Trigger Cut Game Reviews

Many AAA games today feel soulless and made by committee.  Alan Wake 2 bucks that trend by feeling auteur driven.  The game takes risks and is by design experimental.  The story is what the main draw is to this game. The gameplay is flawed but functional.  The 3rd person survival horror gameplay simply is not as satisfying or engaging as the Resident Evil remakes.  There are tons of puzzles in this game and many of them are obtuse.  I found myself confused and running around levels having no clue as to how to move forward.  Once I stumbled upon the solutions I never felt a sense of accomplishment.  I usually felt frustrated and unsure how the developers expected me to solve these puzzles.  The game does not provide you with enough knowledge or clues to be able to solve these frequent puzzles and they serve only to bring the pacing and progression to a halt.  The graphics are near photorealistic but also have a great sense of creativity and interesting art design.  You switch between two protagonists, Alan and newcomer Saga.  Alan remains an interesting character however, Saga is bland and her voice performance often sounds stilted.  Like Quantum Break, the game experiments with live action cutscenes which are all well done.  Like I said in the beginning the story is the main draw however, the ending is not satisfying and ends on a cliffhanger.  Given the nature of video game development, we will not see Alan Wake 3 for a long time which makes this story choice baffling.  With Alan Wake 2, Remedy continues to make AAA games with an indie sensibility and this game is further proof that they’re one of the most exciting and creative developers in the industry today.