Alan Wake

I picked up Alan Wake for a heck of a deal. It was a new, unopened copy and probably had something to do with it being a pack-in game for new 360 bundles these days. I only mention this since it had a code for the DLC "The Signal" included as well. I hear that's another hour or so of gameplay. Which I'll get to at some point. As it is, I'm most of the way through the main game. I usually try to finish games before writing about them, but I feel like I've got a good feel for the game and I wouldn't spoil the ending for you anyway.

This game is all about light and dark. Other people have groaned about the title character's name being such a blatant reference to this, but honestly I didn't get it until about halfway through the game. Maybe I'm just slow. Stop smiling, you. Anyway, light and dark. Your flashlight plays a big role in this one. You use it to sort of stun enemies so you can take them out with your gun. Or it illuminates light sensitive paint that tells you which way to go for hidden supplies or helpful little crazy person ramblings about what's going on. You see, the whole area of the secluded mountain town is taken over by this darkness thing and you have to fight it.

Alan is a writer, which may be a first for a video game protagonist. Stephen King is referenced more than once, since Alan is a popular horror writer in this world. He's basically living in one of his stories come to life, that he doesn't really remember writing.

The environments are incredibly detailed. I found myself exploring them just to look around. I almost never do that in a game. It has to be pretty well done to make me want to not just blow past it. I've heard people complain about the collectible thermos's that seem kind of thrown in just to give you a reason to walk around and explore. But I never felt they were too much of a distraction. One place in particular that I thought was really impressive was his New York apartment that you visit in a flashback. I might have just been really into it because I played it right after I got back from my first trip to NYC though.

The music at the end of a chapter is usually pretty good. The delayed title sequences are nice and dramatic and every chapter starts with a "Previously on Alan Wake" section that catches you up. Which I liked in theory, but I was usually just going from one chapter to the next in one sitting, so I already knew what I just did. But I could see something like that coming in really handy for a serial downloadable game (which this is not).

The general progression of the game is a lot of you walking on a fairly linear path with occasional combat. Most times you're better off just avoiding the enemies and running to the next safe haven. This is completely at odds with my preferred play style that the original Zelda taught me long ago: kill everything in the room and move on. But it makes sense for this character who often only has a flashlight or a gun that he just found. Oh, and you can only run for about 10 feet before having to stop and pant for a while. Wonderful. Lots of games throw in an abilitease but this game somehow manages to let you gain and lose a bunch of weapons about six times.
"Oh no, your car crashed and you have to leave all your stuff behind!"
"Oh no, you woke up hours later with no memory of what happened and all your stuff is gone!" etc.

But this has been a great game to tide me over between rental games. I like it. I'm just starting in on Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is really cute and I'll post more on that later.

Portable games

I just got back from a week on the beach, away from the cold weather in Kansas. It was fantastic. All I was expected to do every day was lay in the sun, read, drink, and play games. Really, it was fantastic.

My wife had just gotten an iPad so we got a few apps for that. I also had my DS, of course. I spent more time with the Hootsuite twitter app than most anything else, but I had a bit of fun with Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, Words With Friends, and a book or two on the Amazon Kindle app or CloudReader comic book reader.

On the DS I've been very impressed with Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. This might be the best looking DS game I've ever played. Some of the cut scenes are fully animated and voiced. They look like they could be a cartoon I watched growing up. I thought I was through with this sort of game after the first one, but the new sets of puzzles keep things fresh and I'm still playing after a few hours with it.

I've tried off and on to get into Dragon Quest IX. It's okay I guess, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm rehashing the same JRPG story while continually pressing A (over and over and over). But as far as leveling up and starting off easy, it's great!

Donkey Kong...Returns

There's one thing that I take as a constant in video games. And that is that moving platforms will continue to move at a constant pace. Donkey Kong Country Returns, stage 6-1 Sticky Situation takes this constant and mocks it. The platforms that slowly fall down the screen move at one speed, slow up for a second or so, then continue at the previous speed. I can't tell you how many times that got me. I'd jump to one right before it slowed up and I'd miss it, falling to my death. At least my wife didn't seem to recognize the death music and comment on it. I really hate that.

"Yes, I KNOW I just died 10 times in a row. LAY OFF!"

And the little pig with the spastic waving white flag telling me that Super Kong can come in to save the day doesn't help much either. But he's at least easier to ignore. :)

I think another part of what makes this game tough is that it really screws with my depth perception. I'd often completely miss seeing ledges or enemies because they were on a different plane than I was focusing on. I don't know if it's a color contrast problem or just the insane amount of focus this game demands to not die (over and over and over again).

On a positive and nostalgic note, the music has lodged itself into my brain quite a few times. I can't tell how much of that is due to my remembering the original and how much is due to it just being very well done. In general, the first few worlds were a fun little romp that reminded me why I loved the original game on the N64. Then they slowly started to get a bit sadistic. And I swear you used to just have to hold down the jump button when bouncing off an enemy's head to get a little jump boost. Now you have to hit the jump button again right at the same time you're landing on its head. Which isn't too tough if you're really thinking about it. But you're soon required to do it with split second timing or you risk falling off the mine cart. Oh the mine cart. Don't even get me started on those things.