Alan Wake 2

Finally finished the game. Had to go to Reddit for an explanation and to figure out what I just played.
 
I sorted the black crush/contrast issues I've been mentioning, turns out leaving the default in-game brightness gamma on the default 2.2 is not the way to go because that lifts blacks. Setting it to sRGB instead sorts it and puts the contrast to what it should be.

The difference is staggering, this area is completely pitch black with no indirect light source that would otherwise light up anything:

Default 2.2:
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sRGB:
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Naturally on an OLED, this is huge.
 
I am on Initiation 8 since I dropped Saga story to finish Wake story first as it was giving me point of no return BS. My patience is being tested with every video I watch, every stupid dance I see, every new version of Alan Wake I see.

Game says I have played 15 hours but I could’ve sworn only 2-3 tops were actual gameplay. Rest was just walking around and box opening simulator. It kind of reminded me of Shadow of the Tomb Raider where whole levels were just walking around and opening boxes. At least it had some parkour and climbing as potential gameplay. Here it is find a spot to shine a light or clumsily run around like a moron.

I think if I didn’t attempt collectibles crap, it would be a much smaller game. Overall it is a 4/10 for me. I have level 8 and 9 of Wake left and then maybe 7, 8 and 9 for Saga.

Stupid af game.
 
robbiekhan said:
I sorted the black crush/contrast issues I've been mentioning, turns out leaving the default in-game brightness gamma on the default 2.2 is not the way to go because that lifts blacks. Setting it to sRGB instead sorts it and puts the contrast to what it should be.

The difference is staggering, this area is completely pitch black with no indirect light source that would otherwise light up anything:

Default 2.2:
View attachment 616053

sRGB:
View attachment 616054

Naturally on an OLED, this is huge.
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Do you have HGiG turned on?
 
Domingo said:
My issue with the combat is that it's pointless if not full-on detrimental to your progress. You can fight all those random shadows or wandering taken/wolves...but you end up wasting your most limited resource (batteries and/or ammo) and get nothing in return 90% of the time. Or you can just plow right into them and proceed to your objective only to use the most common resource (healing items) to nullify the damage you took. IMO, there's a formula for item drops that's off. Some enemies drop ammo/batteries, but they're just super rare. Those random item caches also seem to dish out items based on some kind of formula that also seems off. In some cases, I'd open one and it would be empty. When I went back later, the lid would still be open but there would be an item sitting there. They should ease up on the healing shit (and flares) and dish out more batteries and ammo. Make me want to engage with the game instead of running from location to location because it's smarter.
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I think the combat is fun. Resources aren't scarce so there's virtually no reason not to fight them. Unless you're speed running the game? :p
 
robbiekhan said:
I'm not playing in HDR.
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Which begs the question, why not?
THUMPer said:
Finally finished the game. Had to go to Reddit for an explanation and to figure out what I just played.
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I haven't even finished Wake's story yet and I'm finding the story to incredibly over-explained within the gameworld. The game's "meta" narrative, themes (e.g. realities within realities), etc. are all really *hammered in* with this game. I do enjoy how Sam Lake has loosely woven his IP's together (including Max Payne). It's almost as if Alan Wake is one of the stories on the television from Max Payne 1 or 2. I have a few predictions for how the game will end but I'm going to avoid spoilers in this instance.

And FWIW, once the Sam Lake cheese hits - it's hard to be scared by this game's atmosphere. The game is a cheesefest that doesn't take itself seriously. Being scared by this game is like being afraid of "Drag Me to Hell". Which works for me, because I thought at first the game was taking itself far too seriously with Saga's part of the game.
 
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I prefer not to sometimes, I'm already on OLED, it's already excellent in SDR and I don't really care that much for HDR gaming as a result under Windows since you need to wait the annoying time delay for the display to switch over to HDR mode etc each time.
 
robbiekhan said:
I prefer not to sometimes, I'm already on OLED, it's already excellent in SDR and I don't really care that much for HDR gaming as a result under Windows since you need to wait the annoying time delay for the display to switch over to HDR mode etc each time.
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Now that's high time preference :p I agree that SDR already looks excellent, but neglecting HDR? This game's HDR is fantastic, you're really missing out dude. It also has Dolby Atmos, which everyone should be turning on as well. These features ain't small potatoes.
 
I've played it with HDR already for a bit before going back to SDR, on OLED it's good but not night and day vs SDR anyway due to the above mentioned quality of SDR anyway.

As for Atmos, there is no setting in the game to turn it on or off, but as I have some large speakers and high quality amp setup for PC audio, am already getting high end sonics from the audio in the game which are stunning!

jQ4ItGK.jpg
 
The problem with this game is it embraced an open world style, even if the maps are small and there are load points. Lots of walking around and collecting things. This game is taking way longer than I thought. Hoped it would be a good 20-24 hour thing. Instead, it is closer to 30-40 hours given that I only have done around half the chapters.

I'll never understand the fascination with holding the W key for hours, but then shitty games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey get high marks for being devoid of gameplay but a high hour counter and people praise it. I guess most gamers enjoy the hold W key for gameplay.

I will say the parts with Wake are better. Saga's parts can be okay, but then you end up doing more slow walking and they just drag on forever. They should have designed those to be smaller closed off areas and made her walk faster.

And Saga's voice actress is annoying. Vah-gin-yha (Virginia). An-duh-sun (Anderson). POW-wah-fah (powerful). Her pronunciation of words is just off. Voice actress is from the UK, but I'd still think they would be able to pounce simple words like an American.
 
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British English is the real English… 👀

I can’t see anyone spending 40 hours in this game. It should’ve been around 10-12 without collectibles and maybe is 20 with collectibles. There is no gameplay here, it’s just collectibles and cheesy af story with horrendous writing.
 
Tactlesss said:
The path tracing is definitely better during the Alan Wake sections. Certainly in the sense that I can turn it on with my 3080 12GB and keep the frame rate near 55 or so.
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path tracing with a 3080?...what resolution?...all other graphics settings maxed?
 
KickAssCop said:
British English is the real English…
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Depends. The most common forms of English are going to be American. Regardless, if the character is American they should sound like one. The actress wasn't great for the job, IMO. Every now and then you hear an actor/actress and you think they're American. That isn't the case here. It was so odd I had to look it up.

KickAssCop said:
I can’t see anyone spending 40 hours in this game. It should’ve been around 10-12 without collectibles and maybe is 20 with collectibles. There is no gameplay here, it’s just collectibles and cheesy af story with horrendous writing.
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Thankfully, ending chapters are going by quicker. Some of those early Saga chapters dragged on and on. And it is mostly lootboxes or collectibles without much to really see. Most places I walk to are just not interesting. Just small bits of info which is nice, but making us back track or find a key or whatever just gets annoying.

I still don't dislike the game, but it certainly does play like "Alan Walk" more than Alan Wake.
 
10-12 hours without collectibles? Not even in the ballpark. I'm 14 hours in, haven't touched the Saga campaign past necessity, and still have a way to go with the Wake campaign.
 
I just finished it over the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't like or care for the first Alan Wake. I thought it was repetitive and boring. I liked the story in this game- it was what kept me going trying to get to the end. The first couple chapters of the Alan Wake episodes in the subway almost had me shutting if off and never touching it again. It was so frustrating with the light mechanic and the mechanic to rewrite the story. It was just too much and too confusing- I got lost early on and was just wondering around trying to move the story on. I had to look it up on Youtube to get past that section. But after that it wasn't too bad. I like the Saga episodes it really felt like you were a detective trying to unravel a mystery. With the way the game ended I know there's going to be DLC's and maybe a Alan Wake 3 in the future. I can't wait for the DLC's to wrap up this story.

I enjoyed this game more then Starfield and Diablo 4. I've put in 17 hours on Starfield and haven't touched it again. I'm at level 60 in Diablo and haven't gone back. It's just a grind fest which gets repetitive and tiring after a while. Alan Wake 2 was refreshing it was something slower and more story driven. I'd say if Christopher Nolan (one of my favorite directors) were to make a game it would be Alan Wake 2. It reminds me a lot of Nolan's films.
 
t1337duder said:
10-12 hours without collectibles? Not even in the ballpark. I'm 14 hours in, haven't touched the Saga campaign past necessity, and still have a way to go with the Wake campaign.
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It will end up being 28 or so hours for me total. Thankfully as mentioned previously, the ending chapters pick up. The atmosphere and graphics are nice but aren't enough to keep the gameplay interesting. Alan's chapters are certainly better. Honestly the narrative gets a bit muddied with Saga and I think it would have been better had she not been in the game.
 
I spent 25 hours with it and got all but 2 achievements that I could probably complete in 5 minutes if I kept my earlier saves. That's way more than I expected, but I did waste a lot of time trying to be super careful in the first 1/3 of the game. Once I started paying attention to the item maps and stopped bothering to fight everything I progressed much quicker.
 
ok so actually now playing in HDR, figured why not as nearing the end and yeah HDR is much better than what I recall before the last round of patches to this game. It's actually a big difference now vs when at launch.
 
Finished it. Took maybe 18-19 hours. Because I liked the ending I give it a 5/10. Someone had loaded up shrooms and made a cake for Alan when they wrote this. The heavy handed over explained writing was terrible. Just having like total 4 locations with repeat visits was terrible. The gunplay was terrible.

I don’t recommend this to anyone. Better to YouTube a story video and call it. It’s maybe 1-2 hours worth of story wrapped up in a walking and box opening simulator. Not sure it was worth the time.
 
KickAssCop said:
Finished it. Took maybe 18-19 hours. Because I liked the ending I give it a 5/10. Someone had loaded up shrooms and made a cake for Alan when they wrote this. The heavy handed over explained writing was terrible. Just having like total 4 locations with repeat visits was terrible. The gunplay was terrible.

I don’t recommend this to anyone. Better to YouTube a story video and call it. It’s maybe 1-2 hours worth of story wrapped up in a walking and box opening simulator. Not sure it was worth the time.
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It sounds a bit over and under-engineered in all the wrong ways. I will wait for a sale. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it.
 
KickAssCop said:
Finished it. Took maybe 18-19 hours. Because I liked the ending I give it a 5/10. Someone had loaded up shrooms and made a cake for Alan when they wrote this. The heavy handed over explained writing was terrible. Just having like total 4 locations with repeat visits was terrible. The gunplay was terrible.

I don’t recommend this to anyone. Better to YouTube a story video and call it. It’s maybe 1-2 hours worth of story wrapped up in a walking and box opening simulator. Not sure it was worth the time.
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How dare you
 
Back to the Saga sections. She's the most bland character I've experienced in recent memory. Her face almost always is expressionless. 90% of her dialogue is her explaining things. She's like a robot, without emotion. The only time she has emotion is when she displays sentimentality towards the deer taxidermy, which just comes across as weird and out of place.

Usually with writing and dialogue, you want things to communicate the point as quickly as possible. You don't want endless long diatribes of explanations - yet that's what this game's storytelling often resorts to. It's just explanation after explanation.

The Alan Wake sections had a good pace to them. The Saga sections is police LARPing for people who watch too much CSI.

Alan Wake's mind room served a functional purpose to the gameplay. Saga's mind room is a place you're arbitrarily forced to visit to listen to Saga talk to herself to long periods of time just to advance to the next section. How was this not trashed?
 
This a game you can sail the high seas too. Glad I did. Wake me up when stalker is out.
 
t1337duder said:
Back to the Saga sections. She's the most bland character I've experienced in recent memory. Her face almost always is expressionless. 90% of her dialogue is her explaining things. She's like a robot, without emotion. The only time she has emotion is when she displays sentimentality towards the deer taxidermy, which just comes across as weird and out of place.

Usually with writing and dialogue, you want things to communicate the point as quickly as possible. You don't want endless long diatribes of explanations - yet that's what this game's storytelling often resorts to. It's just explanation after explanation.

The Alan Wake sections had a good pace to them. The Saga sections is police LARPing for people who watch too much CSI.

Alan Wake's mind room served a functional purpose to the gameplay. Saga's mind room is a place you're arbitrarily forced to visit to listen to Saga talk to herself to long periods of time just to advance to the next section. How was this not trashed?
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At first it was interesting, but then the evidence board became annoying. I know why it was there, it was an innovative way to keep track of the story. I think the bigger problem is the story was a bit confusing due to the swapping of characters and the amount of down time in slow walking sections. The first game was similar in terms of story but it was very clear what was going on. The delivery was quite well done. The delivery in this, at least the Saga sections, was not that good. The pacing kind of killed what it was trying to set up. Wake's sections were better in terms of delivery.

Someone posted about Sweet Baby a few pages back. I feel like they influenced the story writing, and the result was not good. Saga had more game time than Alan. Ironically I viewed the Sweet Baby website, and it focused on two things:

1) Forced diversity.
2) Making players care about the characters.

The second point was nice, because many games have characters with emotional sections that I just cannot care about. They will introduce someone for 2 minutes, and then later they will die. I will not care about said character, but the protagonist will cry about their death and mention it throughout a game. It certainly is a big problem with game writing. The irony here is Alan Wake essentially has the same problem. Saga has a daughter, that we never see or have any reason to care about. But they wove her into the story and that is when Saga occasionally gets emotional. It feels out of place, annoying, and I just don't care about Saga's daughter at all. Seemed like Sweet Baby dropped the ball big time. But I assume the second point I mentioned above isn't something they really focus on much, they just throw it in there to sound more intelligent and mask the fact that all they do is forced diversity writing.

Also found how Saga could magically understand things was a bit odd. I suppose in a sequel they may explain that, but it is odd how her family has telepathic powers that no one knew about in the first game. Again they can probably explain it as some type of AWE that happened to her family in the past, but still odd that it passes down in the family. If you go down that rabbit hole, you can make all sorts of outrageous changes to the story/characters and explain it away as an "AWE". They needed to keep it somewhat grounded otherwise it all becomes nonsense.
 
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polonyc2 said:
New Game+ coming...
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Alan Wake 2 Is Getting New Game Plus and a New Ending

The new update is scheduled to go live on all platforms Monday, December 11, at 10 AM Pacific Time

The Final Draft update adds a new ending to the story of Alan Wake 2, which Remedy believes will spark speculation and theories among the game's dedicated fans...there is also new lore to be found in the form of a few new videos and manuscript pages that have been added to the New Game Plus experience, along with other subtle additions

New Game Plus will allow players to restart Alan Wake 2 and retain all weapons, Charms, and character upgrades earned during their first playthrough...Remedy noted that the unlocked weapons can be found in the first available shoebox for the character, so players won't immediately start their adventure with them in their inventory...

https://www.alanwake.com/story/unveiling-the-final-draft-new-game-plus-for-alan-wake-2/
 
KickAssCop said:
Finished it. Took maybe 18-19 hours. Because I liked the ending I give it a 5/10. Someone had loaded up shrooms and made a cake for Alan when they wrote this. The heavy handed over explained writing was terrible. Just having like total 4 locations with repeat visits was terrible. The gunplay was terrible.

I don’t recommend this to anyone. Better to YouTube a story video and call it. It’s maybe 1-2 hours worth of story wrapped up in a walking and box opening simulator. Not sure it was worth the time.
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I heard there wasn't much of a game. Pretentiousness oozes to the surface with some of these devs and they forget they are making a video game, not contending for an Oscar.

I am more receptive to a game's story if I am having fun playing it. Don't make me drudge through a boring game regardless if your hamfisted story is Pulitzer material.

P.S. Anything with the stink of Sweet Baby Inc., no thanks. It's like jamming a square peg in a round hole, it's done forcefully. (It's late and this makes an incredible amount of sense right now.)
 
polonyc2 said:
Alan Wake 2 Is Getting New Game Plus and a New Ending

The new update is scheduled to go live on all platforms Monday, December 11, at 10 AM Pacific Time

The Final Draft update adds a new ending to the story of Alan Wake 2, which Remedy believes will spark speculation and theories among the game's dedicated fans...there is also new lore to be found in the form of a few new videos and manuscript pages that have been added to the New Game Plus experience, along with other subtle additions

New Game Plus will allow players to restart Alan Wake 2 and retain all weapons, Charms, and character upgrades earned during their first playthrough...Remedy noted that the unlocked weapons can be found in the first available shoebox for the character, so players won't immediately start their adventure with them in their inventory...

https://www.alanwake.com/story/unveiling-the-final-draft-new-game-plus-for-alan-wake-2/
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Will YouTube the 20 second new ending…
 
BurningBeard484 said:
I heard there wasn't much of a game. Pretentiousness oozes to the surface with some of these devs and they forget they are making a video game, not contending for an Oscar.

I am more receptive to a game's story if I am having fun playing it. Don't make me drudge through a boring game regardless if your hamfisted story is Pulitzer material.

P.S. Anything with the stink of Sweet Baby Inc., no thanks. It's like jamming a square peg in a round hole, it's done forcefully. (It's late and this makes an incredible amount of sense right now.)
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I don’t know about sweet baby but this one was not for me. I have been clear why I criticized so much the game. But somehow it won more than 1 GOTY awards and I think nerds might have lost their shit when they voted this game as best in so many categories.

Either way, people are really split about this game. I posted the video above. You can watch the first 10–15 mins and decide if you want to indulge.

P.S. I have nothing against interactive movies. I loved Heavy Rain and Life is Strange kind of games. Also the horror one from a similar studio. But the reverse gear nature of entry 2 in an established franchise really put me off. Plus the writing in the game is just terrible.
 
The more that I play I'm reminded of that anecdote about the first half life. Someone should have thrown out all these levels and started over. I absolutely cannot stand the environments during the Alan sections. But I dig the attempt at a story.

I'm still not offended by Saga, nor do I feel robbed of precious Alan content because of her.

I don't particularly enjoy running around in her environments either but at least I can fumble my way to the next cutscene more consistently.
 
polonyc2 said:
Alan Wake 2 Is Getting New Game Plus and a New Ending
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I'm interested, but odd to add a new ending post release. I don't mind the extra bits in new game plus, but I seldom replay games so it would be nice to view them in the menu without having to stomp around all over again.
 
Flogger23m said:
I'm interested, but odd to add a new ending post release. I don't mind the extra bits in new game plus, but I seldom replay games so it would be nice to view them in the menu without having to stomp around all over again.
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Good stories always have extra endings post release. They put so much thought into it, that it wasn't ready at launch. And it warrants beating the game twice, because it's that good.
 
t1337duder said:
Good stories always have extra endings post release. They put so much thought into it, that it wasn't ready at launch. And it warrants beating the game twice, because it's that good.
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Even I wouldn't make that claim. I'll YouTube the hell out of those extras though.
 
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