Alan Wake 90% off

http://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/

I played 2 hours so far, so treat this as a first impression review.

A horror game with fantastic storytelling that blends third person shooter with small puzzles and a captivating narration. The seamless blend between cutscenes and explorable levels reminds me a little bit of Mafia (the original).

The only downside so far are the controls. Alan Wake cannot deny his console origins. Movement seems sluggish and unresponsive at times as if you were playing with really high latency. It raises the difficulty a bit - which is a good thing in my book. The fights would be too easy otherwise.

Remedy did add useful settings to the game, including a FoV slider. This kind of makes up for the consoly movement controls.

The level design is beautiful and although the levels are linear there are little secret stashes and manuscript pages hidden on your way that will help you immensely.
Remedy managed to create a perfect mix of suspension and more relaxed 'normal' areas to tell the story. You can never be 100% sure if you are in a dream, nightmare, memory or reality. Are you writing the story, living it or is the story dictating your actions?

Conclusion: Must buy for US$ 4,- (€3,80). The franchise pack includes the game, the collector's edition (option to watch the developer commentary video while you play) and Alan Wake's American Nightmare, the stand-alone expansion.

It's a weekend deal on Steam so don't wait too long to make up your mind. And stay in the light!

I won the American Nightmare from a SMNC stream raffle and it became repetitive really fast.

They should've named it Flashlight: The Game.

Should have bought it last week on the Humble Weekly sale. $1 for both games.

I've heard that one was way worse than the other, but I've played neither.

You need to play the first one to get it.
Also it's a play on a Sisyphean Nightmare.

Yeah, the shooting is the weakest part in the game. It only exists to give you a challenge and work as pressure valve to release the tension. If you put that into an 'arcade mode' without story it will probably get boring real soon.

So far I had like 10 minutes of shooting and 110 minutes of story, exploration, puzzles, reading manuscripts... Pretty good mix imo.

So you are saying it does worth it? Because i was thinking to buy it, but the fact that it might be terrible and I am not into videogame "story telling" games that much because that what it is, a big story on which you walk the path to the end holding a flashlight. Also why it is 90% off? I am not complaining but it just seems strange, I haven't seen games 90% off for a while now.

The story is really the main part. It's a bit like the old Max Payne games in that regard. I have played 2 hours so far and killed maybe 20 enemies or so. It's not an action game.

If I had to guess to why it is 90% off I would assume Remedy needs fresh money for Quantum Break, a new game they want to develop. That's coming to Xbox One so I don't care about it.

One of my favorite games of this generation. Absolutely worth it.

I got it in the recent Humble Bundle Sale. This was my opinion:

It seems that there are quite a few people who feel this way.

No. It's meant to feel like you're naturally moving a flashlight around with your hand.

I think the whole camera angle thing is a result of losing your distance. The testers get used to the clumsy controls over time and stop complaining about it until it is forgotten.

That is why you want to bring in people with 'fresh eyes' as testers once you have reached an important milestone. They will catch those things and make you aware of them while you still have time and finances to fix them.

If that is truly the case, they failed miserably by not making the camera first-person. They entirely missed the mark.

Just set the FOV to non-console standards and the controls will feel fine.

Now if only every developer shipped their games with unlocked FOV options.

Fist thing I did. No dice.

I'm in no way defending anything, but it's just a matter of getting used to looking at the center of your screen rather than focusing on Alan. I think having a small dot as a crosshair would have helped a lot.

Just look in the middle of the flashlight beam!

I just played 3 hours, it is not bad, I got used to the camera once I switched it to the right.

The "focus on the flashlight" trick was one of the first "solutions" I found on the internet. It's absolutely useless and is just a workaround akin to restarting a game and when a game crashes. If you aren't supposed to focus on the character, the character shouldn't be on screen.