I grew up a SEGA and Sony kid, at least until XBOX started tempting me with exclusives. I didn't make any of my own money until the XBOX 360 era, but when I did, one studio had the killer apps in my eyes: Remedy Entertainment.
During the OG XBOX era, I split my gaming between a PlayStation 2 and the family PC, which was chiefly used to play Max Payne.
Its slow-motion, John Woo-esque gunfighting gameplay landed at the perfect time; I was already obsessed with The Matrix, after all.
Obsessively playing Remedy's noir shooter while dipping my toes into the PC modding scene convinced me that Remedy were icons.
Indeed, I held them in the same regard as Rockstar Games and Valve, as gaming stalwarts that could seemingly do no wrong, especially after Max Payne 2 delivered everything I had hoped. For their next adventure, I'd need Microsoft's new console, so I started saving my money.
Mechanically, Alan Wake isn't much different from Max Payne. It's a third-person shooter with a strong narrative focus, pushing me toward cutscenes and literal story scraps as I unravel a mystery of light vs. darkness. Enemies creep out of the shadows, totally invulnerable until I burn away their armor with a flashlight, flare, or whatever other luminous weapons I have on hand.
It started as a more open-world game, but the clever twist on the otherwise familiar run-and-gun mechanics drew me in. I didn't even mind giving up the slow-motion 'Bullet Time' feature that defined Max Payne, because it still lingered in Alan Wake's gameplay loop, showing up in well-timed dodges.
Source link







