Alan Wake 2 is much more of a horror game then the first Alan Wake game. It’s also an FMV (full motion video) musical hybrid game. Its blend of live action cutscenes with mocap cinematics is pretty flawless making it a perfected FMV game. The previous Alan Wakes were much more run and gun games with psychological horror elements. Alan Wake 2 is a psychological horror game with run and gun elements. This game has a lot more jump scares then the previous entries and they are the cheap scream in your face when you’re not expecting it kind. The enemies are much more terrifying looking as well as bloody, the bodies are much more visceral after shooting them then before. Besides being a horror game this game is an art piece made with love. You can really tell the cast and crew had fun making this game and the love for the Alan Wake and Control IP really shows. I said before that this game was a musical well just like the first Alan Wake game the in house/in universe band the Old Gods of Asgard are back to help create the soundtrack. The coolest parts of the game where they sang to move the plot along.
I wouldn’t say you need to know about the previous titles but having played Control and Alan Wake definitely helped. If you haven’t that’s fine too you can relate to the story’s new hero Saga who is thrust into the horror story much to her chagrin. Throughout the game you will be switching between Alan and Saga,they can sorta talk to each other to help one another along but some things get lost in the darkness. Saga is an FBI agent who came with her partner Alex Casey to investigate the death of agent Nightingale to a new cult that has popped up in Bright Falls Washington. Unlucky for her Alan Wake decides to write her into his horror story, or maybe it was Alan’s evil doppelganger Mr.Scratch. That’s the mystery you’re going to have to solve.
The gameplay is the same point flashlight until the enemy has no shield then shoot a bunch. There are a lot more puzzles to solve, a lot of them are going to require you to change reality. The game is pretty slow paced giving you time to comb over the area and even backtrack to previous locations. The game has episodic endings with a song that plays over distorted Alan and Saga faces but it just seems to drop you right back where you left off as the next episode starts. Alan Wake 2 adds a writer and investigator board mechanic. Saga goes into her “mind palace” to piece together clues on a wall there and also telepathically interrogate people. You have to do this to progress her story which slows down the game play quite a lot. Alan has something similar in his writers room where he can change the reality he’s in by switching out the prompts on the board. His board is more for solving puzzles whereas Saga is more about trying to make sense of this plot. You will get a lot out of this game if you like Alan Wake or Control. If you didn’t like those games maybe pass on this one. If you haven’t played them, give them a go and decide if you’re ready to be transported back to the dark place in Alan Wake 2.
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