Penny Arcade - Comic - Night Writer
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Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Night Writer
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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I won't be getting the remaster at launch, since Metroid Dread is this Friday and the Metroid series holds god-tier value in my mind. No point buying Alan Wake only to backlog it 3 days later.
The thing I loved so much about Alan Wake was the idea of light being a weapon. Using your flashlight to pop the shadows into the tangible world so you could kill them with conventional weapons was a cool mechanic. And later on, you can use generators and flood lights, and throwing a flashbang grenade is like an instant-kill on Shadows. It was a cool idea and a really fun concept. I'll be the first to admit that the controls made it more difficult than it needed to be in terms of gameplay. And I'll also admit that the story was needlessly convoluted for no real gain. The payoff at the end wasn't in any way contingent on the story being so meta. The meta stuff probably actually detracted from it.
So Alan Wake was not a perfect game. But I love it even still.
Based on how the entire game is about the dynamic interplay of light and shadow, I'd guess it could look significantly better on modern hardware than it did 11 years ago.
*also wishes Persona 4G and Persona 3 FES were remastered on Playstation 4*
I'm not hating on the trend.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The first two Thief games would be good as well, but ONLY if they can manage to just make it look prettier without ruining any other aspect of the games.
-Tycho Brahe
"Whoooooooooah. Night Writer."
And just for the heck of it, here's Children of the Elder God (SCOURGE OF LIGHT UPON THE DAAAAAARK)
The story, though, didn't land for me because the threat was far too nebulous and the plot was weighed down by the tired old trope of the tortured artist battling his inner demons. The irony being that Doom (2016), with the Slayer battling his outer demons, was so much more satisfying in even its quieter moments.
And for an example closer in genre and timeframe, Condemned 2 delivered an actual conspiracy to battle against, while breaking up the urine-soaked street pugilism with the whisky-soaked protagonist's otherworldly struggles against the demon in the bottle. It had its issues, as well, but I remember it much more fondly, and would play it again on PC if they ever got around to porting it.
Sorry, I don't have anything against Wake. Never played it, really liked Control.
I haven't played Alan Wake, but that sounds an awful lot like the John Carpenter movie In the Mouth of Madness.
I won't say there aren't similarities. But I think in terms of inspirations, Stephen King and Twin Peaks are an easy lock for #1 & #2. I mean, the first words spoken in the game are "Stephen King". Moreover, if you have any interest in "writers interacting with their writings in the real world" and/or Twin Peak, you should really give Alan Wake a shot.
Well, no. It's a very horror title.
But Alan Wake is pretty much Stephen King in all but name. Hell, he even wrote an episode for the in-universe equivalent of The Twilight Zone... episodes of which are findable in game.
EDIT: Here's a YT with the Night Springs shorts: