Let's Be Frank Here

One sure way to know if I played a great game is that I can't stopped thinking about it even after I finished. The game lingers on and I feel satisfied enough not to play another game yet.That happened with Alan Wake, I proceeded to watch the bonus material and subsequently finished the DLC episodes.

Unfortunately the same didn't happened with Dead Rising 3. Something was missing, that intangible factor that makes a game great.The game felt long and repetitive. Of course the same was said of Alan Wake but I certainly didn't felt that way. 

This new Dead Rising game removed the loading time in the previous games, providing a truly new experience for the series. Unfortunately, the city Los Perdidos that you are trapped in feels lacking in character. For sandbox games, the real star is always the city. If the city isn't interesting then your game isn't going to be very memorable.

The formula of finding other survivors and psychos is beginning to feel very routine now.  Each survivor will always have a quirky request before joining your crew but it always boils down to a lame fetch quest. The psychos are just as predictable as well. This series is in dire need of a new creative change of direction.

Horror Drag

Alien Isolation is a game that will interest fans of the horror genre or the Alien franchise. I happened to be fan of both so this was another game I wanted to play on my PC. The only thing I wasn't keen on was the first person view but upon finishing it, the first person view felt like the right choice. 

I feel like having no weapons in a horror game like just an easy and obvious design choice in a horror game. It doesn't work most of the time like how Shattered Memories have proven. Alien Isolation thankfully didn't adopt this approach but for most of the time, you didn't have an effective weapon against the Alien. The problem is once you get the flamethrower late in the game, you feel invincible as you can stop the Alien from attacking you. 

There are obvious pacing issues with this game, it drags far too long and ruined some of its goodwill and credibility earned with a bad ending. Some of its climactic moments occurred in the middle of the game making the end parts of the game a bit boring by comparisons. While RE4 was also a bit too long for its own good, the end parts were never boring thanks to Mikami's sense of pacing. In Alien Isolation, I thought the game was ending in several different instances before the actual end of the game. 

Aside from the bad ending, there are no bonus content upon finishing the game. Well there are survivor mode and maps but those are not related to the story mode. Thankfully the pre-order bonus included 2 DLC episodes based on iconic moments from the original Alien movie. I recommend playing the movie DLC after finishing the game but I can imagine there are fans only played these episode without bothering with the main game. 

Wake is Over

Alan Wake is a game that I have always been interested to play ever since I knew about it. Years passed and I'm constantly reminded when I see the game at the flea market or when Remedy's new game Quantum Break came out. I remember when a master race acquaintance played the PC version of Wake and told me it was nothing special but my interest never wavered.

I just didn't know how I was going to play Alan Wake eventually. While I always admire the Xbox, I didn't like the idea that the exclusive games are usually shared with the PC platform. And I didn't exactly want to get a new PC either unless I absolutely have to. Finally when the absolutely became a reality, Alan Wake was the first game I actively hunt down.

I didn't want Wake to be the first game I played as it's a few years old now so I ended up playing Dark Dreams Don't Die first. D4 is interesting precursor but it's not exactly a complete game as it only contained two episodes in season one.

Alan Wake is my first PC game in what felt like a really long time. It's not as great as I imagined it to be, but I liked it as much as I thought I would. Alan Wake isn't actually a horror game much like how The Last of Us isn't really a zombie game. It feels like it was inspired by RE4 but it reinvents the survival horror genre much more that RE5 ever did. Wake delivers on some of RE5 promises from the early trailer like the dodge mechanics and the light/dark contrast. But saying Wake is a RE copycat would be doing it a disservice though.

The game is pretty hard as you are constantly out in the open woods. Therefore you can never use the "'Back behind the wall strategy'' to fight as you are exposed from all angles. This makes the combat harder than any horror games. A lot of the game's memorable moment loses it's impact because I can never get it done without a retry. This is just Normal mode and there are another two more difficulty modes to go (Hard, Nightmare).

Getting this game and finishing it was a dream come true. I'm still getting used to playing on the PC again but this has been a good start so far.