Alan Wake II Review

you left us on quite the Cliffhanger we've all been dying to know what it's not a lake it's an ocean really means you and me both 13 years after his wife went missing in the small town of brightfalls author Alan Wake is trapped inside a dark place that he can't seem to write himself out of as I sit down to type out this review of Alan Wake 2 I can somewhat empathize it's just so incomparable to anything else I've played in recent memory that it's tough to work out exactly where to start I mean how would you describe it an autofictional thought experiment a Horror Story a postmodern detective story uh yeah something like that but it's also a single player Adventure that seamlessly shifts from slowburn psychological Terror to frantic survival horror action from gorgeously rendered game worlds to striking full motion video sequences and from morbid investigations to showstopping musical surprise it's bloody it's Bonkers and for the most part it's utterly brilliant coming in at the tail end of a gaming year packed with absolute bangers Allan Wake 2 still manages to burn as brightly as a freshly fired signal flare I didn't remember much but I knew my thoughts and ideas could manifest as reality in this dark place spanning two wildly contrasting realities Alan Wake 2's roughly 17 hour story manages to be far more coherent than that of the original despite its substantial increase in complexity we pick things up in present day brightfalls taking control of FBI agent Saga Anderson who's been dispatched to the small Lakeside town to investigate the latest victim in a series of ritualistic Slaughters the killer left the heart right next to the body Saga is an instantly likable addition to the weird world that alen wake shares with remedy entertainment's other Supernatural game control she's fiercely dedicated to her casew work but not above a bit of playful banter with her partner special agent Alex Casey are you thinking of retiring you know what happens to Cops who say this is their last case mhm real funny Anderson and these opening couple of hours of mostly combat free procedural investigation give the story a realistic grounding before the darkness starts to descend and every Placid hillscape transforms into a harrowing hellscape part of the reason alen wake 2's main serial killer mystery and its numerous subplots are so easy to keep track of is due to the caseboard found in saga's metaphysical mind Place each new piece of evidence gathered in brightfalls and its surroundings must be manually arranged onto a branching tree of red string and palm cards corralling it all into order and keeping you focused on the case I'm not ashamed to say that I couldn't get through season 1 of True Detective without having one eye on my television and the other on a Reddit thread open on my phone so I loved having this inbuilt method of keeping the facts straight this case just became much more complicated as saga's investigation progresses in the early moments of Alan Wake 2's Story Each Discovery raises more unsettling questions than it answers like why do so many of the locals act as though they've known Saga for years I'm sorry who are you and why is the janitor from control performing karaoke in a local Town Hall okay then catchy tun and why did that corpse suddenly haul his decomposing ass out of the morg and into the [Music] woods the mystery deepens still When Alan Wake washes up onto the shore of cauldron Lake rambling about the dark place and surprised to learn he's been missing for the past 13 years 13 then Allan Wake 2 really gets weird from here the perspective shifts back and forth between Saga Search for the truth in right Falls and Allen's desperate attempts to escape his doomed darkplace Dimension with both sides gradually bleeding into each other in increasingly unpredictable and discombobulating ways they act like they've known me for years this keeps happening before eventually resolving into a supremely well executed gut punch of an ending that neatly ties off the bulk of the story threads while tantalizingly leaving a handful of loose ones to dangle the alluring power of its contrasting environments only further enhances is its mystery while the Lakeside shores of brightfalls present some stunning Sunset scenes and detail Rich Forest surrounds it's the grimy neon soaked New York Plaza setting of Allen's reality that really shows off the immense skill of remedy's team of artists this rotten slice of the Big Apple is a haunting other world that I found consistently compelling to explore Allen stages also stimulated a different part of my brain by introducing some enjoyable environmental puzzles using a paranormal desk lamp Allan can absorb the energy from one light source and redirect it to another to physically alter the world around him and open up New Paths forward it's a dazzling trick and one that grows in complexity over time determining the right sequence to manipulate multiple light sources progressively UPS the challenge involved in unlocking each new area to examine in place of gathering evidence like in Saga stages in Allen's reality you must seek out plot elements in the form of ghostly hardboiled scenes from Allan's own Alex Casey crime series Caldera Street Station the name made me think of the exit wound of a bullet these can then be Rewritten into Allen's present scenario to distort his reality into disturbing new diaramas that bring him closer towards the Dark Places exit things clicked into place the story rang true and here I was thinking Michael Sarah was the only Allen desperate to escape a corrupted alternate reality this year not one person would care if Allan was in the real world in fact it's happened before all ofin syn Allan to make things all the more disconcerting Alan Wake 2's creative director Sam Lake doesn't just play both the character of Alex Casey in Allen's world and FBI special agent Alex Casey in Saga story but he also appears as himself in a peculiar late night talk show that alen is a recurring guest on you might not know his name but you probably know his famous face since it was plasted on the mug of the original max pain look he even does the signature Grimace great job Sam alen wake 2's heavy meta mystery is like a jigsaw puzzle locked inside a Rubik's Cube that's covered in sodoku and it's honestly such a strange and wonderful trip that takes more unexpected detours than a disgruntled Uber [Music] driver indeed alen wake 2 features more plots than a symmetry and just as high a body count the fundamentals of combat remain largely the same as the enjoy enable flashlight fueled fighting of the original but its execution has been enhanced significantly enemies are once again literal Shadows of their former selves and the most efficient way to dispatch them is by using the boosted beam of your flashlight to burn away their cloudy Darkness Shields and Blasting disgusting chunks of exposed flesh off their bones this time around glowing weak points will occasionally be revealed on an enemy's body and if you manage to successfully Target them you can inflict substantially more damage and save a few precious ammo rounds in the process which felt like a nice reward for taking an extra fraction of a second to carefully line up my shots both Saga and Allen are blessed with an unlimited Sprint ability which marks a huge Improvement to the constantly out of puff Allen from the original and our protagonists are generally more Nimble too the Dodge button feels snappier and allowed me to more Rel reliably duck under swinging pipes or thrown pickaxes and it even works on the ground should you be knocked off your feet allowing you to quickly roll out of Harm's Way and avoid any potential followup attacks but challenge is part of the charm of the original and remedy has not forgotten that Saga and Allen may be more Fleet footed in Allen wake 2 but ammunition and batteries remain scarce and although it doesn't quite rival Resident Evil 4 in terms of enemy variety there are enough different gloomy goons to be surprised by that I could never really anticipate which breed of Shadow Warrior was waiting to Ambush me down any given path some enemies even H darkness projectiles that home in on you I haven't seen this much shade thrown since the last mm diss track there are some wonderfully frantic and distinct boss fights too including a dimly lit Close Quarters scrap with a rampaging reanimated corpse who was hellbent on caving my chest in with the sharp end of a torn off tree branch and another later on that had me desperately burning away an arena full of Darkness blobs while trying to avoid having my head separated from my shoulders by an enemy's rifle shots from afar despite the increased challenge these bosses presented I found that the enemy in Allen wake 2 that I feared the most was the one that more often not couldn't even hurt me Allen's reality is lited with Whispering apparitions but nine times out of 10 they dissipate into wisps of smoke if you train your flashlight on them it's that 10th instance you need to worry about though because it's likely to be an actual physical nasty waiting to Ambush you from Plain Sight after you've been lulled into a false sense of security as a result I started second guessing each and every human shaped Shadow including my own which felt perfectly in sync with alen's own unraveling mental state Allen's mental health isn't the only thing here that isn't as strong as it could be although the different arsenals of the two playable characters each boast their own advantages their individual skill trees seem somewhat lopsided in their implementation whereas Allen's Words of Power skill tree features 21 different skills that can each be potentially upgraded up to three times over saga's upgrades are limited to just three Buffs for each firearm in her inventory and each comes at such a high cost of the collectible manuscript fragments hidden around brightfalls that by the time I'd reached the end credits I'd only invested in a handful of them furthermore and in contrast with Allen's impressive environmental remixing Saga is regularly saddled with a few too many survival horror stereotypes like fuse box to repair and combination locks to solve although the ladder at least requires some pretty Creative Solutions at times I should take a look around for a way to open this thing still any issues I had with alen wake 2 sank Without a Trace like an out of towerer in cauldron Lake washed away by the T of other things it gets right it undoubtedly takes a lot of inspiration from film and television taking the Twin Peaks meets twilight zone base of the original and mixing in the best bits of True Detective seven Inception and more into the pot sometimes all of these things at once but it also folds in some nods to some Modern gaming Classics blindsiding you with truly unnerving inscription likee fourth wall trickery and Eerie full motion video moments that recall 2022 is found footage freak out immortality in one truly astonishing early game moment that I don't want to completely completely spoil here it even briefly becomes an interactive musical as though the team at remedy took one look at the jump up Superstar level from Super Mario Odyssey and decided to appropriate it in the most bombastically bizarre way possible for a glorious 20 minutes or so alen wake 2 resembles something less like a survival horror video game and more like a Rocky Horror Picture Show although Alan Wake 2 has no shortage of out ofou seat scares it's moments like these that prove remedy has approached the actual design of its long awaited sequel completely without [Music] fear Alan Wake 2 delivers one of the boldest and most brain-bending survival horror storyl lines this side of Silent Hill 2 presents it with uniformly Immaculate art Direction and audio design and reinvigorates the series's signature light based shooting as though it's been locked and loaded with a fresh pack of energizers even though its skill upgrade systems seem a little Superfluous and there were a few repeated cliches in saga's story that stuck in my craw I nonetheless found both sides of this Twisted Tail to be endlessly fascinating frequently fear inducing and consistently surprising Allen wake 2 is a superb survival horror sequel that makes the cult classic original seem like little more than a rough first draft by comparison thank you that means so much to me for more IGN reviews check out our verdicts on ghost Runner 2 and Skull Island rise of Kong and for everything else stick with IGN

Channel: IGN

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Keywords: Action, Adventure, Alan Wake, Alan Wake II, Horror, PC, PlayStation 5, RCU - Remedy Connected Universe, Remedy, Xbox Series X|S, ign game reviews 2023, ign game reviews, ign review, alan wake 2 reviews, alan wake 2 review, alan wake 2 review no spoilers

Id: LrBtgQVjp3I

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 26 2023