Alan Wake: Remastered Review – Time Hasn’t Stolen Alan Wake’s Charm

Alan Wake it’s a frustrating masterpiece. It is full of charm and brimming with a mysterious atmosphere, and both are on display in Alan Wake: Remastered more than ever before. However, its problems are still as glaring as they were 11 years ago, and this remaster does nothing to mitigate them.

Let’s get this out of the way early on – the actual act of playing Alan Wake It was already boring in 2010. By today’s standards, it’s a legitimate job. A good 40% of certain levels consist of simply jogging through the woods or down a road, and Alan can only run for about five seconds without slowing down and gasping for air, an identifiable trait, from writer to writer, but not the type. something that makes the game fun.

The light-based combat, in which Alan has to lower each enemy’s shield of Darkness by shining a flashlight on them and then blowing them up with a variety of weapons, is great the first time. But Alan Wake Fill each level with dozens and dozens of enemies, each requiring the same one or two hit tactic. In the modern age, when so many games are confident enough to make combat fleeting in the service of story and tone, Alan Wake feels old.

Other pain points came back instantly when I started playing, like the way enemies often appear behind you with no noise or signal to warn you. There’s also the way the game’s lovely storytelling sometimes disappears for a few minutes or is interrupted in favor of full-scale battles with the baddies of Darkness (called The Taken). Memories of defending against armies of evil birds while standing in a gondola or trying not to get crushed by an evil train hit me at once.

The Remaster does not Alan Wake many favors visually, either. Character faces don’t get emotional well and cut scenes tend to stutter in certain sections. The surrounding forests and backgrounds look beautiful and are better at higher resolutions, but they bring out the rest of Alan Wakethe ugliness in comparison. In other words, there is no question that this is an Xbox 360 game at its core.

The main benefit of playing the game on a PlayStation 5, which still feels weird, considering Alan Wake Originally an Xbox exclusive, it appears to be easy to access and has shorter load times. The adaptive triggers of the DualSense controller also make aiming my weapons without increasing my flashlight much easier than it was originally – the trigger has two stop points on PS5, with a slight grip pointing the weapon and a tight grip focusing the light. .

Burnout was my theme Alan Wake: Remastered gaming sessions. I’m exhausted to get to the narrative parts that I love, the game is exhausted for its 11 years and heck, even Alan Wake himself is exhausted with a simple jog. But every long run or flurry of combat inevitably brings me back to why I originally played. Alan Wake in 2010. He rewards my patience and hard work with his atmosphere, personality and charm.

Alan Wake knows exactly what kind of game it is. He always has, and it is that confidence that keeps him positive in the minds of many. Alan Wake flaunts his influences, mainly from David Lynch Twin peaks and the works of Stephen King, so blatantly Alan might as well be wearing a Carrie T-shirt and leaving recordings for his secretary, Diane.

At one point, a possessed man opens a hole in a door, with Alan just behind the blade, in clear homage to The glow. If that weren’t enough on the nose, Alan comments that the man with the ax just tried to break down the door like Jack Nicholson in The glow. The game’s Oh Deer Diner could also be the Double R Diner from Twin peaks. Alan recites a Stephen King quote to start the game.

Alan Wake is a love letter for people who love the macabre, the creepy, the slightly horrible. It’s for book and TV fans who want to snuggle up in a plaid blanket, turn off the lights, and open the curtains. Your TV show in the game, Night springs, is Remedy Entertainment’s beautiful reinvention of Twilight zone. Lastly, Alan’s often far-fetched and exaggerated storytelling feels intentional, like he’s reading a manuscript of his best-selling new novel (which it is).

When you take all the frustrations out of playing Alan Wake, oozes atmosphere. The way enemies sneak behind the trees is chilling, even after seeing it 20 times. The way the wind blows through the forest when you’re alone, even when nothing scary happens, is reminiscent of reading a horror novel in your bed at night, when everyone else is fast asleep.

It is the gloomy varnish that not only saves Alan Wakebut like his flashlight, it burns through the darkness that is its cloying gameplay. Alan WakeThe sense of place, its themes, the mood it creates, makes it a classic, and nothing, not even time, can overshadow that.

Alan Wake: Remastered It will be released on October 5 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a pre-launch download code provided by Remedy Entertainment. Vox Media has affiliate associations. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.