Oh and (..sorry for the double post) for those who are on the fence about playing the game because of not being sure if you can fit it in before it leaves PS+ on the 17th, my playtime clocked right at 10 hrs and I played it really slowly, didn’t follow a guide, and explored a lot, yet finished it in 3 play sessions. It could probably be done in about 8 hrs fairly easily.
I ended the game having completed 43% of the trophy list.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@sorteddan Yep, same here. I also hesitated to use the gun. Felt a bit too much to just cap Nick for some weird behaviour at that moment. If I had known what he was turning in to I would have used the gun without blinking. I learned my lesson and in later chapters, I was way more decisive when confronted with similar dilemmas. I’m in chapter 8 and so far I’m one counselor down. I also messed up my first hold you breath QTE. When everything seemed safe again I thought: “Let’s just hold on for a little bit longer, just to be safe” Right at the end the threat returned and I missed my window to escape. 🤦🏻♂️
I've been reading everybody's thoughts and it's really cool that people seem to be mostly enjoying this game!
I played it back in January/February I think and I thought it was wicked. I think I described at the time more or less as the video game offspring of a Neil Marshall and a Sam Raimi flick.
I absolutely love the cast, from veteran actors like Lance Henriksen, Ted Raimi and Ethan Suplee down to relative newcomers like Justice Smith, Halston Sage and Miles Robbins (scullys son in the X files!)
Was it scary? Not hugely. Was it a fun, entertaining, well acted? Absolutely yes! I was very much invested in all of the characters, even the douchey ones 😅
At some point this month, I will try and boot up my save and post a screenshot of my stats and see how other people's playthroughs compared.
Accidentally shotgunned Constance's face off which was quite amusing and graphic and then thought what the hey and punched old man Hackett to death with Laura when given the opportunity to. Received a potentially fatal stab to Ryan so let him get turned. Blasted werewolf Chris Hackett to bits and then seemingly teamed up with Travis for the end game. Also picked up a Hierophant Tarot card which I think was what triggered the carnival fire scene between chapters which showed how it all kicked off some years ago. Haven't lost any more counselors since Abi. But a lots gone on in plot and exposition terms to take in...
Hopefully get some time to finish the playthrough in the next day or two.
@Kidfried Nice thoughts on AW, and helpful to me as I ponder whether to play it. I adored Control, so I’m not sure why I feel so apathetic about AW. I know there’s a little crossover between those franchises too, and I’m eagerly anticipating Control 2, but not too amped for AW2, for some reason.
Part of my reluctance might be from my reservations I have about games, movies, or books where the main characters are writers, film makers, or artists. I think most writers place a subliminal autobiographical piece of themselves into their writing, but when the hero is so overtly a projected version of themselves I feel like it comes across as creatively bankrupt. Of course I’m not being fair to AW since I haven’t played it and know barely anything about it, but the fact the main character is a writer with writer’s block just seems to track too literally. I’m probably being way too prejudiced, but in my mind it’s similar to some people not playing a game because it’s narrative is anime based, or if it has a certain voice actor they don’t like.
Still, I might give it a go this month since it’s a GameClub game. Since I finished The Quarry quickly, I have 3 weeks to fit it in. But yesterday I chose to go back and play a couple levels of Humanity instead. 😄
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@sorteddan Your playthrough so far is nearly identical to mine except I was able to save Abi. The fact you don’t have her will make for a diversion from my Ch 10 outcome though. I think you’re right about the Heirophant card, which I’m trying to imagine if I had not found that how would I feel about the final stretch of the game and it is nice to have seen that optional scene.
The last chapters and the epilogue seem longer than the early chapters. Of course a lot of that depends on who’s still around.
@Kidfried “Not that different from the spoilt rich kid in a horror film, who you hate, but who becomes a bit more relatable, because you'd also hate to be chased by a psychopath…”
Ah yes, exactly what I was experiencing with The Quarry where the irritating, vain, and brooding teen / youth camp crowd was tough to root for until they started getting chased and scared, at which time they become more sympathetic characters. So it’s good to know that Alan Wake does also garner some relatability and maybe some redemptive compassion.
I don’t mind creators placing themselves into a game, even as a gag, like Kojima does. But the main characterization and plot does need to go beyond a retelling of their own personal issues, else it comes across half-sighted.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Well I'm watching the credits roll on The Quarry (PS4)
Chapter 10 didn't go great for me...
Max got dead after swimming to shore to join the goings on - didn't really mind as I hadn't grown much attached to him. Kaitlin got slaughtered after I took too long lining up my shot - that one really peed me off. Then I decided to kill Silas and end the curse, now the hag has said she's gonna breathe on my neck and now I'm scared 😨
Did raise a smile when Daydream Believer started to play at the end.
Didn't find all the clues, or evidence of tarots or whatever. Didn't save all the counselors. Didn't kill all the Hackets. Game time around 8 hours. Trophies now sitting at 38%.favourite character was probably Ryan with his dry wit and outsider aloofness. Yeah I enjoyed it but I also enjoy horror movies of varying quality so I was probably always going to.
I may well have another playthrough using a guide to kill everyone off just so I can see all of the death scenes but will decide on that in a day or few. It's been fun, thanks for having me gameclub.
@sorteddan So, question: I think you said you lost Abi, but also lost Kaitlyn when you took to long lining up the shot. I lost Kaitlyn in the exact same manner (brutal death sequence by the way. 😅 having a chunk of her side bitten off and throwing her around like a rag doll), but I only even had a shot at the beast because Abi rolled her silver shotgun shell to me under the door where she was hiding. So how did Kaitlyn have silver shells for you? Or were you just fending off the werewolf with normal shells? By the way, I also made the mistake with Max of trying to swim away from the island.
It was Emma in the video room watching Kaitlyn approach who had the silver shells and rolled them under the door for me. Aside from that it sounds like we had very similar tendencies and reactions when playing through this... I guess our great minds really did think alike - not that it worked out too great though!
@sorteddan Ah, interesting. It makes sense that they’d just swap out characters to do the same thing and be in the same situation if one of them is dead. It makes all the narrative pathways less complex that way. I wonder who performs that role if both Abi and Emma are alive at the time. 🤔. Or if both are dead, is Kaitlyn just left to fend for herself.
But yes — great minds, indeed!
————
It bring up another thought I had, when experiencing some of these brutal deaths. I wonder how the actors feel when they play the game or see the footage of their very lifelike representation being brutally and grotesquely massacred. All these characters are direct visual and audio copies of their real life actors and so I wonder if it’s unsettling to see themselves die. Hopefully Supermassive includes the requisite psychotherapy in their contracts! 😅
Now that I think about it, maybe it’s not any worse than live-action film actors seeing themselves killed. It’s just that doing it in a game is more interactive rather than detached like watching yourself on the screen in a scene where you were present when it was filmed and can remember the creative process. I don’t know.
@sorteddan Good show on finishing it. I see House of Ashes is supposed to drop on Extra next week so I might play that this month.
Oh and spoiler ....
Interesting you picked Ryan because he irritated me, and I'm sure the rest of the gang
I thought Kaitlyn was the best and I tried to get the Final Girl trophy but other pesky kids survived. Also liked Laura in the fact that nothing was going to stop her.
@Kidfried Yes! The engagement has been wonderful this month, I’m very happy 👍 l hope we can keep it going. I wonder if we’re ready for a promo article like the Xbox lot?
I finished my first playthrough of The Quarry last night. Despite it being nothing more than a glorified QTE game, I really enjoyed it and regret not starting it sooner before it's exit from PS+.
Finished with a mixture of deaths amongst the group and most of the family. It can be purchased cheaply now in physical form so I think I shall be picking it up to try out some more scenarios and endings.
Finished the epilogue. Lost 3 counselors, all shotgun related, twice (Abbi and Kaitlin) because I fired too late, which really irritated me. Once because I did fire but hit the wrong monster (Nick). Laura, Max, Emma, Jacob, Ryan and Dylan (minus one hand) all survived. Managed to save Caleb and Travis Hacket, but killed the rest of the family.
The game definitely deserved more than PS 5/10 review. I would give it 7-8. I really enjoyed it. I liked that when the whole narrative is played out you still have the dilemma of preserving your own group, work with the family (or kill them all) or screw everybody over and go for the third option and all the permutations in between. Even the credits are interesting when all the evidence that you collected is presented in the Bizarre yet Bonafide podcast. All in all a great pick for Game Club. Next stop: Alan Wake
I did indeed venture back to Hacketts Quarry for a kill all the counselors run, using the guide on PSNprofiles and not bothering to explore it took around 6 hours (chapter 7 is too boring the second time around). Then I loaded up chapter 10 and made sure Kaitlyn survived for another ending and then back to chapter 9 and did the same for Ryan (both of those combined took around an extra half hour). Trophy completion now at 65% and I'm done with the game. I couldn't bring myself to going through it all again to save everyone or find all collectables.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
@Th3solution it's maybe just my warped mind but for a 10 min spell it felt like my teen slasher movie had a decent amount of Mr Bean injected into it!! When people run into a tree branch, they go down, hard!!
Just finished Alan Wake (again).
Remaster
The remaster is actually quite good. The game's art direction was always interesting in my opinion, so little was needed really to make it an enjoyable experience on the PS5. Yes, some stuff is janky, like animations or physics, but these things never really bother me.
Combat
So, the combat was more fun than I remembered. And the game is just long enough to keep the combat entertaining. It's not really mindblowing or deep, so at the end of the game you're almost glad it's over. If they want Alan Wake 2 to succeed, they have to interest more mechanics than this one: run away while you aim your weapon at enemy, before you shoot them.
Horror
So the first part of the game can be kind of unsettling and scary even. I remember sending a friend like 'oh, this game is way more scary than I remembered'. But at some point it stops being scary. Enemies never really surprise you, they behave the same way always, and they appear whenever you expect them. And since supplies are not that scarce, often running away is way harder than shooting. So in short: unsettling at first, but once you settle in it's rather cosy.
Story
When I played Alan Wake the first time I hadn't watched Twin Peaks yet. And the dream logic, Twin Peaks tropes and some story beats were outlandish to me. Alan Wake isn't Twin Peaks, with regards to quality. So I think if this game is your first dive into this kind of story, it's just weird. But if you're experienced with this specific kind of hororr/fantasy setting, than you'll find that (like me) you'll be able to appreciate the story way more easily. The story is not that difficult, but it definitely gets the job done, while leaving some room for interpretation about what it means.
DLC
I'm in the middle of the DLC that comes with the game. And I'm close to not finishing it. I already played both of them back when they released, but I remember that it took me a lot of discipline to finish them. The DLC story would feel relevant if it was closely tied to a sequel. Maybe it's a nice piece of story to tie the stories of this game and American Nightmare together, but I never played that game. On their own, the DLC stories fall short. It doesn't add anything that is relevant, only fills in a few blank that didn't need filling in. Gameplay wise it's also rather repetitive. And with every asset in the DLC being reused from the main game, it's hard to imagine that I ever payed 15 euro for it.
I'll report back if I muster up the courage to complete the DLC.
All in all, I think this game is a 7/10. If you have trouble with outdated games, or if you're planning on playing the DLC as well, you'll have to deduct a point, though.
100% agreed on your thoughts! Also I still need to get around to reading/watching Twin Peaks.
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