How good is ´Alan Wake´?

How good is ´Alan Wake´? The game by Finnish studio Remedy (´Max Payne´) has been tipped as one of the big hopefuls for the Xbox360. I just attended a presentation of the exclusive title in Hamburg and had a good hour hands-on time – enough to give you some first impressions...

[hatchimatchi]

This game makes me wanna buy a 360

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

I'm really interested in this game and probably will pre-order the Limited Edition. However, I'm afraid it will receive too much hype and my expectations will be met with disappointment.

[GreenRingOfLife]

But it looks like its going to be competing with Halo Reach for GOTY 2010

[FangBlade]

"The brief presentation by the developers was impressive and the visuals lived up to the hype. While the character models do not measure up to those in ´Heavy Rain´ and the lip-syncing is off far too often, the environments appear more detailed and meticulously crafted. This type of photorealistic depiction is offset by many ethereal effects like mist or fog. The contrast between light and dark plays a central role in the gameplay mechanics and glow and burn effects give the game a unique visual touch. Also, the zombie-like attackers, which Alan encounters in the night, called ´The Taken´, are surrounded by a smouldering aura and they often become semi-transparent or vanish completely. When attacking them, Alan needs to blind them with a light source and shoot them with either a gun or, more effectively, a flare. When dead, ´The Taken´ dissolve in a burst of glowing light. Flares are fired in slow motion with the camera following the projectile."

Like we never saw that coming lol. tricks ftl

[Saaking]

I expect it to be a good game. I doubt it'll top Heavy Rain (why are we even comparing?), but it'll be great game. The only game that can top Heavy Rain is GoWIII.

[snake-OO]

@SAAKING
u are right its gonna be difficult to top GOD OF WAR 3 well at least i get my hands on GRAN TURISMO 5 but then again thats a completely different genre of game.

[Gamerbee]

is non other than Bungie!! Its his new account.

[unchartedgoty]

alan wake seems cool ima buy alan wake splinter cell conviction and reach this year, as well as god of war 3, gran turismo 5, heavy rain, agent and killzone 2 but ill wait till wake goes on sale, see if i can get it cheap.

[hatchimatchi]

this article is about alan wake, not natal.

....

edit-

ha, nice edit up above.

[Ninji]

I'd say it's about as good as rubbing dog s**t in your eyes. Xbots should like this game a lot though seeing as how they are usually blind when it comes to reviews/comparisons. I'm sure they have dog s**t in their eyes constantly.

[neil90]

How does alan wake and heavy rain have anything in common. They are in two different genres, and tell completely opposite stories. It is like comparing spiderman to twilight.

[we won]

It was the writers way of expressing how impressive it was without feeling guilty about his console allegiance or one he has more preference for. I say this because usually only people in the Sony camp or people that relate to the Sony camp more, are the only ones that match Heavy Rain up with Alan Wake they are two completely different games. It's like matching Halo vs FF13 because they both have action on different planets.

Relax... all he said was that Heavy Rain's cutscene gameplay showed better detail in the character models while Alan Wake's over all graphics topped Heavy rain's(And Alan Wake is a traditional game matched up with interactive cutscene gameplay? from Heavy Rain).

Pretty huge feat considering Heavy Rain is just a static cutscene with a pre-rendered environments.

Pre-rendered doesn't only mean CGI either
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Everything was already rendered like a cutscene that is interactive.

" The disadvantage of pre-rendering, in the case of video game graphics, is a generally lower level of interactivity, if any, with the player. Another negative side of pre-rendered assets is that changes cannot be made during gameplay. A game with pre-rendered backgrounds is forced to use fixed camera angles, and a game with pre-rendered video generally cannot reflect any changes the game's characters might have undergone during gameplay (such as wounds or customized clothing) without having an alternate version of the video stored. This is generally not feasible due to the large amount of space required to store pre-rendered assets of high quality. However, in some advanced implementations, such as in Final Fantasy VIII, real-time assets were composited with pre-rendered video, allowing dynamic backgrounds and changing camera angles."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Just in case some PS3 fanboys try to use the lie excuse that pre-rended means CGI and can never mean ingame.

It's actually kind of funny how PS3 games use shortcut's to claim graphical leadership. I guess this has been the way all Playstation console have done this. The Sony console makers have designed all Playstation with a static pre-rendered style that excites average consumers.

This is why Multi platform games are different on PS3 because Xbox game design is more taxing on hardware because they are more focused on processing more complex gameplay vs copy and pasted smoke and mirror tricks.

This is why Metro 2033 beats anything on PS3 because it's level design is linear to mid sized in design. As a result the game ended up topping on PS3 because no one tried to push the 360 with the same game design PS3 games generally use(not like Halo)

I earn my one BUBBLE.

[Bumpmapping]

Visual trickery ain't gonna fool use PS3 owners.Either way GOW3 analy rapes this game in every aspect,i could go on for a hour about it but you bots know the truth already.

[Mo0eY]

If you want to play Alan Wake on the PS3, go buy God of War 3 and use Helios head as a flashlight. The enemies glow just as bright as they do when Alan points his double-a battery powered flashlight.

[Mo0eY]

Bots like this game because it's the only exclusive they've gotten in almost 6 months (by the time it comes out it will have been 8 months). What game was out then? Halo: ODST.... And before that? Halo Wars... Did anyone find those stats btw? What's the other exclusives for this year? Crackdown 2 with *drum roll please* ...........HALO: REACH beta! Followed by, you guessed it, HALO: REACH.

LOLOLOLOL.

[we won]

http://n4g.com/up/125288.as...

EDIT

And *HaloReachFLOPY2010* up there talking to himself.

http://n4g.com/up/125292.as...

EDIT

Yep that's "Antan/thebandit/saaking/ nasim" alright, displaying the same anger towards members that must have been on N4G even before I even joined and ones not seen in months yet he joined 30 minutes ago.

I'll copy your comment before you edit it.

"bLinG_bLiNg - 4 minutes ago

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5.1 - Power of Green, , Why Dis, Ididnotmurderhim, moneybuyseverything, CoolirisGB,
wat u say 1 bubble boy?
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Reported.