I sorted the black crush/contrast issues I've been mentioning, turns out leaving the default in-game brightness gamma on the default 2.2 is not the way to go because that lifts blacks. Setting it to sRGB instead sorts it and puts the contrast to what it should be.
The difference is staggering, this area is completely pitch black with no indirect light source that would otherwise light up anything:
I zoomed in, they are VGA and kettle leads with the wires cut!!!!
Also anyone else found it eerie and basically weird that Tim just happens to be lingering around the most dingy rooms in the middle of a rooftop or wherever doing his own line of enquiry whilst humming to himself lol...
I think I shot maybe half a dozen arrows before realising it was not a weapon I wanted to lug around. Getting the rifle with the shadow busting upgrade was a game changer for me.
Playing this with headphones on is something else. All the subtle bangs and noises you hear in the old peoples home is surreal lol. They're there on speakers, but the experience is next level when they float around in perfect 3D in your head lol.
Saga's story is definitely better than Alan's, it's a shame this had so much potential to be my GOTY but it falls down in a fair few places with very linear bits and they just couldn't resist ruining the tension with silliness that I hated from the first one in various places...
Like the beach bit at the end... Homage to the stupid farm fight in the first one on stage.
The let's sing bit. Ruins the immersion of what was a nice tension build up and flow at the time when youre on a roll and deep into it, then just becomes silly and anti climatic, and isn't at all impressive IMHO.
A lot of the real world acted cutscenes vary from well acted to awful, which again breaks the immersion/atmosphere.
The last 3 chapters are very thin, considering how good the ballroom etc bits were... It just becomes just yet again wandering about the same bit outside the hotel to the phone and back then walk into a water feature then it ends:/ Then a little bit after the credits then second credits...
All this stuff about Mr Hand and then nothing happens nor do we find out who he really is/why he even matters? Yet he has that conversation with Alan kicking off?
Is this just a way to deliver an unfinished plot to tie up later with dlc or a sequel and make more money? Or is it going to be solved in or after Control 2 with a sequel AW3?
Dunno, no boss or hard bits at the end what so ever just milling about :/ Bit anti climatic...
I also think it's a bit cheeky there's basically only a handful of actual levels and they just rinse the death out of them and reuse them, and there's many oh I could just climb that little bit of wall and get through there or go down there but can't moments?
With what feels like very linear movement/padding it out to make you go miles around that devs today don't bother with as it's almost blatantly a filler content move and sign of more game design.
Why didnt we get to go into those gates at Caudren Lake with the long driveway/buzzer you ring early on? Or did I miss something?
I'd give it 6/10 and a solid 8/10 for the bits that were awesome and well done.
I just feel a bit cheated, considering how well cast this is and how Max Payne and Control's story telling is done, I'd expected more from a modern game by them, when you think how awesome Max Payne was done for it's time, especially the 2nd one and it's plot delivery!
AW2 could have been mind blowing - I do genuinely feel like they need to ditch the comedy elements, maybe it's what they thought native English speaking people's humour is like? One of those lost in translation issues you experience from time to time for example when watching anime/subtitles?
The problem is when this happens, it gives off major atmosphere/tension breaking moments and ruins what's going on and feels like they're taking the P out of themselves a bit too much when it isn't needed at all - this becomes very blatant that they are doing this on purpose a fair few times, why do it at all?
There definitely was a lot of budget cutting in places/'that'll do' style lack of effort/ran out of money with some of the poor designs of major events such as that silly beach fight with the concert and the fact as I've already said there's barely any levels and they just rinse the death out of returning to them and there's not actually that much going on in the levels but they're made out to look vast.
I could mention more things that bug me, but considering I hated the original both times I played it, I really loved say 60% of this, so I'm not biased, I just kind of feel like it broke my heart a bit, as I was so into it and impressed then it sort of fell apart on and off and let me down.
Imagine how good this could have been with more levels/places, considering how good each first visit is at the time, I felt spoilt up until it became a revisit fest, that's something they simply cannot compete with vs Uncharted/TLOU, which just spoil you with area after area of well thought out beautifully designed places.
They're a long way before they can blow you away like Naughty Dog can, I mean they went from Crash Bandicoot and kids games/platformers to making UC (especially 4)/TLOU!!!
Where as Remedy should be veterans by now with their catalogue and type of games...
I'm excited for their future games though considering how surprised I was with how good Control was despite the reviews, and how much better this is than the laughable overhyped fanboy biased original... Will be finally playing Quantum Break next.
Playing this with headphones on is something else. All the subtle bangs and noises you hear in the old peoples home is surreal lol. They're there on speakers, but the experience is next level when they float around in perfect 3D in your head lol.
Yep! Played the whole thing only at night with curtains drawn, pitch black on the tv with bt earphones with zero delay thanks to my motherboards BT providing zero delay in audio sync.
I'd go so far to say the sound is the best part, they nailed that!
Just completed Alan Wake 2 - Well I have to say it's been both a great and a terrible experience. For the record it took me 28 hours to complete trying to find everything and stuff. I managed 56 achievements which is about 10 shy of completionist.
The great:
The engine is superbly well optimised. There wasn't any CPU utilisation issues at 3440x1440 at maintaining above 100fps at all times at 3440x1440. No real stutters either throughout. An even spread across all CPU threads as well.
The visual quality is super super clean with ray reconstruction enabled. The motion and fluidity of the graphics is such that it reminded me of the clarity of Ratchet & Clank, so smooth and sharp. Just perfect.
A 16GB GPU is necessary if running all the path tracing and other tech. Even with DLSS Quality and Frame Gen, 15.6GB of VRAM total was seen which includes OS background VRAM use, so 2.6GB extra being used by background stuff. RAM use remains similar to Cyberpunk, well under 8GB at all times.
The gameplay mechanics were largely excellent I felt. Both Saga and Alan could have done with a faster run speed, but it was fine. Mouse and KB controls were logical and intuitive as well.
The graphics are superb whether in HDR or SDR. In HDR this game is extra awesome. Light sources have the perfect luminosity and HDR on an OLED really puts this game on a visual standing way above most other games. In SDR mode you must put the gamma to SRGB in the game brightness screen, otherwise there is black crush/faded black areas of many scenes in the game if left on the default gamma 2.2.
Felt like you were playing an arthouse movie thriller.
The sound is incredible. Whether headphones or HiFi speakers, the sound immerses you in a number of amazing ways. The guns also sound excellent with loads of audio feedback and punch.
The bad:
The sheer amount of plot board/case board interactions in your mind place is WAY TOO MUCH. Towards the end of the game you interact with it so much that I found myself just throwing photos anywhere and hoping it was the right place for them. After half way into the game I genuinely stopped caring about the entire mind place bits for both Saga and Alan. This part of the game relies on the use of these bits in their minds, but it's done so relentlessly that I just wanted those bits to be over the moment I saw the context menu pop up saying a new item was in the mind palace or Alan speaks out that he needs to do something in the plot board.
In the latter half of the game there are many cut scenes that you cannot skip, especially towards the end. Why is this when all other cutscenes can be skipped?
There are lots of areas throughout the game that are not obvious you need to get to. They felt like oversights by Remedy and only by chance did it twig that hey maybe I should check xyz out just incase... and yeah it turns out that was the case, otherwise I'd be walking around aimlessly.
FBI Profiling for Saga's bits, again like the case board, why was this overdone so damn much? I stopped caring about this long ago too.
The reload speed of the crossbow is TOILET. I don't know how I managed to keep it in the inventory the whole game and not smash it into storage.
I wish more things were interactive, props and NPCs in Bright Falls. They're just static doing nothing. Probably explains the CPU use being so laid back....
As for the story, WTF did I just play lol. It felt like a mashup of all the ideas that flew into the minds of Remedy whilst smoking Snoop Dogg's finest one evening. Most of it didn't make sense as a coherent story, but as above I just didn't care after half way into the game and skipped as much as possible due to it dragging on and on and on.
I think some reviews stating that it's a visually glorious walking torch simulator is probably fairly accurate now having completed it.
The ending.... Just what?
I'm gonna give it a 6 out of 10 for actually being a well optimised polished AAA release, and having some really cool sound and visual presentations. The game itself though was just way too draggy.
Just completed Alan Wake 2 - Well I have to say it's been both a great and a terrible experience. For the record it took me 28 hours to complete trying to find everything and stuff. I managed 56 achievements which is about 10 shy of completionist.
The great:
The engine is superbly well optimised. There wasn't any CPU utilisation issues at 3440x1440 at maintaining above 100fps at all times at 3440x1440. No real stutters either throughout. An even spread across all CPU threads as well.
The visual quality is super super clean with ray reconstruction enabled. The motion and fluidity of the graphics is such that it reminded me of the clarity of Ratchet & Clank, so smooth and sharp. Just perfect.
A 16GB GPU is necessary if running all the path tracing and other tech. Even with DLSS Quality and Frame Gen, 15.6GB of VRAM total was seen which includes OS background VRAM use, so 2.6GB extra being used by background stuff. RAM use remains similar to Cyberpunk, well under 8GB at all times.
The gameplay mechanics were largely excellent I felt. Both Saga and Alan could have done with a faster run speed, but it was fine. Mouse and KB controls were logical and intuitive as well.
The graphics are superb whether in HDR or SDR. In HDR this game is extra awesome. Light sources have the perfect luminosity and HDR on an OLED really puts this game on a visual standing way above most other games. In SDR mode you must put the gamma to SRGB in the game brightness screen, otherwise there is black crush/faded black areas of many scenes in the game if left on the default gamma 2.2.
Felt like you were playing an arthouse movie thriller.
The sound is incredible. Whether headphones or HiFi speakers, the sound immerses you in a number of amazing ways. The guns also sound excellent with loads of audio feedback and punch.
The bad:
The sheer amount of plot board/case board interactions in your mind place is WAY TOO MUCH. Towards the end of the game you interact with it so much that I found myself just throwing photos anywhere and hoping it was the right place for them. After half way into the game I genuinely stopped caring about the entire mind place bits for both Saga and Alan. This part of the game relies on the use of these bits in their minds, but it's done so relentlessly that I just wanted those bits to be over the moment I saw the context menu pop up saying a new item was in the mind palace or Alan speaks out that he needs to do something in the plot board.
In the latter half of the game there are many cut scenes that you cannot skip, especially towards the end. Why is this when all other cutscenes can be skipped?
There are lots of areas throughout the game that are not obvious you need to get to. They felt like oversights by Remedy and only by chance did it twig that hey maybe I should check xyz out just incase... and yeah it turns out that was the case, otherwise I'd be walking around aimlessly.
FBI Profiling for Saga's bits, again like the case board, why was this overdone so damn much? I stopped caring about this long ago too.
The reload speed of the crossbow is TOILET. I don't know how I managed to keep it in the inventory the whole game and not smash it into storage.
I wish more things were interactive, props and NPCs in Bright Falls. They're just static doing nothing. Probably explains the CPU use being so laid back....
As for the story, WTF did I just play lol. It felt like a mashup of all the ideas that flew into the minds of Remedy whilst smoking Snoop Dogg's finest one evening. Most of it didn't make sense as a coherent story, but as above I just didn't care after half way into the game and skipped as much as possible due to it dragging on and on and on.
I think some reviews stating that it's a visually glorious walking torch simulator is probably fairly accurate now having completed it.
The ending.... Just what?
I'm gonna give it a 6 out of 10 for actually being a well optimised polished AAA release, and having some really cool sound and visual presentations. The game itself though was just way too draggy.
I dunno if you red my review above, but yeah that sounds pretty much similiar to how I felt, 6/10 for sure, I REALLY felt like it was going to be my GOTY for the first like 19 hours and this coming from someone that HATES the original, so I was very impressed for those first 19 hours, IIRC I was around 23-25 hours I forget now.
Yeah I felt the same about the profiling/case board stuff near the end, I also was really disappointed with the lack of levels, it was VERY reused, having spent a lot of time trekking back to each area trying my best to find as much as I could, I started getting annoyed with some stuff and just looking it up on YT. I hate when it gets to that point as it takes you out of the immersion/ruins the fluidity/my enjoyment.
The plot was a big let down in the 2nd half wasn't it, and the ending was pants, basically nothing happens. It reeks of cash in DLC/Sequel, and that Dancing level can GTFO big time! Literally felt like a P take and insulting the immersion/progress/severity up till that point and then winding the momentum for just silliness, I also feel some cutscenes are well acted and some are pants.
Personally would have rather this all just been Saga and her own thing, I did all of her stuff 1 after the other bar the bits where it did switch to Alan, then did all his at the end, what an anti climax. 6/10 for me too!
I dunno if you red my review above, but yeah that sounds pretty much similiar to how I felt, 6/10 for sure, I REALLY felt like it was going to be my GOTY for the first like 19 hours and this coming from someone that HATES the original, so I was very impressed for those first 19 hours, IIRC I was around 23-25 hours I forget now.
Yeah I felt the same about the profiling/case board stuff near the end, I also was really disappointed with the lack of levels, it was VERY reused, having spent a lot of time trekking back to each area trying my best to find as much as I could, I started getting annoyed with some stuff and just looking it up on YT. I hate when it gets to that point as it takes you out of the immersion/ruins the fluidity/my enjoyment.
The plot was a big let down in the 2nd half wasn't it, and the ending was pants, basically nothing happens. It reeks of cash in DLC/Sequel, and that Dancing level can GTFO big time! Literally felt like a P take and insulting the immersion/progress/severity up till that point and then winding the momentum for just silliness, I also feel some cutscenes are well acted and some are pants.
Personally would have rather this all just been Saga and her own thing, I did all of her stuff 1 after the other bar the bits where it did switch to Alan, then did all his at the end, what an anti climax. 6/10 for me too!
I guess, in a way, you could look at that as quite the success. You HATED Alan Wake 1, so maybe would have given it, what, a 1/10 or a 2/10, so Alan Wake 2 getting a 6/10 from you is quite the improvement. One could take that and extrapolate it to someone who thought Alan Wake 1 was a 4/10 or 5/10 might then consider Alan Wake 2 to be a 8/10 or a 9/10.
I loved AW1 and I've thoroughly enjoyed AW2, dont think I'd go as high as a 9/10 for it but its easily an 8/10 for me. Isnt going to knock Baldurs Gate 3 off my GOTY but for a while it was pretty close.
I guess, in a way, you could look at that as quite the success. You HATED Alan Wake 1, so maybe would have given it, what, a 1/10 or a 2/10, so Alan Wake 2 getting a 6/10 from you is quite the improvement. One could take that and extrapolate it to someone who thought Alan Wake 1 was a 4/10 or 5/10 might then consider Alan Wake 2 to be a 8/10 or a 9/10.
I loved AW1 and I've thoroughly enjoyed AW2, dont think I'd go as high as a 9/10 for it but its easily an 8/10 for me. Isnt going to knock Baldurs Gate 3 off my GOTY but for a while it was pretty close.
Yeah mate, glad you see this IS a compliament and not biased for my hatred for the first.
I just wish the 2nd half was as good as the first/they didn't lazily reuse the empty levels, as mrk said there is just zero interaction and NPC's don't even know you're there/just repeat the same dialogue so it's such a false sense of size/atmosphere, filled with many "oh I'll just climp this low fence/gate/bit of wall, oh no I can't go there I'll just walk miles round to get there shall I!" etc etc...
I think it was very lazy for them to not give us multiple levels, as when you first visit each, you're very immersed, but returning to just goto a bit that's now unlocked or whatever over and over makes it feel very dull/half arsed/bit of a lazy effort, considering Naughty Dog made Crash and platformers yet brought us masterpieces like UC4/TLOU1-2, there's simply no excuse for a company that makes this exact type of game for a living and nothing else...
I think the plot just fell off, and the stupid humour bits really ruin the tension/severity of it, the first literally felt like it was constantly taking the P out of itself and was written by someone spending all the budget on gear instead of creativity/development and felt like a parody of a Remedy game, add to that jokes that aren't even funny and stupid set pieces/joke levels like the farm shoot out concert BS etc, just rubbish, and how they went from silky smooth ps2/xbox/cube/old pc MP1/2 perfected engine/game mechanics/controls to clunky awful AW1 on a next gen pc era/360 is beyond me, it should have been the other way round...
And the plot was such a waste of what could have been terrifying, again I stand by my point MP1-2 even in plot/the way it's delivered, is outstanding and very serious throughout, as is the voice acting, where as AW1 is just terrible, I mean Barry, is THE worst voice acting I've seen in anything, I've watched adult films with better delivery than that!
I really hate how Alan really does clearly think he's like DeNiro or something in real life, and has a natural god complex, I know the character is meant to, but you can clearly tell by some of the very poorly delivered bits that he really does think he's the don, when he REALLY isn't! This shows at various points in AW2's live action bits, some are stella, some are pants!
I think the ending reeks of them running out of budget/being tight with AW2 and deciding to either con people into paid DLC (that'll probably be rubbish and nothing to really do with the real plot aka AW1 DLC1/2 which was SO bad and really annoyed me, I always see stuff through but I really wish I just hadn't bothered/wanted that time back - I only did it so I could do Control's last AWE DLC) so that or a sequel, I go back to my point if ND can do it, and provide multiple perfect levels/set pieces/story delivery and we know Remedy can with MP1 and bits of AW2, then why basically give us what was it 4-6 levels and rinse and repeat them, especially considering at the end:
it's basically the corner of one level and just go back and forth and back and forth, then the fact you do the same with Saga REALLY annoyed me. Then it just ends... Great. No boss no nothing. Then a bit after the credits, but still dull.
Obviously the fan boys will fight these points to the death, but I will give anything a chance (even twice with AW1, replaying it straight after finally playing Control back in sept for the first time) and yes this is very good 'in places' for a game that's original is pants, but it's not 'that' good, yet could have been. TLOU1-2/UC4 destroys this HARD.
Obviously the fan boys will fight these points to the death, but I will give anything a chance (even twice with AW1, replaying it straight after finally playing Control back in sept for the first time) and yes this is very good 'in places' for a game that's original is pants, but it's not 'that' good, yet could have been. TLOU1-2/UC4 destroys this HARD.
I dunno if you red my review above, but yeah that sounds pretty much similiar to how I felt, 6/10 for sure, I REALLY felt like it was going to be my GOTY for the first like 19 hours and this coming from someone that HATES the original, so I was very impressed for those first 19 hours, IIRC I was around 23-25 hours I forget now.
Yeah I felt the same about the profiling/case board stuff near the end, I also was really disappointed with the lack of levels, it was VERY reused, having spent a lot of time trekking back to each area trying my best to find as much as I could, I started getting annoyed with some stuff and just looking it up on YT. I hate when it gets to that point as it takes you out of the immersion/ruins the fluidity/my enjoyment.
The plot was a big let down in the 2nd half wasn't it, and the ending was pants, basically nothing happens. It reeks of cash in DLC/Sequel, and that Dancing level can GTFO big time! Literally felt like a P take and insulting the immersion/progress/severity up till that point and then winding the momentum for just silliness, I also feel some cutscenes are well acted and some are pants.
Personally would have rather this all just been Saga and her own thing, I did all of her stuff 1 after the other bar the bits where it did switch to Alan, then did all his at the end, what an anti climax. 6/10 for me too!
I didn't mind the plot, I just don't like repetitive long drawn out actions, which the case board and the entire mind place system was -Without it the plot would have flowed at a steady pace without adding a boredom factor. Yeah the story is whacky, but that's fine as it's Remedy - But the mind place stuff I thought was just overused way too often and lasted way too long tbh
Solid 7.5 maybe creeping to a 8/10 for me. The humour worked for me, found myself laughing at quite a few comedic scenes. Loved the live action stuff (commercials / talk show etc) the music level was an absolute blast. I agree some of the game mechanic limitations don’t do it any favours. Lack of jumping or only being able to interact with some scenery. The world could have had more interaction in general as in the npc’s in town but they kind of explain it away in the plot. The biggest missed opportunity was the hotel section. They should have made Alan and extra going through the full scenario of the play being made. The mind place worked in the mid game but was an absolute chore by the end. Voice acting / player models / general gfx were all top tier AAA. I loved control so any written content from the FCB in-game I just ate it all up.
Just completed Alan Wake 2 - Well I have to say it's been both a great and a terrible experience. For the record it took me 28 hours to complete trying to find everything and stuff. I managed 56 achievements which is about 10 shy of completionist.
The great:
The engine is superbly well optimised. There wasn't any CPU utilisation issues at 3440x1440 at maintaining above 100fps at all times at 3440x1440. No real stutters either throughout. An even spread across all CPU threads as well.
The visual quality is super super clean with ray reconstruction enabled. The motion and fluidity of the graphics is such that it reminded me of the clarity of Ratchet & Clank, so smooth and sharp. Just perfect.
A 16GB GPU is necessary if running all the path tracing and other tech. Even with DLSS Quality and Frame Gen, 15.6GB of VRAM total was seen which includes OS background VRAM use, so 2.6GB extra being used by background stuff. RAM use remains similar to Cyberpunk, well under 8GB at all times.
The gameplay mechanics were largely excellent I felt. Both Saga and Alan could have done with a faster run speed, but it was fine. Mouse and KB controls were logical and intuitive as well.
The graphics are superb whether in HDR or SDR. In HDR this game is extra awesome. Light sources have the perfect luminosity and HDR on an OLED really puts this game on a visual standing way above most other games. In SDR mode you must put the gamma to SRGB in the game brightness screen, otherwise there is black crush/faded black areas of many scenes in the game if left on the default gamma 2.2.
Felt like you were playing an arthouse movie thriller.
The sound is incredible. Whether headphones or HiFi speakers, the sound immerses you in a number of amazing ways. The guns also sound excellent with loads of audio feedback and punch.
The bad:
The sheer amount of plot board/case board interactions in your mind place is WAY TOO MUCH. Towards the end of the game you interact with it so much that I found myself just throwing photos anywhere and hoping it was the right place for them. After half way into the game I genuinely stopped caring about the entire mind place bits for both Saga and Alan. This part of the game relies on the use of these bits in their minds, but it's done so relentlessly that I just wanted those bits to be over the moment I saw the context menu pop up saying a new item was in the mind palace or Alan speaks out that he needs to do something in the plot board.
In the latter half of the game there are many cut scenes that you cannot skip, especially towards the end. Why is this when all other cutscenes can be skipped?
There are lots of areas throughout the game that are not obvious you need to get to. They felt like oversights by Remedy and only by chance did it twig that hey maybe I should check xyz out just incase... and yeah it turns out that was the case, otherwise I'd be walking around aimlessly.
FBI Profiling for Saga's bits, again like the case board, why was this overdone so damn much? I stopped caring about this long ago too.
The reload speed of the crossbow is TOILET. I don't know how I managed to keep it in the inventory the whole game and not smash it into storage.
I wish more things were interactive, props and NPCs in Bright Falls. They're just static doing nothing. Probably explains the CPU use being so laid back....
As for the story, WTF did I just play lol. It felt like a mashup of all the ideas that flew into the minds of Remedy whilst smoking Snoop Dogg's finest one evening. Most of it didn't make sense as a coherent story, but as above I just didn't care after half way into the game and skipped as much as possible due to it dragging on and on and on.
I think some reviews stating that it's a visually glorious walking torch simulator is probably fairly accurate now having completed it.
The ending.... Just what?
I'm gonna give it a 6 out of 10 for actually being a well optimised polished AAA release, and having some really cool sound and visual presentations. The game itself though was just way too draggy.
That's a top summary right there. Good work. I'm not far into the game at all, and I'm just not feeling it.
I think your strongest point is about the plot/ case board being way too much. I too got very quickly frustrated and there is no real fun - or point - in it being the way it is.
Can't comment on the story much as I don't know what it is yet, but I think Remedy try to do a 'David Lynch style' too much, and just **** the bed a bit with their games.
Yeah I'd say it's a good experience as a visual and audio treat if you have a competent PC AV setup. I don't think the tediousness is worth the £40 I paid as a game, but with 28hrs to complete, I think what it did well made up for the rest. Plus there is free DLC to come so hopefully that adds something worthwhile.
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and this coming from someone that HATES the original, so I was very impressed for those first 19 hours, IIRC I was around 23-25 hours I forget now.
