Alan Wake Remastered (PS4) - I beat the game and all of the dlc on X360 back in 2017. The game's shooting has aged fine and kept basic. It's one of the better shooters from Generation 7, because it acts more like a traditional old-school 3rd person shooter and not the cover shooter most games were doing around the time. AW does have over the shoulder elements, albeit the camera is further out and not zoomed in on Alan's shoulder. The game has passion, and Remedy are clearly big fans of Stephen King horror and the Twilight Zone. I know certain people and critics have made fun of them for this, but at least Remedy are honest about their influence, and where it proud. They have honest passion, and I will take that over something that is fake, shallow, or tries to be something that it is not.
The game does have a formula where mostly every episode you start happens during the day first for some down time, but night comes in and there is where the action-suspense-horror starts. Use flashlight to weaken enemies, shoot with gun, use flare for a get-the-****-off-me maneuver, some light "puzzle elements", and some creepy atmosphere.
Alan Wake came out first, the light elements reminds me of
Shadows of the Damned. Another 3rd person shooter where the it's light vs. darkness, and the light is your life line and best friend. Though
Shadows has advantages of featuring more enemy variety, upgrade-able weapons, and actual bosses. Also, it's more of an action-horror game that is a grindhouse fest. Nothing against
AW, but when you look up what they had to cut out, it's a bit sad they could not get all they wanted. Rough production cycle and all.
Shadows had a rough production too, but got it way worse with EA's involvement, but Suda and Grasshopper were able turn out a decent and fun game. Wake's advantage over
Shadows are skippable cut-scenes and better written characters. The characters in
Shadows aren't bad, but other than some minor revelations with a certain love interest, no one really develops. Everything ends the same as it began.
The PS4 version is working fine, and I appreciate the frame rate boost, but I had a weird glitch where the V-Sync numbers show up at the bottom right screen for some reason during the middle of the first chapter. Quitting the application, and starting the game again got rid of it. So far it has not popped back up again, but I'll keep an eye out on it. The load times are still a bit too long for a remaster too.
Question: What was with some of the male protagonist fashion sense in 2009-2010? This seemed to be the trend of guy wears suit jacket over hoodie. First Alan Wake, then Makoto Naegi. Really weird; the first is in his 30s, and the latter is 16. I have a feeling it's not just coincidence.