Alan Wake: The Signal
Playtime: 1.75 hours (1.75 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 6 - Almost no story is present here, though the atmosphere is still great. Combat has gotten far harder, and is definitely the biggest part of this DLC
I was excited that this episode took place immediately after the end of Alan Wake, since I thought it would provide some nice story bits, considering they left the ending (forcibly) open. Sadly, there really are no revelations at all - the whole thing has the lore of the world put on hold as Alan works out his inner feelings. It starts out with a whole lot of promise, but doesn't end with much.
Alan Wake – 4
Playtime: 4.25 hours (14.25 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 9 - Though the last chapter is pure 'go here' travel gameplay, the ending is great, and raises great questions.
Massive spoilers, from the entire game below. Beware.
Alan Wake – 3
Playtime: 3 hours (10 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 9 - Probably the best chapter I've played so far; the standard trudging through the forest was offset by a ton of story reveals, and a very epic ending.
Chapter 4 was pretty great. As always, spoilers on Chapters 1-4 ahead, so beware.
World of Warcraft
I've played WoW a couple times in the past couple of years (I generally play for a month, get sick of not playing any other games, and stop). It's a fun game, though I resent being forced to socialize; if they offered this offline, I would play non-stop. I hate having to deal with the griefing and trolling and immature players, and I haven't found enough good players to balance it all out. Generally, I play inside my own little bubble, but in order to write about it, I am going to try all kinds of crazy things. So yes, I will even try to talk in General Chat.
Alan Wake – 2
Playtime: 3 hours (7 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 8 - Continues to be really fun, but I wish there was more on the story and atmosphere and less on the running through the forest
I've decided these write ups for Alan Wake are better focused on the story rather than the gameplay, so there will be spoilers ahead, up till Chapter 3.
Alan Wake
Playtime: 4 hours (4 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 8 - Great atmosphere and interesting story points, awesome little story tidbits make this a great experience
I was interested in Alan Wake when I first heard about it from a friend, described as sort of a Steve King-ish horror game with some LOST mystery thrown in. It sounded absolutely amazing. After watching a gameplay video of it, I couldn't have been more turned off. The main character narrates everything that goes on around him, and it gets very melodramatic very quickly.
"The darkness....it is all around me."
I couldn't take it seriously, so I never picked it up. My interest was piqued recently though, and so I gave it a try.
Alpha Protocol – 2
Playtime: 10 hours (19 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 9 - Getting past the annoyances at getting the game set up (and the times I wanted to throw the controller through the screen), this was a remarkably fun game.
So given that I completed a 19 hour game in only two sessions probably says a lot about how fun it was. While there were countless issues I had, mostly with loading my saved games, full game crashes, my complete frustration at how the game locks passages behind you once you start down a path...I am still thinking about playing it a second time later. Either the game has successfully implemented some sort of brainwashing, or....ahhh, yep...I am playing an Obsidian title. I don't understand how a group of people can be so talented at story-telling, game designing and characterization, and so wretched at coding. Even worse, it's like they don't realize they can't code, because they haven't hired anyone else to do it for them. Normally, if I can't do something (and it's been 10 years and I haven't gotten any better), I find someone else to do it for me.
Anyway.
Alpha Protocol
Playtime: 9 hours (9 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 6 - The movement makes me a bit ill, and the entire song and dance you have to do to make the game playable is a laugh, the story/characters/voice acting are atrocious, but it's still really fun to play.
I remember reading about Alpha Protocol in a game magazine years ago, and being so excited about it. It was an espionage spy RPG, something that had never been done before, and it sounded so great.
Now, playing it, there's still aspects of that excitement and great design, but my god is it bogged down with problems and thoughtlessness.
Bioshock 2 – 5
Playtime: 3.25 hours (15.25 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 7 - The actual ending itself was fine, but the leadup had a number of little things that bothered me.
As a point of warning, I've now finished the game, so this will be littered with spoilers.
Bioshock 2 – 4
Playtime: 2.5 hours (12 hours total)
Personal Rating This Session: 8 - Levels are still interesting, and the game definitely feels like it's going its own direction. They're starting to get back into the uncomfortable constant references to the first game now that it's in Fontaine Futuristics, but that will hopefully pass.
It's hard to talk about the gameplay of Dionysus Park without putting myself to sleep, much less anyone reading this, so I'm just going to do the sane thing and skip it.
