Glass Rebel
Member
Different enemies go a long way in improving combat so that's a good thing. I don't think they can do too much with Alan's movement (like adding shootdodge or sliding and the likes) without making it look too ridiculous.
Mind you, I never called it repetitive. It's just that to me the combat in Alan Wake isn't something for long sittings. I agree that while the two are quite different in their approach Alan Wake's combat is really good as well. Both have some strategy involved but Max Payne to me is "plan and execute" while AW is often about positioning, crowd control and of course using the light to your advantage. The cool think about AW is how consistent and easy to memorize the damage they take is, which is necessary on Nightmare. People who complain about the combat probably never played at a difficulty where you need to use more than the flashlight and guns.
What makes MP more "bearable" over long stretches of time is merely the flow of the game and the player character's movement. Max Payne is relatively fast and agile and the shootouts rarely last more than a few seconds because you can deal incapacitate single enemies with relative ease. I love that one part in Max Payne 2 in the hospital where you can shootdodge down the staircase and take out several SWATs in seconds. It's very straight forward in this regard.
Alan Wake on the other hand puts you into situations where you have to fight quite a few enemies over a prolonged time. Every batch of enemies is a pocket of strategy and requires planning, adapting to the enemies, the environment etc. or even escape into the next light. All with enemies that take quite some time to dispose of if you don't have any flashbangs. There's nothing in Max Payne that compares to the Assault Taken. I'm not saying they should change it completely though; I enjoyed those sections immensely. They can change it up a little bit though with different enemy types, weapons and actually something to do when you're not fighting during the day and between encounters. I was a bit disappointed that there weren't more light based puzzles.
