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Alan Wake PC | Tech, performance and information thread

Special J

Banned
^it makes a really good first impression starts to wear thin by the end of the game, imo the pacing is off they dont balance enough story (cut scenes almost feel rushed) and put way too much combat in the game.
 

Neiteio

Member
^it makes a really good first impression starts to wear thin by the end of the game, imo the pacing is off they dont balance enough story (cut scenes almost feel rushed) and put way too much combat in the game.
Is that a Vanquish avatar you have? Vanquish is my gold standard for third-person combat in videogames, to give you an idea of my taste, and while Alan Wake is obviously nothing like it, I still find the combat fun so far. I dread it in a way, because every encounter is harrowing, but I think I'm getting better at it, beating a retreat and quickly dousing each enemy with light just long enough to stagger them before eventually breaking their defenses and pumping them full of lead. I'm also getting into a rhythm of reloading batteries and bullets in between staggers/shots. I could see it getting overwhelming, though, if they smother me with enemies in tight quarters... Pretty badass dodging several guys in a row, though. :)

By the way, without spoiling the story, how many episodes are there in the main story?
 

sinnergy

Member
Just picked this up and completed the first episode and WOW. As someone who deeply admires the horror genre, I'm surprised I don't see Alan Wake mentioned in conversations about the genre. This is good spooky fun! Well-written and absolutely gorgeous, too. Yet I suspect that like Heavy Rain and other story-driven titles, it won't be nearly as magical on second playthroughs once I know how it all ends. :-\ Still, the dodge and shine/shoot mechanic is great, and the feeling of moving around in general is tight and intuitive. That, coupled with the great art direction and dense atmosphere, means I'll probably be revisiting some of these chapters down the road in a "Dear Esther" sort of way, like a digital tourist. I glimpsed at the second episode and already love
Alan's apartment
; can't wait to play more tomorrow night. :)

I am sure it was ; ) Console gamer are all pretty much positive over this game (2 years ago) I am sorry to say but most pc centric gamers were bitter it wasn't on PC, so they didn't like it much (didn't even play it)

The game is the same on both platforms, only looks prettier on PC.

Sorry I had to say it ;) Anyway yeah as someone who loves horor and my friends do also, this game is awesome. I also has Twin Peaks, X-files and Outer Limits vibes.
 
Me neither..... I guess the second half of the second edit: season turned me a bit down on it.


It has some interesting environmental changes, but it's too much focued on combat.

Fire Walk With Me has very little to do with season 2 of Twin Peaks. it comes highly recommended, but with a disclaimer, it is not Twin Peaks: The Movie. do not expect the light hearted wackyness from the TV series. a lot of people did and they were disappointed.

FWWM is about the horrors of Laura's life, and how it all comes to an end. comedy would have been inappropriate, and while it would be nice to see Ed and Nadine again (scenes were written and filmed) they just wouldn't have fit tonally.
 

Neiteio

Member
I am sure it was ; ) Console gamer are all pretty much positive over this game (2 years ago) I am sorry to say but most pc centric gamers were bitter it wasn't on PC, so they didn't like it much (didn't even play it)

The game is the same on both platforms, only looks prettier on PC.

Sorry I had to say it ;) Anyway yeah as someone who loves horor and my friends do also, this game is awesome. I also has Twin Peaks, X-files and Outer Limits vibes.
I'm not sure how this is responding to anything I said...? I wasn't making a PC vs. console comparison. I love consoles and PC and play both. I just haven't tried Alan Wake until now, and I really love what I've played so far.
 
^it makes a really good first impression starts to wear thin by the end of the game, imo the pacing is off they dont balance enough story (cut scenes almost feel rushed) and put way too much combat in the game.

I just finished Episode 3 and a little of Episode 4 last night. So far, I'm really enjoying the combat but I have a long way to go. Maybe it wears thin in the later chapters.
 

derFeef

Member
Well the fact that it IS sub-HD makes it blurry. So he is wrong regarding the game trying to hide something. That's just how the game looks in lower resolution and lower settings.
 
I just finished Episode 3 and a little of Episode 4 last night. So far, I'm really enjoying the combat but I have a long way to go. Maybe it wears thin in the later chapters.

Personally I think they game gets better with every chapter. I don't understand some people's issues with the combat, I think it works perfectly fine.
 

Gwanatu T

Junior Member
Personally I think they game gets better with every chapter. I don't understand some people's issues with the combat, I think it works perfectly fine.

I agree. Although I own the game on the 360 I would have loved to play it through the proper way, i.e. on the PC. The game itself is fantastic though, one of my favorite games whatever year it came out really. Just phenomenal story telling, pacing and combat. I really enjoyed every minute of it.
 

FGMPR

Banned
Fire Walk With Me has very little to do with season 2 of Twin Peaks. it comes highly recommended, but with a disclaimer, it is not Twin Peaks: The Movie. do not expect the light hearted wackyness from the TV series. a lot of people did and they were disappointed.

FWWM is about the horrors of Laura's life, and how it all comes to an end. comedy would have been inappropriate, and while it would be nice to see Ed and Nadine again (scenes were written and filmed) they just wouldn't have fit tonally.

The only problem I have with FWWM is the fact that its a prequel when Lynch had the opportunity to give the show a conclusion. Now
Cooper is forever stuck in that other dimension whilst his evil doppelganger is prob in a mental ward or in prison by now in the real world
 

scitek

Member
So, I wonder if someone could mod in a bounding box so it'd be possible to play with a Wiimote/Nunchuk.

edit: I asked. Can't hurt to ask, right?
 
The only problem I have with FWWM is the fact that its a prequel when Lynch had the opportunity to give the show a conclusion. Now
Cooper is forever stuck in that other dimension whilst his evil doppelganger is prob in a mental ward or in prison by now in the real world

well, the plan was there to follow up FWWM with a sequel to the series, but unfortunately it bombed at the box office due to how violent and tonally different it was to the series. if you haven't, you can find the shooting script which does contain a scene set after the end of series 2... but...

it amounts to Doc Jacoby and Sheriff Truman breaking down the door of the bathroom to find Coop with a bleeding forehead and he tells them that he 'still needs to brush his teeth'.

if you want to join in the speculation as to what might have happened next, come join me and a bunch of my friends in Washington August 3 to 5th at the Twin Peaks festival ;)

FWWM is something i very glad exists. it was one thing to hear about Laura but to actually see what happened... it's a very gripping film that borders on pure horror. one of the scariest films to rewatch, i find. most horror films lose their bite after one viewing, but since FWWM is set up to presume the audience knows what is going to happen, it works again and again.
 

AEREC

Member
really awesome to see AW getting a nice kick start again from the pc crowd, seemed mostly overlooked on 360. love the game, love remedy, cant wait for AN tomorrow!

It did well on the 360 I believe but it obviously didn't help launching against Red Dead Redemption on the same day.
 

scitek

Member
Man, I could never work in tech support, holy shit. A guy literally asked on Remedy's forums why his framerate dropped when he changed from Low shadows to Medium or High.
 

FGMPR

Banned
well, the plan was there to follow up FWWM with a sequel to the series, but unfortunately it bombed at the box office due to how violent and tonally different it was to the series. if you haven't, you can find the shooting script which does contain a scene set after the end of series 2... but...

it amounts to Doc Jacoby and Sheriff Truman breaking down the door of the bathroom to find Coop with a bleeding forehead and he tells them that he 'still needs to brush his teeth'.

if you want to join in the speculation as to what might have happened next, come join me and a bunch of my friends in Washington August 3 to 5th at the Twin Peaks festival ;)

FWWM is something i very glad exists. it was one thing to hear about Laura but to actually see what happened... it's a very gripping film that borders on pure horror. one of the scariest films to rewatch, i find. most horror films lose their bite after one viewing, but since FWWM is set up to presume the audience knows what is going to happen, it works again and again.

hehe sounds awesome. A little bit far for me to travel at the moment though lol (i'm in Australia)
 
Friend beat it in one sitting and let me borrow his Steam account to give it a spin.

Can't say I like the combat; the dodge mechanic feels off to me and I've been running out of ammo a lot. Does the game expand beyond walking on 4 foot wide paths in the forest? Also Alan Wake is kind of an unlikeable asshole. Max Payne 2 is one of my favorite games of all-time but I'm not too enthused with Alan Wake so far. Sure is pretty though.
 
The paths widen sometimes. And sometimes you're not in the forest.

It's not bad but five chapters in it feels like half a game, namely the action half where the other half is just skipped over.
 

scitek

Member
I really advise against playing for hours on end with this game your first time through. It's designed in an episodic fashion and definitely feels repetitive as shit if not played that way.
 
I've been playing in about 2 hour chunks for the last few nights. I'm somewhere in the middle of Episode 5 and I'm still having a good time. The combat hasn't grown stale. As far as ammo goes, I've always had more than enough. I always end up hoarding the power weapons too, out of habit even though you lose your arsenal between episodes.
 

derFeef

Member
Friend beat it in one sitting and let me borrow his Steam account to give it a spin.

Can't say I like the combat; the dodge mechanic feels off to me and I've been running out of ammo a lot. Does the game expand beyond walking on 4 foot wide paths in the forest? Also Alan Wake is kind of an unlikeable asshole. Max Payne 2 is one of my favorite games of all-time but I'm not too enthused with Alan Wake so far. Sure is pretty though.

If you are running out of ammo you are either missing a lot of shots or you are not burning the darkness away properly with your flashlight before you begin to shoot.
 

BeeDog

Member
Finished the game today. Started liking it less and less as it went on; the end sections dragged like hell, and everything went a bit too zany for my taste. But still, don't regret purchasing the game, overall a solid 7/10 experience.
 

Blizzard

Banned
It feels surreal to actually have a pc game in this day and age where the devs support and patch it this fast and based on player feedback.
Yeah:

• Big thanks for the PC fans out there! We are constantly working on improving the game based on your feedback, please keep it coming!

There's a bit of patch roadmap information where you linked, too, with some other things they want to try to fix. They seem refreshingly straightforward about it, really.
 

Neiteio

Member
Halfway through Episode 3, playing one episode a night. It's gotten a good scream out of me at least twice now. Before the bridge with the
possessed objects
, there's a forked path leading back to a
cabin full of items
. When I went back outside,
there was no dark world effect, but I heard footsteps. I stopped moving and I still heard them. Then a fucking Taken ran right up to me out of my blind spot! FUCK!
Heart racing like crazy. Last night, on Episode 2, the jump moment was when
I'm leaving Barry at the cabin, heading for the Visitor Center, when I stop in a cabin on the way, turn on the lights and listen to the radio, and as I glance over at the window I see someone moving in the underbrush outside. FUCK. Also, in another cabin all the lights were out and the windows were open, so as I watched Night Springs I was constantly paranoid, whirling the camera around, and the sound is directional and shifts in volume based on where you're looking, which flipped my shit a couple times as I thought I was under attack, lol.
I nearly peed my pants...
 
Not sure if it's thread worthy, but Remedy says the success of Skyrim motivates them to continue making story heavy games.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ivates-remedy-to-stick-with-story-heavy-games

"The Call of Dutys and the Battlefields are doing extremely well in the US," Remedy head of franchise development Oskari Hakkinen told Eurogamer. "Those are the type of games that are in popular demand, so it's really positive to see Skyrim and other RPG games that have a lot of story in be successful as well.

"It gives us motivation to do story-driven games, because there's obviously an audience out there of people who enjoy story as well.

"Seeing something like that being successful, we don't need to consciously try to make our stories any less than they are, not try to make them any simpler. Our stories are not necessarily complicated, but our games are very story heavy. And, just to see games like Skyrim succeed, it's like, let's not try to make it any less story-heavy."

I don't even know where to begin here. Skyrim is a success is due to it being a massive open world RPG where you do what you want. You can freaking ignore the story if you choose, where Alan Wake does nothing but railroad the player through a tightly paced TV-style romp.

It's all the more absurd considering they were originally making Alan Wake an open world game. I mean of all things to take away from the success of Skyrim, it's that they're on the right track with their storytelling? Mind blown.
 

scitek

Member
This seems worth posting. For those who wanted to just get rid of the motion blur, but keep the blur effects on the Taken, replace the "VectorBlur.obj" file in your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\alan wake\shaders\build\pc directory with this one. I like it, personally. Credit to nikodimosi over at the Remedy forums for it.
 

PowerK

Member
Not sure if it's thread worthy, but Remedy says the success of Skyrim motivates them to continue making story heavy games.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ivates-remedy-to-stick-with-story-heavy-games



I don't even know where to begin here. Skyrim is a success is due to it being a massive open world RPG where you do what you want. You can freaking ignore the story if you choose, where Alan Wake does nothing but railroad the player through a tightly paced TV-style romp.

It's all the more absurd considering they were originally making Alan Wake an open world game. I mean of all things to take away from the success of Skyrim, it's that they're on the right track with their storytelling? Mind blown.

Heh, probably he has never played Elder Scroll series.
 

Dennis

Banned
An open-world Alan Wake that is more RPG and survival horror, and less linear shooter would have been my preference but Remedy forgot to ask me what I wanted.
 

Sentenza

Member
An open-world Alan Wake that is more RPG and survival horror, and less linear shooter would have been my preference but Remedy forgot to ask me what I wanted.
Eh, the Alan Wake they described originally sounded pretty much like an hybrid between L.A. Noire and Gabriel Knight 3: free roaming, investigation, mysteries, puzzles...

It was way more ambitious and interesting as concept.
 
Eh, the Alan Wake they described originally sounded pretty much like an hybrid between L.A. Noire and Gabriel Knight 3: free roaming, investigation, mysteries, puzzles...

It was way more ambitious and interesting as concept.

It was probably too ambitious for such a small developer.

If you haven't, you should check out "Alan Wake Illuminated". They show a lot of stuff in there. I'm not sure if you can find it anymore though.

Some of the stuff sounded cool, like the tornado, while other stuff sounded stupid, for example the race track.
 

Neiteio

Member
I love how this game controls. It struck me the other night as I crept through Episode 3 (I'm going at a snail's pace; this game is scaring the shit out of me, which is surprising, since I'm a hardened Amnesia vet). Alan Wake might be the only third-person survival horror title** outside of Eternal Darkness that doesn't control like shit. The old-school Resident Evil games, Siren Blood Curse, etc, all have back-asswards tank controls, but here we see our character, he moves just as you think he should, and it works fine. I know I'm in control and I'm truly living and dying by my own hands, which actually makes the game scarier.

** And it -is- a survival horror title. I'm a thorough explorer who pillages every crate and cabinet and a sure shot who often hits his mark, but I've still had to beat a retreat a few times, and I never feel invincible. (Though I do feel like a badass sometimes, "cinematic dodging," or using a flare to keep foes away from my back while boxing in a couple in a corner, breaking their shields and destroying them with the shotgun.) I dread each encounter and feel an authentic adrenaline rush of pure unbridled rage when I see the Taken, rage coming from an overwhelming desire to wipe out these genuinely scary creatures. They move so fast, they're so persistent, and if you run into the underbrush they can be difficult to see and stagger with the flashlight. Brilliantly done enemies.

Anyway, I can't wait to see where the story goes next. I'm at the start of Episode 4 and I'm absolutely bewildered at this point. It's like Lost, mixed with Twin Peaks, mixed with Stephen King works like Pet Cemetery. It's masterfully done so far. I genuinely care about all of the characters; even the asshole FBI agent is humanized in the manuscript pages. I like how Alan frequently says how he's feeling, his fears and concerns. I like how the TVs and radios and educational signs and such build the world and its mythology. The Taken are always creepy, and the "Dark Presence" and all that entails is like Lost's smoke monster to the extreme. And the world is so gorgeous... SO gorgeous. I'm blown away so far.

And the combat's hella fun. I need to start taking breaks at checkpoints, though. I've been doing a full episode per sitting, and playing something of this emotional intensity for that long (the suspense, the jump scares/ambushes, etc) can be a drain. But that's no fault of the game; it's a testament to its addicting quality, actually. :)
 
Welp, I think I was near the end of The Signal and I dodged my way into a wall and couldn't get out. Wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been for the fact that the game decided to overwrite my checkpoint then and there, so I lost my save and had to start again. I decided not to bother. The DLC has a few nice flourishes but not enough to make up for being little more than a dull slog through waves of enemies.
 
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