Alan Wake EP7:Bears & Flares

By Shamus Posted Thursday May 3, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 106 comments


Link (YouTube)

When you meet the kidnapper, it shows him drop a flare and seem to wipe out a bunch of Taken at once. This led me to the incorrect conclusion that flares = grenades. This came back to bite me when you’re supposed to hold them off. I was using them all wrong. I kept throwing them down, trying to figure out why the flares weren’t killing my foes like I expected. Do I need to be closer? Do I need them to cluster up more? Then when the guy told me to hold them off, I’d already run out. Oops.

 


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106 thoughts on “Alan Wake EP7:Bears & Flares

  1. Piflik says:

    Damn you, posting Spoiler Warning at 2 A.M. :D

  2. The Rocketeer says:

    The flare doesn’t kill them; you can hear him shoot all of them while they’re stunned.

    1. Even says:

      Just noticed that myself when watching. It’s still easy to miss because you never see him actually firing the gun. (Yet he’s still cheating the in-universe laws by one-shotting each of them.) I did the same mistake as Shamus assuming initially that flares hurt the Taken. Scrapped that thought after throwing a few though.

      1. anaphysik says:

        He also isn’t even holding a gun when he appears.

  3. Jakale says:

    Those axe murderers sure have a lot of axes to throw at you. Does the evil darkness just teleport the things back to their hands?
    Also, is anyone here familiar with flares? I’ve only seen road flares and they last a whole lot longer than here. These last about as long as a match stick.
    Since we’re fighting dudes in dark forests that are trying to murder us, this feels appropriate.

    1. anaphysik says:

      Holy crap, that was awesome. I’m not sure why, but it was.

    2. Zombie says:

      Can I say sir, that is one of the best songs I have ever heard? I mean, theres even bear trap and canabalism references!

      1. MintSkittle says:

        All that’s needed now is a mod for Alan Wake that replaces the shadow dudes with Shia Labeouf.

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Yeah,that bugged me too.I only saw flares used by sport fans,so maybe theres a difference,but those burn for a long time.Heck,flashbangs in some games have a longer lasting effect than these flares.

      Also,awesome song.

    4. Vic 2.0 says:

      “Those axe murderers sure have a lot of axes to throw at you. Does the evil darkness just teleport the things back to their hands?”

      More than likely the weapons materialize just as the Taken do. If a human being can just appear out of thin air, I see no reason why an axe can’t?

      “Also, is anyone here familiar with flares? I've only seen road flares and they last a whole lot longer than here. These last about as long as a match stick.”

      Aircraft decoy flares usually burn for a much shorter time. There’s also a video on YouTube called “Military Flares not ufos” demonstrating just how quickly they can burn out. Take your pick. All in all, it’s a pretty trivial thing to nitpick, seeing as how we all understand why we can’t be given flares that last five minutes a pop!

  4. Gamer says:

    I hate being that guy, but you totally missed the most obvious manuscript page just before the funicular.

    The reason the guy stayed at the peak was he was hired by the smug shrink to get Alan surrender the manuscript and work for Hartman producing more books. he kept Alan there because he has a need to constant prove himself to everybody and show them that he is superior. Of course, all of this is in the manuscript pages, so it is still Alan’s fault.

    Also, the manuscript changing from first to third person could be explained by Alan deciding at the last minute to write himself into the story to stop the Dark Presence.

    1. PurePareidolia says:

      This is kind of a tangent but wouldn’t it be more in character to make the manuscript a thing Alan writes as he goes along? There can be gaps in the narrative and then when Alan goes to save he writes what happened to him, literally setting his progress in stone. Pre-written manuscript pages can then foreshadow upcoming plot developments that occur in cutscenes.

      I guess the question would become “what’s stopping him altering the world as he sees fit” but you could say every time he writes something that didn’t happen yet the Dark Presence also gets to make a similar modification. So if you write an ammo crate into existence, the Dark Presence gets to erase one from later in the game.

      Or to kind of formalize that idea, you could swap manuscripts with missing page numbers around – so if there’s one that says “Alan and the kidnapper shot zombies for 20 minutes” and another that said “Alan got to the generator and was relieved to find it still functional” he could place the latter in front of the former giving him an extra advantage sooner rather than later.

      That would probably work better because you cold only do it if you found the missing pages, and ones you don’t get are “written in” via the saving mechanic. It think it’d be a really interesting mechanic for a video game, essentially altering the game’s script before you play it to balance your own difficult curve. It’d also provide an explanation for respawning and things – Alan has to complete the story, but exactly how he does it fluctuates until it happens in the right order.

      I don’t think making the player a God so to speak that would necessarily be antithetical to a horror experience. It might assuage some frustrations but it’s essentially your only effective weapon against the infinite darkness, and what you change isn’t stopping it, merely tipping the odds back in your favour for now. It’d also explain some of the “Alan is a bad writer” parts because he’s making things as vague as possible to help his future self out.

      1. Methermeneus says:

        Holy crap, someone needs to make this game. And it probably needs to be Rockstar because the only people I can see pulling it off are Rockstar and Bethesda, and, well, yeah, Bethesda.

        Or it could be a JRPG, I suppose.

        1. GiantRaven says:

          I’m not quite sure how Bethesda could be expected to make this game, seeing as it would need to be tightly plotted and well written. Not something I see Bethesda being particularly good at.

        2. PurePareidolia says:

          I think Suda51 would take that idea and run with it like there’s no tomorrow. I would play the hell out of that game if indeed he released it on PC.

      2. This reminds me of the rumor spreading mechanic in Persona 2. The game takes place in a world where rumors become reality. Once the party learns this, they can spread rumors that affect the world. (ex. A rumor that a diner owner was a Russian spy and sells weapons.)
        It was an interesting mechanic.

        Also, I think your idea is pretty interesting. Though I am sure it would be difficult to pull off.

      3. Mr Guy says:

        The Big Brain am winning again! I am the GREETEST! Mwahaha! Now I am leaving earth forever FOR NO RAISIN!

      4. Syal says:

        This… sounds disturbingly like a game-long version of Pipe Dream, trying to arrange all the pieces of the plot so you’re still alive when the narrative rolls through.

  5. Exasperation says:

    I get the feeling that even if the poachers trapped every bear in the forest, they would probably do better for themselves just selling off all of their bear traps for scrap metal instead, and retiring on the proceeds. Maybe buy themselves a tropical island.

    1. Syal says:

      You’re failing to account for the bears bribing them into letting them go.

      I think that’s how they got the money for so many bear traps in the first place.

  6. Duhad says:

    OK ya for a bit there when Shamus was talking about the flare fight and its similarity to Half Life 2 ep.1 I was seriously confused there for a bit because I thought he was calling Alyx ‘he’ and I was wondering why no one was correcting him till I realized that he had switched back to talking about the kidnapper. I was a bit worried that I had made some terrible mistake some where and that I might have missed some rather impotent bit of exposition in HL2…

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      You mean you forgot this part?

      1. Jacob Albano says:

        I could have done without seeing that ever. :|

  7. Duhad says:

    Too be fair to Josh I hit 4 or 5 bear traps during the game entirely because on my low res TV one glowing white orb looks exactly same as another, slight whiter orb with a squire of white in it. I kinda with the manuscript pages and bear traps looked even slightly more distinct, unless they where TRYING to trick you into mistaking the two at a distance in some kind of messed up mind game, meta trap…? If they where then… I am not sure how I feel about that since its kinda… odd…

    1. When I was watching the subtitled LP, the first thing I noticed was the bear traps looked almost exactly like manuscript pages. I think that was intentional. There were several times where I was like “Why so many manuscript pages? Oh, wait. Nevermind.”

      They really didn’t need bear traps, especially in the black of night.

  8. George says:

    Huh, says it was posted last night for me when I usually watch it in the morning.

    In other news: On the cutscene the flares don’t actually hurt the taken, the gun does, the flare just blinds them.

    Or at least, that’s what I saw.

  9. el_b says:

    18.47: wait….BEAR ARMS?

    ARRGHH!

    1. Irridium says:

      I know, it’s unbearable.

      1. Zombie says:

        Oh no, not this again. I can’t BEElieve this is going to happen again. Oh well, we’ll just have to grin and bear it

        1. X2Eliah says:

          These puns are a massive bearden to suffer. This onslaught is quite simply overbearing.

          1. PossiblyInsane says:

            I know, it’s just grizzly.

            1. RTBones says:

              It is, but just bearly.

              I do have to say – the punishment we are once again inflicting on each other is almost worthy of a Kodiak moment!

              1. klasbo says:

                No need to go further.

                1. tjtheman5 says:

                  I agree, this HAAS to end.

    2. Jingleman says:

      This has all the trappings of a daily occurrence.

      1. el_b says:

        we walked right into that.

  10. Jakale says:

    So, considering the “Alan can’t have the gun cause he didn’t write that he got the gun” thing, what would happen if Alan wrote on those manuscripts? Could he cheat the system by sticking in a quick line “and then I found a lightsaber and everything got so much easier.”
    Maybe it would only work with a typewriter. Come to think of it, the only typewriter we saw has been mysteriously gotten rid of when our cabin vanished. Hmm, interesting.

    1. Shamus says:

      Earlier in the series Alan says that a story must stay true to itself, and the characters have to act as they should. So he’s bound by the rules of the universe he’s made.

      So while that would preclude lightsabers, it does seem like it leaves a LOT of wiggle room. A lot more than he’s giving himself, anyway.

      1. Amnestic says:

        You’d think he could at least call in help. Or start using his manuscript like a Death Note. He’s never shown any issue about the dozens he’s killed up ’til now, may as well put his power to good use…

        1. ps238principal says:

          It’s a small town modeled after a Stephen King tale. Quite a few of King’s bad guys often have medical conditions that “go off” as plot points, so a Terry Gilliam-esque “and then the monster had a fatal heart attack and died” moment would be both possible and hilarious.

        2. MatthewH says:

          I gotta say, I’m getting to the point where “Alan Wake is a hack writer” is starting to affect my enjoyment of the game (well, my vicarious enjoyment of the game). Maybe this is a subtle jab at Stephan King -but people actually enjoy his hack writing. The bad writing here is just getting glaring.

          And things like “wait, if Alan has the page, why doesn’t he just write in that he has a gun?” don’t help matters.

          Though I will give it a slight pass if the typewriter his wife brought along has magical powers.

        3. Even says:

          “Or start using his manuscript like a Death Note.”

          That’s pretty much how all death works in the game. There’s one character in the later episodes that gets deliberately killed just to prove the point that it’s all really orchestrated by Alan.

          1. SleepingDragon says:

            Well we’re startng to thread the thin ice of what does and what doesn’t offend “the balance”. The entire point of the plot is about how Alan can’t simply give himself magical powers because when you do that kind of thing there is a catch, see Zane and Barbara. Now you could argue that ultimately Alan transgresses against these rules by introducing any change into reality and I’d argue that but I suppose the time to discuss these things will be when we actually reach the relevant portions of the game.

            1. Even says:

              That’s not what I meant. My point was that he’s already doing it by the virtue of having written the manuscript. The story of “Departure” defines everything that ever happens in the game apart from maybe the start of the game. It’s not about giving him magic powers, because he already used the power of the lake to create a new reality. Characters live or die according to what Alan wrote. In other words: “Departure” is analogous to the Death Note book

              1. Even says:

                To clarify: The scene I’m referring to is the part where Nightingale gets sucked out into the darkness by the Dark Presence if that much wasn’t clear. The related manuscript page you can find in the same level kinda makes a point of it that everyone’s fate is bound to what is written.

        4. Vic 2.0 says:

          Everything has to fit together. In The Alan Wake Files, a book written by Clay Steward that comes with the Limited Edition box set, it’s said the number of manuscripts is wagered to be in the hundreds. So there’s a good chance that anything he writes down will contradict something on another page. Why risk it?

          Besides, consider the cutscene in which Alan sits at a desk in the cabin he and Barry are staying in to try and write a manuscript for the kidnapper. The page emits a bright flash of light so Alan can’t even begin. Some have taken this to just be metaphoric or Alan’s imagination. I believe it was Zane himself, trying to keep Alan from making the same mistake the game later informs us he himself had made.

          As for the “dozens” Alan has “killed”, keep in mind that:

          1. They are already dead. There’s no saving them, only saving yourself from them.
          2. There is just a handful of models of human Taken, suggesting that these are the same bodies being recycled by the darkness. So the number might not even reach a dozen… If that makes you feel any better :)

      2. Noble Bear says:

        I keep coming back to the fact that all of this is happening in a text that is a FIRST DRAFT, knocked out in A WEEK by Alan. So it’s going to be problematic and subject to the dream like flow of consciousness that scripts like that are prone to. There is no editorial voice in the narrative and there isn’t an opportunity for one.

        Now, Josh does have the right of it; that this game had the responsibility to CALL ATTENTION to that fact. This was being written by folks who DID have editors and ample opportunity to step back and notice the oversight so some criticism is still wholly justified.

        I’m just frustrated that in your collective ragging on the writing for the game, this is never pointed out.

        1. Shamus says:

          “I'm just frustrated that in your collective ragging on the writing for the game, this is never pointed out.”

          We talk about exactly this in either EP 7 or EP 8. I remember Chris saying it at some point. Also, I thought we mentioned this last week as well.

        2. Vic 2.0 says:

          I disagree. I think this is exactly what the developers wanted, people asking questions and carrying the interest of the story on past the end of the original game.

          Now, of course, it begs being said that we are talking as if “The manuscript is poorly written” is a factual statement. It isn’t. But assuming it were, it can still be purely intentional. Someone here said that the writing of the game outside of the manuscript seems to be much better, and I agree with that. So how could they accidentally write the manuscript so poorly while writing the rest of the game fairly well? Maybe, just maybe, they fully intended for us to doubt the premise that Alan wrote the manuscript at all until the in-game progression of the story removes all doubt (assuming that can even be done at all, right?)

          In stories such as this, it’s not the game’s responsibility to make anything clear.

  11. Mr Guy says:

    The “flares don’t kill things” idea doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that flashbangs and the flare gun DO kill things.

    That makes no sense in continuity. From the tutorial, they established light drives away the darkness, but doesn’t hurt the physical bodies of the taken, which is why you can’t kill them with the flashlight no matter how long you point it at them. Flares follow this pattern–they provide light, and can drive the taken back, and deplete the darkness, but never kill.

    All the flare gun and flashbangs are is a lot of light in a hurry. By the established mechanism, they should never be able to kill anything.

    1. That bothered me too. Not the Flash-bangs, but the Flare Gun. That implies that just using flares will only dissipate the darkness, but shooting that same flare out of a projectile launcher kills them. I didn’t get it.

      1. Klay F. says:

        Not to mention that the random spotlights in the game are the veritable BFGs of the game.

        1. Jakale says:

          Alan comes across a disco ball at a novelty gift shop and the path lamps become his greatest weapon.

      2. Jingleman says:

        The different levels of potency didn’t bother me. Even between the flares and the flare-gun, there are different animations, so it’s not like the same effect is behaving differently. Sure, “flare” and “flare gun” sound like related items, but it’s not like I’ve spent a lot of time using the things in real life. I don’t know. It makes sense to me that the flare you have to hold in your hand would be less powerful than the one that explodes at range.

        Same goes for the big spotlights. The difference between a handheld flashlight and an industrial spotlight is multiple orders of magnitude. I don’t see a problem, lore-wise, with some level of light effectiveness that eliminates the need for firearms. That’s an additional rule, not a contradictory one. If, say, the little work lights obliterated enemies but the mega-spotlights just made them vulnerable, then that would be contradictory.

        So, if a light is sufficiently powerful, I don’t see it being a problem that it works quickly. The only reason any of this is potentially problematic is that the great white light in the tutorial didn’t mention it.

        Spoiler Warning has been deriding the combat for samey-ness. I’m willing to put up with a touch of inconsistency for a little extra variety in combat.

      3. tjtheman5 says:

        See, the difference for the flare gun at least is that if I shined a flare at you, you would be a bit peeved, but not really injured; however, if I shot you in the chest with a red hot burning flare, you might be a bit dead, at least seriously injured.

        1. Yeah, if I was shot in the chest. If my friend 1 foot away was shot in the chest, or if the ground near me was shot, I would not be dead. I’d be either caring for my friend or mildly annoyed.

          1. tjtheman5 says:

            Still, the flare gun at least has a history of being used as a weapon. Think about how burning potassium nitrate is going to damage a person. I can cite examples of flare guns being used as weapons if you would like.

            1. I actually am curious about that now.

              For the record, I’m not saying it can’t do damage. I’m saying that having the flare gun be the equivalent of an RPG is probably excessive, even with the enemies being vulnerable to light.

        2. Mr Guy says:

          As opposed to a flashbang, which was designed specifically to be non-lethal?

          1. tjtheman5 says:

            I’ll admit, with the flashbang, I got nothing.

    2. Noble Bear says:

      It smacked of a mechanic borrowed from RE4, except it actually makes more sense here than it did there; at least to me.

    3. Vic 2.0 says:

      Heart attack ;)

  12. ps238principal says:

    To fill your life with MST3K 24/7, there’s a live stream available. Also, Google video seems have a lot of episodes available. I’m guessing that few people remember that Google video exists, so takedown notices are rare.

    I can’t speak to the Netflix problem, but are they omitting episodes available on DVD? One problem with being a MSTie and wanting legal copies of every episode is that when the show was aired, the DVD rights for movies weren’t a part of the deal, and many rights owners are unwilling to allow the MST version of their movies to be released. That could be the reason for missing eps, but someone who actually has Netflix will have to compare the DVD releases with the available streams.

    Edit: Also you have to consider that Netflix’s offerings are probably going to continue to decline. They got the stream rights to movies & TV shows back when all the big media companies thought nobody would want to see media via an internet stream. Of course, said companies were wrong and probably won’t renew their Netflix deals, at least, not at such a low cost to Netflix.

    1. brashieel says:

      Thanks for the livestream link. The MST3K licensing problems are pretty well known, but this is a neat workaround. Of course, the entire series (minus a few lost episodes) is on the Pirate Bay, but this is still cool.

      As for Netflix, I’m not sure how it will break down. The studios seem to be wanting more money for less content. This could lead to Netflix getting hammered, or maybe being acquired by a bigger company with an active interest in VOD/streaming. Amazon and Microsoft both seem plausible.

      1. ps238principal says:

        I’m all for the recently-proposed (not sure by who) Steam model where all movies/shows/whatever are available for purchase and can be streamed/downloaded whenever desired.

        The hard part will be getting the studios to stop trying to dominate distribution and let a third party run things.

      2. What the media companies don’t realize is that pulling content from Netflix doesn’t help them. I’m not going other places. When something gets pulled, that content goes from “we’ll watch it on Netflix” to “we’ll never watch it.”

    2. Noble Bear says:

      To fill your life with MST3K 24/7, there's a live stream available. Also, Google video seems have a lot of episodes available. I'm guessing that few people remember that Google video exists, so takedown notices are rare.

      I love you. That is all.

      1. tjtheman5 says:

        Oh God, I just imagined a taken Barney. Sweet Santa Christ that’d be weird. I LOve YOU! You LOVE me! WE’re A HAPPY FA-ma-LY!

    3. Johan says:

      “They got the stream rights to movies & TV shows back when all the big media companies thought nobody would want to see media via an internet stream. Of course, said companies were wrong and probably won't renew their Netflix deals, at least, not at such a low cost to Netflix.”
      I also read that it was costing more to stream them than Netflix thought it would. Streaming high quality is NOT cheap.

  13. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Hey,”Stop X at me” is back.Been a long time since Josh said it.Time for a celebratory drink,I think.

  14. Zombie says:

    Forget that the guy with the gun is inept at aiming, He’s also apparently blind, because he can’t see anything to his side or near him. I feel like the Taken have better AI then that jerk with the gun.

  15. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Damn is this combat boring.Whens the next story hub so we can enjoy something other than mooks with axes?

    Also,nice how that guy fell 3 guys with 3 shots in the cutscene,but in the game he needs 3+ bullets for just one guy.

    1. One thing I noticed is that the combat sections do really begin to get tedious (or at least, they look that way) towards the end of the game. It’s like “Ugh. Another 30 minute long series of fights.”

    2. Even says:

      There’s not much of it until the next in-game episode. That’s still one or two Spoiler Warning episodes away. These needlessly prolonged combat/running-around-the-wilderness sections are really one of the weakest parts of the game.

    3. Vic 2.0 says:

      “Damn is this combat boring.”

      Not to me, it wasn’t. It’s the main reason for every playthrough I’ve done. A different sort of combat. Different look and feel altogether.

      “Also,nice how that guy fell 3 guys with 3 shots in the cutscene,but in the game he needs 3+ bullets for just one guy.”

      You should take another look at the cutscene. All three enemies are flankers, who take exactly one shot to kill. And in his defense further, he’s the one setting them up as well as knocking them down in the cutscene, whereas fighting them afterwards he’s not setting them up for himself at all (so his aim’s going to suffer).

  16. Grescheks says:

    2 Things…

    1) I’m pretty sure that’s not actually a funicular, it’s more of a cable car/aerial tramway.

    2) Did those Taken near the end of the video just “Clever Girl” Josh? (The camera zoomed in on one Taken, then two more taken hit him from the sides)

    1. Zombie says:

      Don’t take away our amazingly fun and funny funicular. Thats like taking the puns away from Ruts, The Bunnyhopping away from Josh, the insightful commentary from Chris and Shamus, or canabalism from Mumbles.

      1. X2Eliah says:

        But that’s the thing, this relly isn’t a funicular. Maybe a sadicular or badicular, but no funicular at all. Does that make any sensicular?

        1. Sumanai says:

          Nocular.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Great.Like the bear puns werent bad enough,now we have to suffer through these puniculars.

            1. PossiblyInsane says:

              Don’t be a whinicular.

              1. tjtheman5 says:

                This is getting sillicular. It also reminds me of that Shel Silverstien poem about.

            2. Syal says:

              inocular, right?

  17. IFS says:

    I haven’t played the game, but didn’t Alan write the manuscript in under a week? If so thats probably part of the reason why it isn’t written too well, that and the fact that he was writing under duress and had no editor (I like how the kidnapper even lampshades the lack of an editor).

    1. ps238principal says:

      Except that Alan isn’t real, someone else wrote those pages, and I’m guessing they had far more time and weren’t actually trying to make it awful; that’s just how it came out.

    2. Hitch says:

      My problem with the “Alan is a bad writer” excuse is they only use that to cover for clunky writing on the manuscript pages and huge plot holes in the game play. If they want to claim that the writing is intentionally bad, it should have some fun, funny Bulwer-Lyttonesque qualities.

  18. lurkey says:

    So he wrote all that, I understand? Including trashmob waves and all the multitude of beartraps? He must’ve worked on Dragon Age 2 and Dead Money too, then.

  19. AxiomaticBadger says:

    You know, there’s something that’s been bothering me a while, and this game has reminded me of it.

    Why the hell aren’t there any Survival Horror stealth games?
    Seriously, we can run but we can’t hide?
    The tension and difficulty would fit the horror genre perfectly.

    This game seems to be a good example of what I’m talking about.
    You could have an inverted shadow-stealth mechanic, where the better lit you are the harder it is for the taken to see you, with you sneaking through the forest, dashing between patches of moonlight, and diving under a lamp makes you invisible instead of making people explode.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Well,to be fair,there arent that many stealth games at all,which is a shame.

      1. Thomas says:

        I haven’t played either but doesn’t
        Siren: Blood Curse
        and the Clocktower series
        have stealth elements?

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Seeing how both are console exclusive,I cant say.Also,I wasnt talking about games with stealth elements.Many games have those,especially since it became hip to toss in everything you can in your game.I meant pure stealth games,like thief 2.

          Though indies again take the scene here,with games like stealth bastard.

          1. Thomas says:

            I was more chaining my comment onto yours, I think those two games probably count as survival horror stealth.

            I guess there are 4/5 mainstream stealth franchises (MGS, Splinter Cell, Thief, Deus Ex, Riddick(?) and aren’t they making another Sly Racoon?) with 2 franchises that have stealth as major gameplay focuses (Assassins Creed, Batman) and then as you said, stealth elements.

            I’d say it’s probably not a bad amount, if you compare them to say open-world RPG or Fighter, mainstream sim games, Total War style games etc you’d probably get similar numbers but stealth games are more on and off and more likely to allow other gameplay styles or have other focuses.

            I don’t play many indie games but they’d probably win just because there are a lot more indie games. Stealths also something that I find is harder/harder to make fun the more you complicate the game world.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              I specifically said thief 2,because while the original was plenty of stealth,it still had some mandatory fighting,and 3…lets just not talk about 3.Similar with splinter cell:One was pretty stealthy,but later on it was just murder mayhem.And deus ex is a mixed game,it has stealth elements,but thats not its primary focus.

              Oh,there was one more game focused on stealth,way back in the day:Commandos:behind enemy lines.But,like splinter cell,its sequels focused too much on murder mayhem.

    2. Littlefinger says:

      Err, Amnesia: the Dark Descent?! Trying to run from a grunt is a one-way ticket to reloading, except for a couple of chase sequences to keep things interesting.

      Thief had horror-themed levels; you could kill a couple of zombies, but usually you went about avoiding them rather than fighting them.

  20. Neil D says:

    “Alan is a hack writer” is the “it’s because of the Animus” of Alan Wake.

    1. “Desmond went back into the Animus. Attempting to find the truth of the Bright Falls incident, Desmond uploads the memories of his ancestor, Alan Wake. Once he was in my memories, he felt a sort of kinship. Both of us were trapped by horrid stories, but both of those stories were written by me. Desmond, through me, read the manuscript page depicting Desmond reading the manuscript page through me. Desmond thought to himself ‘And I though my series was confusing.'”

      -excerpt from Memory by Alan Wake.

      1. lasslisa says:

        That’s amazing.

  21. Darthricardo says:

    You know what they say: “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”

  22. Steve Online says:

    Actually Chris, it’s not a funicular! Funiculars are rails on inclined surfaces, that’s just a cable car.

    MINUS FOUR VOCABULARY POINTS.

  23. Ateius says:

    I love Josh’s flashlight spazzing when the game seizes camera control. Never change, Josh.

  24. Axion says:

    Ha! Alan wrote himself into a corner! xD

    1. LunaticFringe says:

      This comment is truly glorious, gold star.

      The logic of Alan Wake’s manuscript somewhat confused me. We’ll see later how you have to basically ‘balance’ actions in the book, but they never really explain what that actually means and it only really comes up in two events. How the influence of the darkness and the creativity of the artist balance or even dominate each other isn’t really explained well either which doesn’t help. In short I wish they had expanded on the ‘making fiction reality’ concept.

      1. Vic 2.0 says:

        Ok, you two, what don’tcha get? Honest language only, please :P

  25. Alex says:

    Which is worse?

    The “Alan Wake Shuffle” or the “Superbowl Shuffle”?

  26. Vic 2.0 says:

    SPOILERS AHEAD!

    :40 – That didn’t take long. You know what, just to keep it short and simple:

    You shouldn’t have to be told to run away from enemies when you have no ammo.

    And you shouldn’t have been out of ammo in the first place.

    And it’s easy enough to run past them to the next Safe Haven :P Okay, done.

    6:00 – If Alan’s such a moron, how come he was right… and you were wrong?

    7:20 – A fair point, about Sheriff Breaker. But that’s assuming that every Taken you “kill” represents a different citizen. But given the repeating models, why would you assume that? It could very well be just a handful of citizens who’ve disappeared, and whose bodies are being reused/recycled by the dark presence.

    9:00 – *facepalm* No, the kidnapper did not give away that this was the last battle with the Taken. From thefreedictionary.com:

    “A last stand is a general military situation in which a body of troops holds a defensive position in the face of overwhelming odds. The defensive force usually takes very heavy casualties or is completely destroyed, as happened at Thermopylae or in Custer’s Last Stand.”

    It means “dead end”, which is very apparent to the player when they reach this point. It’s glaringly obvious there’s nowhere else to run.

    10:40 – “And also, why are you defending the viewing platform? Is there not somewhere else you could go?”

    …or not.

    11:20ish – The “kidnapper” was hired by Emil to get the manuscripts from Wake, as it was thought the manuscript itself had some magical power. Meeting at a high location in the woods is 100% logical, so the kidnapper could hide out and make sure Alan came alone. This also would explain why the kidnapper wasn’t waiting exactly on the viewing platform, so he’d have someplace to run in the event that he saw cops.

    13:00 – What’s so bad about “This is a piece of cake”? You never elaborate on just what makes this a bad line? At any rate, there’s no proof that the line was written by Wake anyway, so again I have to mark your assertion that “Wake is a very bad writer” down as unfounded.

    Further, you shouldn’t have to be told by someone that even the best writer is not going to produce gold when they are forced to write against their will and hurried along (He wrote a novel in a week for crying out loud!) while also in a mixed state of mourning, fear, and confusion about their surroundings (Remember, he wrote the manuscript while trapped in the cabin). And then everything they write is “heavily revised” and we’re not told just what was written by him and what was essentially written by the dark presence. There are just too many holes in your theory for you to keep stating it as fact, sorry.

    I’ll ignore the bit about the kidnapper seeming to have infinite ammo, because that’s just beyond nitpicky. It speaks for itself, why you shouldn’t be complaining about this.

    16:20 – The bear traps should’ve been cut from the game? Why, so there’d be an ounce of truth to the whole “no variety” claim? I just watched you walk right into one. Any time someone calls their character stupid because they themselves directed him straight into a bear trap, I assume all that follows on the subject is whining and not to be taken seriously.

    Finally, toward the end, a good bit of questioning/criticism! I hadn’t noticed the change in first person to third person either. There has been a theory that Zane wrote at least some of the pages, so that’d be my first guess. But yeah, it could’ve simply been the writers at Remedy not catching it.

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