I finishedAlan Wake 2this weekend, and it’s safe to sayI’m a fan. Though Ibounced off the original game, Remedy’s follow-up is good enough to get even an Alagnostic like me on board.
The only thing I don’t like? When Alan Wake turns intoCrash Bandicoot.
If you’ve playedNaughty Dog’s PS1 classics, you know what I’m talking about. The Crash games were early 3D platformers and, as a result, were more experimental with camera placement than most games that have come since. One level might have Crash running from left to right. The next might have him running toward the camera, often with a big rock or monster following after him. Then there were the bits where Crash just had to run forward with no ability to see what was behind him.
This is what Alan Wake 2 borrows for a few moments in the Dark Place, and none of them are fun. I hit one toward the end of Alan’s journey through the Oceanview Hotel. you’re able to tell it’s coming, because the camera pushes back from Alan’s shoulders to a slightly more distant perspective. I’m down for most of Alan Wake 2’s experiments with video game form, but this instantly annoyed me with its trial and error design. Alan reaches a point in a corridor and the Dark Presence explodes into the scene, and begins chasing him down the hallway.
As you go, Alan will hit sections where he can tell that the Dark Presence is waiting, then turn and run the other direction. Alan can tell, but as the player, you really can’t, so finishing these segments requires trying them over and over again until you get it right.
This kind of trial and error isn’t the only thing I find frustrating in the game. These Crash Bandicoot levels are one offender, but they’re rare. Boss battles are more common and require similar experimentation to complete. Toward the end of my playthrough, I got into a fight late in Saga’s campaign that required activating three light boxes while a Taken stalks after you. The timing of this is tough to figure out, and you may only take a few hits before you’re down for the count and have to start over again. It didn’t help that the autosave was before a cutscene, so I had to skip through it to get back to the action each time.
This article isnotsaying that Crash Bandicoot gameplay isn’t fun. It is. It just feels out of place in a survival horror game like Alan Wake 2.
Neither of the game’s heroes can take much of a beating, and healing them up is a process that requires time. Though they both can pop painkillers likeMax Payne, they don’t instantly return to full health. You have to stop, cycle through the animation, then wait a beat for the healing of the medkit or painkillers or trauma pad to kick in. This makes boss battles or, really, any bit where you need to make it through a dangerous area, a little annoying. If you run into a wolf in the Watery woods while Saga is already limping, you’re going to have a hard time making it through without a death or two to give you the lay of the land.
As Alan Wake knows, revising is just as important as writing, and these bits are your chance, as the player, to build a better story. It just feels like my pencil keeps breaking, and my eraser is smudging up the page.
