard not to laugh when an enemy with a buzzing chainsaw stamps up and shouts “Chainsaws are LOUD!” Or another one “Omega 3 fatty acids are good for your heart!” In an evil distorted voice. These samples help identify who the enemies were before the darkness took them, but more often than not don’t enhance the mood so much as lighten it. Perhaps thats just my sense of humour though.
"DON'T FORGET YOUR LUNCHBOX!!"
Conclusion: Polished, well written, and well paced – Alan Wake comes highly recommended. Though spooky, it’s safe to say the game is not really scary in any way, unless you have a deep-seated fear of being hit by birds and normally inanimate objects. The game offers little replay value besides collecting all of the manuscript pages, but like a good movie or series you might replay it for the story alone.
The DLC is essential to getting the full experience from the game, and some of the most interesting level design happens in the downloadable episodes. If you buy the game new you get a download code for the first episode free, but you’ll have to pay for the second one. The downloadable version of Alan Wake presumably offers no free download code.
Notes: Played through all content on “normal” difficulty. Going to revisit the game on Hard once my backlog is depleted.
Rating
/ 5
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