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veni veni veni posted:I have both AWR and AW:AN but tbh I bounced off both of them because of the repetitiveness and don't feel like playing them. Mostly getting this cause Control was great, I love survival horror (and this looks RE as hell) and the reviews for AW2 are so gushing. Anyone have a quality recap video they recommend so I at least know whats going on? It's convoluted as hell but the short summary was: There was a magic spot under Cauldron Lake in Bright Falls. This magic spot is a distorted space in reality where art gains the power to influence reality and is called The Dark Place. A writer named Thomas Zane lived above the lake. When his wife died he tried to use its power to bring her back. This Went Bad and brought a Dark Presence into the world in her body.. Zane eventually sacrificed himself to seal the Dark Presence back in the lake by literally writing himself out of existence. Before he did that however he wrote a loophole into the world where anything of his stored in shoeboxes wouldn't be erased, as well as wrote a bunch of various stuff into the world since he knew The Dark Presence would break free eventually. Alan Wake, a famous writer, was one of these things. Unknown to him Zane basically wrote his childhood so he had access to a powerful object called The Clicker which could gently caress up the darkness. Alan comes to Bright Falls with his wife Alice to try to get over his writer's block and general personal issues, and they end up staying at a cabin on Cauldron Lake. They get into a fight over him writing on what is supposed to be vacation and when he storms out, Alice gets kidnapped by The Dark Presence which wants Alan to write a story where it escapes so it can take over the world. A whole lot of bullshit happens, including Alan being chased by a former FBI agent named Nightengale who thinks he is responsible for everything, but eventually Alan finds The Clicker and goes to Cauldron Lake where he sacrifices himself to save Alice. However doing so also creates "Mr. Scratch", an evil doppleganger of Alan formed of all the crazy stories left behind after the events of the game. When the story leaves off Alan is trapped in the Dark Place with no way out while Mr. Scratch is apparently influencing the world. (Alan defeats him temporarily in American Nightmare but that appears to have meant jack and poo poo.) The last we know, Mr. Scratch is stalking Alan's wife (as shown in Control) while Alan is still in The Dark Place. The glitchy guys are "The Taken", which are people who get effectively eaten by The Dark Presence and return as weird babbling zombies who are vulnerable to light. There's also the Old Gods of Asgard, a heavy metal band who fought off The Dark Presence before but ended up pretty crazy because of it, in addition to being old in general. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Oct 26, 2023 |
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Oct 26, 2023 20:23
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repiv posted:of course you can see alan wake hit the griddy if you preorder alan wake 2 for the exclusive alan wake fortnite skin with alan wakes iconic messenger bag backbling I thought this thumbnail was john wick before I enlarged it I was on the fence about getting this only because of my backlog but the glowing reviews has me thinking about it again. Small bummer that it's EGS exclusive but I guess that means another soon-to-be Playstation platinum for me  I enjoyed the first game, and I loved the plot elements of Control, so I'm very excited to potentially see the "Remedy-verse" become a thing.
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Oct 26, 2023 20:33
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Revitalized posted:I thought this thumbnail was john wick before I enlarged it you can almost do a full squad of different john wicks now between the knock-off john wick skin, licensed john wick skin, and alan wake kinda looking like john wick
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Oct 26, 2023 20:37
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ImpAtom posted:It's convoluted as hell but the short summary was: Good enough for me! thanks
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Oct 26, 2023 21:32
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ImpAtom posted:Alan Wake, a famous writer, was one of these things. Unknown to him Zane basically wrote his childhood so he had access to a powerful object called The Clicker which could gently caress up the darkness. Alan comes to Bright Falls with his wife Alice to try to get over his writer's block and general personal issues, and they end up staying at a cabin on Cauldron Lake. They get into a fight over him writing on what is supposed to be vacation and when he storms out, Alice gets kidnapped by The Dark Presence which wants Alan to write a story where it escapes so it can take over the world. Super minor but I thought for Alan the trip was a vacation and to get over his writers block by just relaxing and seeing some sights but he gets pissed because it turns out she's contacted the celebrity self help guy who runs the lodge you end up going to later and springs that on him at the cabin as a "hey this guy seems like he has some valid ideas, maybe you should check it out?" thing.
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Oct 26, 2023 21:45
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thebardyspoon posted:Super minor but I thought for Alan the trip was a vacation and to get over his writers block by just relaxing and seeing some sights but he gets pissed because it turns out she's contacted the celebrity self help guy who runs the lodge you end up going to later and springs that on him at the cabin as a "hey this guy seems like he has some valid ideas, maybe you should check it out?" thing. Oh no, you're right.
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Oct 26, 2023 21:55
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I never figured out if Thomas Zane created Alan with his writing, or if Alan created TZ with HIS writing, or if the Old Gods of Asgard did with their music, or if somehow they all created each other.
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Oct 27, 2023 01:26
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Caidin posted:I never figured out if Thomas Zane created Alan with his writing, or if Alan created TZ with HIS writing, or if the Old Gods of Asgard did with their music, or if somehow they all created each other. we're gonna cut to some caveman drawing pictures of a guy with a flashlight and a gun on a wall
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Oct 27, 2023 02:02
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Lol, I haven't been following any of the promotional stuff so I literally did a double take when they mentioned that Sam Lake's character was Alex Casey.
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Oct 27, 2023 05:47
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deer head imagery is a very specific button of mine (my grandpa’s living room had no less than four stag heads looming over me at all times) so this intro already has me on edge
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Oct 27, 2023 06:08
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Caidin posted:I never figured out if Thomas Zane created Alan with his writing, or if Alan created TZ with HIS writing, or if the Old Gods of Asgard did with their music, or if somehow they all created each other. Why am I spoiling an old game, but hey. Odin and Tyr lived in the area, and were the first real group the Presence caught. They sang about what they saw from the Lake, which ended up being a lot of the events afterwards. At this point the Presence was still largely dormant, only able to guide the band ever so slightly. It had been sealed away up until this point. Poet and the Muse brought in Zane and Barbara. You can't create stuff with the Presence, but you can edge things along. Zane was the key to break the locks. Which he did, and lost Barbara. He realized what he did and panicked, writing himself out of the story. From there he couldn't actually stop the Presence, but he figured it out. He then used the other OgoA songs to figure out the next steps. Children of the Elder God got Zane to realize someone was coming and would fight against the Presence, so he used what effort he had to write Alan into the story and to set him up to help counter the Presence. Barry then wrote Balance Slays the Demon to try and help Alan get the gently caress out, but it wasn't enough. It just helped Alan kill Scratch.
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Oct 27, 2023 06:21
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Barry helped write Balance Slays the Demon? He really is the best character.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:02
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SirSamVimes posted:Barry helped write Balance Slays the Demon? He really is the best character. Barry is probably the only endearingly annoying character that's actually endearing and not just annoying.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:07
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I'm shocked that this game runs as well as it does on xbox series s. I was expecting it to look blurry as hell.
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Oct 27, 2023 07:09
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finished the first chapter, extremely strong start the lighting engine occasionally goes weird - everything becomes stippled like it’s covered in glitter - but I spent the first ninety minutes just taking in the environments. barely even hit the sprint button
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Oct 27, 2023 07:10
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Unlucky7 posted:Is there any real difference between the PC version of the first game and the Remastered version? The original PC version is decent looking, but Remastered version looks much prettier. Just avoid the old console versions. Those look absolutely potatoes.
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Oct 27, 2023 08:50
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Also the AW2-map is literally just Baltic sea region map. Bright Falls is literally located same as Turku.
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Oct 27, 2023 08:53
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Think I might be glitched. The stream side stash key doesn’t open the stream side stash.
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Oct 27, 2023 09:07
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holii shiiiiiiet. this game might win the blurriest loving game ever award. on PC. there are no AA settings & it forces you to use resolution scaling - even if you choose native (which it's calling DLAA). when I opened the game the mouse curser was also hidden, but it returned once I was in game and went back into settings. the game actually runs not too bad on high settings, no RT on a 3080 and 8700K. it feels like there is some input lag but it also feels kinda smooth.
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Oct 27, 2023 09:09
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This game is right up my alley and plays great on PS5. I love linear story based games and feels like we don't get enough of em these days
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Oct 27, 2023 09:33
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Played a bit of the opening on PS5 (performance mode) and it looks pretty amazing
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Oct 27, 2023 09:43
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Unbelivable game so far and not just as a mega-fan of the first two. I have statues of this dude and his dumb tweed jacket. The passion in every scene in this game is astounding and I only played the first chapter. I livestreamed it and hearing Alan's first reading of a manuscript genuinely made me cry. This game means so much to me, I joined this website to talk about the first one and Remedy finally got to do everything they wanted. ALSO, the gameplay is very fun and well refined from the first one. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Oct 27, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 10:22
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Unlucky7 posted:Is there any real difference between the PC version of the first game and the Remastered version? The remaster nerfs the Energizer batteries into generic unbranded ones, depriving Alan of the power he needs to fight the darkness.
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Oct 27, 2023 10:22
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This game loving rules so hard man
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Oct 27, 2023 10:33
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The god drat (honking spoiler) "FBC" Station that you can encounter in the very first area had me losing my mind. The logo is actually there and they just PUT it there, front and center. No out of game puzzles or weird ARGs or flash websites, it is in the game and that's awesome.The Remedy universe is coming full circle finally.
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Oct 27, 2023 10:47
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Issaries posted:Bright Falls is literally located same as Turku. You know, that makes a lot of sense.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:07
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I really like the combat. Very good balance of tension. Just did the first proper "boss fight"
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Oct 27, 2023 11:10
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I'm getting good performance on my 3080 but only when I turn all the RTX settings off, which is kind of a bummer. Game looks very nice though.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:26
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Why not initiate performance talk: Mine is pretty excellent! I have a 2080Ti, which is pretty old hat despite the name, and the game runs at a perfect 60 at 1440p all medium. I can put some on high with DLSS enabled. I can't do RTX at all, I think it might be to do with the 2080Ti's older RTX cores. Anyone else have a 2000s series card?
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Oct 27, 2023 11:28
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How's it running for folks? I got it on PC cause it was slightly cheaper there, planning on running it on Geforce Now cause my actual PC is crap and I can't afford the upgrades right now, it's how I've played Baldurs Gate and Cyberpunk and a few other slightly more demanding games of late (my comp could run BG3 just fine actually for the start at least, just figured since I was subbed for other stuff I may as well play it on ultra and have a chug free act 3). It's apparently going to actually go up later today, they always futz around on release days. This games requirements are the first ones I've seen that'd have Geforce Now default to medium settings I think, which is eyebrow raising. You can sub at a higher level to get access to rigs with 4070s to get path tracing and all that jazz I think but that's a fair bit extra. Edit: Ah while I was writing that, a few people chimed in. It'll probably be fine from the sounds of it then. I tend not to be too fussy about graphics as long as it looks decent enough.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:29
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The ray tracing in this game is insane. The reflections look so real, from the water to dirty windows where it's properly distorted, I'm playing this on a 65 inch OLED with HDR and the interiors of buildings especially are stunningly lit, the sense of depth in darker areas is wild, ray tracing just really nails how light tends to dissipate in nooks and crannies. Very, very pretty game. Running this on a 4080 completely maxed out at 4k the game runs great. I had it on Balanced initially but I can barely tell the difference between that and Performance so I opted for the extra frames for a consistent 60+ and am experiencing zero hitching or anything. It's a little more obvious on quality but you actively have to stare at minor detail to notice. DLSS has gotten so much better, especially on 4k where you get a lot more mileage out of it. GPU usage is also consistently maxed out, no partial usage because of crappy CPU optimization, so I think this game is just genuinely demanding versus poorly optimized. You may be only able to get 30 frames out of it on lower end machines, but those 30 frames will probably feel solid. Very impressed by the technical aspects of the presentation here.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:31
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The one caveat is that path tracing still has a slight bit of ghosting on character models in this, but it's much, much, much better than CP2077 where everything in the distance made me feel like I was on LSD.
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Oct 27, 2023 11:34
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For PS5 performance mode seems like the way to go, riiight..? Been a while since I played a 30fps game, but if the art direction favors higher resolution then maybe my eyes could get used to lower framerate. Then again, if I play it trough with performance mode, I doubt I could replay it with quality mode. Could be easier the other way round.
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Oct 27, 2023 12:29
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At the first Alan section. Really enjoying the pacing. Just a really satisfying mix of combat, light puzzles, narrative. I actually like the jarring live screen overlays that occur at points like in that first boss fight, it's something really unique and intense I haven't quite seen a game do before
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Oct 27, 2023 12:36
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SirSamVimes posted:Barry helped write Balance Slays the Demon? He really is the best character. Yeah, post the events of 1 he had all the information he needed. He knew how the Presence worked, and looked through the Old Gods catalog. Realized they needed more songs of the hero saving the day and beating the Presence's rear end. So he hired on the Old Gods, wrote Balance Slays the Demon, and had them play it. Didn't work obviously. But a good first attempt to save his friend and actually did help in the form of American Nightmare.
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Oct 27, 2023 13:47
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I am hoping there is a dope music section in this game.
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Oct 27, 2023 13:49
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I played for about an hour and a half yesterday and barely made any progress just because I spent so much time taking in all the details. I spent way too much time in the witch’s house waiting for something to happen
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Oct 27, 2023 14:01
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Olavi posted:For PS5 performance mode seems like the way to go, riiight..? Absolutely. The Quality mode seemed weirdly stuttery to me.
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Oct 27, 2023 14:35
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Caidin posted:I never figured out if Thomas Zane created Alan with his writing, or if Alan created TZ with HIS writing, or if the Old Gods of Asgard did with their music, or if somehow they all created each other. I saw a pretty good youtube theory video that proposes the idea that Zane was the original protagonist of the book that the dark presence wanted Wake to write, and his existance is just a holdover from when Alan broke from it's influence and changed the story so that Alan himself became the new protagonist.
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Oct 27, 2023 15:11
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I'm already getting pissed at some of the design decisions going on here. I can't believe I'm saying this with how stunningly gorgeous it looks and how well it runs (for me I guess), but elements of the game so far feel....sloppy. I don't know how else to put it. I'm getting frustrated. 
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Oct 27, 2023 16:05
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