OKAY ENOUGH PROCRASTINATING, Alan Wake time. HOW EXCITE. I'm not going to go on as long as I did for the others because I just don't have as much to say. fff
OKAY ARAN WAKE. I played this one before Shattered Mems, so when I got to the forest part of Shattered Mems, I was like WHAT IS THIS I JUST PLAYED THIS LEVEL FOR LIKE 8 HOURS.
Because that's what 80% of Alan Wake is - running through the woods at night and hoping you don't get raped by the monsters. For once, though, this is a game where repetitive environments aren't bothersome at all; the graphics are drool-worthy, and each setting is lovingly rendered with loads and loads of gorgeous detail. In fact, the main reason you're hoping you don't get attacked by monsters isn't because they're scary (they're not) or they're hard to fight (they're not.) In my case, anyway, it was because I was having more fun running around the beautiful game world and exploring all the stuff laid out.
From that, you can probably gather the gameplay isn't the best. The actual mechanics are fine; I never had an issue with battles. They were challenging without being frustrating and the controls were easy enough to pick up. It's just that it's boring. All of the monsters basically look the same, and all of them amount to "scary redneck with large weapon covered in DARKNESS(tm)." There is ONE major variation, which happens to be possessed pieces of the landscape/items, which is not any more interesting at all in any way. While not inherently flawed, the repetitive nature of battling in this game made it a chore - like I said, I found myself thinking "god, another battle? I just want to keep exploring." Whhhich isn't that great, because there is a LOT of fighting in the game.
The plot and characters are best described as 'okay.' The plot was kind of all over the place, which is fitting, I guess, but it wasn't confusing in a scary kind of way. It was more like "I don't even know anymore" for me once I got to a certain point in the game. It did come together at the end... ish. There aren't any twists that you won't expect, though, that much is for sure. The DAHKNESS motif came off as really cheesy to me, as did the 'television show' theme they had going. And, personally, I didn't much like the method of picking up pages of the story on the ground - it was like there were spoilers for the game INSIDE THE ACTUAL GAME which was really bizarre. Because of that, there really were no surprises in Alan Wake.
The best part is definitely the graphics and the atmosphere of the game. I had the most fun just running around from point A to point B and not fighting monsters. It sounds like a really weird thing to say, but it's true. The setting is just that good. Overall, it was, again, just 'okay' to me. It was a good setup for a game, but it wasn't terribly enthralling, especially for being in development for... nine years, was it? Worth a playthrough, but I dunno if I'd buy it. Or a sequel.
Playing Resident Evil 2 now! Not gonna bother writing a blurb about that, because when it comes to classic survivhor, you either love it or you don't, and I LOVE IT. gyeheheheh.
Also should I cosplay Walter Sullivan next year at Anime Boston y/n? I can't think of anyone else to go as that I could pull off. orz