What cool video games have you played recently?
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Kossage
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I've been playing Super Mario 64. It's a surprisingly fun game which looks quite pretty even by today's standards. The levels have nice nuances, and quite many of the missions are challenging (especially that awful timed mission combined with a precise wall kick and a vanish cap in the haunted mansion). Music is ok, and the voices are cute. It's a worthy entry in the Mario canon.
Some things you see with your eyes, others you see with your heart.
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PixarFan2006
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DaveWadding
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PixarFan2006
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PixarFan2006
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GloomyEeyore
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Duckburger
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Just finished Alan Wake. OMG, what an absolutely wonderful story, filled with so many subtle references and details. Then ending is absolutely perfect, everybody and everything has a place. I can't wait for the DLC.
As for the game, yes, it can get repetitive, but that's pretty much true of any combat in any game. Even vast, open world games like GTA, Fallout 3, Just Cause 2 etc all rely on the same basic combat and mission structures. However, Alan Wake shakes it up a few times - my favourite "missions" being defending the Rock and Roll stage or making it to the power station on foot, while the helicopter provides assistance with its searchlight.
What's important about Alan Wake is its not about the combat, but about the narrative and the atmosphere. I think I can honestly say without a doubt that I've never, ever seen a game with as much atmosphere before. There's been all sorts of moaning on the internet about it being "sub-HD" and scaled up, but they're totally missing the point. Alan Wake does things which are utterly astonishing: It's lighting is superb, its environments are organic and realistic and the weather effects top of the range. You only have to visit some of the same locations in daylight and night-time to see how all three effects totally change the look and feel of the location. I thought it was all superb.
As for the ending...
I really couldn't think of a better ending. Like its inspirations, its an ambiguous ending, and yet it provides closure for so many of the characters we've met throughout the game...
Unlike Thomas Zane did earlier - Alan writes his wife back to life with a balance and consequence*. He sacrifices his life in the story so that Alice can live. So while Zane's resurrection of his wife was unbalanced and full of plot holes** (probably because he was a poet not a writer) allowing the Darkness to grow stronger and possess Barbera, his wife, Alan's story has nothing that can make the darkness stronger. Or so he thinks...
Just as Cynthia (The Lamp Lady) was in love with Zane before he disappeared, and was warned by Zane, in this new reality Alan has written Rose from the diner becomes the new Lamp Lady, protecting Bright Falls from the Darkness (just as Cynthia was in love with Zane, Rose is "in love" with Alan).
And having had Barbera's form destroyed, the Darkness has taken on a new face - FBI Agent Nightingale who we saw taken by the Darkness earlier in the police station (just as presumably Barbera was taken all those years ago).
Meanwhile, we see all the other characters enjoying the Deerfest, unaware of their actions in the game, being as Alan has effectively "unwritten" them.
By Alan didn't sacrifice his life. He's trapped, at the bottom of the lake, forced to write by the darkness, and he is making it stronger. The last words he types are incredibly chilling. "It's not a lake, it's an ocean."
Excellent. Not only do we have closure, but all the elements and characters are in place for the sequel (or DLC).
Despite some repetative combat and a few niggles about the camera angles, I'd give Alan Wake 9/10 for the overall experience.
* Remember how so many of the Night Springs episodes on TV emphasise the negative consequences or actions that can result from opportunities which appear too good to be true? Concequence is a big factor in most of those short moral stories.
** Remember in the episode of Night Springs about the "plot hole" in the basement? How the writer is worried it will end up consuming the world? That's how the Darkness gains strength - it exists not only in the absence of light, but also logic and effect.
As for the game, yes, it can get repetitive, but that's pretty much true of any combat in any game. Even vast, open world games like GTA, Fallout 3, Just Cause 2 etc all rely on the same basic combat and mission structures. However, Alan Wake shakes it up a few times - my favourite "missions" being defending the Rock and Roll stage or making it to the power station on foot, while the helicopter provides assistance with its searchlight.
What's important about Alan Wake is its not about the combat, but about the narrative and the atmosphere. I think I can honestly say without a doubt that I've never, ever seen a game with as much atmosphere before. There's been all sorts of moaning on the internet about it being "sub-HD" and scaled up, but they're totally missing the point. Alan Wake does things which are utterly astonishing: It's lighting is superb, its environments are organic and realistic and the weather effects top of the range. You only have to visit some of the same locations in daylight and night-time to see how all three effects totally change the look and feel of the location. I thought it was all superb.
As for the ending...
I really couldn't think of a better ending. Like its inspirations, its an ambiguous ending, and yet it provides closure for so many of the characters we've met throughout the game...
Unlike Thomas Zane did earlier - Alan writes his wife back to life with a balance and consequence*. He sacrifices his life in the story so that Alice can live. So while Zane's resurrection of his wife was unbalanced and full of plot holes** (probably because he was a poet not a writer) allowing the Darkness to grow stronger and possess Barbera, his wife, Alan's story has nothing that can make the darkness stronger. Or so he thinks...
Just as Cynthia (The Lamp Lady) was in love with Zane before he disappeared, and was warned by Zane, in this new reality Alan has written Rose from the diner becomes the new Lamp Lady, protecting Bright Falls from the Darkness (just as Cynthia was in love with Zane, Rose is "in love" with Alan).
And having had Barbera's form destroyed, the Darkness has taken on a new face - FBI Agent Nightingale who we saw taken by the Darkness earlier in the police station (just as presumably Barbera was taken all those years ago).
Meanwhile, we see all the other characters enjoying the Deerfest, unaware of their actions in the game, being as Alan has effectively "unwritten" them.
By Alan didn't sacrifice his life. He's trapped, at the bottom of the lake, forced to write by the darkness, and he is making it stronger. The last words he types are incredibly chilling. "It's not a lake, it's an ocean."
Excellent. Not only do we have closure, but all the elements and characters are in place for the sequel (or DLC).
Despite some repetative combat and a few niggles about the camera angles, I'd give Alan Wake 9/10 for the overall experience.
* Remember how so many of the Night Springs episodes on TV emphasise the negative consequences or actions that can result from opportunities which appear too good to be true? Concequence is a big factor in most of those short moral stories.
** Remember in the episode of Night Springs about the "plot hole" in the basement? How the writer is worried it will end up consuming the world? That's how the Darkness gains strength - it exists not only in the absence of light, but also logic and effect.
Most of my Blu-ray collection some of my UK discs aren't on their database
Played a bit of Eternal Sonata last night. FINALLY got out of Andantino's Secret Passage. Have no idea how I did it, but I did it. Yay me! I've been thinking about getting Alan Wake. Just waiting for a price drop. I can afford it, but I'm too cheap right now.
Dragon, not lizard. I don't do that tongue thing.
Lilo: I'm not touching you!
Stitch: TOUCHING ME!
Lilo: I'm not touching you!
Stitch: TOUCHING ME!