[360] Alan Wake - Still awake

[Cheezdoodles]

Lets agree to disagree. I dont have time to discuss this further atm.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Assasin's Creed, metacritic score 81%... world sales, 8+ million.

So Alan Wake should do 9 million easy right?

83% is not a bad score, its just a score of a game that isn't coming off a highly touted franchise within an extremely popular genre. It certainly doesn't preclude it from doing decently in sales.

 

[Billy Idol]

How is it possible that so many play the game already?
Is this game already been pirated or what?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

As far as I know, yes, the pirated version has been out for at least a week by now.

 

[Billy Idol]

Yesssss, I got contacted by my local dealer
=> I get the game tomorrow, ...I hope it is not too scarry, because I'll start the game right in the evening!!

 

[nightshade]

Its creepy & spooky but not even remotely scary

 

[L. Scofield]

How can you not understand that if the average score the reviewers give to a game is say 8\10. Scoring 7.5\10 is slightly worse than medicore and 8,5\10 is slightly above medicore?

Why does the average score equal to mediocrity? Your argument is flawed starting from there. The rest is just nonsense.

 

[dragonelite]

It seems that remedy can get like 30% more performance out of the engine.

source
http://forum.alanwake.com/showpost.php?p=64735&postcount=523

 

[zed]

no that saiz they can perhaps improve the CPU side 30% which will result in anything from 0->30% improvement in speed.
Though like I said in a previous post due to what theyre doing, I wouldnt be surprised if they were CPU bound

 

[dragonelite]

no that saiz they can perhaps improve the CPU side 30% which will result in anything from 0->30% improvement in speed.
Though like I said in a previous post due to what theyre doing, I wouldnt be surprised if they were CPU bound

He did mention improvement on the gpu side as well.

And what they can and cant do with level design.
Not a lot of use to have those extreme draw distance, i heard the game is quit linear.

Of course im not that well informed on graphics yet so i could be wrong.

 

[NRP]

Sometimes I think zed is CPU-bound.

Just kidding.

 

[Billy Idol]

First short impression:

Finished episode 3.
Graphics are good...maybe even great!?
Best thing for me: the world is very dense, very much alive: a lot of details, a lot of foliage moving in the wind, clouds casting shadows...super!
There are of course a lot of flaws (already discussed here), but who the heck cares ;-) (presses LB to dodge immediate "perma ban attack" from B3D tech mods)
Story telling is superb and I like it a lot - up to now: even a good interesting story (at least I want to know what'S up next).
Gameplay: I am not so sure, will wait how this develops further...

 

[Billy Idol]

Hm, I think this engine has problems with indoor situations??
I played now up to episode 5...
The beginning of epsiode 4 is in a building - it tears constantly in the middle of the screen, masive - thanks god my secret ninja special ability is "tearing insensibility"!

What could be a technical explanation for this: It appears to me that when you in open outdoor situations, I do not see tearing at all, whereas in building it tears?!?! I always thought that outdoor with large scale views is more demanding to an engine...

 

[Billy Idol]

Okay, I finished the game yesterday. Some random thoughts:

-Story was phantastic, but story telling was even better: this is the reason for me that I recommend this game to everyone; buy it! For me the best part of the game.

-Ca. 90 % of the game are located in a forest or forest like settings...I wish that they include more different setting/variety in AW2.

-There where basically 2 types of enemies: the one where you first use your flashlight until they flash...and then unload a clip into them, and the one where you just use your flashlight. The first type of enemies are subdivided into three groups: fast attacking/low health bar; normal attacking/normal health bar; slow attacking/high health bar. But all of them just need: put light on them, then unload a clip into them. To be honest, if the story wasn't so good...the gameplay is boring as hell after some hours as it does not change until the end of the game. In this respect, I would put it on the same niveau as Heavy Rain, which has the same issues for me!

-What I really liked (for me this is good gamedesign): there is a lot of ammo around, I never got the problems that I run out of ammo. A good hint is to find this special ammo boxes: keep your eyes open and you find this hidden treasures which help you when fighting!

-Although the story telling was world class (finding pages of the manu is a superb addition - phantastic idea), I really felt disconnected to AW. I could hardly explain the decisions he made and I could hardy understand why I have to go there. For instance: The game told me to go to place XY. I follow the yellow dot. Then after the control point, the game suddenly tells me to go to place AB...hm, ok!? I go to place AB to learn (AW sometimes talks his thoughts) that I need this or this to reach XY - ah ok, what ever you told me game...I just do it! Compare this to the master of decisions: Heavy Rain, where you really could make decisions, where you really could influence the story and outcome. In this respect, AW is more like Uncharted 2.

-I would also compare the gamedesign more to Uncharted 2. It is pure linear. I did not feel one time that this game was originally design for open world, they where effective in to cover these tracks...

-Play length was about 10hours. I cannot understand reviews which state up to 16hours gameplay. To reach 16h you have to stand still for 5-6hours...

-Shadows+Light where super. Sometimes I noticed dithered shadows and dithered light rays...as this was rather rare, I am really not sure if they did this on purpose because it created a funny effect IMO!?

-Soundtrack - sensational!

-As I thought, the ending is rahter open and leaves a lot to be discussed and interpreted - I like it. But I sure cannot come up with a cool conclusion....cannot wait how this one turns out!

-And people are right, Remedy is really a rather small team. I watch all credits after playing throught the game and this credits where short!

 

[nightshade]

-Shadows+Light where super. Sometimes I noticed dithered shadows and dithered light rays...as this was rather rare, I am really not sure if they did this on purpose because it created a funny effect IMO!?

Actually the dithered shadows are present everywhere & light volumes have kind of dithered/noisy looking edges, but its not very noticeable in case of lights. I'd generally classify the lighting to be great but shadowing as poor, since its quite low resy & dithered but above all...the shadows swap detail as near as just 3-4 meters away from you, its much of a concern mostly cause the low detailed shadows are nothing more than barely a hint of a shadow, some of them are so faint & thin that its very hard to notice, infact its as good as not having shadows at all.

Still its not very noticeable in the night sequence with all the darkness,mist,haze & blur...its daytime where its really noticeable but thankfully these sequences are in minority.

Though I'd still have preferred the game with the original vision, where night & day were supposed to be the integral part of gameplay :
http://i40.tinypic.com/2jg0xv4.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/102kmj9.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/123nqe1.jpg

To be honest, if the story wasn't so good...the gameplay is boring as hell after some hours as it does not change until the end of the game. In this respect, I would put it on the same niveau as Heavy Rain, which has the same issues for me!

This is kinda true, shine light & shoot gots boring real fast & I never played the game for more than 2 hours.
Though I never had a problem with Heavy Rain as the gameplay in that game was purely nothing more than specific interaction with objects, it never tried to do anything else. In case of Alan Wake, its trying to do something new but the game decides to piggybacks on that new feature for the whole duration....that is something which I found underwhelming.

 

[Billy Idol]

Actually the dithered shadows are present everywhere & light volumes have kind of dithered/noisy looking edges, but its not very noticeable in case of lights. I'd generally classify the lighting to be great but shadowing as poor, since its quite low resy & dithered but above all...the shadows swap detail as near as just 3-4 meters away from you, its much of a concern mostly cause the low detailed shadows are nothing more than barely a hint of a shadow, some of them are so faint & thin that its very hard to notice, infact its as good as not having shadows at all.

Still its not very noticeable in the night sequence with all the darkness,mist,haze & blur...its daytime where its really noticeable but thankfully these sequences are in minority.

Though I'd still have preferred the game with the original vision, where night & day were supposed to be the integral part of gameplay :
http://i40.tinypic.com/2jg0xv4.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/102kmj9.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/123nqe1.jpg


This is kinda true, shine light & shoot gots boring real fast & I never played the game for more than 2 hours.
Though I never had a problem with Heavy Rain as the gameplay in that game was purely nothing more than specific interaction with objects, it never tried to do anything else. In case of Alan Wake, its trying to do something new but the game decides to piggybacks on that new feature for the whole duration....that is something which I found underwhelming.

To be honest, when I looked at shadows - I thought they looked rather good!? Very clean, no artefacts at the shadow edge...occasionally this dithering effect. But I did not look carefully: because I was rather under pressure, as I always feared an attack from the dark

 

[Billy Idol]

I must admit that I am a little bit hooked by the story of this game.
There are a lot of theories floating around in the internet, all very interesting...cool!
I have this voucher, where I can download the next episode of the game for free , I curious to learn more about AW!

Hm, it seems that I am the only one at B3D who has played this game?!

 

[Rotmm]

Hm, it seems that I am the only one at B3D who has played this game?!

Nope, I'm playing too

However, with a little one at home my playtime is limited, so even though it arrived on Thursday I've only just finished chapter 2.

So far I'm greatly enjoying it. Playing in the evening with the lights off and the surround sound up (as much as I can anyway, as per "little one" comment earlier ) the atmosphere of the game is enthralling. The game does indeed look very good and I haven't really noticed the fact that it's low-res. Shader use is fantastic, and when the wind picks up and everything starts to blur it really can get the heart pumping.

Facial animation, on the other hand, is a disappointment. I really don't understand why this couldn't have been cleaned up, especially for the cutscenes. I know they are done "in-engine", but they are still FMV's so surely they could have been improved.

It's probably going to be at least a week before I finish, so I'll maybe post full impressions then. So far though, it hasn't disappointed as some of my other anticipated titles for the first half of this year. Where Heavy Rain and, to a lesser extent, Splinter Cell Conviction fell far short of my expectations, only Mass Effect 2 has really delivered for me this year. And Alan Wake? early signs are promising, but maybe some reviews are correct in that it outstays it's welcome.

 

[Billy Idol]

Nope, I'm playing too

However, with a little one at home my playtime is limited, so even though it arrived on Thursday I've only just finished chapter 2.

So far I'm greatly enjoying it. Playing in the evening with the lights off and the surround sound up (as much as I can anyway, as per "little one" comment earlier ) the atmosphere of the game is enthralling. The game does indeed look very good and I haven't really noticed the fact that it's low-res. Shader use is fantastic, and when the wind picks up and everything starts to blur it really can get the heart pumping.

Facial animation, on the other hand, is a disappointment. I really don't understand why this couldn't have been cleaned up, especially for the cutscenes. I know they are done "in-engine", but they are still FMV's so surely they could have been improved.

It's probably going to be at least a week before I finish, so I'll maybe post full impressions then. So far though, it hasn't disappointed as some of my other anticipated titles for the first half of this year. Where Heavy Rain and, to a lesser extent, Splinter Cell Conviction fell far short of my expectations, only Mass Effect 2 has really delivered for me this year. And Alan Wake? early signs are promising, but maybe some reviews are correct in that it outstays it's welcome.

Ah cool! i am looking forward to discuss the plot with you :smile:

 

[Scott_Arm]

I must admit that I am a little bit hooked by the story of this game.
There are a lot of theories floating around in the internet, all very interesting...cool!
I have this voucher, where I can download the next episode of the game for free , I curious to learn more about AW!

Hm, it seems that I am the only one at B3D who has played this game?!

Street date is tomorrow. My copy is in, but can't pick it up until tomorrow.